McCann Canada has integrated its offering within its health practice, with the goal of further expanding its reach across Canada and work with clients across a broader range of disciplines.
The previously separate healthcare communications and pharmacy marketing practices are now being integrated within the McCann Health Canada brand. Pharmacy will be a practice that is now embedded within Health, and serve all of its clients.
McCann Health Toronto will be the country-wide headquarters for the practice, and there are plans to launch a health division in Montreal later this year.
Neill Brown will lead McCann Health both in Toronto and at the national level as EVP and managing director, alongside Susan Huggett, who will be general manager. Brown has been with the McCann network since 2006, with roles in Asia, London and New York before coming to Toronto as SVP of client services for McCann Health’s pharmacy division in 2017. Hugget has been president of McCann Health since 2010.
Sandra Carey, previously president of McCann Pharmacy, is transitioning into a new role as global president of McCann Health Global Pharmacy.
The goal behind the integration is to give all of its clients within the health space access to an expanded range of capabilities, so they might reach a broader base of healthcare professionals. It will also strengthen its own capabilities in a wider range of therapeutic areas and healthcare disciplines.
Some of McCann Health’s previous work in the Canadian market has been for clients including Prostate Cancer Canada, Merck-owned shingles vaccine Zostavax and Valneva-owned ETEC diarrhea vaccine Dukoral.
The news of McCann Health Canada comes following a leadership restructuring at the broader McCann Canada network.
That reorganization included the appointment of new CEO Simon Sikorski amid the departure of previous CEO David Leonard, chief creative officer Darren Clarke and chief strategy officer Mary Chambers. At the time, Chris Macdonald, global president of advertising and allied agencies at McCann Worldgroup, told strategy that the move was done to allow each specialized agency within McCann to pull resources from their global networks, as well as integrate around a client within the Canadian market.
