At Flatiron Health, we believe that every employee has the power to make a difference. That’s why we are proud to shine a spotlight on our changemakers, the individuals who are driving meaningful impact across our organization and beyond. From engineering to clinical operations to data science and beyond, our changemakers are innovating, collaborating, and pushing boundaries to improve and extend the lives of people with cancer. In this series, we will introduce you to some of the remarkable individuals who make Flatiron Health a great place to work and a force for good in healthcare.
Meet Nathan Hobrath, Associate Principal, Clinical Research Partnerships at Flatiron Health. In this article, Nathan shares his experiences, motivations, and day-to-day work. He also discusses how his work in Clinical Research Partnerships is making a significant impact on cancer research and care.
Q. Can you share with us the journey that led you to join Flatiron and your excitement about being part of the team that's now establishing our presence in the Research Triangle?
I first learned about Flatiron in 2013 after being on a potential partnership call with one of its initial co-founders, Nat Turner. At the time, I was at an oncology focused Contract Research Organization (CRO) still cutting my teeth in the clinical research industry. For the next decade, I followed Flatiron closely throughout its successes in the oncology EMR market and its real-world evidence business. After deciding to refocus my career in late 2022, which included moving to the Research Triangle, I was inspired to join Flatiron's Clinical Research team. I've always been passionate about clinical research innovation as a means to improve patient care and develop new therapies faster. I can't think of a better expansion location for Flatiron in the United States than the Research Triangle and I'm very excited to build a team here with individuals who share the same motivations of changing oncology care and drug development.
Q. What is your current location, and what has your experience been working with your teammates in a remote or hybrid work environment?
I'm currently based on the west side of Raleigh in the Cary/Apex area. While technology has made remote work significantly easier over the last few years, I’m excited for Flatiron’s new hybrid environment in the Research Triangle. In-office time boosts team morale, strengthens internal relationships, and helps accelerate our ability to communicate and solve problems that matter as a team. Remote work provides focus time for important individual contributions and work life flexibility. I believe a hybrid work environment provides the best of both worlds for our employees and for reaching our company goals.
Q. Provide an overview of the structure and dynamics of your team. How has this work contributed to our mission to learn from and extend the lives of every person with cancer?
We have a large commercial team that includes leading subject matter experts in real-world data, scientific affairs, medical oncology, regulatory affairs, and clinical research. I represent our sales and partnerships team as a subject matter expert for Flatiron's clinical research offerings. Oncology drug development takes years before new therapies are widely available. However, people with cancer do not have time to wait years for new and novel therapies to become widely available post-approval. Flatiron's Clinical Research business works with sites and biopharma to bridge the gap between routine care and research for patients needing access to new therapies via clinical trials today, while also accelerating drug development and new approvals for the patients of tomorrow.
Q. How do you envision the Life Sciences Hub contributing to Flatiron Health's mission?
The Research Triangle has been a hub for biotech and the CRO industry for decades now. The rich history and culture of life sciences innovation, access to talented individuals for expansion, and the growth potential of the area in general make it an ideal location for Flatiron to continue growing our life sciences business. It's an exciting time to be at Flatiron as we build a local presence here.
Q. What makes Flatiron stand out from other healthcare and tech companies?
Over the last decade, Flatiron pioneered the oncology real-world evidence industry and re-imagined community oncology infrastructure with its OncoEMR system. We're now leveraging EMR in completely new ways for clinical research, from high-quality patient matching and digital alerting, to streamlining clinical trial data collection and prospective evidence generation within routine point of care workflows. Solving for the technology gap between clinical research systems and EMR systems, combined with using real-world evidence to make highly informed, confident clinical development decisions, make Flatiron a very unique clinical research partner for biopharma companies.
Q. Reflecting on your time at Flatiron, what's one specific aspect of our culture that you've found particularly valuable, and how do you envision fostering this in our new location?
One aspect I appreciate about Flatiron culture is solving problems that matter, like extending and improving the quality of life for people with cancer. Our teams have extensive experience in oncology within their respective backgrounds and are very passionate about Flatiron’s mission. It's inspiring to come to work every day with so many other motivated individuals that are strategizing and executing Flatiron's long term vision to build a world where technology and science close the gap between care and research.
Q. How significant is cross-functional collaboration in your daily work?
Our commercial team receives tremendous cross-functional support from our internal teams (e.g scientific engagement, data science, network operations) to help drive deeper industry connections and rise to the occasion of meeting the very unique and complex needs of large pharma. Tapping into the local life sciences talent here to continue building our presence will be instrumental to our continued success and ability to solve the most challenging aspects of oncology drug development.
Q. If you were to offer one piece of advice to a candidate interested in interviewing for your team, what would it be?
I'm always interested in the motivations and aspirations between the lines of a resume, long lists of past accomplishments, etc. Sheer knowledge and past experience are one thing...what motivates someone and why it motivates them is something different. As we scale our commercial team in the Research Triangle, we’re looking for motivated individuals to help us expand our culture of excellence, achieve results for our business, and advance cancer care for patients.
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