Healthcare

The term ‘healthcare communications’ describes a part of the marketing mix which is complementary to, but separate from sales, advertising and direct mail. There is a wide range of activities that will fall within the remit of healthcare communications. Broadly speaking these range from ‘public relations’ such as working with the media or disease awareness campaigns to ‘medical education’ such as clinical meetings, symposia and education resources for healthcare professionals.

Healthcare communications plays a part in most of the activities that support a drug through its lifecycle:

* Strategic planning
* Clinical trial recruitment
* KOL development
* Professional relations
* Product launches
* Conferences and symposia
* Data dissemination
* Disease awareness
* Issues and crisis management

Healthcare communications is a marriage of three areas: science; business and art. It is the combination of these three disciplines that often appeals to people and makes this career path a challenging and rewarding one.