The annual PharmaTimes Marketer of the Year and Communications Team of the Year awards ceremonies took place on November 15 at The Tower Hotel, London, with a special addition for 2018 – the PharmaTimes Sales Awards.
This year also marked a particularly special milestone for the PharmaTimes Marketer of the Year Awards, which celebrated 25 years of paying homage to the skills, enthusiasm and passion exhibited by leaders in the field. Since its birth the competition has seen the most talented individuals in the industry test themselves in category-specific processes, designed to encapsulate developments and trends within the industry to ensure that it remains a relevant and highly respected benchmark of achievement.
The Communications Team of the Year also celebrated a ground- breaking year with more companies than ever before getting involved with the event, highlighting the strength and validity of the competition as it continues to gain respect and interest from industry-leading companies. As such, and with a broader range of categories on offer, 2018 also saw an influx of entry numbers with the highest number on record since it began more than 10 years ago.
This year’s ceremony also saw a welcome return of the Sales Awards, back after a two-year break with a fresh judging format enabling contestants to receive direct feedback from the very healthcare professionals they interact with on a regular basis, alongside live challenges and a written test.
Dr Hilary Jones from Good Morning Britain did a fantastic job of hosting the event, and was ably assisted by ‘Voice of the Balls’ Alan Dedicoat, who revealed the talented individuals and teams taking part in the competition as well as category judges. Finalists were congratulated on their achievements and asked to stand to receive a warm reception from the audience.
In between the starter and the main course, 18 year-old Hasna Virk, a patient with Cystic Fibrosis, took to the stage, giving a moving account of her life with this genetic condition – from diagnosis to ongoing management and what may lie ahead. Dr Hilary noted that Hasna’s story is a reminder of the positive impact that medicines can have on patients’ lives.
After the gala dinner, Dr Hilary welcomed to the stage Sabina Syed, chair of the executive steering group for the Marketer of the Year Competition, and managing director at Visions4Health. “At the heart of this annual competition is professional development which continues to be the differentiator from others as it tests candidates on their marketing and communications skills against their peers,” she said. “In this 25th year and to keep current we have introduced three new categories ‘Aspiring Business Unit Director’, ‘Aspiring Communications Manager’ and the ‘Charity Challenge,’ which this year was for Beating Bowel Cancer.”
“The Marketer of the Year competition is an exciting challenge to participate in as a candidate against others across the industry,” added Ana Matarredona, business insights & intelligence manager & marketing (Haematology) at Celgene, and finalist for the Aspiring Marketer category. “The experience gives you a very good perspective of your value and potential gaps. It is very useful to present to very experienced judges who give you their feedback at the end of the challenge so you can address your gaps and improve your performance”.
The first of the Marketer awards was handed to Bayer’s Priya Narayan, who took home Aspiring Business Unit Director of the Year, a new category introduced alongside the other, slightly adjusted categories, designed to increase the commercial focus of the competition and ensure it remains reflective of the increasingly challenging business environment. Thornton & Ross won the coveted Company of the Year award, due to its Cross Functional Team win and candidate Gee Gahir winning the Market Access Lead category.
The evening then progressed to the Communications Team of the Year categories and their winners, with a particularly highlight – and new for this year – being the Communications Team of the Year Charity Challenge, which was awarded by Luke Squires, director of fundraising at Bowel Cancer UK, to the team from Pegasus.
Luke’s colleague Leanne Thorndyke, head of marketing and communications at the charity, said: “We were thrilled to be chosen as the charity partner for PharmaTimes Media’s 2018 Communications Team of the Year competition. We are so grateful to all of the agencies who entered and put real time, effort and enthusiasm into their pitches. There were some great ideas and the day proved really valuable giving us lots of food for thought to help raise the profile of the charity and awareness of bowel cancer – the UK’s second biggest cancer killer.”
The Sales Awards then kicked off with Sunney Purewal from Scope Ophthalmics winning the Field Based Sales Training/Coach category, beating two candidates from Novo Nordisk to the post. Novo Nordisk was successful in the next category, however, with Mike Blacker being awarded Key Account Manager of the Year. The last award of the evening went to Paul Dickson from Sanofi Genzyme for Secondary Care Sales Professional, a category that saw the largest number of finalists competing with nine in total.
Daiichi Sankyo’s Gurpal Marway won Primary Care Sales Professional of the year. He said: “PharmaTimes has provided a fantastic platform where I was able to demonstrate skills obtained over my career. I would highly recommend pharmaceutical representatives in the industry to take part in these sort of competitions, as it is an opportunity to put your skills to the test, obtain further knowledge from like-minded individuals, share best practice and more importantly, celebrate success. Being a part of the PharmaTimes awards process has benefited my profile within the industry, especially due to how well recognised the competition is within the industry.”
With the last of the awards being announced, the ceremony ended with Dr Hilary congratulating all the winners, those receiving high commendations, and the finalists on their achievements, as well as their hard work and tenacity through all stages of the competition.
“The award ceremony was a captivating evening that celebrated commercial excellence for the first time by combining the sales, marketing, market access, communication and agency categories together,” said Mark Lawson, Pipeline Strategy Lead Mundipharma International and co-chair of the steering group for the PharmaTimes Marketer of the Year competition, commenting on the event.
“Our patient advocate also set the right tone in reminding the real reason we strive for commercial excellence. Congratulations to all the winners and I am already excited about next year’s competition which is set to be even bigger and better than last year”.
HIGHLY COMMENDED AND WINNERS
PharmaTimes Marketer of the Year
ASPIRING MARKETER OF THE YEAR
Winner: Amrita Bowry, Indivior UK Ltd
NEW MARKETER OF THE YEAR
Winner: Guy Palmer, MSD
MARKETER OF THE YEAR
Winner: Anna Buthee, Allergan
MARKET ACCESS LEAD OF THE YEAR
Winner: Gee Gahir, Thornton & Ross
ASPIRING BUSINESS UNIT DIRECTOR
Winner: Priya Narayan, Bayer
COMMERCIAL CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAM OF THE YEAR
Winner: Thornton & Ross,
Gee Gahir, Rajvinder Lali, Tahir Farhed, Lewis Bell and Janet Maclean
Highly Commended: Sandoz & Novartis
Sam Beavers, Clare Payne Hanlon, Louise Doshi, Conal Groves and Yasemin Aksoy
COMPANY OF THE YEAR
Winner: Thornton & Ross
PharmaTimes Communications Team of the Year
ASPIRING COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
Winner: Hannah Charleston, Synergy Vision
COMMUNICATIONS TEAM OF THE YEAR – CHARITY CHALLENGE
Winner: Pegasus
Chris Webb, Fran Knee-Wright, Amanda Azeez, Dan Rowland & Karl Kasparis
COMMUNICATIONS TEAM OF THE YEAR – NHS CHALLENGE
Winner: MHP
Rob Ede, Jonathan Sheppard, Esha Ahmed & Anna Reilly
Highly Commended: Pegasus
Kesha Tansey, Ko Lane, Joe Marshall & Max Puller
COMMUNICATIONS TEAM OF THE YEAR – INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGE
Winner: Publicis Resolute
Anna Hughes, Lauren Carter, Liz Mercer, Andrea Klinkenberg & Paul Williams
Highly Commended: Havas Just::
Beth Timm, Selena Dhansak, Caroline Smith & Hannah Clarke
PharmaTimes Sales Awards
FIELD BASED SALES TRAINER/COACH
Winner: Sunny Purewal, Scope Ophthalmics
ORPHAN/RARE DISEASE SALES PROFESSIONALS
Winner: Patrick Chapman, Pfizer
KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER
Winner: Mike Blacker, Novo Nordisk
Highly Commended: Jonathan Bawden, Flynn Pharma
SECONDARY CARE SALES PROFESSIONAL
Winner: Paul Dickson, Sanofi Genzyme
PRIMARY CARE SALES PROFESSIONAL
Winner: Gurpal Marway, Daiichi Sankyo
Highly Commended: Nilantha Senadhira Daiichi Sankyo
The executive management team is already making plans for next year’s edition of the 2019 Marketer, Communications Team of the Year & Sales Awards. For more information on sponsorship opportunities contact Anna Yeardley, anna.yeardley@pharmatimes.com or Luci Sargood, luci.sargood@pharmatimes.com, telephone +44 (0) 207 2406999.
