Omnicom’s Snow Companies Donates to Rare Cancer Research Foundation
Snow Companies won first prize in Omnicom Health Group’s OHGfit Challenge, allowing them to donate a total of $20,000 to a charity of their choice. One hundred Snow employees logged over 350,000 steps with a fitness tracker to win first place and collectively selected the Rare Cancer Research Foundation (RCRF) to receive the donation. Barbara Van Hare, Director of Foundation Partnerships at RCRF says, “We are honored to be selected as Snow Companies’ charity of choice. As a group, rare cancers are the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. RCRF’s work directly advances efforts to develop new and better therapies to treat rare cancer patients.”
Civica Rx Gains Momentum in the Generic Drug Space
In 2018, a group of hospitals joined forces to combat what they call outrageously inflated prices for basic and necessary generic drugs in shortage across the U.S. Twelve new health systems, including NYU Langone Health, have joined nonprofit Civica Rx, now with a backing of 250 major organizations. CEO Martin VanTrieste, a retired Amgen executive who serves in his new position without any pay, will lead the company as it makes and launches 14 essential medicines this year that are on the FDA shortage list or have inflated prices for years due to lack of competition. These common drugs—from saline to epidurals—are easy to develop, but have in some cases been deemed not profitable enough to manufacture in sufficient amounts by larger drug companies. The group of concerned hospitals, governed by Catholic Health Initiatives, HCA Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, and Providence St. Joseph Health, hope to solve this problem by basing their development solely on what healthcare facilities need.
Greater Than One Transforms its Image
The global healthcare marketing agency, Greater Than One, proudly announces its new vision and identity as the Health & Wellness Imagination Agency. The repositioning makes President Kieran Walsh’s goals for the company clear, compelling, and distinct. “Our vision is to be the most imaginative agency among all health and wellness agencies and to transform what’s possible for our clients and their customers by creating the most imaginative solutions and customer experiences in health and wellness,” Walsh stated. “As of today, we will leave no doubts about who we are, our critical point of differentiation, and the unique value we bring to our clients.” Imagination has been the cornerstone of the agency’s success, allowing it to generate modern and innovative business solutions as well as motivate the team to make changes happen for their clients.
Ashfield Presents First Medical Writing Graduates
Ashfield Healthcare Communications announced the graduation of the first cohort of fully fledged medical writers from its new, innovative training program, Allegro. The 12-month program offers aspiring scientific writers the opportunity to kick-start their career in healthcare communications by building confidence through personalized accelerated learning, mentoring, and coaching. At the end of the program, recruits join one of Ashfield’s agency teams as a Medical Writer. Of 230 applicants, 60 were selected for the program and the first round of 14 students have taken up positions in a number of Ashfield’s U.K. agencies.
PoC3 Nonprofit Announces New Members
The Point of Care Communication Council (PoC3) announces five new member companies: BPA Worldwide, CheckedUp, HealixGlobal, Physician’s Weekly, and The Alliance for Audited Media (AAM). The nonprofit organization focuses on advocating for the effective use of the point of care (POC) channel to advance health and healthcare outcomes and demonstrates its dedication to continued growth and increased emphasis on advancing POC channel opportunities through education, advocating for the use of best practices and guidelines, shaping future direction, facilitating growth, and driving innovation.
“As trends like consumerism and value-based care transform healthcare, POC now represents anywhere and everywhere a consumer is receiving care. This spans a multitude of channels and key points along the patient journey,” said PoC3 Executive Director Karen Newmark. “The potential impact of more effectively leveraging these channels and points of influence together—particularly when considering how applying data can unlock rich insights—is significant. As such, PoC3 is focused on expanding its membership to include a diverse group of companies with not only a vested interest in this impact but that also bring important subject matter expertise that will help forward the PoC3 mission to advance health outcomes.”
Walgreens Pays Government $269 Million in Unprecedented Settlement
The largest retail U.S. pharmacy resolved allegations that it knowingly inflated the prices of prescription drugs paid for by Medicaid, Medicare, and other government programs in a staggering $269 million settlement. The amount of $209 million was agreed upon for hundreds of thousands of insulin pens given to Medicare and Medicaid patients who did not need them between 2006 and 2017. The remaining $60 million resolves a case of whistleblowing in which Walgreens did not charge Medicaid the usual and customary prices they charge patients in their Prescription Savings Drug Program.
Walgreens was charged under the federal False Claims Act, which lets private whistleblowers sue confidentially on the federal government’s behalf and receive a percentage of recoveries. Due to the pharmacy’s failure to disclose drug prices and knowingly inflating prices for government programs that taxpayers fund, it was also forced to enter a corporate integrity agreement with the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to ensure future compliance with federal healthcare programs.
HBA Awards WOTY, Gender Parity Advocates
The Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) announced the 2019 Woman of the Year, Honorable Mentor, among others, to be honored at the 30th annual Woman of the Year event on May 9 in New York City. Sharon Callahan, CEO, TBWA\WorldHealth, and Chief Client Officer for parent company, Omnicom Health Group, is named the 2019 Woman of the Year for her instrumental role in championing diversity and inclusion. Callahan is a founding board member of both Omniwomen, which aims to increase the number of women in leadership positions, and OPEN Pride, which fosters an inclusive and engaging work environment for Omnicom’s LGBTQ community and its allies. Callahan advocates for the rights of women and for diversity and gender parity both personally and professionally, ensuring that nearly 60% of senior leadership roles at TBWA\WorldHealth are held by women, while serving as vice-chair outside of work for the Victory Fund, which seeks to increase the number of openly LGBTQ officials at all levels of government.
The Honorable Mentor award winner is Peter Anastasiou, Executive Vice President, Head of Lundbeck North America, for serving as a respected and diligent mentor to women and a leader who promotes and supports gender parity throughout his organization. In his workplace, Anastasiou was instrumental in increasing female representation on the North American leadership team and helping to transform Lundbeck’s leadership-development programs, including opening up access to HBA course offerings and encouraging women leaders to reach their full potential.
Closely following the historic number of elected female representatives, and the one-year anniversary of the TimesUp movement, the HBA is proud to recognize the industry leaders driving gender equality in their workplace and to the forefront of industry discussion. “With women’s workplace issues a critical industry focus—and still drawing global media attention—the HBA is extremely proud to award and showcase our award winners for their valuable contributions to advancing gender parity in the workplace,” said Laurie P. Cooke, President and CEO, HBA in a statement. “This year’s honored industry thought leaders exemplify the very core mission of the HBA through their dedication and inspiration to make the industry workplace a far more equitable culture for all.”
Amy Turnquist Awarded for Women’s Leadership Work
Amy Turnquist, eHealthcare Solutions’ (EHS) Executive Vice President of Sales, has been awarded both the HBA Advocate Award and the Mid-Atlantic Regional LEAD (Leadership Excellence and Dedication) Award for her outstanding leadership and dedication to the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) in 2018. Amy earned the LEAD Award, the highest honor an HBA volunteer can be given within their region, for her tireless work in the healthcare business community creating innovative programs and partnerships that empower women in the workforce and engage more men in the process.
Amy is a dedicated Chapter President for the HBA, a global nonprofit organization comprised of over 10,000 individuals and organizations from across the healthcare industry committed to achieving gender parity in leadership positions and providing effective practices that enable organizations to realize the full potential of their female talent.
Aldeyra Buys Helio Vision
The Massachusetts-based biotech acquired Helio Vision for $10 million, adding the novel ADX-2191 to its pipeline. ADX-2191 is now moving into clinical trials for treatment of proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR), an inflammatory retinal disease that can lead to permanent blindness and has no approved therapy. CEO Todd Brady, MD, PhD states, “The acquisition of Helio Vision is highly complementary to Aldeyra’s focus on novel therapeutic approaches for immune-mediated diseases and broadens our late-stage pipeline.”
