Jack Timko
Senior Research Director
MediMedia Managed Markets, an ICON plc Company
Finding the Story Amid the Data
Data is only useful if you can find the overall story amid all of the numbers and bits of information. That is where Jack Timko thrives—pulling together a story from multiple data sources in order to communicate important facts, key conclusions, and potential impacts on business goals. But the real keys to Jack’s success are his knowledge of secondary data sources as well as his ability to integrate data originating from multiple sources.
In fact, in his search for more efficient ways to pull data into a single picture, Jack developed a proprietary approach to bridging data from multiple sources. This approach has become particularly useful among smaller pharmaceutical companies that are unable to support in-house analytics teams as it provides them with the ability to do big picture data analysis.
Over the past year, Jack has helped with the design and creation of several data mining/analytics combination products which are used to examine specific issues that pharmaceutical clients typically face such as a new product launch, loss of exclusivity, or pull-through support. Some examples of Jack’s work include data analytic initiatives that targeted field calls and used the data to realign field resources; another that evaluated need and potential impact of co-pay support and led to a co-pay coupon distribution program; and one that identified behavioral changes among providers and provided ROI metrics for specific programs.
Jack’s work also led companies to rethink how restriction information is presented to prescribers and patients. Traditionally, formulary coverage data is routinely assessed according to the presence of utilization controls (restrictions), such as prior authorization and step therapy requirements. This information is frequently presented to healthcare professionals and patients in the form of a percentage of the population who have access to a specific product “without restrictions.” But Jack re-examined the different restriction criteria that existed in the market and how these criteria impacted use patterns. Jack discovered that it was in fact narrow restrictions that were having the most significant impact on utilization. Due to his discovery, the presentation of restriction information has been standardized to allow prescribers and patients to make more informed decisions.
