DIA’s chief exec is on a mission to grow its footprint across healthcare

As the Drug Information Association (DIA) approaches 60 years in business, the organization’s new president and global chief executive, Marwan Fathallah, is expanding horizons — and he’s starting with the acronym.

The “D” will now stand for a collective of drug, device, diagnostic and digital, and the “I” will indicate innovation, Fathallah said.

“I don’t think there’s any business organization out there that is driven to the total continuum of healthcare as much as DIA is,” said Fathallah, who has been in the life sciences industry for three decades and run the gamut of executive roles in R&D, manufacturing, business development, regulatory quality and more. Most recently, Fathallah served as operating officer and executive vice president at Ortho Clinical Diagnostics before joining DIA in January.

At DIA’s annual meeting in Boston next week, Fathallah and his team plan to discuss how the industry can build bridges to the future of healthcare, gathering influential leaders from across the field to not just illustrate what patients need but how to get there. Fathallah says that he wants attendees to leave the conference feeling like they were “in the Olympics of science.”

“It’s a global event, where you are tackling bold topics and a variety of things on the cutting edge,” Fathallah said. “And then also you’re tackling what it takes to bring something from an innovative idea to something that will help somebody’s well being.”

Here, Fathallah talks about the role that DIA has played in the past, its plans for the future, challenges faced by the healthcare industry and why a broader approach for the organization is a recipe for success.

This interview has been edited for brevity and style.

PHARMAVOICE: What do you see as the current role of DIA? And what are the shortcomings where you see the most potential down the road?

MARWAN FATHALLAH: I see DIA as the connector — some folks use the term broker, and I would like to build on that. A lot of my career has been on the commercial side, but now the asset we want to cultivate is people: someone who is in school, then they graduate and join the industry and they grow their career to someday be influential and solve real problems. I feel DIA should be playing a role in that continuum, and that’s an asset we need to cultivate. We’re going to be upping our game quite a bit to reach out to the younger crowd.

And then there are the big, bold problems — I think DIA can bring all parties to the table in cancer, ALS and other big diseases worldwide. Because of our depth and appreciation of the problems we’re tackling, we’re unique in that we are the connectors. The fact that we’re global and we cater across the continuum makes us unique. You’ll see us partner with other associations, maybe do some mergers if need be. What will define us moving forward is how we stay relevant and build on that.

What have you learned in the last few months at DIA that you couldn’t have learned prior to this position?

I’ve been fortunate to be on different sides of the equation — I’ve developed products, manufactured products, launched products, supported products, so I’ve gotten an appreciation for what patients are looking for. I’ve been fortunate to connect with regulators and policymakers and understand how to create a market, recognizing that partners at the table can be more important and significant than the product itself. That has helped me understand what we’re trying to do at DIA and how to attract all these parties. That is the anchor that I would build on.

You mentioned mergers as part of your expansion strategy. What kinds of deals would you be looking to make?

There are three imperatives for DIA. One is the continued investment in our foundation. The other is expanding our core set of products and services, and expanding in the Middle East, India, Korea, Australia, just as examples, where we’ve had a presence in the past but scaled back during the pandemic. So we’ve moved from hunkering down to accelerating growth.

The third imperative is new business opportunities. It could be as simple as perhaps finding synergies to develop something unique and help a partner expand their portfolio globally. We will soon announce a senior vice president of growth whose role will be focused on that strategy.

How do you work with other industry groups to fulfill the needs of the collective industry?

There are folks who are as motivated as we are and who have an objective not too far from ours to improve healthcare for everybody. My job as president is to reach out to my counterparts at other associations and connect (around) everyone’s interest moving forward. There are some things we do better than others; there are other things that others do better than us. I’ve already gotten a number of leaders who have reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, let’s sit down in DC over a cup of coffee and talk about how we all move forward.’ And DIA has the cachet and the legacy to make those connections.

At last year’s annual meeting, there was a lot of talk about diversity. This being June, what are the more unique challenges of fostering diversity in terms of the LGBTQ+ community in particular?