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Published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on April 12, 2000. All rights reserved.
Pharmas & the Web: Newton Group
E-mail: BarbaraFox@princetoninfo.com
My passion for learning is why we are doing what we
are doing,” says Debra Newton, founder of Newton Resource Group.
“I know the value of education and the value of access to information.”
Her healthcare digital media company has tripled its office space
with a move from Lambertville to Pennington and with growth rates
of 50 percent to 60 percent a year, it was listed as number 158 on
the Deloitte & Touche Fast 500 list. The Newton Resource Group offers
major pharmaceutical firms such web-based technology as intranets,
extranets, web-based training programs, and CD-ROMs.
Newton grew up in Dayton, Ohio, where her father had a tool and die
company. Two of her siblings are working with him now. “It was
the entrepreneurial spirit,” says Newton, “I lived and breathed
having a business and seeing the time and energy needed to grow and
maintain a company.” She dropped out of school and 12 years later
— by then single and with a seven-year-old child — went back
to college and graduated from St. Mary’s College, near Berkeley.
She did meeting management for the largest labor law firm in the country,
Littler Mendelson, and then moved east to do pharmaceutical marketing
for Carter Wallace. She credits some of her success to knowing both
logistics and production management as well as marketing.
Her oldest child is now a freshman at Northeastern University in Boston,
and she has remarried and has two more children, both school-aged.
“I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without the support of my
family and my extended family,” she says.
“One of the challenges is staying ahead of the technology curve
— delivering online communication to the pharmaceutical industry
when it is just starting the adoption curve, when the Web is several
years ahead of where the pharmaceutical industry is,” says Newton.
One recent hire: David Toub, a board-certified OB/GYN physician who
moderates a web-based women’s health forum for the Philadelphia Inquirer
(health.phillynews.com) and serves on the editorial boards
of Medical Economics Magazine and Obgyn.net (www.obgyn.net). “As
a physician involved with information technology,” says Toub,
“I was impressed by Newton’s commitment to being on the cutting
edge of delivering timely and accurate medical information. My sense
is that medicine is becoming much more integrated with the Web, and
I wanted to be part of that evolution.”
Newton Resource Group, 2425 Pennington Road, Pennington08534. Debra Newton, president. 609-818-0025; fax, 609-818-0045. Homepage: www.nrg-i.com.Top Of PageMega’s ExpansionSon and father, Mark and Michael Iorio, have mergedtheir companies — The Mega Group and M&B Associates — to forma new corporation called Global Marketing and Information Technology(GMIT). The Mega Group is a full service marketing agency, and M&BAssociates is a database management, mailing, and fulfillment house.The new hybrid company offers comprehensive marketing programs anddrug sampling for the pharmaceutical industry. The Iorios believethat GMIT is the first of its kind in the United States.The Mega Group was at Crossroads Drive in Robbinsville, but it hasmoved into M&B’s space at Thomas Rhodes Industrial Drive in Mercerville.The Iorios rehabbed the building and took 5,000 square feet for additionaloffices. Joseph Orban was the builder and Mega’s creative director,Lance Roman, designed the space in off white and trim of royal bluewith deep blue carpeting.The result belies the supposed success of virtual businesses, saysIorio: “The age of the Internet is in some cases overrated. Wehad the data team on the other side and our account management teamshere and there. But you’ve got to sit with people. The entire creativestaff is in the center of all the action in a huge converted bullpen,partitioned with five-foot glass partitions. Morale is sky high.”Mark’s father, Michael, was a 1958 graduate of Rider. Mark was a businessadministration and management major at Trenton State, Class of 1979.After working at GTE Sylvania as a packaging designer, productionplanning coordinator and buyer, he did commercial print work and designat National Compugraphics in Bensalem. He founded his first firm in1987 and the MegaGroup the following year. For the past 10 years hehas been doing projects with his father.”We design and develop materials and collateral and have commonclients,” says Mark Iorio. “A client might ask for fulfillmentand database — an absolutely perfect fit. My father’s businessis a huge service business, and it did a remarkable job of servicingclients.The new firm, GMIT, can take a marketing project from conception throughconsumer behavior research to product sampling and return on investmenttracking, says Mark Iorio. GMIT has wide experience in pharmaceuticalsand is certified to package and distribute pharmaceuticals in compliancewith the Prescription Drug Marketing Act (PDMA). Nevertheless, GMITcan work in any area as a “one stop shop” for marketing andproduct distribution.”In every corporation,” says Mark Iorio, “there is dataresident within those four walls. Yet management is not pulling therelevant information from that data so they can use it to market moreeffectively to their customer base. GMIT has a proprietary approach.We extract information from the data, build customer profiles, trackbuying habits, and anticipate future purchases. We then deliver theproduct and measure response — in terms of return on investment.It’s a comprehensive approach that’s literally one of a kind.”Accountability counts, says Michael Iorio, in a climate where discretionarybudgets for marketing have disappeared. “What our clients reallyneed to know is whether what they are doing is working,” he says.”We can deliver results and show them how to change behavioralmodeling in the process.”Global Marketing and Information Technology, 14Thomas J. Rhodes Industrial Drive, Suite 108, Mercerville 08619.Mark A. Iorio, CEO, 609-584-7400; fax, 609-584-1977. Home page:www.themegagroup.com.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
