Healthcare and life sciences consultancy, Newmarket Strategy, has announced the appointment of Blake Dark as a senior partner.
Until November 2022, Dark was the NHS’s chief negotiator with the pharmaceutical industry and was interim chief commercial officer and member of NHS England’s Executive Committee.
Dark joins Newmarket Strategy as it marks two years of success, having been founded in March 2021 by former health minister Lord (James) O’Shaughnessy, former government special adviser Ed Jones, and pharmaceuticals market access specialist Berkeley Greenwood.
The boutique London-based consultancy has a growing team of twenty people specialising in market access, health policy and reimbursement for organisations across pharmaceuticals, med tech, digital health and healthcare services. Its clients range from global pharma and technology companies to UK innovators, researchers, private equity investors and independent sector providers of NHS care.
Dark will augment the firm’s offer to global pharmaceutical companies and healthcare systems on innovation and commercial strategy. At NHS England he led several high-profile deals for cutting-edge new medicines including three gene therapies, multiple oncology products and personalised medicines. He delivered first of a kind innovative procurements for NHS patients such as Hepatitis C, AMR subscription model, GRAIL agreement and Inclisiran population health programmes in the UK. Prior to joining the NHS, Dark held senior roles in the pharmaceutical industry, including 25 years at Sanofi, where he was head of global commercial operations for Sanofi’s generics company and managed Sanofi branded innovative businesses across multiple European countries.
Also starting at Newmarket Strategy as a director on 1st March is David Reith, who joins from the NHS South East London Integrated Care Board (ICB) where he was director of commissioning strategy.
Newmarket Strategy senior partner, Ed Jones said: “We are thrilled to welcome Blake to our growing team. Whether working with healthcare systems, manufacturers, operators, researchers or investors, our mission has been to support innovation into healthcare at this critical time. Blake’s unrivalled expertise and passion will be highly valued by our clients and our colleagues, as will David who brings a wealth of commissioning and delivery experience from the NHS.”
Blake Dark said: “I’m delighted be joining the dedicated team of experts at Newmarket Strategy, working to support patient access to the most innovative and clinically effective healthcare technologies. The financial and clinical challenges in the system demand considered but ambitious adoption of the wide range of breakthrough science and solutions now coming on stream. Our work with partners will be to support this process with the right evidence and judgement. Our mission to help patients and clinicians gain better access to life changing innovations has been a personal driver for me throughout my nearly 30 years career in the NHS and pharma.”