Several of the leading gainers among O’Dwyer’s ranked healthcare firms achieved their revenue windfalls through the healthcare sector, including Spectrum (+83.5 percent to $14.8 million), LaVoieHealthScience (+100 percent to $2.5 million), ReviveHealth (+12.6 percent to $10 million) and MCS Healthcare (+52.3 percent to $4.3 million).
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The year’s headlines were a mixed bag for the healthcare sector, including an unwanted focus and debate on drug prices amid Turing Pharmaceuticals’ exponential price increase for an anti-infection drug and the subsequent PR debacle of its smirking CEO Martin Shkreli. Few will deny regulations have ratcheted up in healthcare alongside costs, while companies squeeze research and development budgets to make the bottom line.
Firms have also found success in numbers and networking. Spectrum credited its torrid year in part to its participation in the global agency network GlobalHealthPR. Spectrum Chief John Seng, who also chairs the network’s Americas wing, said his firm benefitted from new clients of the entire network in 2015.
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While Spectrum showed unparalleled growth in 2015, few agencies cashed in on a strong showing like ReviveHealth, which broke the $10 million mark and was acquired by Weber Shandwick in January 2016. The B2B healthcare specialist, founded in 2009 and based in Nashville, credited consolidation among healthcare providers, especially hospitals, as well as pharmaceutical company mergers for the rise in healthcare communications needs. As Revive CEO Brandon Edwards put it, “Bigger and more sophisticated healthcare companies require more sophisticated marketing communication strategies, combined with the expertise to navigate the intersection of regulation, business, mission and social change.” Diversified offerings have also helped healthcare-centric agencies grow revenues, as well. Edwards noted clients are engaging his firm for work in the branding, marketing, digital, as well as PR spaces. A key win in the fourth quarter of 2015 among a spate of new client activity was Arcadia Healthcare Solutions, the electronic health record data aggregation and analytics company that tapped Revive as AOR.
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APCO Worldwide, which saw a 1.4 percent gain in 2015 to just under $120 million, saw digital health as a key new market in the PR sector and the firm aligned with Text100 in 2015 to form ATDigtialHealth, a joint venture targeting the space. About $30 million of its 2015 revenues came in the healthcare space. Issues like consumer privacy, varying quality in electronic medical records, regulatory changes, and a fragmented healthcare system are among challenges facing clients of the firms, what APCO CEO Brad Staples called the “digital health revolution.” The firms, which acknowledge they are unlikely partners with APCO’s corporate savvy and Text’s tech prowess, forged a bond in 2013 when they won the Blackberry PR business. APCO Healthcare Practice Chief Stig Albinus added that the digital health market is ready for “but also struggling with” disruptive innovation, creating a need for tech-savvy healthcare communications.
Life sciences has seen strong gains in recent years for healthcare PR as new technologies and products need communications to attract investors, consumers and research dollars. Boston-based LaVoieHealthScience leveraged its life science strength to double revenue to $2.5 million in 2015 with only 10 staffers. Agency president and CEO Donna LaVoie said her firm helps clients in the sector tell sometimes complicated tech stories to investors, journalisms, researchers, doctors and patients, as well as government entities and advocacy groups.
Another top gainer in healthcare was Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock, the Brentwood, TN-based firm that rose 21.8 percent to $7.4 million in 2015. The firm, which focuses exclusively on healthcare, added several key pieces in 2015 and continues to pivot from its niche roots to a more national base of healthcare business.
Dodge Communications, the Alpharetta, GA-based firm focused on healthcare tech led by Brad Dodge, saw an 8.7 percent climb to $7.7 million in fees for 2015. That came on the strength of wins of Caresync Partners, medCPU and Kailos Genetcis in fields like clinical decision support, care management and personalized, gene-based medicine. As senior VP Chowning Johnson put it, the firm works to create meaningful and compelling stories for clients to break through a cluttered (business or consumer) landscape. He also noted a growing, aging population and “rising consumerism” in the healthcare space have created a need for clients like CareSync, that make software and services to manage chronic diseases.
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Annapolis-based Crosby, which does a strong federal government business, including the Department of Health and Human Services, grew its healthcare and tech work in 2015 despite a 3.7 percent decline overall to just over $10 million. The firm finished the year hiring to make up for new business wins with the Dept. of Veterans Affairs and HHS. The firm picked up the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in September, the $3.8 billion, Maryland-based HHS unit, for a pact with subcontractors worth $15 million per year.
A rare off-year was logged by Cooney Waters Unlimited (-9.1 percent to $14 million), but CEO Tim Bird said the turn was not unexpected and more an anomaly than a downward trend. “Although we did not lose any key clients, some clients reduced programming and had reduced year over year budgets as a natural course of business, and some health education campaigns came to their planned end,” said Bird. “We are pleased with our current business momentum and new business wins and look forward to a strong 2016.”
Lo Isidro, senior director at Real Chemistry with more than a decade of strategic communications and PA experience, has joined Narrative Strategies.
Nelson Fernandez, former North American chair of APCO Worldwide and managing director of Burson-Marsteller, has joined Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires as director of communications and PA.
Lilit Bargar, who was most recently an EVP in the healthcare practice at Weber Shandwick, comes on board at GCI Health as EVP, corporate practice lead.
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