Rod Cavin is a principal with Health Strategies Group and the firm's managing director.

Rod has over 20 years of experience in health care and consulting. His area of emphasis is scenario and strategy development. He has written articles for Pharmaceutical Executive, including evaluations of potential Medicare pricing models and the future commercial payer landscape. Prior to joining Health Strategies Group, Rod was vice president of strategic development and marketing for Health Alliance Medical Plans and vice president for managed care at PCS Health Systems. In these roles he worked closely with public and private payers to develop innovative solutions to healthcare delivery.

Rod received a BA in pharmacy from the University of Iowa and an MBA from the University of Illinois.

David Rees is a principal with Health Strategies Group and leads the firm’s Managed Care Consulting practice. David has over 18 years of experience assisting pharmaceutical companies in developing brand and customer strategies to help them realize opportunities for growth and increased profitability.

Prior to joining Health Strategies Group in 1994, David was an executive with Merck & Co., where he directed marketing for several major brands and for Merck's hospital and institutional customers. He led strategy development and execution for products and customer segments, setting pricing policy, and contracting strategy for institutional customers. Additionally, he was a marketing executive in Merck's UK operating company and supported Merck’s strategic planning and business development processes. David is widely published in the industry and speaks at numerous pharmaceutical conferences.

David received a BA in psychology and economics from Brandeis University and an MBA from Cornell University.

Dee Prince is a principal and co-founder of the firm. Prior to founding Health Strategies Group, Dee was a health industry consultant for SRI International and covered the pharmaceutical industry as an editor with "The Pink Sheet." Dee's academic background includes a bachelor's degree in English from Lafayette College.

Rayna Herman is a principal and senior vice president of sales and marketing with Health Strategies Group.

Rayna is widely regarded as an industry thought leader on payer marketing strategy and sales force effectiveness. Her work has been featured in Pharmaceutical Executive, PM360, Pharmaceutical Representative, SPBT’s Focus, “The Pink Sheet,” the Wall Street Journal, and Selling Power.

Prior to joining Health Strategies Group in 1999, Rayna spent eight years in sales and marketing at Merck & Co., where she sold primary care and hospital products, conducted sales force targeting and sizing for new sales forces, and launched Merck’s strategy with organized medical groups.

Over her 21-year career in the industry, Rayna has worked on six new-product launches and developed payer marketing strategies for a dozen different billion-dollar brands.

Rayna holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Indiana University and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.

Bob Shewbrooks is principal at Health Strategies Group, where he leads the syndicated-studies efforts for commercial managed care organizations. Bob has over 20 years’ experience in marketing analysis on both the supplier and the manufacturer sides of the pharmaceutical industry.

Prior to joining Health Strategies Group in 2009, Bob was assistant vice president of customer and market insights at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. In this capacity he led the Primary Market Research, Secondary Information, Competitive Intelligence, and Management Science departments. Additionally, Bob was responsible for payer insights for the Healthcare Systems Department and commercial and pipeline brand teams. Bob began his career at Scott-Levin, where he led the managed markets function. Most recently, he was vice president of marketing solutions for TGaS Advisors, a management advisory firm supporting the pharmaceutical industry.

Bob received a BA in finance and an MBA from LaSalle University. He has taken courses in management, marketing, and international business at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Denise Woltemath is vice president of provider services at Health Strategies Group, where she leads services that maximize the interactions of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with physicians and other key providers. Denise led the development of the Oncology Performance Edge service, which advises leading companies on strategies for commercial success. She recently published a groundbreaking assessment on oncology office staff, “The Total Office Call in the Oncology Market.” In the last year, she assessed over 3,500 relationships between oncology representatives and their customers to identify what matters most in developing valuable relationships. She has been a featured speaker at the Society of Pharmaceutical and Biotech Trainers Annual Conference and at the Oncology USA Summit.

Prior to joining Health Strategies Group in 2008, Denise spent more than 10 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb, most recently as the regional vice president of sales. In that position she hired, developed, and motivated over 500 representatives and district managers. Other key accomplishments include developing a training initiative that doubled the length of an average sales call, directing a programmatic approach that extended the impact of promotional education programs, and creating a company-wide framework for opinion leader development. She brings more than 20 years of healthcare experience to the firm, having held leadership roles in pharmaceutical sales, managed care, medical device, and hospital settings.

Denise received a PharmD from the University of Nebraska School of Pharmacy and completed her clinical residency at the University of California, San Francisco.

Cheryl Nelson joined Health Strategies Group in 1996 and has 20 years of diverse experience working with 30 of the leading pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers. Since 2004 Cheryl has directed the firm’s Strategic Accounts service, which analyzes and forecasts trends in the health plan customer segment and identifies implications for manufacturers’ sales, contracting, and marketing professionals. This research includes in-depth analysis of the leading health plan customers—those that drive manufacturers’ business. Cheryl helped develop a proprietary model that identifies which manufacturer activities, skills, and resources best predict successful relationships with managed care customers. Cheryl has also led multiple client-private engagements for the customer marketing groups of many manufacturers as well as brand teams, including teams supporting antidepressants, allergy products, pain agents, and diabetes drugs and devices.

Prior to joining Health Strategies Group, Cheryl worked as project manager for a leading healthcare marketing research firm that focused on the medical device industry; she managed research projects for new product development for clients including IVAC, IMED, and Safeskin. She also worked as a systems analyst in the financial industry for five years.

Cheryl received a BA in history and mathematics from Merrimack College.

David Morton is a research director with Health Strategies Group, where he leads the Account Management Advantage: Managed Care service and client-specific consulting projects focused on measuring and improving relationships with health plan and PBM customers. David has 15 years of healthcare experience and has led projects focused on institutional and managed care customers. David is a featured speaker at industry conferences, including PCMA and Pinsonault. He is the primary author of “The Total Account Approach”, and has led groundbreaking projects on working with c-suite customers.

Prior to joining Health Strategies Group in 2001, David worked in the hospital industry in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He held various positions in the clinical laboratory setting and also worked in hospital administration for Baylor Health Care System. His experience in the provider sector gives him a broad understanding of both clinical and reimbursement issues and allows him to make focused, realistic forecasts concerning institutional and managed care customers.

David received a BS in clinical laboratory science from Tarleton State University and an MS in healthcare administration from the University of Texas.

Howard Flushman is a research director with Health Strategies Group, where he leads the Specialty Pharmacy Management service and client-specific consulting projects focused on the management and distribution of specialty and biotechnology products. Since joining Health Strategies Group in 2002, Howard has become an industry thought leader due to his in-depth knowledge of the complex and shifting specialty market from the manufacturer, payer, and provider perspectives. He has authored more than two dozen publications on the specialty and biotechnology market and is frequently quoted in industry publications on the topic of buy and bill.

Howard has over 35 years’ experience working with primary care, single-specialty, and multispecialty medical groups involving over 20,000 private-practice physicians. His roles have included vice president/general manager of CIGNA Private Practice Plan in Los Angeles; network executive of a successful IPA-model HMO in Dallas/Fort Worth; executive director of nine multispecialty IPA groups and 12 single-specialty IPA groups; consultant to single-specialty medical groups in cardiology, orthopedics, obstetrics-gynecology, neurology, and general surgery; and manager of federal grants and contracts for the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Howard received a BA in ancient history and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Southern California.

Nicole Stonewall is a research director with Health Strategies Group where she leads the Pharmacy Benefit Managers research. Since joining Health Strategies Group in 2007, she has analyzed more than 100,000 manufacturer/institutional customer relationships and advised more than 30 top pharmaceutical companies on hospital/health system trends, institutional channel strategy development, and account management approaches. She has authored numerous institutional channel and hospital field force effectiveness publications, including the groundbreaking, “Working the C-Suite: An Account- based Approach,” and is a frequent contributor to industry trade journals.

Prior to joining Health Strategies Group, Nicole was a market research director for Medical Marketing Research International, a firm focusing on key opinion leader identification, profiling, and segmentation in the U.S. and UK markets. Nicole started her career in education, teaching high school science, biology, and chemistry, and was an adjunct professor of algebra and trigonometry at Northampton Community College.

Nicole received a BS in biological sciences from Oxford University and an MS in Biochemistry and an MS in education from East Stroudsburg University.

Susan Weber is a research director with Health Strategies Group. She manages the Brand Access Analysis services, which include Cross-Category Access and Managed Care Complete. Susan has 20 years of diverse healthcare experience. Her expertise lies in studying the payer landscape to determine access issues across more than 30 drug categories. Her wide knowledge of and insights on brand access have made her a frequent speaker at industry conferences and national meetings and a frequent contributor to trade journals.

Prior to joining Health Strategies Group in 2002, Susan was a manager at Deloitte Consulting’s healthcare practice, where she led strategy-based consulting engagements for Kaiser Permanente, Blue Shield of California, and several large health systems in the West. Susan was also the director of marketing for Pfizer’s Northern California region, where she tailored product and customer marketing strategies to optimize sales across Pfizer’s portfolio and helped launch several drugs, including Viagra, Celexa, and Trovan. She was also vice president of marketing for BenefitPoint, an employee benefits technology platform.

Susan received a BS in finance from the University of Connecticut and an MBA from the University of Washington. 

Tom Martin is a research director at Health Strategies Group. He manages the prescriber influence services, which include Total Prescriber Influence and Sales Behavior and Resource Optimizer. He also leads the Oncology Performance Edge service, which advises leading companies on strategies for commercial success. Tom has 19 years of diverse healthcare experience. His expertise lies in studying prescriber influence and the interactions of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with physicians. Prior to joining Health Strategies Group in 2008, Tom spent 15 years with Johnson & Johnson. His significant responsibilities included forecasting, secondary data analysis, and valuation of new business opportunities for the antipsychotics Risperdal Consta and Invega Sustenna. As a strategic market director, Tom had direct contract responsibilities for seven managed care organizations in Central and Western Pennsylvania. He also guided a cross-company team of training managers to create a business acumen curriculum for sales representatives and district managers across six Johnson & Johnson divisions. Tom earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Drexel University.