Dr. Candice H.
CEO, Founder, Board Member, BioPharma Expert at Hughes BioPharma Advisers LLC; Living Loud Living Long LLC
Biotechnology
Education: Mount Holyoke College - Boston University School of Medicine
Darien, CT, USA
Biography
Entrepreneurship is literally baked into Dr. Hughes’ DNA. Dr. Hughes grew up learning business operations and models from her family business founded in 1898. Recognizing the extreme rarity of her experience as a woman who has been a 5th generation family business owner and Board Member, she trains entrepreneurs and biopharma innovators, especially women leaders, through speaking engagements and corporate workshops.
As CEO and Founder of Hughes BioPharma Advisers, her 20-year-old management consulting firm, Dr. Hughes has been hired by half of the world’s largest biopharma firms as an R&D operations optimization and as a compliance expert to develop and get their innovations to market faster.
After personally experiencing challenges in getting needed care a post-pregnancy plus experiencing a lack of interest in women's mid-life health, women’s health became an even stronger focus for Dr. Hughes who, as a PhD neuroscientist, contributed to research and development of therapies for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and Alzheimer’s Disease, a condition more common in women. To help other women live healthy lives in mid-life and beyond, Dr. Hughes founded her mission-focused podcast and community, Living Loud Living Long, to train and advocate for 50up women to learn about menopause and healthy aging. As a graduate of a women’s college, Mount Holyoke, Dr. Hughes has long advocated for women entrepreneurs, women’s health and health equity.
Dr. Hughes is featured in Determined to be Extraordinary, a NYC Big Book award winner 2024 giving girls diverse role models in STEM careers.
Dr. Hughes has been conference Chair and Speaker for DIA Global Annual Meeting and speaker for Boston University Questrom School of Business, the Healthcare Business Women’s Association Annual Meeting, Health Tech Venture Network, The Boston Entrepreneur’s Network, and other events. She is published in Forbes, the American Management Association, Huffington Post and more.
Dr. Hughes conducts paid biopharma Corporate webinars. https://events.zoom.us/eo/AvIeGgVC5HCNOrqvx7zatavBexPDunR9t_Ha4XnPeyX_phHhSYQP~AggLXsr32QYFjq8BlYLZ5I06Dg
She is the author of the Small Business Rocket Fuel e-book series on Amazon.
Dr. Hughes' podcast "L4: Living Loud Living Long" teaching women's health for 50up women is available on all major podcast channels https://livingloudlivinglong.podbean.com/.
Passion
My passion is finding new ways to help women live healthier. Supporting women throughout their lives with healthy well living is so important to me because I nearly died from a misdiagnosis when I was not heard by my healthcare providers as a woman following my pregnancy. Women in mid-life get caught as the sandwich generation between aging parents, teens, and senior leadership high pressure roles. Through my mission-focused startup, Living Loud Living Long, I teach preventative women's health to mid-life women and beyond. Topics like Menopause to Menopower & Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask. My teachings are based on personal experience, being a PhD in Neuroscience with peer reviewed publications on dementia, and 30+ years developing medicines including women's health and aging.
Featured Video
I am willing to travel
More than 100 miles
When it comes to payments
I generally get paid for speaking but make exceptions
Topics
Best Story
What does lack of health equity look like? Let me show you. Shortly after giving birth to my son in my early 30s, I woke up with shooting pains up my arms and short of breath. I was so weak, I could hardly walk up my driveway. I called an ambulance. Upon arrival at the emergency room, I was told I was having a panic attack, despite never having had one (or any mental health concerns) before. I had been getting weaker and weaker for months. I could hardly sleep. I couldn't lift my infant son. Several healthcare providers dismissed my concerns. After landing in the emergency room several times, my primary care doctor finally ran brain scans, body scans, and dozens of blood tests. By the time my physician found out what was wrong, I could barely walk. I had just been prescribed a medication that would have killed me if I'd taken it. My health issue was common, especially after pregnancy. It was fixable with a cheap drug discovered in the 1800s. But doctor after doctor didn't look for this common health problem because they couldn't hear my symptoms. All they heard was a hysterical new mother. If I wasn't a PhD neuroscientist who worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 2 decades, I probably would have died. Now I'm going to tell you how we can fix women's health and achieve health equity.
Origin Story
In the fourth grade, one of my teachers handed me a fossilized sea shell. I held it in my hand, awed that I was touching something 550 million years old. By the next year, I'd transferred my awe to what makes us who we are, the brain. I was the only 10 year old reading psychology text books. I was probably the only elementary student who knew the clinical differences between schizophrenia and disassociative identity disorder. Without realizing it, I'd become a geek. At the same time my scientific awakening took place, I was soaking up the entrepreneur mindset from my grandfather, who ran our family firm that was founded as a coal delivery business in 1893 by my great (4 times) grandfather who started life as a farmer. I was proud to become a 5th generation co-owner some years later. My other great-grandfather founded an Irish pub and was a property investor. Entrepreneurship is in my genes. Together, my love of science and exposure to entrepreneurship, essentially from birth, helped forge me into the geek/business woman hybrid I am today.
Example talks
From MenoPause to MenoPower: How Regain Control & Become Your Healthiest Self
Have you ever woken up one day and realized your whole life has changed?
It creeps up on you gradually. You're in a frenzy of activity helping your kid apply to colleges, proms, graduation. You're deep into leading intense projects with 6 AM virtual meetings and midnight calls. You haven't seen your siblings or parents in ages.
Suddenly, you get a call that your father had a stroke.
You haven't slept more than 5 hours a night in weeks. You're sitting there on a call and suddenly fire rushes through your body. You're gulping water and tugging open windows.
Boom...
Someone changed the channel when your head was turned. You don't know what show this is, but nothing looks familiar.
No one prepares women for the menopause madness life Boom.
We can do better.
As healthcare providers, friends, family members, even as employers, we can provide support to help our senior women executives, family, friends and patients through this challenging time.
As a senior executive in mid-life, I live the reality of the sandwich generation- supporting parents in their 80s to 90s plus young adults while managing an intense career. Like most women, I was totally unprepared. Unlike many women, I am a PhD neuroscientist who researched and helped develop and launch therapies for conditions common in women.
In this presentation, I'll talk about important steps women can take to prevent common women's health conditions. How to deal with loneliness. How to set yourself up to get through menopause and into healthy aging.
I'm also CEO of Living Loud Living Long, a mission focused firm I started that teaches and advocates for 50up women. We teach healthy well-living methods designed for 50up women by women like them.
How Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Healthtech Improve Health Equity?
Dr. Hughes has worked on over 1,000 clinical trials. Over the past few years, these trials have incorporated more health tech. This exploded during the pandemic when remote options were needed.
Dr. Hughes' expertise in health tech gives her insights on how best to incorporate this technology. As an early health tech developer of an algorithm based app for kids with ADHD that was sold in the Apple app store, Dr. Hughes was one of the early innovators in health tech to help achieve health goals and provide metrics, especially in behavioral health.
What can we expect to see in health tech in clinical trials? How does health tech improve health equity?
a. Enhanced screening - Enables more older patients to be part of trial
b. Video confirmation of people taking medication (rural participation in trials)
c. Medical image analysis (skin cancer) in progress
d. Clinical trial processes & data flow enhanced
e. Wearables: blood pressure, heart (ECG), glucose, diabetes, temperature
The Future of Health Technology, with Candice Hughes,
Ellevate, Episode 76: https://www.stitcher.com/show/ellevate-podcast-conversations-with-women-changing-the-face/episode/episode-76-the-future-of-health-technology-with-candice-hughes-51601951
Put on Your Oxygen Mask: Women's Health Helps Women Leaders Lead Well
Women make 80% of family healthcare decisions but 55% of them prioritize other people they care for over their own health. Over 83% have had their healthcare concerns downplayed by healthcare providers.
How do I know this facts reflect reality?
After having my son, I came close to dying after my healthcare concerns were dismissed.
As a PhD medical scientist, I knew to push back. I said No to misdiagnoses. Eventually, I got the right medication and recovered. I went on to found 3 companies in the healthcare space.
Now I teach Women Leaders and Women Entrepreneurs what they need to know to lead in a healthy, sustainable way. We focus on 3 pillars: physical wellness, mental wellness, and financial wellness.
Women in mid-life are often Senior Leaders at the same time they're pressured by supporting parents, supporting children/teens and juggling team leadership with international travel.
I offer special learnings to teach preventative approaches for mid-life women.
Many of my learnings have come through my mission-focused startup, Living Loud Living Long, focusing on women's health in mid-life and beyond.
Listen to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
See our website for instant listens: https://livingloudlivinglong.com
How to Negotiate like a CEO
What do elite negotiators know that enables them to close deals with sought after partner firms, defuse tense situations, and sign fair term contracts? Negotiation is the most fundamental form of interpersonal communication. We all do it dozens of times a day. Yet many of us do it without thinking about how we're doing it and whether or not we can improve. Like all other skills, training, study and practice of techniques substantially improves our skill at achieving desirable outcomes.
You can learn How to Negotiate like a CEO from Dr. Hughes in a one hour presentation format, a panel format or corporate workshop. Dr. Hughes provides specialized training for biotech and pharmaceutical firms based on her 25+ years industry experience.
Example: The Boston Entrepreneur’s Network (ENET), Negotiating Contracts: A Critical Entrepreneurial Skill (panel), February 1, 2022. https://bostonenet.org/events/negotiating-contracts-a-critical-entrepreneurial-skill/
How Your Firm Can Survive Total Market Disruption in BioPharma & Healthcare
Healthcare exploded again in the news again this year. While politicians argue and endlessly debate healthcare reform, intense market pressures are already transforming healthcare. From digital health to health IT to artificial intelligence married with big data to the growing clout of the Millennials, healthcare will never be the same.
Everyday more and more of us are purchasing and using the latest technology to care for our health and our family's health. In fact, mobile health is expected to grow at a CAGR of 40% over the next 5 years.
Dr. Hughes is leading the transformation into holistic healthcare to take the market from Fractured Health to Total Health including via her multi-stakeholder hub, the Total Health Consortium. She discusses innovative ways corporations can survive and thrive in the coming market revolution.
Listen to sample Ellevate, Women Changing the Face of Business podcast: http://ow.ly/wNqL30ffijs
Listen to Innovation Women Speak, Ready for a Totally Different Healthcare, Mobiles Wearables: https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/16593/351075?