Shared Experience: From Blind Spots to Growth: Building Healthcare Marketing that Works for Women

Title: From Blind Spots to Growth: Building Healthcare Marketing that Works for Women

Date: Tuesday 14th April - 1:00pm

Location: Webinar

Event Overview

The systems that shape women’s health were not designed with women fully in mind. For decades, scientific research, clinical training, and policy have reflected assumptions that overlook female biology and lived experience. The problem is structural. It is embedded in how conditions are defined, studied and measured, which manifests as delayed diagnosis, limited treatment options and lack of urgency in care for women.

Healthcare marketing operates within these systems, and while we cannot rewrite them, we are not neutral within them either. We influence how strategy is shaped, how insight is prioritised and when women’s perspectives enter the process.

The Healthcare Communications Association (HCA) are partering with Cherry on this webinar that challenges brand, medical and commercial leaders to consider how that influence is used, and what changes when women are brought inside the process earlier.

Speakers:

Elinor Cleghorn - Author, Unwell Women

Elinor is a feminist cultural historian specialising in the history of women's health. She has written about the history of women and medicine, the gender pain gap, and issues stemming from gender-based health inequalities for publications including the Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, BBC Science Focus and Vogue.com, and she has discussed her research live on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, NPR, as well as on numerous podcasts. Elinor has also delivered talks for NHS initiatives focused on maternal and infant health, and given lectures for health service providers based in the UK and US. Her first book Unwell Women: A Journey through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World published in the UK and US in 2021, and has since been translated across the world.

Sihame Bahri - Global Marketing Omnichannel Lead, CSL

Sihame is a global marketing and omnichannel leader transforming how healthcare brands engage in complex markets. She leads omnichannel strategy and execution for CSL’s Nephrology and Iron portfolio, driving integrated, data-informed engagement at scale. With over a decade of experience across pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer health, she has shaped marketing strategy within women’s health, aligning brand ambition, analytics, and customer experience with the realities of modern care pathways. Sihame focuses on redefining engagement maturity in healthcare — challenging legacy commercial models and embedding adaptive, insight-led marketing that delivers measurable business impact.

Heather Van Der Merwe - Senior Leader, Cherry

Heather Van Der Merwe is a Senior Leader at Cherry, a specialist healthcare communications agency, where she partners with global pharmaceutical and biotech organisations to shape brand and portfolio strategy grounded in lived patient insight. Her most recent work focuses on challenging embedded assumptions in healthcare marketing and ensuring women’s perspectives meaningfully inform strategy from the outset. She is a vocal advocate for more honest conversations in healthcare and works closely with brand, medical and commercial leaders to embed real patient voices into campaign development, translating insight into practical, tangible change. 

This event is open to members and non-members working in health communications and related field. 

*non-members must still register before signing up*