The AXON team brings together a unique blend of real-world experience. Our backgrounds include clinical research, drug discovery, medical publishing, journalism, public relations, advocacy/NGOs, medical communications, clinical support services and pharmaceutical sales and marketing. This ensures we know who to talk to, how to reach them and how they communicate with each other.
We will bring the right combination of expertise to every project we undertake to ensure that you have the right people working with you when you need them.
AXON's Senior Leadership Team
Toronto
Chuck Johnston
Jane McCoubrey
John Howell
Michelle Muise
Shawn Patterson Baker
Montreal
Dan Brennan
Delyth Marsh
New York
Mario R. Nacinovich Jr.
London
Ralph Sutton
Miranda Dini
Emma Kenny
Barbara Byth
Natalie Henson
Toronto
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Chuck Johnston — Partner and Healthcare Practice Leader
As a Partner with AXON, Chuck works with clients to develop the most appropriate education and communication strategy to achieve their objectives. Chuck has more than 23 years of experience in senior management positions in the pharmaceutical industry. He has gained an in-depth understanding of the strategies and initiatives necessary to successfully launch new products in a wide range of therapeutic categories as well as to maximize the opportunities at each stage of a product's life cycle. Chuck has been involved in the development and implementation of numerous patient recruitment and retention programs and more than 75 investigator training programs. From 1983 to 1998, at Leo Pharma Inc, Chuck engineered the development and expansion of several key departments, including marketing, corporate affairs, and business development. Chuck graduated from Queens' University with a Master of Science (Pharmacology).
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Jane McCoubrey — Vice-President, Healthcare Communications
Jane McCoubrey has more than 17 years' public relations consulting experience. Much of Jane's career has been devoted to developing, managing and implementing public relations and communications programs for a variety of healthcare clients from pharmaceutical companies to non-profit health organizations.
Jane's current and recent responsibilities include counsel and account direction for a variety of clients, including Pfizer Canada (smoking cessation), GlaxoSmithKline (influenza), Novo Nordisk (diabetes), Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (childhood immunization), Eli Lilly Canada (erectile dysfunction) and Transitions Optical (photochromic lenses).
Prior to joining AXON, Jane worked for healthcare consulting practices at both small and large public relations firms.
Jane graduated from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, with a degree in History, and holds a Certificate in Public Relations from Humber College.
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John Howell, PhD — Senior Director, Scientific Affairs
With 10 years of experience in clinical research and healthcare communications, John has worked in a variety of therapeutic areas, including diabetes, obesity, hepatitis, arthritis, psoriasis, local anesthesia, and hemophilia and rare bleeding disorders. He brings to the team his scientific and writing expertise – a legacy of his BSc and PhD in physiology from London University, UK. After gaining his doctorate, John worked in the Clinical Biochemistry department and as a phlebotomist at Kings College Healthcare. Prior to AXON, John worked in public relations and medical education.
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Michelle Muise — Account Director
As an Account Director with AXON Medical Communications Group, Michelle provides strategic communications and program development counsel for a variety of pharmaceutical and health-related clients.
With both national and international consulting experience, Michelle's medical
communications and public relations expertise encompasses continuing medical
education for healthcare professionals, key opinion leader development,
meetings and conference management, investigator education, and materials
and content preparation.
Since joining AXON, Michelle has contributed to the management of a number of initiatives in various therapeutic areas, including hemostasis management, growth hormone deficiency, GI disease, weight management, nutrition and cardiovascular disease, and hyperhidrosis.
Michelle holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Marketing and a minor in
French from Mount Allison University (Sackville, N.B.). She also completed a
post-graduate certificate in Communications at Humber College.
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Shawn Patterson Baker — Account Director
Shawn Patterson Baker joined AXON Medical Communications Group in 2006. Shawn brings with her a wealth of experience in the areas of client service, strategic planning and medical communications, which enhances her offering in the healthcare market.
In her previous roles of account management, instructor and conference services manager, she has acquired the skills to understand clients' needs, engage a team and deliver an exceptional product.
As an Account Director, Shawn provides marketing, sales and strategic communications counsel in order to meet clients' objectives.
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Montreal
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Daniel Brennan — Partner
Dan Brennan specializes in strategic planning and media relations. He has worked on a vast array of communications services within the healthcare industry, including product launches, positioning of clinical trial results, consumer media positioning, media training, conferences, product recalls as well as various attacks on the reputations of companies or their products.
In the last 10 years at AXON, Dan has served Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Kimberly-Clark, Lundbeck Canada, Merck Frosst, Merck Frosst/Schering, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis and more.
Prior to joining AXON, Dan managed internal communications and media relations for DMR Consulting Group, which was the largest Canadian IT consulting firm up until the late 90s. He also held the position of Director of Public Affairs by Interim at Molson Coors.
Dan holds degrees in Mathematics, French and English, and has successfully completed the Canadian Securities Course offered by the Canadian Securities Institute. He is fluently bilingual.
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Delyth Marsh —Vice President
Delyth has over 20 years experience in healthcare communications. A strong believer in convergent communications, she has worked with national and international advertising and public relations companies for clients such as Merck Frosst, Pfizer, Novartis, Elli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb and Lundbeck Canada for therapeutic categories that include depression, Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, women’s health, asthma and arthritis.
A strong strategic planner and a creative thinker, Delyth has been with AXON for more than 10 years where she has overseen product launches, positioned the results of major clinical trials, worked with advocacy groups, designed and supervised the media rooms for major international medical conferences such as FIGO and HUGO.
Prior to joining AXON, Delyth managed healthcare clients for Burson-Marsteller one of AXON’s strategic business partners. She is fluently bilingual.
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New York
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Mario R. Nacinovich Jr. — Managing Director
Mario R. Nacinovich Jr. is the Managing Director for AXON US. He is also the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Communication in Healthcare. He was previously the Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development for QD Healthcare Group in Stamford, CT. Prior to that he served as Chief Growth Officer for Caudex Medical and Co-CEO for Fission Communications, part of McCann Healthcare Worldwide from 2001-2008.
He started on the agency side of the business in various account roles and was promoted to VP, Strategic Planning, Director of Business Development and VP of Ophthalmology at Ventiv Health. Mr. Nacinovich began his career in 1994 at Merck & Co., Inc. and served in various sales and marketing roles. He has presented and moderated several executive panel discussions at many national and international conferences, contributed to numerous articles, roundtables, and other types of publications.
He holds an undergraduate degree in Managerial Science with minors in Economics and Psychology from Manhattan College in Riverdale, NY. He is currently completing his Master of Science degree in Health Communication from Boston University in Boston, MA. He holds graduate certificates in Strategic Marketing for the Healthcare Industry from the Executive Education program from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management from Northwestern University and from the Institute on Political Journalism from The Fund for American Studies at Georgetown University.
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London
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Ralph Sutton — Managing Partner
Ralph Sutton is Managing Partner of AXON London, and brings nearly 20 years' experience of communications in the pharmaceutical industry. Ralph advises clients on a wide range of communications challenges and specializes in brand positioning, messaging and strategy development, issues management and corporate relations. He advises a range of both large and small companies in the pharmaceutical sector.
Prior to joining AXON, Ralph was MD of the European Healthcare Practice for Burson-Marsteller for nearly five years. There he built one of the largest pharmaceutical practices in Europe. In addition to brand experience, Ralph worked at a corporate level with clients such as J&J and GSK.
From 1992-1998 Ralph was based in Australia where he was M.D. of Burson-Marsteller, Sydney, with responsibility for the Healthcare practice in Australia and for specific client relationships across the Asia-Pac region. His remit included managing five practices, including corporate/financial, public affairs, marketing, technology and healthcare.
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Miranda Dini — Operations Director
Miranda Dini is Operations Director for AXON London, bringing with her more than 14 years' experience in healthcare communications. In her previous role as Managing Director for Medicus International, Miranda had overall responsibility for the 90-person agency, including both its London and New York offices.
Prior to joining Medicus International, Miranda's roles included Editorial Manager for Adelphi Inc., leading the CME activities for this New York-based medical communications agency, and Executive Editor for Vericom, a healthcare publishing agency specializing in single-sponsored publications for pharmaceutical clients.
Miranda has worked extensively across the healthcare communications remit, supporting message/storyflow development, developing and executing strategic communications/ publications/ PR plans, moderating internal and external meetings, KOL development and management programs, issues management, congress activities, and digital solutions, among others. Her activities have encompassed supporting successful launches for pre-/peri-launch brands as well as lifecycle management across a multitude of therapy areas.
Prior to joining agency life, Miranda was Managing Editor for the American Society of Internal Medicine. She has a degree in Journalism and Sociology from the University of Maryland, College Park.
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Emma Kenny, PhD — Director
Emma joined AXON London in May 2005 and has over 10 years' experience in health communications. She currently leads the Medical Communications stream and serves on the agency's management team.
Emma has worked with a number of blue-chip pharmaceutical companies, such as Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, Abbott, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline, contributing to the launch and life-cycle management of a broad range of products. She has extensive knowledge in the areas of diabetes, cardiology, metabolic syndrome, hemophilia and respiratory illness.
Key aspects of Emma's work include: strategic positioning and message work, publications planning and implementation, communications activities, educational programs, advisory board meetings and opinion leader identification and development.
Emma received her doctorate in immunology from the University of Oxford, where she also earned a degree in physiology.
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Barbara Byth, PhD — Associate Director
Barbara joined AXON Communications in June 2007. She has worked on a range of communications activities, including strategic positioning and message work, publications planning and execution, advisory boards, training courses, satellite symposia and standalone meetings. Current and previous therapeutic area experience covers the psychiatry/mental health, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular, endocrinology, hemophilia, men's sexual health and epilepsy therapeutic areas.
Barbara has acted as the lead on various projects at AXON, including medical education programs in ADHD, mens' sexual health and hemophilia, strategic consultancy, nurse education and internal communications.
Prior to joining AXON, Barbara was a Client Service Team Director at Medicus International. She previously headed the joint Research & Development Office of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust and the Institute of Child Health. She holds a PhD from the University of Oxford, and has published research in a number of basic science and clinical journals. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto and Hospital for Sick Children in Canada, she returned to London as the in-house editor for the journals Current Opinion in Cell Biology and Current Opinion in Genetics & Development.
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Natalie Henson — Associate Director
Natalie Henson rejoined AXON in April 2010 after spending two years with Fleishman-Hillard in South Africa. Natalie brings with her 12 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical and healthcare communications industry. After completing a Master of Arts in Visual Communications, Natalie held in-house positions with both Bayer Plc and sanofi-aventis, which included market access and key opinion leader (KOL) management responsibilities as well as sales training.
Natalie has extensive experience of providing strategic and scientific counsel, and directing medical education and clinical development programmes for a range of global pharmaceutical companies, with a career that has spanned patient advocacy and grass-roots communications, advisory board facilitation, opinion leader development, publications planning, educational programme development, and media advocacy and media relations programmes.
Natalie also has had significant experience working with healthcare NGOs (including USAID, PEPFAR and privately funded disease awareness programmes in South Africa, Europe and the Middle East), and patient groups (including the Hep C Trust, European Liver Patients Association [ELPA], National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society [NRAS], and Enhancing Children’s Health Outcomes [ECHO] in South Africa). Natalie was a driving force behind the success of the 2007 World Hepatitis Awareness Day (WHAD) campaign for the ELPA coalition of patient groups, and was instrumental in moving the programme to an independent initiative funded by a broad alliance of supporters.
Natalie has experience in many therapy areas including; cardiology, diabetes, gastroenterology, neurology, rheumatology and virology - specifically hepatitis C and HIV.
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