HBA celebrates woman of the year Jennifer Cook

The Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) came together recently for a multi-country event to celebrate its woman of the year Jennifer Cook and other 2016 luminaries.

The 27th Woman of the Year event took place earlier this month at the New York Hilton Midtown, where around 2,500 industry leaders came for a showcase of the HBA’s goals of further the advancement and impact of women in healthcare.

In addition to the central New York event, several European HBA chapters took part, with satellite events held at inVentiv Health’s London office, Roche in Basal and Thermo Fisher in Darmstadt. These events live-streamed the New York ceremony and joined the US at several points during the event via a video link-up.

Paying tribute to Cook, who is Roche’s head of pharma in Europe, Ian Clark from Roche company Genentech told the HBA audience she was one of the rare people to truly understand both the science and business aspects of the industry.

Accepting her award, Cook - who was chosen for the award thanks to her leadership, presence and savvy - noted at the ceremony that "inclusion is a rising tide that lifts all boats".

As head of pharma, Europe at Roche, Cook leads a workforce of 5,700 people and is responsible for enabling access to the pharmaceutical company’s medicines and driving commercial success across the region’s 28 countries.

She first joined Genentech in 1987 and spent five years working in research and early development there before moving to San Diego biotech start-up Prizm Pharmaceuticals.

Since re-joining Genetech in 1997, Cook has served in several increasingly senior positions at the firm including senior vice president of global portfolio management and senior vice president and US business unit head in its immunology and ophthalmology sectors.

Previous winners of the Woman of the Year award include Denice Torres, president of McNeill Consumer Healthcare, Shideh Sedgh Bina, founding partner and editor-in-chief of Insigniam Quarterly, and Bridgetter Heller, executive vice president at Merck and president of Merck Consumer Care.