Ms.
Fisher is a seasoned marketing/research consultant, specializing
in research and planning and brings to her clients 26 years
of pharmaceutical industry, healthcare and government related
experience.
Following
graduation from Concordia University in Montreal with a
B.A. in psychology, Joan began her career working independently
in marketing research and shortly after joined the pharmaceutical
industry concentrating initially in the area of marketing
research and later in marketing and planning. Working with
three multinational pharmaceutical firms, Hoffmann-La Roche,
Merck Frosst and Rhône-Poulenc Rorer (Aventis), she
rose through the ranks to Marketing Research Manager and
Product Manager. In these roles she was responsible for
all aspects of management including planning, budgeting
and staff development as well as the procurement of outside
research and promotion services. Additionally, and more
specifically, she prepared and led others in the preparation
of business opportunity assessments, marketing and sales
analyses involving both primary and secondary research,
strategic marketing and promotion plans, sales forecasting
and long range planning, provincial government drug formulary
submissions and tenders as well as reporting to the PMPRB
(Patented Medicines Prices Review Board). Those with whom
she worked came to depend on her willingness and ability
to take on responsibilities beyond the intended scope of
her position.
In 1991,
Ms. Fisher joined the PSL Consulting Group, a pharmaceutical
marketing research agency, in their Montreal office as Senior
Consultant - Custom Division and later Managing Consultant
- Resources Division. As Senior Consultant she secured new
clients and maintained existing ones, helping them to identify
their primary research needs as well as plan and carry out
the appropriate activities to address those needs within
tight time and fiscal limits. The Resources Division, later
established by Joan, brought her clients a unique, reliable,
diversity in project management and resource support, much
appreciated in times of tight personnel restraints.
Three
years later the need for Joan's experience and expertise
became apparent on PEI with the passing of Bill C-91 and
the pharmaceutical industry's commitment to research spending
proportional to the population across Canada, depending
on infrastructures in place. With these opportunities in
mind for PEI, Enterprise PEI, an arms length agency of the
PEI government, commissioned Ms. Fisher, as an independent
consultant, to conduct a study on the Canadian Pharmaceutical
R & D Investing Activities and Decision-Making. This
led to further related work with another government agency,
the PEI Health & Community Services Agency, (currently
the PEI Department of Health and Social Services) to contribute
(planning, communications and marketing) to the development
of the Pharmaceutical Informatics Program (PhIP), and the
PEI Health Research Unit. The former is a computerized medication
information system, which electronically links prescribing
and dispensing sites on PEI while the latter is being established
for the purpose of conducting pharmacoepidemiology studies
as well as those of a broader nature in human health research.
Joan
is the founder and president of CJF Resources, an organization
specializing in marketing and research services. In this
capacity she maintains a strong network in the pharmaceutical
industry as well as with healthcare professionals and their
related associations/societies and licensing bodies. Her
extensive background in this area of healthcare and ability
to work with clients and healthcare professionals to explore
and define their needs has led to her clients' consistent
confidence in her contributions to their successes.
