Top Lunesta marketer leaves Sepracor

Medical Marketing and Media, Jan 2007 by Arnold, Matthew

TIM HEALEY, the marketer who helped Sepracor reap first-year Lunesta sales of $465 million with an unparalleled DTC campaign, has jumped ship and joined a small nanoparticle company.

Healey, who was executive director of CNS marketing at Sepracor, becomes SVP, commercial operations at Cambridge, Mass.-based Advanced Magnetics, where he will be responsible for developing and executing sales and marketing strategy for all products and candidates. He reports to president and CEO Brian J.G. Pereira, MD.

Advanced Magnetics develops superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles used in pharmaceutical products. The firm's key product candidate, ferumoxytol, is in Phase III multi-center clinical trials for use as an iron replacement therapeutic in chronic kidney disease patients. The company's other project, Combidex, is an investigational functional molecular imaging agent consisting of iron oxide nanoparticles for use in conjunction with MRI to help differentiate cancerous lymph nodes from normal ones.

In a statement, Pereira said: "We are delighted that an individual with Tim Healey's experience and proven track record in product launch and commercialization has agreed to join the team and aid us in bringing ferumoxytol to anemic CKD paitents. Tim is the first of several key hires in our effort to successfully launch ferumoxytol. We look forward to this exciting transition toward commercialization of ferumoxytol."

Healey's Lunesta team was MM&M's Marketing Team of the Year in 2006 and picked up a MM&M Gold Award in 2005.

-Matthew Arnold