David Hunt, former CEO of Havas Lynx, and Global Chief Digital Officer of Havas Health & You, has launched a new independent health-care shop that’s been dubbed The Considered.

Pete Armstrong, also credited as a founder at the new agency and also previously with Havas Health & You, serves as Chief Creative Officer. The launch team also includes surgeon and entrepreneur Shafi Ahmed and Havas alum Aurora Archer.

According to Hunt, the pandemic has opened a “once-in-a-generation opportunity for pharmaceutical brands to harness record positive sentiment and ride the wave to unprecedented impact.”

To a large degree, that opportunity has materialized given the rapid and effective development of drugs and vaccines that pharma companies developed to fight COVID-19, elevating those brands to what Hunt describes as “hero status.”

Health-care brands, he adds, “need to realize that thriving in this hybrid and socially complex new world is going to require new campaigns, a new marketing mix, a new formula. It requires breaking the flawed rules that have stifled our ideas, and doing it with heart, wisdom and consideration.”

Hunt entered advertising at 18 when he joined Creative Lynx, a Manchester, UK-based digital marketing firm. He quickly became digital director, and then executed a management buyout at 25 — for a 50-strong agency that grew to 100. At 30, he was the CEO, growing the agency to 400 people. Havas acquired the agency in 2012.

As CEO of Havas Lynx, Hunt led its transformation to a global healthcare agency with year-on-year double-digit growth, and AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novartis among its global pharma clients. In 2018, it was named Cannes Lions Healthcare Agency of the Year.

In 2019, Hunt relocated to the U.S., where he took on a new role as CEO of Havas Health & You West, based in Los Angeles, and was then promoted to Global Chief Digital Officer.

“We need to fully appreciate the fact that health-care professionals, patients and consumers now have a much deeper understanding of — and greater confidence with — technology than they had before the pandemic. So, we need to create products and strategies that unlock this new reality and take this behavior into account,” Hunt explains.

The agency, currently with a staff of 75, will have “hubs” based in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, but will tap into talent globally as needed, depending on clients needs. It will also work with partners like health-care search specialist Performance.io and digital and social healthcare specialist Foundry3.