Meredith S. Manning
Vice President, Global Hemophilia A Marketing
Baxter BioScience
The Patient’s Champion
Meredith S. Manning started with a team of just two and the formidable goal of leveraging the extensive heritage to reinvigorate Baxter BioScience’s Global Hemophilia A business. Making things even more difficult: Competition in the hemophilia market was growing due to sophisticated marketing efforts and new treatment options. But Meredith was no stranger to overcoming challenges with groundbreaking solutions—she worked with Harold P. Freeman, MD on the industry’s original Patient Navigation program and helped evolve the concept into a movement.
“Early on, I recognized that the pharmaceutical industry could be a strong partner in helping to spread the learnings and cement the integration of navigators into oncology care,” she explains. “Today it is widely accepted—navigators are reimbursed by insurance and there are recognized associations of nurse navigators across the country.”
She took a similar patient-first approach in her new role leading the Global Hemophilia A team. As Meredith grew the team to more than 12 passionate marketers, she encouraged them to have authentic empathy for patients and caregivers, and to dive deep into the factors that may inhibit optimal care and outcomes from the patient’s perspective. She also stressed the importance of understanding the intricacies of each culture in order to best serve patients in different countries. And she practiced what she preached—logging more than 100,000 air miles just last year to be present in every global market Baxter served from North America, to Europe, to Asia. Ultimately, all of their hard work paid off. The Global Hemophilia A business achieved strong revenue growth from 2013 to 2014, including ADVATE’s greater than 50% global market share.
Next up, Meredith is looking forward to playing an integral role in shaping the culture at Baxalta, which is launching this summer as Baxter BioScience splits from Baxter.
“A company’s culture is a critical driver of success and must be continually nurtured and advanced by cultural champions,” she states. “I want to be one of those cultural champions. Over time, it is a personal goal to showcase my contributions as a game changer in the industry and to become a mentor, leader and role model to my colleagues and newly emerging leaders across the industry.”
