Rachael L. Fleurence, PhD, MSc

Senior Advisor

Dr. Francis Collins at the White House

Dr. Fleurence is currently serving as Senior Advisor to Dr. Francis Collins at the White House. Dr Collins is the special projects advisor to the President and former acting science advisor. Dr Fleurence is advising on several scientific priorities for the Administration, including the development of a national elimination plan for Hepatitis C and the development of PCAST recommendations to improve patient safety and reduce medical harm in the United-States. Dr. Fleurence otherwise serves as a Senior Advisor in the Immediate office of the Director at the NIH and as the Special Assistant to the NIH Director for COVID-19 Diagnostics. As part of the federal response to COVID-19, Dr. Fleurence led the novel “Say Yes! Covid Test” program, a national initiative in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and state and local public health departments. This program was the first of its kind in March 2021 to provide free rapid antigen tests through free online delivery to communities and served as a model for the national program launched from the White House in January 2022. It provided over 7 million free rapid tests to Americans across the country. Dr. Fleurence served on the White House Pandemic Testing Board policy group, and the White House Office of Science Technology Policy (OSTP) Pandemic Innovation Task Force in 2021-2022. In 2021 and 2022, Dr. Fleurence was a recipient of three NIH Director’s Award for exceptional dedication and innovation in advancing COVID-19 testing and diagnostics efforts. In 2022, Dr. Fleurence was a recipient of the Health and Human Services Secretary’s award for Distinguished Service as part a member of the Rapid Acceleration of COVID-19 Diagnostics team.

Prior to her role at the White House and NIH, Dr. Fleurence served as the inaugural Executive Director of the National Evaluation System for health Technology Coordinating Center (NESTcc) in the United-States, a public-private partnership between the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the medical device industry to improve evidence generation for medical devices. Previously, Dr. Fleurence served as the Program Director for PCORnet at the US Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). She also served as the inaugural Director for the PCORI Methods Program. She currently co-chairs the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Task Force on the use of Electronic Health Records in health technology assessments. She serves as a federal liaison to the Board of Improved Care Now and on the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) Executive Committee. Dr. Fleurence received a BA from Cambridge University (United Kingdom), an MA in business management from ESSEC-Paris (France), and an MSc in health economics and PhD in health sciences, both from the University of York (United Kingdom).