Adrian Sansone has taken over the managing director’s seat at Publicis Lifebrands Medicus, replacing longtime agency boss Lisa Ebert.

Sansone will manage PLB Medicus New York, Toronto and the agency’s global division, PLB International, which has offices in New York and Paris. He has been with Medicus for seven years, the last two as general manager of its international division where he has led the building of the New York office and traveled among its global affiliates.

Ebert, who has been managing director at Medicus since 2005 and joined the agency in 1995, is leaving to spend more time with family but will assist the agency with some of the planned changes.

Sansone is tasked with changing the way the HCP agency operates, including bolstering digital abilities. Physicians—the agency’s core audience—are almost fully mobile and are getting a sizable amount of their information online, not unlike patients and payers. The new managing director’s mission is to ensure Medicus’ view of communications aligns with that of HCPs and other stakeholders.

“We need to create more of a comprehensive communication idea that can connect each of those stakeholders,” Sansone told MM&M in an exclusive interview about the management change.

In PLB Medicus, Sansone takes over a flagship agency of Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG) at a critical time, said Michael du Toit, who was recently promoted to the role of PHCG president, North America. “We view Adrian as a change agent to implement what could be a profound shift in the way HCP agencies service their clients,” he said.

Sansone will lead a program aiming to ensure that Medicus speaks to physicians in terms that allow them to fully engage and, perhaps most importantly, so that clients don’t have to ask a second or digital agency to do this work for them. One way will be through maximizing PHCG assets Digitas Health and Razorfish Healthware.

While du Toit was named North American president of PHCG, he remains president of Digitas Health, and has responsibility for PLB Medicus and Medicus International in North America