Past Meetings
April 23, 2013
Building Effective Partnerships for Optimal Patient Care
This month’s meeting took on a different format with a panel of esteemed members who were present to discuss partnerships between patient groups, charitable sectors and the pharma industry. The evening’s moderator was Karen M. Chow, who is responsible for National Stakeholder Relations at Novartis. Karen introduced one of the panel members, Deirdre Freiheit, the Executive Director of the Health Charities Coalition of Canada, who provided the audience with an overview of the charitable and non-profit health sector in Canada.
March 27, 2013
The media challenge!
Maximizing ROI with ROM (Return On Media)
The moderator for this evening’s rousing debate was Rehan Javeri, Director of Sales Effectiveness at Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada. He introduced the two speakers: Regina Kulikowski, President of Regina K Inc. who was going head-to-head against Darcy Kelley, Director of Insights & Strategy at Sonic Boom (a subsidiary of National Public Relations). Regina was arguing in favour of print media while Darcy was supporting digital media channels.
February 12, 2013
Innovation Revolution: Ignite Innovation in Every Aspect of Your Company
The dynamic guest speaker for this month’s meeting was Lisa Bodell, CEO and Founder of futurethink, an internationally recognized innovation research and training firm. She founded her company 15 years ago on the principle that, with the right knowledge and tools, everyone has the power to innovate.
January 15, 2013
Are Private Sector Formularies Set to Align with Public?
This first meeting of 2013 was held in conjunction with the Canadian Association of Healthcare Reimbursement and was moderated by George Wyatt, the managing director of Wyatt Health Management. George was an excellent choice as moderator for this event as he has worked in provincial government as well as various pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical sectors and serves on the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Healthcare Reimbursement. George introduced the speaker for tonight’s event, Helen Stevenson, the President and CEO of Reformulary Group Inc. Helen is also the former Executive Officer of Ontario Public Drug Programs and Assistant Deputy Minister of Health in Ontario. The Reformulary Group is a company dedicated to managing drug costs for employee drug plans.
November 20, 2012
Career Life Cycle Management
What You Need to Do to Prepare for and Thrive in Pharma
The evening kicked off with Adam Siskind, the Office Managing Principal of ZS Associates in Toronto. His talk began with a quick poll of the audience, asking how optimistic they were about the future of pharma. Forty-two percent responded that they were somewhat optimistic, 12% were very optimistic and 15% were neutral. Despite these responses, Adam felt that there is a lot of excitement in the industry and that it’s the right time to be in it. Pharma no longer has blockbuster drugs, which has changed its focus to specialty areas, such as oncology. As a result, there is now an increasing importance of other roles in organizations. Marketing is far more complex than it has ever been which has led to global opportunities and portfolio diversification.
October 16, 2012
Evolution of the PAAB Code: Revisions to s6.5
The Digital Side of PAAB
This month’s PMCQ meeting went outside the norm of the dinner venue and was a breakfast meeting prior to an all-day Pharmaceutical Advertising Advisory Board (PAAB) training session. The PMCQ meeting began with Ray Chepsiuk, the Commissioner of PAAB, who outlined how section 6.5 of the PAAB code has been revamped. Since the PAAB code was first introduced, there have been a multitude changes in the advertising world, the most important of recent years being the introduction of digital marketing. As a result, in an attempt to “modernize” the code, section 6.5 has been completely rewritten. A committee was developed, which included members of the pharmaceutical industry, who developed the section in collaboration. Responses received through an extensive survey conducted by PAAB a few months ago were also taken into consideration in the section revisions.
September 18, 2012
Is Pharma a Four-Letter Word?
The first meeting of the 2012-2013 season featured guest speaker André Picard, a health reporter and columnist at the The Globe and Mail, an author of three books and a six-time finalist for the National Newspaper Awards. The evening kicked off with a survey of the audience asking if they felt the media provided fair coverage of the pharma industry. Based on the results of the survey, André stated that 79% of respondents felt that the media was a 4-letter word! During his presentation, he set out to change this statistic.
May 15, 2012
Charting the Course for the Pharmaceutical Industry
At this final meeting of the 2011-2012 PMCQ season, the evening’s moderator, Dan Léger (Senior Director of Marketing at Lundbeck Canada Inc. and President of PMCQ), led us through a “state of the nation” discussion with a panel consisting of presidents and vice-presidents from Montreal’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Active participation was encouraged from the audience, in the form of burning questions to pose to the panel. The evening provided the opportunity for attendees to come together as members of the pharmaceutical industry to discuss, exchange and learn from each other with respect to the challenges that our industry is currently facing.
April 17, 2012
Join the Debate! Loss-of-Exclusivity (LoE) Strategies
To LoE or not to LoE, and which strategy to choose? That is the question.
Dany Hallé, Moderator
Our meeting moderator/”referee” Dany provided an overview of how the pharmaceutical environment has changed over the last few years. The recent dramatic shift in global pharma business has caused the Canadian industry to rethink their strategy. Of note, the pharma market has fluctuated over the last 30 years, but in 2011 it was at its lowest rate with a 1.0% negative growth. One of the reasons for this is patent expiries on many blockbuster drugs. Which brings us to our discussion tonight: should branded companies be looking at loss of exclusivity (LoE) strategies differently?
March 20, 2012
The Evolving Sales Force and its Implications for the Marketing Mix: What We Can Learn and Not Learn from Other Industries
A Hiker Comes to a Fork in the Road…
Which way to the truth? Who can you believe?
Smart money is on Jacques Gravel and Jacques Ferragne, who, together, presented an historical perspective of where the pharma industry has come from and where it needs to go to ensure its future in the marketing mix. As an industry faced with mounting challenges, Jacques Gravel pulled no punches by asking: “Is the pharma sales force model broken?” Yes, he went there. And by questioning the current situation, he presented an informative and ultimately hopeful case study of an industry at a crossroads that is ready to, as would the proverbial physician, “heal itself”. Where is the buyer (physicians) and seller (pharma companies/reps) relationship going? Depends on which path you choose to follow. This fork in the road has the well-worn branch beaten by the status quo, with its supporters championing the belief that if it worked yesterday, it will work today.
February 21, 2012
PAAB Wants You: Have Your Say in the PAAB Code Change
The PAAB Wants Me? What Do They Want With Me?
Relax…They just want to talk!
Ask industry people what they think of the PAAB, and you’ll likely hear a litany of anecdotes about how they’ve locked horns with one reviewer or another while attempting to get a key piece of advertising accepted. Some people tend to have a cynically adversarial view of the PAAB, while at the same time exercising exquisite civility in their dealings with this regulatory body for fear they’ll compound their issues. It brings to mind the relationship between a police officer and the motorist he or she is ticketing. But the PAAB wants to change that erroneous perception. They want YOU! Or more specifically, they want your input over proposed changes to the PAAB code. Essentially, they want your perspective.
January 24, 2012
The Future of the Québec Provincial Biopharmaceutical Strategy
Mobilize. Innovate. Prosper. Wise words for the future. But are Pharma’s strong points - an immense pool of talent and a great infrastructure - enough to survive and succeed in the new global reality?
Joseph Atallah, moderator and VP of PMCQ, welcomed the audience to the second half of the season at this Shire-sponsored event. Guest speakers for this excellent program, Marc Leduc, Director General of the Coordination and Sectoral Intervention Branch of the Government of Québec, Claude Perron, General Manager of Shire Canada, and Walter Robinson, Vice President of Government Affairs, Rx&D, gave their perspectives on the direction in which Québec’s Pharma industry is heading.
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