Sermo news! Meet Sermo’s global compliance manager

To help Sermo meet the evolving needs of the healthcare industry and support the regulatory environment, Sermo welcomes Rebecca D’Ippolito as Global Compliance Manager. Rebecca joins us from Kantar Profiles (Health), where she held the roles of Senior Research Manager in Quantitative Operations and Global Healthcare Privacy Champion over the past 6 years. Rebecca brings hands-on operational expertise in regulatory compliance, pharmacovigilance and global data privacy regulations and holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from FASM and a Master of Science Degree in Political Communication from Royal Holloway, University of London.

We sat down with Rebecca to get the inside scoop on how she’ll be making Compliance a key pillar for Sermo in 2020 and beyond. Check out our Q&A below!

Why did you choose a career in Compliance?

I have always been attracted to the world of Compliance, perhaps for the same reason I was fascinated with politics during my university years. Both areas have the potential to have significant impact on society and business practices and are the embodiment of cross-functional alignment within an organization.

Given my years of experience as an active member of operational teams within Healthcare Information Service companies, I’ve seen the greatest success when Compliance is a core company value and built into all aspects of the product and sales lifecycle.

Why were you excited to join Sermo? Where do you think you can make the greatest impact?

Sermo strives to achieve a balance between regulatory compliance and results. Sermo builds upon it’s tech-first reputation to take a thought-leadership approach to the evolving needs of healthcare and HCP insights. In my role as Compliance Manager, I will work with key stakeholders to dynamically train, counsel and connect internal teams to keep up-to-date with the changing regulatory landscape, progressive technology developments and global needs of the marketplace.

Throughout my career, I have been intrigued by Sermo’s tech-first approach and have enjoyed getting an insiders perspective on the global platform for physicians to collaborate in making efficient, effective health decisions and medically crowdsourced diagnoses. In order to maintain this balance between technological innovation and data security, I’m joining forces with Sermo’s General Counsel & Technology Leaders to implement a renewed, robust and coordinated approach to Data Protection & Pharmacovigilance that will drive our 2020 Data Protection strategy.

What immediate impact are you looking to drive in 2020?

High on my priority list is the expansion of Sermo’s compliance vision to support growth and ensure we deliver physician insights in an agile manner while maintaining the highest levels of legal and ethical compliance. This proactive approach will enable our clients to deliver better-targeted therapies through actionable insights and analytics.  

I also am looking forward to building upon Sermo’s thought-leadership position by collaborating with key players in the healthcare analytics industry. I have recently been granted the privilege of becoming a member of the BHBIA Ethics & Compliance Committee, which is responsible primarily for interpreting and debating emerging regulations to help define how companies should respond.  My committee role will allow me to easily collaborate with the leading compliance professionals in the UK, and I’m excited to see what learnings I can apply to Sermo’s best-practices.

From a compliance perspective, what are some new / emerging regulations and themes that we should be prepared for?

The past decade has been a turbulent one for data analytics experts, and we can expect yet another eventful year ahead. Some highlights include:

  • Final draft of the ePrivacy Regulation.
  • In the UK, Brexit still lingers heavily, obligating businesses to organize resources for a ‘no-deal’ scenario with no agreed arrangements covering data protection.
  • On the 1st of Jan, the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) kick-started a new era of Data Protection Regulations in the US. Due to the lack of a comprehensive federal law, all economically driven markets are pitching privacy bills independently with over 16 proposals in line to be considered by Congress. Attention is now being focused on draft regulations proposed by Washington.
  • Another two substantial laws coming into effect in 2020 are Brazil’s LGPD (Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados) and Thailand’s PDPA (Personal Data Protection Act).

Check back soon for more industry-expert knowledge that will help shape how we think about and apply Compliance to our global market research efforts.


Hello, we’re Sermo! We appreciate you checking out our blog post introducing Rebecca D’Ippolito, Sermo’s Global Compliance Manager. We pride ourself on creating a compliant yet impactful platform for gaining physicians insights and driving engagement, so creating a dedicated Compliance Department was a natural fit. This exclusive content is built to educate our readers on industry-expert knowledge about Compliance to our global market research efforts.

We turn physician experience, expertise, and observations into actionable insights for the global healthcare community. Engaging with more than 1 million HCPs across 150 countries, we provide physicians with a social platform that fosters impactful peer-to-peer collaboration & discussions about issues that are important to them and their patients. Sermo offers on demand access to physicians via a suite of propietary technology to provide business intelligence that benefits pharmaceutical, healthcare partners and the medical community at large.

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