Portrait of Rachel Laufer

Rachel Laufer

Health Economics·Market Access·Global Health

Rachel is a health economics modeler and strategic consultant with more than a decade of experience spanning academic research and consulting, currently a Senior Consultant at Sia. Across both settings, her work has focused on accelerating access to care in low- and middle-income countries — from cost-effectiveness modeling of RSV prevention programs to cost-of-goods analyses that identify levers to lower pharmaceutical manufacturing costs.

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Experience

Sia
Senior Consultant
Apr 2025 – Present
  • Partners with biopharma and global health organizations to guide strategic decision-making across the product lifecycle.
  • Builds health economic models, including cost-effectiveness analyses, to translate clinical and economic evidence into clear, decision-ready value propositions.
  • Conducts cost-of-goods (COGs) analyses to isolate manufacturing cost drivers across the production process, identifying strategic levers to reduce costs and expand affordable access to treatment in low- and middle-income countries.
  • Drives client engagements, produces executive-level reports, and advances business development through proposal generation and thought leadership initiatives.
Numerof and Associates
Strategy Consulting Analyst
Mar 2023 – Apr 2024
  • Worked with clients at leading pharmaceutical and medical device companies to design tools and resources to implement pricing strategy, build health economics models, and shape product value narratives.
  • Spearheaded the firm's State of Population Health Survey, tracking annual progress in U.S. healthcare organizations' transition toward value-based care.
Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Lead Research Analyst
Feb 2020 – Mar 2023
  • Led multiple Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded projects modeling the cost-effectiveness of current and novel preventive interventions against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in young children.
  • Organized and co-hosted a global WHO-sponsored meeting on modeling the health and economic impact of RSV prevention in low- and middle-income countries.
Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Laboratory Research Specialist
Nov 2016 – Feb 2020
  • Generated glycoconjugate vaccines against bacterial pathogens.
  • Developed reproducible assays for antigen quantitation and purity assessment.
Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Laboratory Research Analyst
Jul 2014 – Nov 2016
  • Produced and purified target antigens using standard techniques including bacterial fermentation, tangential flow filtration, and ion exchange chromatography.

Education

2019
MPH, Global Public Health
University of Maryland, Baltimore
2014
BA, Biology
Franklin & Marshall College

Publications

  1. Fitzpatrick MC, Laufer RS, Baral R, Driscoll AJ, et al. Report of the WHO technical consultation on the evaluation of respiratory syncytial virus prevention cost effectiveness in low- and middle-income countries, April 7–8, 2022. Vaccine 2023;41:7047–59.
  2. Laufer RS, Baral R, Buchwald AG, Campbell JD, et al. Optimizing next-generation RSV prevention in Mali: A cost-effectiveness analysis of pediatric vaccination, maternal vaccination, and extended half-life monoclonal antibody immunoprophylaxis. PLOS Global Public Health 2023;3:e0001432.
  3. Ortiz JR, Laufer RS, Baral R, et al. Model-estimated impacts of pediatric respiratory syncytial virus prevention programs in Mali on asthma prevalence. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: Global 2023;2:100092.
  4. Laufer RS, Driscoll AJ, Baral R, Buchwald AG, et al. Cost-effectiveness of infant RSV preventive interventions in Mali: A modeling study to inform policy and investment decisions. Vaccine 2021;39:5037–45.
  5. Hegerle N, Choi M, Sinclair J, Amin MN, Ollivault-Shiflett M, Curtis B, Laufer RS, et al. Development of a broad spectrum glycoconjugate vaccine to prevent wound and disseminated infections with Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. PLoS One 2018;13:e0203143.
  6. Baliban S, Yang M, Racmachandran G, Curtis B, Laufer RS, et al. Development of a glycoconjugate vaccine to prevent invasive Salmonella Typhimurium infections in sub-Saharan Africa. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 2017;11:e0005493.
  7. Curtis B, Grassel C, Laufer RS, et al. Simple method for purification of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli fimbriae. Protein Expression and Purification 2016;119:130–5.
  8. Marko ST, Little SF, Benton CG, Kelly III R, Field AE, and Laufer RS. Effect of analgesics on monoclonal antibody ascites production in mice administered upon recognition of pain. International Scholarly Research Notices 2014;2014:350796.

Skills

Technical

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Budget Impact Models Data Analysis Data Visualization

Programming

R SQL LaTeX Excel

Additional

Writing Oral Presentation