Chairman and CEO of MDS Healthcare Communications, Dr. Shen Fei Yan is a healthcare communication pioneer and China’s leading strategist in medical professional and patient/consumer communications.

Fei Yan was a trained MD and practiced as a surgeon in Shanghai for three years before making a career transition to join McCann Healthcare Communication in 1996 as a first local staff. He then worked as Managing Director of Euro RSCG Life China from 2001 to 2005. Under his leadership and management, Euro RSCG Life China becomes a leading healthcare agency in China. Given the vast amount of experience he has accumulated, Feiyan founded MDS Healthcare Communication in 2007. MDS has grown significantly in the past two years, with clients ranging from multinational pharma to local firms. WPP, the global No. 1 communication group, acquired 60% share of MDS in mid. of 2009.

During his 13 years marketing communication career, Fei Yan has worked on 80+ brands which span from prescription medications to OTC , from Tonic foods to baby formula, from NGO to hospitals. He also helped launch over 20 healthcare products in China, including Glucobay (Bayer), Heptotatin (GSK), Pegasys(Roche), Viagra (Pfizer), etc.
Fei Yan has gone from a career in the medical profession to a rewarding job in healthcare communication, he finds life in the advertising field to be challenging and exciting and in this interview he tells us the reasons behind this. FeiYan will give us an in depth insight into the healthcare communication in China.

We examine a healthcare community agency here in China and look at how the educational aspects of it relate to the consumers as well as the doctors. We also delve into what restrictions these agencies face when promoting their products and what the different roles of pharmacies are here in China.