Documentary Film Shines Light on Physical and Emotional Impact of COPD
A new documentary film — Clear the Air: Opening Up About COPD — presents the stories of three people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The film was created by Emmy-nominated director Abbey LeVine in collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. The film chronicles each person’s story from the difficulty of adjusting to the challenges of living with COPD to working with their healthcare providers, and family, to successfully navigating their lives with COPD.
INC Research/inVentiv Health Becomes Syneos Health
INC Research/inVentiv Health has changed its brand identity to Syneos Health, signifying the culmination of a thoughtful merger combining industry-leading CRO and contract commercial organization (CCO) capabilities. The word Syneos (pronounced SIN-ee-ohs) communicates the value of synchronizing clinical and commercial capabilities to accelerate customer performance.
The name is derived from “neo," signaling a new approach to problem-solving and a new biopharmaceutical solutions category for the healthcare workforce.
“Syneos Health fully expresses our value proposition — that is, our ability to deliver integrated end-to-end solutions and create new paths for our customers to develop and commercialize their therapies," says Alistair Macdonald, CEO of Syneos Health. “Unlike traditional CROs and commercialization businesses, we are knocking down walls and enabling clinical and commercial experts to work in sync by using the latest technologies, advanced business practices and the advantages of scale."
Baxter Supports Mobile Health Program
Driving Your Health (Manejando tu Salud), a mobile health program supported by Baxter International Foundation and the global humanitarian organization Direct Relief, provided direct access to health services to more than 23,000 people in its first year of operation and indirectly impacted almost 140,000 individuals via medical consulting or educational resources.
Based on these results, the program is expected to exceed its three-year goal of helping more than 350,000 people living in disadvantaged communities in and around Mexico City.
Driving Your Health, which is funded by a $2.25 million grant from Baxter International Foundation, tackles three areas that are central to improving community health outcomes — basic preventive care, support managing chronic conditions and transportation assistance to get to and from hospitals for treatment.
FDA’s 2017 Drug Approvals
The Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) approved 46 new therapies last year. Among these are several first-ever therapies for rare diseases. These include: Ultragenyx’s Mepsevii (vestronidase alfa-vjbk) to treat pediatric and adult patients with an inherited metabolic condition called mucopolysaccharidosis type VII (MPS VII), also known as Sly syndrome; BioMarin’s Brineura (cerliponase alfa) as a treatment for a specific form of Batten disease; and Bavencio (avelumab) from EMD Serono and Pfizer for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC).(PV)
(Editor’s Note: To read more about rare disease trends, please turn to our Showcase: Rare Diseases in this issue.)
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HBA Names Woman of the Year
The Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) has named its 2018 Woman of the Year honorees. Julie Gerberding, M.D., executive VP for strategic communications, global public policy and population health and chief patient officer, of Merck & Co. , has been selected as the 2018 Woman of the Year (WOTY). During her time at M erck, she has mentored dozens of women and championed the development of the Merck Women’s Employee Business Resource Group (EBRG) strategy and execution. The HBA also named Nick Colucci, chairman and CEO of Publicis Health, as the recipient of the Honorable Mentor award; and Terri Pascarelli, CEO of AIT Bioscience, is being recognized with the Strategic Transformation Achievement Recognition (STAR) award.
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Contributed Article:
3 Things Health Care & Life Science Firms Can Learn from Amazon
Provided by: Indegene
Podcast:
Building a Collaborative HCP-Patient Relationship: Insights from Health Psychology
Sponsored by: Atlantis Healthcare
Webinars:
Just-In-Time Enrollment for Oncology Trials: Get to First Patient In Faster & Mitigate Non-Enrolling Sites
Sponsored by: Acurian
2018 Healthcare Predictions (OnDemand Version)
Sponsored by: InCrowd
White Papers:
The California Co-Pay Conundrum
Provided by: TrialCard
Managing the Unmanageable: Meeting the Challenge of Appropriate Safety Report Distribution
Provided by: WCG
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Awards…
Amendola CEO AMONG Top Women in PR
Amendola Communications CEO and Co-founder Jodi Amendola has been named to PR News’ 
list of the Top Women in PR for 2017. The award recognizes women executives who have made bold advances in managing crises, developing brand messages, protecting and building brand reputations, and creating content for digital platforms.
Boehringer IngelheIm Recognized by the Arthritis Foundation
Boehringer Ingelheim’s Respimat has been recognized by the Arthritis Foundation with its Ease of Use Commendation, which is awarded to products that make life easier for people with arthritis. The Respimat inhaler was designed to deliver the medication through a slow moving mist, which gets medicine deep into patients’ lungs.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Named One of America’s Most JUST Companies
Bristol-Myers Squibb was named one of America’s Most JUST Companies, according to Forbes and JUST Capital, a nonprofit organization that ranks the largest publicly traded corporations in the United States on the issues Americans care about most. The company ranked third in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector and 32nd overall out of 1,000 of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States.
Radius Health Wins Pearl Award
Radius Health’s Fractured Truth — an unbranded patient campaign aimed to educate younger postmenopausal women about risks associated with osteoporosis — won the Bronze Healthcare/Pharmaceutical Industry Pearl Award. The Pearl Awards are presented by the Content Council, a nonprofit organization representing content marketers globally.
