Executive management from healthcare communications agencies and networks weigh in on industry topics ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Med Ad News’ 2021 Company of the Year Pfizer has led the global war against the COVID-19 pandemic with the vaccine Comirnaty in partnership with BioNTech. To find out about some of the other significant products and pipeline assets in Pfizer’s arsenal, Med Ad News talked to Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and President, Worldwide Research, Development and Medical.

As healthcare companies continue to refine and expand methods of achieving diversity, equity and inclusion, DE&I leaders know their efforts are not a sprint, but part of an ongoing journey.

Med Ad News asked Darren Back, VP, Global Health & Social Impact at Pfizer Inc. and executive director of The Pfizer Foundation, to give some insights on the Foundation’s strategies for programs and how it distributes grants.

For the fourteenth year, Med Ad News chose new Pharmaceutical Marketing Ventures to Watch that could change the way pharmaceutical products are marketed and sold.

With social responsibility growing ever more important in the eyes of patients, investors, and company leaders both within the healthcare industry and without, Med Ad News decided to find out what the biggest pharma companies are doing to make the world a better place. This is what we discovered.

Elizabeth Izard Apelles, Greater Than One

Med Ad News board member Elizabeth Apelles – founder and chief executive officer of Greater Than One – discusses the healthcare advertising agency’s diversity, equity and inclusion program, her personal DE&I experiences, and other related topics.

You can’t turn on a news show (regardless of your political tribe) without hearing about America’s supply chain blues. It’s the Grinch that’s stealing Christmas. Why don’t we have enough cars, gas, houses, toys, soap, running shoes, diapers, video games? Good question. I imagine the Democrats can’t wait until our economic engine kicks into high gear again. Curiously, we aren’t hearing so much about the one critical commodity that’s almost always in short supply.  Pharmaceuticals!

 “It’s déjà vu all over again,” as Yogi Berra famously said. Two years ago in this space, we wrote about a new FDA Commissioner chosen after a lengthy period of interim leadership. Unfortunately, things have not gone well for the Food and Drug Administration since then.

Healthcare is meant to be understood as human care. But in the ongoing flurry of digital transformation in every aspect of this industry, the aspect of the human — our thoughts, emotions, and needs — are often left out in the digital often for acceptable reasons for a highly regulated, science-based industry; While COVID-19 has motivated us to rally around our human purpose in many ways, it has also accelerated the digitization of who we are as patients as well as raise our expectations on what we expect from those who serve our health needs.