Industry veterans head SouthPennSquare	February 2008

Although they have moved on from Dorland Global Healthcare Communications, the agency’s founders have not left the healthcare industry entirely.

Rita and Harry Sweeney, founders of Dorland Global Healthcare Communications, are moving on to a new venture within the pharmaceutical advertising industry. Five years ago a succession plan was put into place at the agency, and within the last year the plan has ramped up as the two prepared to embark on their newest business called SouthPennSquare, which will be a consulting group located in Philadelphia.

“We’ll be doing a number of things on a consulting basis to some of the people that we’re currently working with,” Ms. Sweeney told Med Ad News. “One thing Harry will be concentrating on is communications particularly in the regulatory environment, that we’re in currently, and I’ll be focused on branding and brand awareness, which is something that I did for Dorland for the last five or seven years. I’ll be working with some smaller companies that are not directly competitive to us.”

More than 35 years ago, the two former Dorland executives founded Dorland Global Healthcare Communications and built the agency from a small travel advertising shop into a well-respected, global healthcare communications agency that services many top global pharmaceutical companies. In March 2007, Dorland Global was bought by Huntsworth Plc., one of the world’s fastest growing marketing and communications groups, operating 60 principal offices in 30 countries around the world.

The new business was expected to open its doors in January. According to Ms. Sweeney, the executives always believed they would never completely leave the pharmaceutical marketing arena.

“We’ve been thinking about this for at least a year, and we started to put it together in the last six months,” Ms. Sweeney says.