Short version up front: as of this week, I've left Gilead. Von Hein Consulting is open for business!

Quitting a stable big-pharma job to start a consultancy and go all-in on the channel is — let's be honest — not the most rational career move I've ever made. Here's why I did it anyway, what I'm offering, and what changes for the issues you get from me each Monday.

For a decade I've done health economics and market access inside the industry — IQVIA, then Parexel, most recently Gilead. Good work, smart people, no regrets.

But for the last two years I've been turning down consulting requests I couldn't take, sponsorship enquiries I couldn't action, and partnership conversations I couldn't have — all because I had a full-time employer. There was no revelation moment. I just got tired of being the bottleneck to my own work.

Cost-effectiveness modelling. The technical core. Models in Excel, R, or Python — for HTA submissions, internal pricing committees, payer negotiations that aren't going your way. Same work as the modelling tutorials on the channel, just at the production end rather than the teaching end.

HEOR & market access advisory. Strategy, evidence planning, submission support, reimbursement optimisation. Global remit, with deep expertise in two markets I know inside-out: UK and Ireland (NICE, SMC, NCPE) and Germany (AMNOG — back when those dossiers had to be written by actual humans).

Sponsorships and advertising. For B2B partners whose customer is a HEOR decision-maker — software, tools, recruiters, specialist consultancies. Full demographics breakdown on request.

Best fit: global HEOR and market access leads at large pharma with late-stage assets and timeline pressure, and HTA consultancies needing senior modelling capacity or specialist support.

Probably not your guy: small biotechs looking for cheap modelling, or local affiliates outside UK/Germany trying to outsource a slide deck. There are plenty of good people who do that work — happy to put you in touch.

I covered all of this in this week's video — plus my three public rules for sponsored content, and a longer answer to whether this is actually a defensible business decision. If you only watch one of my videos this year, this is the one!

For most of you, the most important sentence in this whole issue is this one: nothing changes about the newsletter, the channel, or the podcast.

Actually, one thing changes. I can finally cover the topics I had to stay quiet on while I was inside the industry. So if anything, you're getting more, not less.

I'm curious how this lands for you — have you ever seriously considered going independent? Hit reply and tell me. I read every email and try to respond to most.

P.S. — Pharma Radar is written by Mirko von Hein. I help pharma and biotech teams navigate HTA submissions, cost-effectiveness modelling, and market access strategy across the UK, Ireland, and Germany. After a decade across IQVIA, Parexel, and Gilead, I'm now taking on selected engagements through Von Hein Consulting.