LONDON—Burson-Marsteller has hired pharmaceutical communications veteran Kate Hawker as managing director and chair of both its EMEA and UK healthcare practices.

Hawker joins BM from the InforMed group of medical communications companies where she was business development director for three years since launching the start-up medical communications company Medea as part of InforMed.

Before setting up Medea, Hawker was director and partner at Fleishman Hillard, which she joined in 2006 when the firm bought her shares in The Remedy, a medical communications agency she had founded in 2000, which was subsequently incorporated into the FH healthcare practice.

Previous roles include marketing communications director at OCC Medical Communications Group, director of medical communications company MediTech Media for four years, and associate director at Shire Hall Communications. In her career Hawker has worked on campaigns for GSK, Baxter, Takeda, Boehringer-Ingelheim and Bristol Myers Squibb, Seven Seas and MSD.