• by John Gaffney , February 20, 2003

BBDO New York has launched a new D-to-C pharmaceutical division. BBDO Health Work, a new division within BBDO, will be headed by Anne Devereux who will join as president.

Previously Devereux was President and Founder of Consumer Healthworks, one of the first agencies to specialize in direct-to-consumer advertising for healthcare brands. Subsequently, in 2000, she merged Consumer Healthworks with Omnicom's Merkley Newman Harty to create Merkley Newman Harty Healthworks. Devereux will report to Andrew Robertson, President BBDO Worldwide and CEO, BBDO North America.

Robertson said the differentiating factor between BBDO Health Work and other healthcare agency will be inherent in the name. "By naming the new division BBDO Health Work, we have made it abundantly clear that our focus and plan is to create the most focused, motivating, breakthrough and results-driven work in the category,” he said.

Will be joined by Jeremy Meilman, who will be Senior Account Planner, responsible for strategic planning. Meilman joins from Hill Holliday, where he helped start the agency's healthcare division. Prior to that, he worked in South Africa, where he co-founded and was strategic planning director for his own healthcare company - Fine Healthcare.

BBDO Health Work will be based in New York but will draw upon all of the resources of the BBDO Worldwide network including online, direct, CRM, public relations and more. It is projected to become a global operation. "I will be disappointed if we can't show evidence of growth within six months," said. Robertson.