Our Authors

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David Best, M.D.
David Best, M.D. is the President and Founder of The Doctor’s Channel, a website designed to help physicians share information and learn from each other with the latest, news, ideas and information relevant to today’s healthcare professional. Dr. Best has worked in health care advertising, marketing and education for 25 years and founded Saatchi & Saatchi’s medical education company BESTMED. Dr. Best was Medical Services Director at Bristol-Myers Squibb and Dr. Banks has worked for Pharmacia and Pfizer.

Janet Carlson
A veteran of the pharmaceutical industry with 22 years of experience, Janet's career began in sales at Parke-Davis. After honing her marketing skills in-house, she was sent to the company psychologist to help her “fit in” to the corporate culture – fortunately, he told her to get out and find a place where her “bright ideas” and energy would be appreciated (true story). At that point, Janet joined NCI Advertising and developed a talent for creating unique marketing programs for her pharmaceutical clients – who loved her crazy ideas. Janet loved NCI and never dreamed of leaving, until Chris Whittle enticed her with a big title and salary to start up “The Medical News Network (MNN),” destined to change the industry and piss off a lot of people. Janet took the challenge and emerged a wiser woman, with the entrepreneurial bug. After the USS MNN sank, Janet launched her own company, focusing on the web and marketing to healthcare professionals. Fifteen years later, interactive is still the chosen niche, although she now lives for the mobile aspect of connecting pharma to the healthcare professionals. With all her free time, she trains for half marathons, writes children’s books and chases 4 year old twins.

Jae Chung
Jae Chung founded goBalto in October 2008. goBalto (http://www.gobalto.com) is a web-based resource, which enables pharmaceutical professionals to efficiently find, evaluate and engage drug discovery & development Partners from all over the world. Prior to goBalto, Jae co-founded Celltrion (KOSDAQ:TCKR 068270), a leading contract biopharmaceutical group in Asia. As Celltrion’s Vice President of business development, he secured deals with Sanofi-Aventis, Bristol-Myers Squibb and CSL, and has been credited with landing the largest bio-manufacturing supply agreement in Asia to date. Before starting Celltrion in 2002, Mr. Chung was the co-founder of the venture capital firm J. Stephen & Company Ventures and a strategy consultant at McKinsey and Company. Jae holds a B.S. in accounting and M.B.A. in finance and economics from the NYU Stern School of Business and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant.

Sally Church
Sally Church, PhD has almost twenty years of pharmaceutical industry experience in sales, marketing strategic planning, new product development and strategic marketing consulting. Prior to joining Icarus Consultants, Sally spent thirteen years with Novartis and Sandoz in the United States and United Kingdom. Sally has in-depth therapeutic expertise in Oncology, Hematology, Targeted Therapies, Wound Healing, Dermatology, Cardiovascular, Respiratory and Immunology. In addition to her marketing and new products experience she was the National Sales Manager and Product Manager in the U.K. for Sandoglobulin. Prior to that she spent four years in sales including positions in Commercial Accounts and field based hospital and community sales. As a Sales Representative she was No1 in Lescol and Navoban sales, top 10 in Lescol sales and received both the Community and Hospital Business Manager of the Year awards. Sally started her career in the Sandoz U.K. office as Strategic Planning Co-ordinator.

The Encima Group
Comprised of a team of seasoned professionals in business, marketing, analytics and technology, The Encima Group offers consulting services aimed at making your initiatives more successful. One of our core strengths is analyzing and optimizing your projects, utilizing key data to drive more targeted, response-driven activity. As an independent third party, working in concert with your other vendors, we are able to offer a unique and unbiased perspective on your programs, and provide an objective evaluation of your marketing efforts. These insights allow us to take your projects to the next level, harnessing all the tools available – from both your internal and external teams. When you engage The Encima Group, you benefit from the entire network’s decades of experience – each with key insights and perspectives for tailoring your programs against quantifiable metrics, and all 100% focused on helping you reach your goals.

Ellen Hoenig Carlson
Ellen Hoenig Carlson has been a leader and brand champion in U.S and Global Consumer and Pharmaceutical Marketing for over two decades. Her record of growth and innovation includes over thirty diverse consumer, OTC, and pharmaceutical/device categories, in US and International, Developed and Emerging markets. While at Bristol Myers-Squibb (BMS), Ellen spanned numerous assignments in US Brand Management, New Products, Global Category Development, Licensing and Business Development, and Vice President of Direct-to-Consumer/Patient (DTC/P) Marketing. During this time, she was twice recognized by Advertising Age Magazine as one of this country’s 50 Most Powerful Marketing Executives. You can also find her at 'Notes from the Back of the Book' blog.

John Mack
John Mack is an experienced executive with a background in pharmaceutical marketing communications, interactive technologies and medical privacy. His career has been dedicated to developing and applying best practices, enabling companies to do business more effectively, with greater ROI, and with enhanced trust. Mr. Mack provides leadership roles within many associations and councils focusing on health information, quality, privacy and adoption of technology to healthcare. He also blogs at www.pharmamkting.blogspot.com, and runs the popular Pharma Marketing Network.

Richard Meyer
Richard Meyer is a passionate Internet DTC marketer with over 15 years of progressive experience in consumer marketing who's worked on top pharmaceutical brands like Cialis, Prozac and Sarafem, as well as two years with Medtronic Diabetes. He is currently consulting for his own company, Online Strategic Solutions, and writes a DTC column for PM 360 magazine and blogs for Eye for Pharma in addition to his own blog, World of DTC Marketing.

Deborah Newkerk
Deborah Newkerk, President and Founder of Newkerk & Associates is a recognized leader in the direct marketing industry, Deborah has over 25 years of marketing communications experience. Before founding Newkerk & Associates in 1995, she served as President & CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Direct, North America. Her clients have included the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies - AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, sanofi-aventis and Upjohn, as well as blue chip companies like AT&T, Avon, Barclays Bank, Business Week, Doubleday Book Clubs, Lexus, Time Life Books, Toyota, Hewlett-Packard and P&G. Ms. Newkerk is on the Board of Directors of the Delhi Telephone Company and is a member of the Direct Marketing Association. In addition to her professional affiliations, she is an active SCORE and ESL volunteer. Learn more about Newkerk & Associates at newkerk.com.

Dawn Obermoeller
Dawn Obermoeller is a founding partner of Red Bridge Marketing, a next generation marketing firm that provides customized marketing solutions to life science companies. For the last few years, Red Bridge Marketing has been developing best practices in social media marketing for life sciences companies. Ms Obermoeller brings to the company over 15 years marketing experience in the life sciences industry. She has also extensive research experience working in academic, non-profit, and corporate research laboratories. Ms Obermoeller has an MS degree in Molecular Biology and an MBA in Marketing from Texas State University.

Eye on FDA
Mark Senak is the publisher of Eye on FDA and is considered an authority on regulatory aspects of communications and medical products, with particular emphasis on pre-approval communications; strategist to help pharma and biotech companies prepare best case for advisory committee approval; issues and crisis management.

Elizabeth Petersen
Elizabeth is the executive editor of the long-term care market at HCPro, Inc. (www.hcpro.com), a healthcare compliance and training company based out of Marblehead, Mass. She has written articles, edited books, and moderated audio conferences on a range of clinical, regulatory, and reimbursement issues affecting the long-term care industry. She also works with pharmaceutical and medical device companies to better understand and message nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Elizabeth spends her free time keeping her newly crawling infant son out of trouble and coaching the MIT women's rugby team.

Richard Prest
Richard Prest is a Principal Consultant at Blue Fin Group, a pharmaceutical management consulting firm, and an accomplished expert in healthcare-releated channel design and optimization, data, and the use and application of technology. Mr. Prest’s experience within the Pharmaceutical industry encompasses a wide variety of responsibilities including strategic assessment and design, product and services marketing as well as software product development for a wide array of healthcare manufacturers and service providers. Richard brings a successful and diverse track record, including re-engineering a number of global supply chains and freight forwarding operations, to solving key issues and challenges faced by healthcare organizations in the 21st century. Richard’s background in business and academia has equipped him to lead several strategic and operational oriented projects for clients across the entire healthcare domain.

Heather Reilly Powell
Heather Reilly Powell is an attorney who has worked in and with the pharmaceutical and medical device industries for the past ten years in both legal/regulatory and compliance capacities. She possesses extensive experience and expertise in small to medium-sized pharmaceutical and medical device companies and in compliant commercialization of products. She is skilled in compliance program creation and administration, Corporate Integrity Agreement requirements and implementation, promotional material creation and review, investigation, auditing and monitoring of commercial and medical initiatives, state law/aggregate spend data collection and tracking system design and implementation, and integration of compliance into commercial sales and marketing organizations. She currently operates her own consulting business, Compliance Clarity LLC, providing legal/regulatory and compliance advice and services to the pharmaceutical and medical device and associated industries. She is a graduate of the American University with honors and the George Washington University National Law Center and is admitted to law practice in Pennsylvania. She also has particular interest in social media and in Web 2.0 as they relate to FDA-regulated industries.

Jonathan Richman
Jonathan Richman is Director of Business Development for Bridge Worldwide, an interactive and relationship marketing agency based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Advertising Age ranks Bridge Worldwide among the Top 50 Digital Agencies in the country. The company’s client list includes several FORTUNE 500 companies such as Procter & Gamble, ConAgra Foods, and Kroger. He is the author of the popular pharma and healthcare industry blog, Dose of Digital, which provides insights on digital marketing in healthcare. Jonathan writes and speaks extensively on the impact of digital technologies on healthcare marketing including his blog and multiple white papers. Prior to joining Bridge Worldwide, Jonathan worked at AstraZeneca for more than 11 years, holding various positions in sales and marketing. In his most recent position at AstraZeneca, Jonathan served as Brand Leader for healthcare professional marketing in the U.S. for breast cancer agents Arimidex and Faslodex.

Optimize RX
OptimizeRX is a web analytics and Internet marketing consultant for The Encima Group, dedicated to driving R.O.I. improvement results. Effectively bridging the gap between the dominant media, site and creative analytics tools from a holistic performance scorecard approach is a client desired benefit typically provided by OptimizeRX. With a background including marketer, agency and media provider experience, OptimizeRX brings 15 years progressive success to applied web analytics. OptimizeRX has worked with the internet campaign optimization of leading brands Ambien, Nexium, Enbrel, Endo, and several others.

Alex Savic - Alensa CEO
Alex has been working in the European generics sector for the last decade, primarily focusing on cross-border in- and out-licensing as well as pioneering the concept of outsourcing the granulation process through the use of direct compression products. Since 2005, Alex has been director at ALENSA AG, where he has concentrated on the role of IT within the pharma industry and initiated several eHealth projects including an e-commerce application for pharmacies for which ALENSA was selected as a "Top 10 eHealth Innovator" by MarketIntellNow in 2008. Alex will be presenting ALENSA's latest projects at this years Medicine 2.0 congress in Toronto and Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

Ed Sliverman
Ed Silverman is a prize-winning journalist who has covered the pharmaceutical industry for the past 15 years. In addition to editing Pharmalot, he is currently an editor-at-large for Med Ad News and R&D Directions. During his 13-year tenure, he closely followed a variety of topics of concern to those who work for, and with, drug makers - drug development; mergers and acquisitions; regulatory oversight; safety and pricing controversies, and marketing issues. He has a master’s degree in journalism from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Binghamton University.