AGENCIES
After a hiatus of six years, Nancy Drescher has returned to AbelsonTaylor, where she has assumed a new title and a battery of new responsibilities. As VP, account director, and initially overseeing accounts in the antifungal category and the overactive bladder market. Drescher will report to Jay Carter, SVP and director of client services. Prior to rejoining AbelsonTaylor, Drescher, spent five years at Cline Davis & Mann in New York, where she was most recently EVP, group managing director and part of the executive management team. In 2005, she received the Healthcare Businesswoman’s Association “Rising Star” Award. “We knew that Nancy was management material long before she got to CDM,” said Carter, who pointed out that back in 1998, when she first arrived in Chicago and joined AbelsonTaylor, she had played a pivotal role in the the launch of a multi-billion dollar brand. “We’ve been trying to lure her back ever since.”
The process ended up taking six years, since Drescher’s husband was attending medical school, followed by his residency, at NYU Medical Center. He is now a fourth-year emergency medicine resident at Bellevue Hospital. The couple, who have been living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, will be moving to Chicago in June of 2008. In the meantime, Drescher is working from home.
RTC Relationship Marketing (RTCRM) hired two SVP/group account directors, Kris Filan, responsible for management of product and services marketing to seniors, and Elizabeth Upton, focused on marketing healthcare brands to women. Filan joins from Harte-Hanks in Billerica, MA, and has extensive senior-level account management experience, having worked at Digitas and Customer Development Corp. (now ChoicePoint). Upton comes from Corbett Accel Healthcare Group and has led worldwide agency account teams on strategy and creative development for pharmaceutical and healthcare products. Additionally, Rick Hirsch has been promoted from VP/account director to SVP/account director focusing on Abbott.
Tom McMillian has been named VP of marketing at e-marketing agency Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications. McMillian was director of Relationship & Interactive Marketing for Pfizer Consumer Healthcare in Morris Plains, NJ.
MEDIA
Advanstar Communications announced that Erin Schlussel Stever has been named national account manager for the Ophthalmology Times Group, which includes Ophthalmology Times, Ophthalmology Times America Latina, and Ophthalmology Times Europe, as well as www.ophthalmologytimes.com. A veteran in the ophthalmic industry, Schlussel Stever joins Advanstar from Wolters Kluwer where she was East Coast account executive for Ophthalmology Management, Retinal Physician, Optometric Management, and Contact Lens Spectrum. Prior to that she served as director, sales and marketing for netXCESS, Ltd.
SUPPLIERS
Electronic media services provider MedPoint Communications has announced the hiring and promotion of the following team members. Derek Harrington has been promoted to senior art director. Priya Bhutani has been named business development executive responsible for generating new business opportunities. Prior to joining MedPoint, Bhutani was the co-founder and director of strategic sourcing for Avpri, Inc., where she identified sales, marketing, technology trends and point of sales opportunities for U.S. medical product manufacturers in Asia. She also served as the product development engineer for intravenous drug delivery devices for Baxter Healthcare, a leading global healthcare company based in Round Lake, IL. Abby Ferguson joined MedPoint Communications in as a project manager responsible for the planning and execution of client medical education, communications and strategic marketing program efforts. Prior to joining the company, Ferguson served as a sales representative for Johnson and Johnson, Ortho McNeil Pharmaceuticals, where she sold specialty pharmaceuticals to a wide array of medical practitioners and institutions.
