Payer & Market Access Expert — Gross-to-Net & Formulary Strategy

$175–200/hrrate as listed

Mercor is staffing a short paid pilot in which US payer and market access professionals build and critique rubrics used to evaluate commercial drugs and drug-development programs. The core judgment call is whether an AI model's gross-to-net, rebate, and formulary-tier assumptions match how payers actually behave by drug class.

Summary, eligibility guidance and screening preparation are prepared by Sidequest from the platform's posting. Check the source listing before applying.

What the work involves

You will spend most of your hours inside written rubrics rather than slide decks. A rubric here is a scoring instrument: it tells a reviewer (human or model) what a defensible commercial assessment of a given asset should contain, and how to penalize an answer that gets coverage economics wrong. Day to day that means drafting criteria for a drug or class, stress-testing someone else's criteria, and marking where an AI-generated commercial analysis assumed a formulary position, rebate level, or net price trajectory that no real P&T committee or PBM would produce.

Expect concrete tasks: setting a plausible gross-to-net range for a class and justifying it; deciding whether "preferred brand, tier 2" is realistic for an asset entering a crowded category with two entrenched rebated incumbents; flagging when a model conflates list price growth with net; catching Medicare Part D redesign, 340B, or Medicaid rebate effects that were ignored. Written reasoning matters more than volume — the value you add is the sentence explaining why an assumption fails, at a level another expert can audit.

What the screening measures

Mercor's intake is AI-led and follow-up heavy. It probes for hands-on exposure rather than familiarity: which classes you priced, whether you sat on the payer side or the manufacturer side, what your actual role was in a rebate negotiation or an access forecast. Vague answers get pressed. The second thing it looks for is evaluation temperament — whether you can grade an argument you disagree with, distinguish "wrong" from "aggressive but arguable," and write criticism that is specific instead of directional.

Logistics

Remote, US-based only; the payer behavior in scope is US commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Roughly 10–20 hours across a 1–2 week pilot, scheduled asynchronously around your own deadlines.
Pay observed in the $170–300/hr range for this listing; actual rate depends on depth and the platform's own calibration.
Strong contributors are typically invited back as the evaluation set expands — treat the pilot as the audition it is.

What they look for

5+ years in market access, pricing & reimbursement, or managed markets (US)
Hands-on gross-to-net modeling, including rebates, chargebacks, and 340B/Medicaid effects
Working knowledge of formulary tiering, P&T decision-making, and PBM/payer negotiation dynamics
Familiarity with biotech and pharma development programs and how assets are commercially assessed pre-launch
Ability to write precise, auditable written critiques of another analyst's assumptions
Comfort applying consistent criteria across multiple drug classes rather than one specialty area

Before you apply

Would you pass this screen?

Drawn from what this listing actually requires. Answered in your browser — nothing is sent to us, and we do not store your answers.

Are you currently based in and able to work from the United States?
US-based · required
Do you have 5 or more years of professional experience in market access, pricing & reimbursement, or managed markets?
Market access / payer experience · required
Have you directly built, reviewed, or pressure-tested gross-to-net models and rebate structures in your work?
Hands-on gross-to-net · required
Do you have hands-on familiarity with formulary tiering by drug class and how payers apply it?
Formulary tiering knowledge · required
Are you familiar with biotech and pharmaceutical development programs, including clinical trial stages and regulatory pathways?
Biotech/pharma development background · preferred

0 of 5 answered

Included with this listing

Interview prep — 11 questions

Matched to what this platform's screening actually measures. Answer each out loud in 60–90 seconds: claim → concrete example → implication.

What it tests: Whether the candidate has hands-on experience constructing and defending GTN models, not just reading them or discussing them in meetings.
A strong answer: A concrete example naming specific rebate types (volume, performance, patient assistance), the payer or drug class context, and a validation method (e.g., contract audit, medical director feedback, historical variance analysis).
Where people lose it: Vague answers like 'I've worked with gross-to-net' or describing a single formula without naming the pressure-test or validation step that proved it was realistic.