Heather Schaefer

Bio:

Heather has worked across both the commercial and market access space in the biopharma industry for over 25 years. She currently leads Takeda’s Patient Access Brand Strategy and Operations function, having previously led Enterprise Strategy for Takeda Patient Services.

Heather spent the first ten years of her career in sales across a number of therapeutic areas, primarily with biologics and specialty medicines used to treat autoimmune disorders. It was working in these disease states and with these providers that she really found her passion for patient access and the support of reimbursement.

Starting in 2008, Heather moved into her first role in field reimbursement and has held successive roles of responsibility and leadership in patient and market access across UCB and Takeda since then. She’s led both internal and external patient support programs across a number of brands and therapeutic areas, in both the rare and specialty spaces. She is currently leading the portfolio team that designs and executes patient access programs across the Takeda portfolio, working to ensure the portfolio of programs that support patient access share a cohesive strategic vision in support of patients.