Social media has radically shifted the balance of power between marketers and their customers – health care is no exception. However, as many industries have embraced the new tools, strategies, and cultural shifts fueled by the shift to social media, most companies in the health and pharmaceutical industry have let the market and customer continue to forge ahead while they stagnate with little to no innovation. Although fear of regulatory, or lack of guidance from federal regulators, has held back innovation in the health and medical space there are sparks of innovation waiting to emerge. This session with the co-founder of the Digital Health Coalition, a nonprofit think tank, and members of the coalition will discuss the state of the market today, the impact of social on health and pharmaceutical companies, efforts to build industry consensus, and a path forward to a world where customers and companies engage – based on the channel preferences and terms of the customer.
Speaker Biographies
Mark Bard is a new media, marketing, and technology entrepreneur. Prior to founding the Digital Health Coalition, a nonprofit think tank, he founded Manhattan Research – a leading global advisory firm focused on technology trends in health care. In addition to personal ventures, he also invests in early stage technology and digital health startups taking an active advisory role with founders. With deep expertise in the digital health space, Mark's focus and passion includes mobile, search, and customer service in a digital world. With over 15 years of industry experience, Mark is an internationally recognized expert on topics including the Internet and the healthcare systems, new media, health information technology trends, mobile, social, and pharmaceutical sales and marketing.
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Pat Choumitsky is a 29-year Healthcare and Pharma veteran who leads the Consumer Digital and Social Media for the Immunology Business Unit at UCB. She initiated the first on-line, iterative research community at UCB almost 3 years ago, participated on the Social Media Guideline Team at UCB, and has presented at the ESOMAR global research conference on the changing landscape of market research through active listening and on-going engagement.
Arnie Friede is the Principal in Arnold I. Friede & Associates. The firm specializes in FDA-related legal and regulatory matters. Arnie is a widely respected food and drug law counselor and advocate with significant advertising law, health care law, First Amendment, environmental, and commercial and transactional experience. He has a long history of direct involvement in successfully representing clients in FDA-regulated matters beginning as an Associate Chief Counsel in the FDA Chief Counsel’s Office, as well as a broad spectrum of senior in-house legal experience across multiple FDA-regulated industries. Arnie has been involved for nearly 35 years in a broad range of FDA and other agency-regulated businesses, including the life sciences, such as pharmaceutical and biotech, medical device, medical information, disease management, and over-the-counter drugs, as well as in the food, cosmetic, chemical and other industries. He has a breadth and depth of experience across an array of substantive legal areas and business operations. He received his B.S. degree in Mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh and his J.D. from the George Washington University School of Law. In addition to numerous other professional affiliations, he is a past-Chairman of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law Section of the New York State Bar Association. Arnie is admitted to practice in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, and Maryland.
Peter Pitts is President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. From 2002-2004 A former member of the United States Senior Executive Service, Peter was FDA’s Associate Commissioner for External Relations, serving as senior communications and policy adviser to the Commissioner. He supervised FDA's Office of Public Affairs, Office of the Ombudsman, Office of Special Health Issues, Office of Executive Secretariat, and Advisory Committee Oversight and Management. He served on the agency’s obesity working group and counterfeit drug taskforce and is a Special Government Employee (SGE) consultant to the FDA’s Risk Communications Advisory Committee where he is advising the FDA on regulatory issues in the sphere of social media. In 2010, he was named by Modern Healthcare magazine as one of the 300 “most powerful people in American healthcare.”
Eric Schultz is Chairman, CEO, and co-founder of QuantiaMD. He brings over 25 years experience in building innovative products, services and companies. Eric is committed to improving health care, and convinced it can only be done at scale by the artful and innovative application of enabling technologies. He guides the overall vision for the company's services, QuantiaMD and QuantiaCare, and is grateful for the passion and insights of great mentors like Dr. Leon Smith in this mission. Prior to QuantiaMD, Eric was Chairman and CEO of Wireless Knowledge, a joint venture between Qualcomm and Microsoft. He previously served at Microsoft as Worldwide Director of Wireless Strategy and Sales and as Group Program Manager for Microsoft's Enhanced Platform Product Unit. Eric came to Microsoft when they acquired the MESA Group, a company he co-founded and managed. Earlier in his career, Eric held positions with Lotus Development Corporation as lead architect for spreadsheet products, and as principal engineer with New England Research Labs. Eric is a 1983 graduate of Harvard College with a BA in Biology and Computer Science, and has served the college as a teaching fellow in computer science.