Former assistant general counsel for GlaxoSmithKline to visit Newhouse March 8

Mary Nell Cummings, former assistant general counsel for GlaxoSmithKline, will visit Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications on Tuesday, March 8, as part of the Newhouse Advertising Leadership Speaker Series. She will give a public address, “Navigating Treacherous Waters: Prescription Drug Marketing in Social Media,” at 6:10 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse 3. Her talk is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU pay lots.

During her talk, Cummings will address how a pharmaceutical brand can have a real and honest conversation in social media and how that conversation will likely be regulated. Cummings is an attorney who specializes in the development and protection of brands and their claims.

As former assistant general counsel for GlaxoSmithKline, she guided brands to strategic solutions involving advertising litigation, social media concerns and privacy issues and counseled on NAD (National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus), Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission matters, public relations strategies, claim support and clinical design. She was also counsel to the global innovation group that developed new products and new claims for consumer brands across the world.

Cummings has managed U.S. advertising, marketing and regulatory law issues for many national consumer healthcare brands, including Tums®, Aquafresh®, Nicorette® and Alli®. Prior to joining GlaxoSmithKline, she was a litigator with the national law firm K&L Gates (previously Kirkpatrick and Lockhart). In 2010, Cummings relocated to Central New York, where she is developing a marketing and regulatory law and public interest practice.

For more information, contact James Tsao at (315) 443-7362 or jctsao@syr.edu.