What’s new New healthcare-related products, services, and companies
The HBA – A National Brand The Healthcare Businesswomenís Association has undergone a reorganization and created a new Northeast Corridor Metro Chapter to better serve its members. The Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA), with more than 2,200 members in the United States, has established a national board of directors dedicated solely to the growth of the HBA. The HBA now has one strong national voice representing members nationwide,î says Nancy Larsen, HBA immediate-past president, who also is president of PROmedica Communications Inc. ìThere are many women climbing the rungs of their corporate ladders who need help showcasing themselves. As a national organization, the HBA can help them through both their local chapter and national organization. The nonprofit organization, with headquarters in New Jersey, currently has chapters and affiliates in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, Metro (Connecticut to Delaware corridor), Mid-Atlantic, and San Francisco, all of which are dedicated to furthering the advancement of women in the healthcare industry. The HBA was founded in 1977 and incorporated in the state of New York. Over the years, the association’s board of directors has worked in two capacities: to provide strategic direction for the HBAís national – and pending international -growth while, at the same time, providing programs, services, and networking opportunities to members. Because of the growth of biotech companies in the West and North and as companies relocated to the mid-Atlantic, the HBA started chapters in these areas,î Ms. Larsen says. “Two years ago, the board recognized there was a need to reorganize so the association had one voice and could provide services and programs to all members across the country. Becoming a national organization makes HBA a very powerful instrument in effecting change and helping women in their careers. Today, the national board is truly a strategic arm of the organization. The chapters and affiliates are the tacticians to make sure strategies are overarching and fulfill the needs of their members.” Daria Blackwell, president of White Seahorse and president of the HBA, presides over the national board of directors. Rounding out the executive committee are: president-elect Barbara Pritchard, president of The Pritchard Group; first VP Patricia E. Pesanello, chief knowledge strategist for pharmaceuticals and health sciences of BusinessEdge Solutions; second VP Debra Newton, president and CEO of NewtonGravityShift; treasurer Kathleen M. Milligan, VP of marketing at Biovail Pharmaceuticals; and secretary Cathy Kerzner, VP of strategic development at Cardinal Health, medical education services. According to Ms. Blackwell, in addition to being a resource for the chapters in terms of sharing best practices from one chapter to another and providing member support across the country, the national voice is going to take a more outward focus. ìWe will start to benchmark where we stand as an industry, conduct research, and create visibility for both the organization and its corporate members,î Ms. Blackwell says. As part of the reorganization initiative, the HBA is hiring a full-time national director who will be responsible for identifying association needs and growth opportunities. ìHBA is a volunteer organization; this will never change,î Ms. Larsen says. ìBut managing the growth will be done by our executive group and someone dedicated to uncovering new opportunities.î Those new opportunities include domestic and international growth. ìThere is a strong drug industry in the United Kingdom and in Spain, where we have received interest in providing representation,î Ms. Larsen says. On the domestic front, the HBA launched the Metro chapter in the fourth quarter of 2003 ó the largest of the organizationís chapters and affiliates ó which provides programs for more than 1,500 of the HBAís members living and working in Conn., N.Y., N.J., Pa., and Del. ìThe individual member will benefit the most from the creation of the Metro chapter, which is now structured in the same way as other chapters and affiliates,î says HBA Metro Chapter President Charlene Prounis, who also is president of Accel. ìFor the first time, we have a board of directors focused on the needs of the individual members in this region so we can provide more of what our members are asking for: professional skill-building programs, educational seminars, mentoring, and networking opportunities.î members of the HBA Metro Chapter Board Meet for the first time HBA METRO Chapter Board: President: Charlene Prounis, president, Accel; VP: Leigh Ann Soltysiak, product manager, nephrology, Ortho Biotech Products; President Elect: Sharon Callahan, president, SummitGREY; Immediate Past President: Sylvia Reitman, former HBA president (2000), member HBA advisory board, and VP, International Medical News Group;, Secretary: Christine C. Zak, director of customer marketing, Roche Laboratories; Treasurer: Lori Ryan, executive director, strategic planning and business analysis, Novartis Pharmaceuticals; Managing Directors: Julia Amadio, VP, multicultural marketing, Aventis; Shellie Caplan, president, Caplan Associates; Stephanie Phillips, Ph.D., president, Project House; and Jill Quist, VP, business development and consulting solution North East, Right Management Consultants; Directors: Teri Cox, senior managing partner, Cox Communications; Linda Da Silva, director, trade relations, Eisai; Eve Dryer, president, healthcare PR, Vox Medica; Mary Gallagher, VP, management supervisor, Regan Campbell Ward; Harriet Gruber, principal, Gruber and Company Communications; Julie B. Kampf, president, JBK Associates; Rose Rios, M.P.H., manager, Medical Marketing Studies U.S.; and Robin Winter-Sperry, M.D., president, Scientific Advantage Innovex and DDI Develop Recruiting Service Innovex, a commercial solutions provider, and Development Dimensions International (DDI), a global human-resources consulting firm, have created an expanded portfolio of candidate-screening capabilities to enhance Innovexís ability to recruit the most qualified individuals available for building salesforces. ìThe key goal of this collaboration is to continuously improve on the screening, assessing, and selecting of top talent,î says Randall Hurban, VP of Innovex Recruiting Services. ìOur experience in identifying and hiring successful sales reps in the industry, combined with DDIís human resource experience, we bring the best of both worlds together and share best practices among our organizations.î Through the use of a Web-based screening instrument, candidates can be prioritized based on a success profile, their experience, and their competency and skill set. The next step of the screening process involves phone assessments, in which candidates are put in a typical pharma sales role and asked how they would interact in those specific situations. The final step is a behaviorial-based interview, with the candidateís success profile in mind. ìAs Innovex continues to assemble salesforces for major pharmaceutical companies, this alliance with DDI, exclusive to the pharmaceutical contract-sales industry, is already beginning to prove its value,î Mr. Hurban says. ìIt is incredible to see the quality of hires we are making and their good performance in terms of better retention and faster time to contribute in a variety of key performance indicators. We are looking out into the future and this certainly seems to be working well for us.î Under this exclusive arrangement, Innovex is the only provider of pharmaceutical contract salesforces that can use DDIís assessment and selection resources and services. Dendrite Creates Analytically Driven Interactive Marketing Business Service To meet the pharmaceutical industryís increasing demands for more effective and targeted direct-to-physician promotional efforts, Dendrite International has launched an analytically driven interactive marketing (IM) business. Dendriteís new IM business provides targeted prospect identification and list development, leading-edge telecommunication services that include outbound programs encompassing dialogue between medical professionals, as well as inbound programs that support patients, healthcare professionals, and professional sales organizations. Using its ScripMax longitudinal prescription data, Dendrite can help companies identify, segment, and target an audience through detailed analysis of physician prescribing patterns and patient populations. ScripMax includes more than 4 billion HIPAA-compliant prescription records, with more than 150 million new government, cash, and third-party prescriptions added monthly from its pharmacy consortium partners. This group of demographically and geographically diverse retail pharmacies now represents more than half of all U.S. drugstores, including several major chains and more than half of all independent retailers. ScripMax also allows Dendrite IM to conduct detailed promotional-response analyses on resulting patterns of key prescribing or therapy activity down to the individual prescriber level, allowing companies to accurately measure the impact of direct-to-physician promotional activity on subsequent prescriber behavior. In addition, by using Dendrite’s One-Source programs, pharmaceutical companies can avoid combining disjointed solutions from various providers to deploy multiple promotional channels. The One-Source programs provide companies with a single-provider approach and allow for outsourcing of all aspects of marketing programs. IntraMed Educational Group Forms New Division ó IntraMed Scientific Solutions IntraMed Educational Group, the largest medical-education division of Sudler & Hennessey, has formed IntraMed Scientific Solutions, a new division devoted exclusively to the development and execution of independent and CME-accredited educational programs. Recent guidelines put forth by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and reinforced by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services have reinforced the importance of separating promotional and independent programs, yet do not require medical-education agencies to create separate divisions. IntraMed, with the creation of IntraMed Scientific Solutions, is one of the first companies to launch a new division that establishes a firewall to ensure that clear boundaries are in place and that independent programs are free from undue influence. IntraMed Scientific Solutions operates at the highest levels of an accredited organization, thereby assuring that Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) Essential Areas and policies are adhered to. ìWe are always looking for ways to stay ahead of changes in the industry and to better support our clients,î says Ruben Gutierrez, managing director of IntraMed. ìWhile IntraMedís current business practices differentiate between our promotional and educational groups and messages, the establishment of two separate entities, IntraMed Scientific Solutions and IntraMed Educational Group, will give our clients that extra degree of comfort in the programs we produce for them.î Mr. Gutierrez says there are additional benefits associated with the creation of IntraMed Scientific Solutions, and one of them is the partnership between IntraMed Scientific Solutions and The FCG Institute, an organization accredited to provide continuing education credits to physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and psychologists. The FCG Institute was acquired by Sudler & Hennessey in April 2003. IntraMed Scientific Solutions is being managed by Sarah Messinger. Ms. Messinger, who has more than 10 years of experience in medical education, as well as CME, joined IntraMed in 1996. To ensure that the new division closely adheres to all the new regulations and has clear firewalls and operating procedures in place, IntraMed Scientific Solutions has secured the services of Steve Passin & Associates, a national CME education consulting organization. IMS Health Salesforce Effectiveness Application Delivers Mission Critical Information to Multiple Users The recently launched IMS Sales Insights is an intuitive,†modular application†that addresses end usersí†business questions.†Built around each end-userís process, IMS Healthís application is designed to maximize revenue per territory and optimize promotional spend. Based on extensive collaboration with 35 leading pharmaceutical companies, IMS Sales Insights features nine business application modules that address a broad spectrum of sales, marketing, and managed-care business processes, from targeting to compensation, that deliver pre-analyzed, integrated insights, customized to each userís needs. The toolís innovations include an intelligent, rules-based Insight Engine that searches and filters volumes of IMS and client information to locate and highlight the most valuable information. Additionally, an ad hoc module enables on-the-fly creation and sharing of custom-built critical views for pharmaceutical sales analysts. ìDeclining sales representative productivity, shrinking face-time with physicians, and the lost-opportunity costs that result are major problems facing pharmaceutical companies today,î says Hossam Sadek, IMS VP for salesforce effectiveness. ìThe need to get fast, customized answers to key business questions so that the salesforce can maximize sales per territory and optimize promotional spend is critical. With IMS Sales Insights, our pharmaceutical customers get the right answers, when they need them and how they need them.î ìThe need to get fast, customized answers to key business questions so that the salesforce can maximize sales per territory and optimize promotional spend is critical,î says Hossam Sadek, VP of salesforce effectiveness at IMS. ìWith IMS Sales Insights, our pharmaceutical customers get the right answers, when they need them and how they need them.î Acquisitions Create Expanded Product Portfolio for CMP Healthcare Media CMP Healthcare Mediaís portfolio of education, publishing, and marketing services has expanded following United Business Mediaís acquisition of The Oncology Group and Cliggott Publishing from SCP Communications Inc. ìA common vision has always guided CMP Healthcare Mediaís publications, educational programs, and other information products to provide physicians and specialists with clinically relevant, easy-to-access information that has direct application to the daily practice of medicine,î says Vicki Masseria, president of CMP Healthcare Media. CMP Healthcare Media serves more than 15 healthcare fields with meetings, multimedia products, Web programs, teleconferences, and sponsored publications. CMP Healthcare Media brands include CME Inc., MEDReach, and 13 clinical publications. CMP Healthcare Media now offers its services to healthcare professionals in such therapeutic categories as AIDS, cardiology, infectious diseases, long-term care/geriatrics, neurology, nuclear medicine, oncology, orthopedics/musculoskeletal medicine, pain management, pediatrics, pharmacy, podiatry, primary care, psychiatry, pulmonology, radiology, rheumatology, and sports medicine. CMP Healthcare Media is delivering its products and services through a comprehensive marketing communications toolbox, a full suite of educational services, and a publishing portfolio that includes the following titles: The AIDS Reader, BioMechanics, Consultant, Consultant for Pediatricians, Diagnostic Imaging, Drug Benefit Trends, Geriatric Times, Infections in Medicine, The Journal of Musculoskeletal Medicine, The Journal of Respiratory Diseases, Oncology, Oncology News International, and Psychiatric Times. Along with the core titles, each publication produces sponsored supplements, multimedia projects, and educational programs. ìWith its larger portfolio of publication titles and associated products, CMP Healthcare Media can now fully serve healthcare professionals across more than 15 therapeutic categories with first-rate publications, accredited educational programs, and other innovative information services,î says Vicki Masseria, president of CMP Healthcare Media. Facility Relocation and Name Change Position Alliance Healthcare Information as Information Services Leader Expanded facilities, a new location, and a new name and logo are part of Alliance Healthcare Information Inc.ís effort to more accurately define its role in the healthcare industry. Formerly known as Alliance Marketing Services Group, the healthcare information services company is expanding its capacity and consolidating all of its offices in one larger location in Ivyland, Pa. ìWe are a call center that is dedicated to marketing efforts on behalf of pharmaceutical companies; our primary efforts are focused on providing information and education to consumers and physicians about different therapies,î says Mary Anne Sabogal, president of Alliance Healthcare Information. ìFor some of our pharmaceutical clients, we are their medical-affairs department. We work on compliance programs, we detail physicians, and we screen patients who are interested in participating in clinical trials.î The communication center, which handles phone, e-mail, fax, and whitemail information inquiries, is staffed primarily with registered nurses and other healthcare professionals. Medically trained communicators also are available for less technical projects. The move, which was slated to take place this month, allows the company to triple its communications center capacity and increase fulfilment capacity as well. According to Ms. Sabogal, part of the reason for the expansion is that the company is increasing the portion of its staff that are medically trained, but not necessarily professionally degreed. ìIn the next year or so our group will double,î she says. ìTwo-thirds of our business will continue to be healthcare professionals with a long history of clinical experience and a third of our business will be this other group of medically trained, capable, articulate people.î In addition, the quality assurance department has been expanded to ensure that federal HIPAA regulations are strictly adhered to. Quintiles Launches new global division Quintiles Strategic Research Services is Quintiles Transnational Corp.ís recently launched global business division specializing in the design and delivery of nonregistration research studies. The unit conducts studies that further define the safety, effectiveness, and value of products, often under real-world conditions. These studies generate information that physicians and patients frequently rely upon to make informed treatment decisions. ìToday, registration of a new product is only a starting point,î says Hugo Stephenson, M.D., president of Quintiles Strategic Research Services. ìAlthough our customers conduct extensive clinical trials to gather and analyze safety and efficacy data for the purposes of registration, thatís no longer enough. Patients, physicians, regulatory agencies, and formularies are asking tougher questions about products and how they work in the real world. Are they cost-effective? In which patient populations does the product work best? Does the product really work as well in the real world as it did under controlled conditions?î The new division blends Quintilesí existing late-phase and strategic consulting business units, creating four regional business units in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. The new organization has dedicated staff for project management, site management, data management, and business development. Mary Anne Sabogal, president of Alliance Healthcare Information, says the companyís previous name gave the incorrect connotation that the group provided marketing on a creative level. The companyís focus is on providing marketing efforts on behalf of its pharmaceutical clients. Follow up Alliance Healthcare Information Inc., Ivyland, Pa., is a healthcare information services company that provides information and education to consumers and physicians on different therapies. For more information, visit alliancehealthinfo.com. CMP Healthcare Media, San Francisco, delivers education, publishing, and marketing services that create meaningful connections among influential clinicians, leading healthcare researchers, marketers, and medical manufacturers. For more information, visit cmphealth.com. Dendrite International, Morristown, N.J., develops and delivers solutions that increase the productivity of sales, marketing, and clinical research for pharmaceutical and other life-science clients. For more information, visit dendrite.com. Development Dimensions International, Bridgeville, Pa., helps clients achieve superior business results by building engaged, high-performing workforces and selecting, developing, and retaining extraordinary people. For more information, visit ddiworld.com. Healthcare BusinessWomenís Association, Fairfield, N.J., is a nonprofit national organization that provides educational opportunities to develop industry knowledge and leadership skills; recognizes outstanding women in the industry; provides networking opportunities; creates greater visibility for women in the industry; fosters mentoring relationships; and serves as a conduit for research on career advancement issues. For more information, visit hbanet.org. IMS Health, Fairfield, Conn., is a leading provider of information solutions to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. For more information, visit imshealth.com. Innovex, Research Triangle Park, N.C., a unit of Quintiles Transnational Corp., is a commercial solutions provider offering sales and marketing services designed to accelerate the success of pharmaceutical, biotech, and other healthcare products. For more information, visit innovex.com. IntraMed Educational Group, New York, a medical-education division of Sudler & Hennessey, develops accredited and nonaccredited educational initiatives. For more information, call 212-614-3800. Quintiles Transnational Corp., Research Triangle Park, N.C., provides a broad range of professional services, information, and partnering solutions to the pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare industries. For more information, visit quintiles.com.