FCB Health Adds Kim Barke as Group Creative Director on Oncology Accounts

New York City-based FCB Health appointed Kim Barke to the role of group creative director to lead its oncology accounts. In this role, Barke will be tasked with leading creative on several high-science brands, including Imbruvica, while reporting to FCB Health Chief Creative Officer Rich Levy. Barke has decades of pharmaceutical advertising experience, and has worked on high-science and oncology products throughout her career. 

Barke joins the agency from the Biolumina spin-off Unified Oncology/WildType, where she served as creative director, copy, for three years. As a founding member of that agency, Barke was a driving creative and strategic force in developing the branding for Merck’s Keytruda, from its earliest communications to the latest launches of new indications. Barke’s scientific acumen was critical in focusing the attention of oncologists on the new PD-1 pathway mechanism that Keytruda represented in its award-winning scientific awareness campaigns. 

“Our HCP high-science growth has given us the opportunity to start a new creative group focused on high-science brands,” said Levy. “As the world moves to more complex compounds, like immunotherapies, the need for high-science creative teams has increased.  As in other parts of our business, we want to be ready for new opportunities, by having the right talent within our walls.”

“I’m happiest when I can bring together my background as a research scientist and as a creative writer, to help clients imagine their vision,” said Barke. “I also love people and am passionate about developing and mentoring talent.”

Before her tenure at Unified, Barke was a creative lead for numerous oncology launches at both Biolumina and Saatchi Health, with clients including Novartis, Sanofi, Regeneron, Genzyme, Merck and Eisai. She also worked as a medical director for imc2, helping Lilly to create integrated marketing solutions for Cymbalta.

In addition to her experience working for agencies of record, Barke was a pioneer in the field of digital pharmaceutical marketing. While leading the medical affairs departments for Spectral Resources and Harte Hanks Interactive in the mid- to late ’90s, she helped companies like Hoechst Marion Roussel, Pharmacia, Roche, Pfizer, TAP, Abbott, Merck, BMS and Genentech develop some of the first pharmaceutical websites, interactive sales training programs and pharmacoeconomic models. Her award-winning work for blockbuster brands, like Allegra and Prevacid, reached professional, consumer and payer audiences. 

Barke earned her PhD in pharmacology from Albany Medical College and her MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Before her career in advertising, she taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and conducted research at Union College, Marist College and SUNY Albany, publishing more than 10 peer-reviewed journal articles during that time.