Scott Howell, MD

Former Head of Market Access and Chief Strategy Officer US Pharmaceuticals at Novartis

Scott Howell, MD currently advises a number of healthcare, technology, and biopharmaceutical firms. He also teaches, researches and writes about healthcare and biopharmaceutical industry strategy.

Scott retired in 2022 as Chief Strategy Officer for US Pharmaceuticals at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. In this role, Scott led a US Commercial Model Transformation, including implications for drug development and portfolio management, as well as US Business Development & Licensing and a Pricing & Access Innovation team. He also served as a member of the US Pharmaceuticals Executive Committee. Scott joined Novartis in 2017 as VP & Head of US Market Access, where he was responsible for pricing and contracting, channel management, managed care, hospital systems of care, as well as patient and specialty services. In this role he led very successful transformations placing Novartis at the forefront of the industry in these domains in the US. Prior to joining Novartis, Scott was Vice President of Market Access at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, a rare disease and orphan drug company, and had worked for Cardinal Health as Senior Vice President of Manufacturer and Clinical Services, Specialty Pharmaceuticals. Scott also spent a number of years at Genentech where he held a variety of leadership positions in market access and clinical development. Earlier in his career, Scott was Vice President of Pharmacy at Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and before Highmark, he held a variety of medical affairs and managed care leadership roles at GlaxoSmithKline.

Scott began his career as a general internist and worked several years in private practice before entering academic medicine at The Ohio State University. While at Ohio State, Scott also held positions for the university in group practice administration and health plan administration.

Scott earned his undergraduate degree at Notre Dame and his medical degree at Ohio State. He completed his medical internship and residency and also earned an MBA at Duke University. Scott has been lecturing on health policy and industry strategy for more than 15 years, primarily in the graduate programs at UC Berkeley, and has authored and contributed to a number of industry-related papers. Scott is a recognized national thought leader in the area of value-based pricing and access for pharmaceutical companies.