After 15 years, the love affair still burns strong.

This February marks my 15th year with the company now known as Cencora. February is also synonymous with Valentine’s Day, which offers the perfect premise to share what I love about what I do. But let’s start with a look back. It was 2010. Matt Sarnes, a brilliant guy with Xcenda, had a brainstorm. They were creating pioneering health economic and value research and then handing over their work to a “creative” agency to develop the visual components for the team’s scientific findings. Why not bring everything under one roof? They needed a creative director to set the vision and build a business to complement their brilliance.

My first thoughts were, “What’s an Xcenda?” And furthermore, what’s market access? I was coming from the world of consumer marketing and branding. But I quickly realized this was an exciting and important way to wield my creative talents. What could be more fulfilling than helping appropriate patients gain access to life-enhancing therapies?

It was also where I first learned about the elusive and mysterious payer customer. I was told, “Oh, payers don’t respond to ads. They don’t like ‘Madison Avenue.’ ” I don’t know if I just like a challenge or wondered how this one segment of professionals could be immune to messaging that seemingly works on every other demographic, but I took that head on to learn more.

This is when I coined a phrase that guides every creative strategy I build today—“Payers are people, too.” They’re just like us. They have families. They have hobbies. They consume media both while working and in their leisure time. But as marketers, we were grossly underestimating our approach and limiting our abilities on how to forge meaningful connections.

One of the projects I’m most in love with currently is conducting breakthrough research on the changing nature of payer engagement. We’re examining a range of dimensions that help us resonate with payers more deeply than ever. In fact, if you’re attending Asembia this year, contact us for an invitation to a special event where we’ll showcase these new findings and how they can translate into more powerful payer engagement strategies.

I also love that I entered this industry at a pivotal time. Admittedly, when I joined it was shortly after the Sunshine Act was passed. After coming from a type of advertising and marketing where the sky wasn’t even the limit, I found myself in a world where there were restrictions upon restrictions. No cool giveaways. No splashy ideas. Even a sandwich luncheon was scrutinized. But there was also FDAMA 114, which offered hope that healthcare economic information could be shared. So again, a creative challenge in its truest sense. How to attract attention and convey information while also staying 100% compliant?

Entry into the industry also ushered me into a whirlwind of medical innovation that I think stands as the golden era of pharmaceutical breakthroughs. Cell and gene therapy. Biosimilars. Personalized medicine. And now, the advent of artificial intelligence. I’m blessed to work with brilliant minds exploring how payers think about and use AI in their formulary decision-making. Check out some of their latest research here.

?Loving the people I work and create with is also a gift not lost on me. We spend so much of our lives invested in what happens Monday through Friday (and sometimes the weekend). Loving what you do, and who you do it with, is essential. I’m very lucky to call my Cencora coworkers ‘colleagues’ in the truest sense of the term. They’re the smartest group of people I’ve ever worked with. Their devotion to ethics is exemplary. And their commitment to our clients and the patients they serve drives every action.

I love that I’m also helping invent new ways for our organization to feel connected via our culture, one that celebrates the central role each of us plays in stewarding the health of human and animal kind. That sentiment is the genesis of our new name, Cencora, and shapes our guiding principles and behaviors.

So, there’s a lot to love as I reflect back on my 15-year journey, as well as peer into the horizon. If collaborating with people you’ll love as thought leaders and creative colleagues interests you, contact us, and let’s share the love!

We’re value drivers and problem solvers. Contact us for a quick capabilities presentation, and let’s love on your market access goals.

This article is intended to communicate Cencora’s capabilities which are backed by the author’s expertise. However, Cencora strongly encourages readers to review all available information related to the topics mentioned herein and to rely on their own experience and expertise in making decisions related thereto as the article contains marketing statements and does not constitute legal advice.

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