This April marked the 14th year of the DTC industry’s “must attend” DTC National Conference. The three-day event kicked off with two deep-dive pre-conference workshops called DTC University. These workshops included an interactive digital session led by Mark Bard of the Digital Health Coalition, Dale Cooke of Digitas Health LifeBrands, John Lally of Merck & Co., and Mike Spitz of Klick Health; and a highly engaged Regulatory track led by Polsinelli’s Teresa Brooks, Jim Davidson and Julius Hobson. The main conference, sponsored by CBS and Healthgrades, focused on how the future has already arrived and is shaping marketing tactics now. Highly successful case studies were presented throughout, including: GSK’s Eric Foster and PHD’s Loretta Lurie discussing “Lupus Check;” Ed Slaughter and Dana Pico telling the story of patient health portal “MerckEngage;” and Kattrina Richardson of Given Imaging and Jeff MacFarland of Intouch Solutions shedding light on Crohn’s Disease with PillCam SB. This year also included three major award ceremonies. The Hall of Fame led the festivities the night before the start of the DTC National Conference; the newly expanded Advertising Awards Dinner, sponsored by Health Monitor Network, saw a record number of industry members in attendance; and the Top 25 DTC Marketers of the Year, sponsored by ContextMedia:Health, concluded the 2014 DTC National Conference with a private, celebratory luncheon.
