Today's Entrepreneur: Dan Donovan

No. 1 Mistake: Not seeking external (user) feedback and storming forward to a solution

Today's entrepreneur is Dan Donovan, Founder and CEO at rareLifesolutions. 

rareLifesolutions offers integrated consulting services and software and platform as a service (PaaS) solutions for advocacy groups, pharmaceutical and device companies, medical and research centers, and professional healthcare associations.

rareLife solutions created onevoice, the ground-breaking encouragement and knowledge platform that can be customized for rare disease communities.

 Here's a little about Dan.

rareLife solutions, inc is Dan’s second software focused venture. Having observed the often fractured, though always passionate stakeholders in rare diseases, Dan was inspired create onevoice, providing rare disease specific “guided communities’ thoughtfully designed to address several unmet needs while improving disease understanding and accelerating research.

Dan was introduced to the world of rare diseases initially as an investor then as a member of the Board of Directors and Chief Business Officer at Cancer Prevention Pharmaceuticals (CPP), a late-stage pharmaceutical development company with compounds targeted at several rare diseases. It was through his involvement with CPP that Dan discovered how incredibly fractured rare disease communities tend to be and felt there had to be better way to help these communities who needed help the most.

Prior to rareLife and CPP, Dan established Envision Pharma in 2001, serving as President through June 2011. Mr. Donovan was the visionary behind the creation and development of Datavision, the dominant market leader in medical publications technology, currently in use in 22 of the top 25 pharmaceutical companies in the world. Envision Pharma was acquired by the United BioSource Corporation (UBC) in April 2008. At UBC Mr. Donovan was Senior Vice President Strategy and Market Development and a member of the Leadership Team that developed the strategic direction for the company.

Dan grew up in what he describes as the “glory years” at Pfizer when the company launched one blockbuster drug after another. Dan served in a variety of positions of increasing responsibility, ranging from sales to market research and marketing in the US domestic and international market place, culminating in his position as Director and European Team Leader for the world's largest cardiovascular portfolio living in Belgium. During his time a Pfizer, he played a pivotal role in the commercialization of some of the pharmaceutical industry's most successful product launches. After nearly 13 years in the pharmaceutical industry, Mr. Donovan moved to medical communications where he served as Director, Client Services for a large international agency.

Dan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance at Lehigh University, where he was a 4 year Varsity soccer player serving as Captain his senior year, and an officer in his fraternity. Mr. Donovan lectures frequently, most recently at Babson College on his "Road to Entrepreneurism" and at specialty industry conferences and webinars.

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