News + Views
Con Franklin
Con is a senior healthcare communicator with over 18 years’ agency experience in leading corporate reputation, brand and issues readiness programmes for some of the biggest names in global medicine.
From 2011 to 2014 he led global communication strategy for Bayer and its flagship pharmaceutical Xarelto®from its phase III program to launch in the product’s first four antithrombotic indications, alongside the development of a comprehensive issues readiness protocol for management of potential safety and AE challenges. He also acted as the global-to-local communications link between Bayer’s German HQ and its UK affiliate business.
Across 2015-2016, Con led major workstreams for the EU pharmaceutical trade body EFPIA on outcomes-driven sustainable healthcare and defending the European pharma industry’s position on the price of medicines. Further healthcare comms experience includes worldwide virology communication strategy for AbbVie, global brand planning for Pfizer’s neuropathic pain brand Lyrica®, and extensive work with Shire for several years delivering worldwide data communication, KOL and brand strategy for its orphan and rare disease portfolio. Con has created reputation-boosting programmes for leading academic institutions including Harvard Medical School and the premier Swiss university EPFL, bringing their respective gene therapy, neuroscience and neuroengineering research breakthroughs to a wide global audience of media, investors and commercialisation partners.
He is a 2019 Communiqué Healthcare Awards Judge and a guest lecturer on healthcare communications at Imperial College London.
Posts: Con Franklin
The COVID Vaccine and the Case for Responsible Communications
by Con Franklin | September 22, 2020
The world-renowned Canadian immunologist Professor Sir John Bell has consistently been one of the most informative, illuminating voices in media interviews about the status of research and development toward a mass-scale COVID vaccine. In the face of difficult journalist questions—”Why not sooner?” “Why is it taking so long?”—he has often provided calm, dispassionate explanations around […]
The Changing Shape of EU Medical Device Regulation: Why Communications Should be at the Heart
by Con Franklin | February 19, 2020
The arrival of the European Union’s new Medical Device Regulation on 26 May 2020 may seem a dry, impenetrable topic, but it has profound implications for device-led businesses as well as opportunities for the healthcare sector to show leadership. Effective communication strategy is a must. When is a medical device not a medical device? Or more accurately, when does a consumer […]
Making 2020 the Year of Evidence-Based Communications
by Con Franklin | January 13, 2020
“We’ve gone from hardly any data to way too much,” the director of a global health advocacy organization told me over a recent coffee. I understand the sentiment. Twenty years ago, we typically based health PR and medical communications work on a heavy dose of hypothesis. We’d determine that an unmet need for information about a disease existed, and then attempt […]
Carrying the Cannes for Healthcare
by Con Franklin | June 19, 2019
I’ll admit it now – I’m a Cannes rookie. I was wholly unprepared for the dazzling array of opportunity, creativity and campaign brilliance at this annual gathering of creative professionals. Truly the latest and greatest in hardware, software and menswear. What’s been most interesting, however, is the broad array of business-critical issues in healthcare that […]
Batch Cooking Your Approach to Healthcare Communications
by Con Franklin | February 5, 2019
Forget sweating onions, in 2019 a good comms strategy is all about sweating your assets. I don’t want to stretch the analogy past its boiling point, but delivering good communications strategies often feels like you’re standing at the kitchen worktop with a bunch of fantastic, high quality, ingredients and the challenge is to create the […]
