New Chamberlain health agency

Chamberlain Communications Group has launched a new agency called SharedVoice Public Relations (SVPR), which will focus on providing integrated communications services to mid-to-small sized healthcare companies.

SVPR will be led by Reba Auslander, who will serve as executive VP, practice chair. Auslander has been an executive vice president at Chamberlain for seven and a half years. She joined the company after three years at Burson Marstellar, where she was a director. At Chamberlain, Auslander was the team leader for Pfizer's schizophrenia and bipolar disorder drug Geodon; Lilly's attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder drug Strattera; the Lymphoma Research Foundation; Eisai/Pfizer's Alzheimer's disease drug Aricept; and Novartis' age-related macular degeneration therapy Visudyne.

The new agency will function as a sister agency to Chamberlain Healthcare Public Relations, which is led by Jonathan Wilson, who serves as president, having replaced founder and president Richard Chamberlain last year.

Chamberlain Healthcare PR will continue to focus on global, science-based brand communications and issues management for big pharma, while SVPR "offers a more flexible structure for senior healthcare PR professionals to work with clients who may require a smaller scope of work but broader range of services."

SVPR is described "part brick and mortar and part virtual network of veteran healthcare PR professionals with the flexibility to respond to a wide variety of client needs where and when they are strategically needed." Its offices are in New York and New Jersey.

Auslander remains a part of the executive team of Chamberlain Communications Group, but will focus entirely on leading SVPR. Michelle Strier, a former Chamberlain VP, will serve as SVPR's senior vice president. Strier, who lives in Arizona, will focus largely on West-coast business development. She served as a VP at Chamberlain from 2005 to 2006 before departing for a freelance career. Prior to joining Chamberlain, Strier was a VP for more than five years at Manning Selvage & Lee.

Chamberlain Communications is owned by inVentiv, which bought the formerly independent agency in 2007.