MANUFACTURERS
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals announced that William Kane has joined the company as VP, commercial operations. In this role, Kane will assume responsibility for the development and execution of the company’s commercial activities, including brand planning and forecasting, commercial and managed markets communications, advocate development, comprehensive pre-launch and launch initiatives, and field sales. Kane joins the company from Sepracor, where he served as SVP of marketing and new product planning, focusing on key in-line brands including Lunesta. Previously, Kane spent 18 years at Pfizer, playing integral roles of increasing responsibility within Pfizer’s US Pharmaceuticals division, in the areas of strategy development, new product planning, brand management, co-promote collaboration, managed markets marketing and public policy initiatives. He has considerable experience developing and marketing blockbuster brands, including Zoloft, Zyrtec, and Celebrex, for which he served as team leader for one of the most successful product launches in the pharmaceutical industry, with first year sales of $1.2 billion. Prior to leaving Pfizer, Kane served as group vice president, managed markets marketing, where he played a key role in preparing Pfizer for the implementation of Medicare Part D.
AGENCIES
AbelsonTaylor has hired Mylene Richardson as account supervisor for a product in the diabetes category. She comes to AbelsonTaylor from Discovery Chicago, a Chicago-based medical education company, where she served as senior project manager. There she had responsibility for products in the dermatology, rheumatology, infant nutrition and cosmetic dermatology fields. Prior to that she was account executive with MedPoint in Evanston, IL, where she managed products primarily in the biotech field, working in categories that included gastroenterology, migraine, respiratory and ophthalmology.
Compass Healthcare Communications, has added five new staff members and expanded the responsibilities of a sixth. The new client services team members are: Rob Renjilian, account director. Prior to Compass, he worked at Integrated Communications Corporation where he managed the Sanofi Pasteur account, including the ecommerce site, VaccineShoppe.com. Justin Mathews, account supervisor. He brings more than 10 years of online pharmaceutical marketing experience to Compass. Previously, he was with the online marketing agency Refinery where he managed the Merck Pharmaceuticals account. Christine Robbins, account executive, has a background in pharmaceutical marketing. Earlier in her career, she worked in the women’s health category at the advertising agency Pace and on the HIV team at the ad and marketing agency Palio Communications. She worked with brand teams at Barr Pharmaceuticals and GSK. Jeff Friedman, director of project management, has more than 20 years of marketing and promotions experience and spent seven years focused on online marketing within the OTC pharmaceutical industry. Before joining Compass, he served as manager of online marketing for Pfizer Consumer Healthcare. In addition, there have been staff changes in internal company operations: Andrea Asadourian, marketing coordinator, previously held marketing positions with PDI Inc., Hahnemühle FineArt USA, UbiquiTel and Apple American Group. Stephanie Maier, who joined Compass in 2003, has been promoted to senior internal operations manager from her position as office manager.
