Speakers

Dan Weston is the Director of External Advocacy for GlaxoSmithKline.

During Dan’s 16 years with GlaxoSmithKline, he has served on the Commercial Operations side of the business. As Director of External Advocacy, he is responsible for taking the positive story about the value of medicines to the public, healthcare industry, and advocacy groups throughout the country.

Today, you will learn how innovation has, and will, bring new medicines that provide hope and a future for those living with disease. How prevention and intervention is critical to controlling the cost of healthcare and helping people feel better.

Because his family members, including himself, have been challenged by disease, the value of the pharmaceutical industry and reforming healthcare have become important and passionate messages for Dan to share with you today.

Speaker overview coming soon...

Lucas is responsible for setting the strategic, financial, and organizational direction for Eliza. As a trained engineer, he also oversees the development of Eliza's core technology and intellectual property portfolio. He brings twenty years of experience in technology and business development in healthcare - with a focus on new ideas, new ventures, and innovation.

Lucas joined Eliza from DEKA R&D Corporation, where he led the development and launch of breakthrough medical devices including the IBOTTM personal transporter. At DEKA he also worked extensively in developing the firm's patent portfolio and licensing business. Prior to DEKA, Lucas co-founded Adheris, a leading firm in the field of prescription compliance management and informatics. He has also held senior management positions at firms specializing in healthcare IT, strategy consulting, electronics, and wireless communications.

Lucas holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from MIT and an MBA from the Harvard Business School . His focus at MIT included digital signal processing, speech and image recognition, and controls for real time systems. His interests at Harvard included studying the application of emerging technologies to address important healthcare issues. Lucas serves on the boards of several start-up and non-profit organizations, including the Crotched Mountain School and Rehabilitation Center.

Dr. Mike Sokol serves as the Corporate Medical Director for Merck & Co., Inc.  He leads the Integrated Health Management department that is responsible for operating the company's employee health clinics, fitness centers, disability management programs, and global occupational health activities.  Mike also provides direction to Merck's health care benefits strategy and wellness initiatives, and he chairs the company's management team responsible for addressing public health challenges to the employee population, such as pandemic flu.

In his prior roles at GlaxoSmithKline and Medco Health Solutions, Dr. Sokol provided subject matter expertise and consultative support to external customers.  His areas of focus included population health and disease management, value-based benefit design, and health care quality improvement. He also conducted health services research by examining factors that influence medication adherence and its impact on clinical and financial outcomes.  Mike developed patient and physician education programs and contributed to both company's health policy and public affairs initiatives.

Dr. Sokol received his B.S. from Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA and his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA. He completed his internship at the Medical Center of Delaware, followed by his residency training in preventive medicine at the University of Maryland Medical System, where he also received his M.S. from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. 

Dr. Sokol is board certified in public health and general preventive medicine, and is a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine.  He holds two academic appointments:  as a Senior Scholar in the Department of Health Policy at Jefferson Medical College and as an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.  In addition to sitting on various organizational committees, Mike serves on the editorial board of the journal Population Health Management and has published several articles in the peer-reviewed literature.

Dr. Avinandan Mukherjee is Professor and Chair of the Marketing Department at the School of Business in Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA. Dr. Mukherjee is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Emerald journal – The International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing. This double-blind reviewed scholarly research journal is dedicated to advancing our theoretical and empirical understanding of marketing pharmaceutical products and healthcare services. Before joining Montclair State, Dr. Mukherjee has been a full-time faculty member of Marketing at the Pennsylvania State University (USA), University of Bradford (UK), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and Indian Institute of Management (India). He has a doctoral degree in Marketing from the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), and was a visiting doctoral scholar at the ESSEC Business School, France. He is an Electrical Engineer by background and has worked with ABB (a Fortune 500 company) as Marketing Manager. Dr. Mukherjee's research and teaching interests include healthcare services, patient compliance strategies, digitial healthcare, and pharmaceutical marketing. He has published more than 75 research articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings. He has also authored eight chapters in edited books, five case studies, and three popular articles. Dr. Mukherjee has worked as a consultant with several pharmaceutical and other companies across the world.

Speaker overview coming soon...

Rich has been with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals since 1994 and has held multiple positions within Sales, Training and Marketing, working in such areas as Osteoarthritis (Mobic), Cardiovascular (Micardis) and Urology (Flomax).  Currently, Rich is the Executive Director of Customer Development Marketing, which oversees Consumer Marketing, HCP Development and eBusiness for Boehringer.  Over the past 2 years, Rich has led a cross functional team focused on addressing Medication Adherence for Boehringer within the USA.

Steve Basiago is Vice-President of Trade Relations & Adherence for Walgreens Health Services.  In that role he oversees a group that develops collaborative relationships with pharmaceutical manufacturers.  His group works with manufacturers to develop service programs that connect manufacturer patient care objectives with Walgreens patients. 

Steve also leads a companywide effort to improve medication adherence for Walgreens patients.  Working with a dedicated team, he is developing and testing various ways that Walgreens can improve adherence to therapy and thus improve health outcomes.  With lots of resources available, including over 25,000 pharmacists, Steve has piloted and measured several different approaches to improving adherence.  He is now in the process of combining the most successful tactics and approaches into programs that can be deployed across the Walgreens network of pharmacy services. 

He began his career with Walgreens in 2003 as an independent consultant and became a permanent employee in 2004 in the newly created Trade Relations position.  His work in medication adherence began in late 2005. 

Steve has held several senior management positions in health care.  He is a former Vice-President for Caremark Rx, Director of Pharmaceutical Contracting for PCS Health Systems, Director of Pharmaceutical Purchasing for Rite Aid, and was the Minnesota Regional Manager for Drug Emporium for several years.   

He is a licensed, registered pharmacist in Illinois and Minnesota.  He has a degree in pharmacy from the University Of Minnesota College Of Pharmacy and has additional training in Health Care Business Management from the University of Southern California.

Wendy Nelson is a senior healthcare executive with 20 years experience in public hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry.

She currently is President and CEO of Rx Canada , a pharmacy sponsored organization focused on the development and implementation of programs that assist patients improve adherence to medications. Currently over 3500 pharmacies across Canada utilize the suite of adherence programs developed and implemented through Rx Canada.

Wendy made a career change from the hospital sector and joined Rx Canada in 2004. She believes in Canada ’s community pharmacies and the valuable role played by professional pharmacists in patient care. Since 2004, she has worked with the Rx Canada Board of Directors in renewal of the company’s purpose, technology and marketing strategies, pharmacy membership and programs.

As a hospital executive, she has served as a Vice President at North York General Hospital , Vice President of the St. Joseph ’s Hospital in Hamilton and most recently until 2003 as Chief Operating Officer at Trillium Health Centre, three of Ontario ’s busiest and most progressive hospitals. At Trillium, she led the clinical integration and merger of two hospitals and was responsible for the planning and implementation of a $60 million advanced cardiac centre. She also provided primary leadership in the development of an award winning ambulatory care facility at Trillium. The Queensway Ambulatory Care Centre garnered the Johnson and Johnson Best Practice Award and the 3M National Quality Award in 2001 and is still recognized as a premier ambulatory care facility in Canada .

Wendy has a degree in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin in Madison Wisconsin and a Master’s Degree in Health Sciences from the University of Toronto . At the University of Toronto , she continues to serve on faculty as a lecturer and preceptor of graduate students in health management, policy and evaluation. She is active in the professional field and has served in a number of leadership capacities for the Ontario Hospital Association, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in Ontario , and the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Ian Lording is the Chief Pharmacy Officer at Rx Canada Inc., an innovative e-health solutions provider aimed at enhancing patient outcomes and adherence.

Ian received a B.Sc. degree in Pharmacy from the University of Toronto and is a licenced and practicing pharmacist in the province of Ontario, Canada. Prior to joining Rx Canada Inc, Mr. Lording served as Director of Pharmacy Services with Metro Ontario Pharmacies Limited where he received the Commitment to Care and Services “Pharmacy Integration” award.

Ian has over 10 years of pharmacy corporate retail experience and has been active in the industry during this timeframe by serving on a number of boards including: The Canadian Association of Chain Drug Stores, the Ontario Chain Drug Association (vice chair), Pharmacy Sector Board ( GS1 Canada), and currently sits on the External Relations Committee for the Ontario Pharmacists Association.

Kathryn Lauten, Ph.D. is the Associate Director of the Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. Dr. Lauten also works to apply her research to the products developed at CoMac Analytics, Inc. such as a tool that helps health providers understand how the many personal and societal interactions related to adherence come together in each individual to enable improved and results-oriented provider-patient interactions that positively impact adherence. She received her B.A. from Dartmouth College and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Dr. Lauten has conducted research in the United States, France and several African countries. She has presented at international conferences and published across multiple disciplines. Her current research involves combining her background in linguistics and intercultural communication with her work in health communication in order to improve patient outcomes.

Donna has over 20 years of experience designing innovative patient and healthcare solutions for hospitals, patients, patient families and biopharmaceutical clients.  Her background includes leadership roles in hospital clinical management, biopharmaceutical consumer marketing, physician practice reimbursement and other managed care positions.

She continues to be consulted to provide patient and family guidance on navigating the healthcare system, reimbursement issues and as patient advocate for patients and families with a variety of clinical and managed care-relevant needs.  Her marketing and patient expertise has been sought more recently for best practice input to pharmaceutical marketing practice and the topic of patient adherence.

Jeffrey Dierks is a Senior Product Director for Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company located in Chadds Ford, PA. Jeffrey has also worked at industry leading companies such as Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi-Aventis prior to joining Endo in 2006. In his current position, Jeffrey is responsible for leading the strategic and tactical brand direction for a topical franchise totaling over $1 billion in gross sales annually.

He has over 12 years of experience in the industry, both in sales and marketing, and worked in a number of therapeutic areas, including psychiatry, neurology, pediatrics, dermatology, rheumatology, orthopedic surgery, women’s health and primary care. Throughout his marketing career, he has implemented a number of patient adherence, relationship marketing programs and public relations (PR) campaigns. His work in PR has lead to industry acknowledged campaigns, garnering 11 awards, including the American Academy of Dermatology Golden Triangle Award and the National Headache Foundation Partners in Excellence Award.

As Vice President, Market Strategy, Mr. Montwill is responsible for assessing forward-looking business strategies for the OptumHealth business unit of UnitedHealth Group. These business strategies span the Employer, Public Sector, Payer and Individual market segments and include assessments of market potential, customer segments, customer needs, market risks and opportunities, new market development and market disruption concepts.

OptumHealth is an organization helping to optimize the health and well-being of more than 52 million individuals and organizations. Through its Personalized Health Management solutions, OptumHealth creates integrated, tailored solutions to help people stay healthy, get healthy or live with health conditions. Mr. Montwill joined UnitedHealth Group in 2004 as Vice-President of Marketing and Product Development for Uniprise.

Mr. Montwill brings more than 20 years of experience in sales, marketing and product development. Prior to joining Uniprise, Mr. Montwill worked in health care covering the segments of pharmaceutical, biotech, and consumer health.  Building on a strong finance background, his commercial experiences have spanned both the operations side, including leadership roles in marketing, sales, managed care, and customer operations; and the strategic side, including global strategic marketing, portfolio management and business development.

During his tenure with Searle, an Illinois-based pharmaceutical company and Millennium, a Cambridge, MA-based bio-pharmaceutical company, Mr.Montwill played critical roles in nine product launches. Through these experiences, he was the general manager for Celebrex, and the cancer drug, Velcade. 

Rich and his family reside in Eden Prairie , MN .

Speaker overview coming soon...

Ulla M. Connor, Ph.D. is the Barbara E. and Karl R. Zimmer Chair in Intercultural Communication, Professor of English, and Director of the Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication. She is also Adjunct Professor of Women’s Studies and Adjunct Professor of Philanthropic Studies in the IU School of Liberal Arts. Dr. Connor received her B.A. and M.A. (magna cum laude) in English philology from the University of Helsinki, an M.A. in English literature from the University of Florida, an M.A. in comparative literature and Ph.D. in English linguistics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Connor has held academic positions at the University of Florida, University of Wisconsin, George Mason University, Georgetown University, Purdue University, and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). She has also held guest and visiting professor positions with Temple University Japan, Lund University in Sweden, and Åbo Akademi University in Finland. She is an elected member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Dr. Connor has authored and co-authored ten books and over 100 articles and book chapters. Her pioneering book, Contrastive rhetoric (Cambridge University Press, 1996), remains a standard for research in the field. She has been an invited plenary speaker over 100 times at conferences around the world. One of her current research interests is applied linguistics in the field of health communication. Dr. Connor is a co-founder of CoMac Analytics, Inc.

Rob is responsible for leading projects focussed on the development, validation and implementation of patient-reported outcomes (PRO) instruments.  He has been conducting PRO development and validation studies for a number of years, gaining experience in a wide variety of therapeutic areas including atrial fibrillation, asthma, restless legs syndrome, pain, fibromyalgia, paediatric constipation, ocular allergies, bipolar disorder, diabetes, cancer and women’s health.  Rob has extensive experience of overseeing all aspects of the questionnaire development and validation process including qualitative concept elicitation interviews, cognitive debriefing, psychometric validation, preparing regulatory submission documents and literature reviewing.  He is an author on a number of PRO manuscripts and numerous poster presentations.  Rob has a particular interest in paediatric studies.  Rob joined Mapi Values after completing the Adelphi Graduate Training Programme, during which he gained experience of medical communications and medical market research, in a range of therapeutic areas.  Prior to joining Adelphi, Rob completed an MA in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, where his final honours thesis involved validating a questionnaire in a clinical population of adolescent children.

As Vice President of Medical and Health Management Services for Innovex, Dr. Stewart H. Rosen focuses on developing strategic alternatives to traditional pharmaceutical sales models.  He oversees the management, training and deployment of Clinical Educators and Medical Science Liaisons who help prescribers facilitate diagnoses, improve treatment regimens, enhance patient compliance and improve outcomes.

Prior to joining Quintiles in 2000, Dr. Rosen’s industry experience included management positions at Knoll Pharmaceutical Company with responsibilities in the areas of medical marketing, managed care, government affairs and retail distribution.

Dr. Rosen also has experience as a practicing clinician, in the area of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Dr. Rosen earned his medical degree from the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, Mexico and completed his clerkship at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York.  He presents regularly at national industry meetings and lectures on the topic of Alternatives to Traditional Pharmaceutical Sales Models.

Navigating the constantly changing and complex territory of medical and health management is complemented by Dr. Rosen’s experience as a ship’s captain.  Dr. Rosen is licensed by the United States Coast Guard as a Merchant Marine Officer: 100 Ton Master Ocean Operator.

Susie is an Oncology Advanced Practice Nurse and has worked in various nursing roles within the pharmaceutical industry for the past 10 years. Prior to working in industry, Susie was an Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton Ohio, Tulane University Cancer Center in New Orleans, and at Venice Hospital in Florida. She has also worked in the outpatient oncology setting at Medical Oncology Hematology Associates. 

Before joining Innovex, Susie was the Director of  Oncology Nursing at a major pharmaceutical company. In this capacity, Susie led a group of 50 Oncology Nurse Educator Consultants. This successful program was in place for 10 years. Upon joining Innovex, Susie served a Regional Director for a 114 clinician / educator team. Most recently, Susie has managed  two highly successful oncology teams for large Pharma, driving the oncology nursing strategy for optimizing patient outcomes..

Educational background for Susie includes a Bachelors degree in nursing with a minor in psychology from Wright State University, and a Masters degree in oncology nursing from the University of South Florida. In addition, Susie is certified as an Advanced Oncology Certified Nurse as well as an Advanced Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist.

Susie has authored numerous professional articles and has published two nursing textbooks: “Telephone Triage for Oncology Nurses” published by the Oncology Nursing Society and “Oncology Nursing Advisor” published by Elsevier earlier this year.