Maren Fustgaard is Vice President, Value & Access Strategies, at Magnolia Market Access. With more than 25 years of experience in market access and value strategies, Maren has built her career helping healthcare organizations develop strategies that support successful product adoption, sustainable growth, and improved stakeholder engagement. Her work has consistently focused on translating complex market dynamics into practical, actionable solutions that align the needs of patients, providers, payers, and manufacturers.
Maren brings a unique breadth of experience across public and private payer organizations, as well as the pharmaceutical, medical device, and consulting industries. This diverse background gives her a comprehensive understanding of the healthcare ecosystem and enables her to navigate the complexities of value demonstration, reimbursement, evidence generation, health economics, and policy with confidence and insight.
Throughout her career, Maren has partnered with organizations to strengthen value communication and optimize market access strategies, with a particular focus on crafting value narratives through the lens of a payer. She leverages both her experience working for payer organizations and her experience communicating value narratives for biopharma companies.
Maren takes a warm, personable, and highly collaborative approach to her work. She is skilled at building trusted relationships across internal and external stakeholder groups, fostering alignment, and creating solutions that reflect diverse perspectives. Colleagues and clients value her ability to listen, engage thoughtfully, and bring people together around shared goals.
Prior to joining Magnolia, Maren spent over a decade in market access consulting, led a team of more than 20 market access professionals, and successfully launched and managed her own boutique consulting firm. Her career also includes value and access roles for pharmaceutical and medical device companies, as well as policy positions within payer organizations. These roles included work with the Minnesota Department of Human Services Medicaid program, a mid-sized Upper Midwest health plan, and a large managed Medicare plan, providing her with a well-rounded perspective on the intersection of clinical value, reimbursement, policy, and patient access.
Maren holds a Master of Arts in health policy and economics from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree in political science from California State University, Long Beach.