We Are MMIT

As a senior clinical advisor, Tonna Alimole is a member of MMIT’s Clinical Center of Excellence (CCOE) team, which sets the company’s standards on how to interpret payer policies. Her team provides expert clinical leadership that guides MMIT’s business decisions and supports clients in achieving their brand goals.

Tell us a little bit more about your role.

The CCOE team supports many groups across MMIT, from the commercial team to enterprise access & data expertise (EADE), data intelligence (DI), and client services. Each clinical advisor manages between 30 to 50 indications, sharing our clinical knowledge on overall disease management and therapy coverage with both clients and our internal teams.

Essentially, we help bridge the knowledge gaps between what payer policies say and what our data reflects to ensure that our products and teams provide the most complete, comprehensive view of how utilization is managed for an indication.

How did you join the company? What in your background brought you to pharma?

In high school, I spent a summer working in my aunt’s mom-and-pop pharmacy. From that point on, I knew I wanted to be in the pharmacy world. After obtaining my PharmD from Howard University College of Pharmacy, I worked in independent, retail and hospital pharmacies, as well as in ACO physician offices. I have also done international work on medical missions.

While I loved being out in the community, performing therapy reviews for appropriate dosing and drug interactions and providing medication counseling, I became interested in the bigger picture of patient access: who decides what is covered, and why? I found an MMIT job listing on LinkedIn, and the rest is history. MMIT gave me the opportunity to move from a clinical position to having high-level insights into the clinical trial pipeline and the industry at large.

What does your day-to-day usually look like?

Depending on the day, I might be doing research to answer internal team and client questions, or I may support a client call when clinical insight is needed.

I spend most of my time maintaining my indication pages and collateral. Each indication has its own page, containing the guidance we provide about all assessed products. Our assessment team then evaluates these fields, or attributes, for inclusion in MMIT’s Analytics and PAR database. We update indication pages in response to requests for new custom fields or update requests, which can be triggered by market events like newly launched drugs or a product’s label change. We also update indication pages to add assessment values we have approved to capture a new payer’s policy criteria.

At the absolute minimum, we update each indication page and collateral quarterly—but, depending on the size of the indication, we can have 3 to 12 requests to review new values every day, and we must also update the summary pages with each approved value. For larger projects, such as building a new indication or completing an indication enhancement, we may have up to 50 values to review each day.

Another major component of my day-to-day work is ensuring that our A/R rules—which represent whether a payer policy is considered appropriate or restrictive—are accurate and updated. Many of MMIT’s products depend on our A/R rules functioning correctly, and this is a core CCOE responsibility.

What are some of the common challenges of your role?

As the CCOE group handles so much of MMIT’s clinical work, we are still the first point of contact when internal teams need support. People tend to reach out via email or Teams chat with ad hoc requests, even when we are not necessarily the right resource for the need. We have recently implemented a new clinical queue, so requests can be more easily routed to the appropriate team. This will help us ensure we aren’t duplicating work.

What are some of the larger projects you’re working on?

The CCOE recently transitioned how and where we manage our indications and collaterals, which was a huge project. We moved from internally developed Excel workbooks to maintaining the most significant information (e.g., market basket details, product pipeline, A/R logic) in Confluence, a digital workspace. At the same time, we changed our document repository from SharePoint to Monday.com, for better organization.

On an individual level, I recently finished a new indication build for Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS), thanks to the hard work of our New Build team. They assessed more than 20 pages of policies under the medical benefit alone!

In the fall, I will be completing proactive updates for some of my more complex custom brand logic documents with the DI team. To prepare, I’m reviewing our data and coordinating with the client success managers to make sure the updates will also address any additional client needs.

What’s been your career highlight to date?

Last year, I was honored to receive the MMIT Principle Award for integrity, which meant so much to me. I have found that clients are really appreciative when we’re honest about what we can deliver efficiently versus what may require additional resource considerations. This allows clients to plan their internal deliverables more accurately.

Also, whenever one of my colleagues on the CCOE team is acknowledged for their role in a success story—an expansion of a client’s contract, or the resolution of a complicated client issue—I am thrilled. I work with such a dedicated team, and I’m very proud of all that we do to exceed client expectations.

What industry trends are you seeing that MMIT is in a unique position to help with?

There is significant diversity of coverage, even for products in the same class, offered at similar price points, which were approved with similar clinical trial data. While this is not a new trend, MMIT is uniquely positioned to provide the most accurate, comprehensive data that reflects the full reality of the coverage landscape.

With all the growth we have experienced in the past few years, we have greater insights into the entire clinical pipeline. Being part of Norstella makes us a more effective industry leader, and I believe our data can continue to be used to ensure greater patient access to therapies as long as we keep prioritizing investment in the right tools.

Which company principle resonates most with you?

The principle that resonates the most with me is resilience, mettle, and grit. It is always a work in progress, but my aspiration is to embody resilience. We have increased significantly in size since I’ve joined the organization, and expectations are even higher. This principle reflects how we should approach our work: just concentrate on doing what we do, and doing it well.

What would you tell someone just starting their career with MMIT?

Be patient with yourself and trust that you will find your rhythm. That is probably good advice for every team, but especially for the CCOE team, as we’re expected to know so much right off the jump. Yet there are nuances to our data that you could not possibly know unless they were called out to you, or unless you make a mistake—which is all right, because you’ll learn from it the next time.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and try to extend that graciousness to other people’s questions. When the requests come rolling in from every direction, remind yourself that behind every inquiry is someone who just wants to get their information correct for the clients—which will ultimately help patients.

Where do you see Norstella in the next year or two?

I am not great at predictions, but I look forward to Norstella’s continued growth and success! I hope we are seen as a beacon of clarity in the pharma landscape, a standard of reliable data and expertise, to benefit everyone who depends on medications to manage their medical conditions and improve their quality of life.

What do you like most about working at MMIT?

The fact that I have had the opportunity to learn about aspects of pharmacy that I previously knew little about, from pharmaceutical development to stakeholder motivations. I have enjoyed learning what goes into developing a product, ensuring it is going to be covered, and knowing what payers require before patients are able to access a therapy.

What do you like to do outside of work?

I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, and I try to practice what I preach about self-care. I am also a member of my local Medical Reserve Corps, which is fun. I’ve recently gotten involved in sourcing medications and point-of-care testing devices for a nonprofit organization, the Obizi USA medical committee. I belong to the Igbo ethnic group and my ancestral home is a rural community in Imo State, Nigeria, so helping this organization get what they need for medical missions is a cause that means a lot to me.

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