The Pharma PR & Communications Summit West in San Diego is now in the books, which means one thing: It’s almost time for the Pharma PR & Communications Summit East in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Unlike the west-coast event, which is still in its relative infancy, the eastern summit is now in its 18th year. The event, set for July 18 to 19 at Liberty House, draws PR and communications professionals from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries – many of them senior executives – each year.
Indeed, around 30 percent of last year’s audience at Pharma PR & Communications Summit East were VP or C-level executives, according to conference organizer Michelle Benz of Fierce Life Sciences. “They’re there to really try to understand the challenges we’re all facing, and how we can overcome these obstacles together,” she explains.
To that end, issues expected to come up at the conference will include evergreen topics such as the best ways to measure pharma PR, to hot topics such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG), prescription drug provisions in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the best ways to handle patient advocacy. “Patient advocacy is a really important topic for this audience,” says Benz.
“How do we incorporate that patient feedback and patient voice responsibly, and not just as a buzzword or checking the box? We want to go beyond that and really dive deeper.”
Companies set to attend this year’s east summit include:
- Abbvie
- Amgen
- AstraZeneca
- Braeburn
- Bristol Myers Squibb
- CSL
- Forge Biologics
- GE Healthcare
- Gilead Sciences
- Horizon Therapeutics
- Merck
- Novo Nordisk
- Pfizer
- Takeda
This year’s agenda items include combating misinformation and bias in healthcare communications, employee engagement, how to avoid “purpose washing,” and tracking the evolution of the pharma industry’s reputation from before the pandemic to the present day.
Featured speakers at this year’s Pharma PR & Communications Summit East include:
- Christie Bloomquist, VP, AstraZeneca
- Susie Bunson Tappouni, VP, Amgen
- Kate Cronin, Chief Brand Officer, Moderna
- Victoria Fort, VP, Frontier Medicine
- Ed Harnaga, SVP, Pfizer
- Alex Kalomparis, SVP, Gilead Sciences
- Priyanka Shah, VP, Kinnate Biopharma
- Nick Shipley, Chief Advocacy Officer, Biotechnology Innovation Organization
- Johnny Smith Jr., VP, Roche Diagnostics
You can visit the summit’s website to preview the full list of speakers, agenda, and list of companies registered to attend.
