Fishawack Acquires PRMA Consulting

From left to right: Jayne Sykes, Partner; David Sykes, Founding Partner; and Sotiria Papanicolaou, Partner, lead the PRMA Consulting team.

The life sciences commercialization partner has acquired PRMA Consulting, a premier global market access and health economics outcomes research (HEOR) consultancy working throughout Europe, Asia, and the U.S. The acquisition extends Fishawack’s reach from North America to the Asia-Pacific and European markets. PRMA boasts award-winning, cloud-based, digital applications, including the PRMA Healthcheck, PRMA Navigator, PRMA Tracker, and PRMA Access Accelerator. Fishawack Health intends to make these solutions available to all existing clients.

Fishawack Health Head of Consulting, Fred Bassett, stated, “Our goal at Fishawack Health is to give clients access to highly experienced experts who provide strategic direction, helping to make decisions that matter across the development and commercialization of portfolios, products, and services. The PRMA Consulting team shares our passion for solving the most complex and challenging healthcare problems in fast-evolving markets.”

Syneos Partners on a Clinical Trial Platform

Syneos Health, a leading biopharma solutions provider, is developing the industry’s only Decentralized Clinical Trial Operating System with Science 37, a company that enables universal access to clinical research. The platform will be designed to enhance decentralized clinical trial delivery by streamlining workflow orchestration, real-world evidence generation, and data harmonization.

The pandemic and improved technology have made decentralized clinical trials more popular than ever as sponsors strive to drive efficiency and bring trials closer to the patient. These methods engage a more diverse patient population increasing access for communities that have since been underrepresented in clinical trials. Science 37, part of the Syneos Health Dynamic Assembly network, offers a premier technology platform that makes clinical trials virtual through its flexible, on-demand network, comprised of patient communities, telemedicine investigators, mobile nurses, remote coordinators, and connected devices. Syneos Health will combine this technology with deep behavioral and therapeutic insights, agile technologies, and operational excellence.

“Increasing clinical trial access and diversity is a scientific, business, and ethical imperative as we continually look for ways to improve patient outcomes and eliminate healthcare disparities,” said Alistair Macdonald, Chief Executive Officer of Syneos Health. “Our powerful partnership with Science 37 adds their industry-leading platform to our Decentralized Solutions and, when combined with the mobile research nursing capabilities delivered through our Illingworth Research team, we’re able to open new pathways toward the long-sought goal of placing patients at the center of clinical research.”

Through this partnership, Syneos Health becomes part of the Science 37 CRO Certified program, designed to empower CROs with access, training, and commercial support to successfully deliver decentralized clinical studies at scale.

Precision Value & Health Acquires Across Health

Precision Value & Health, a commercialization services provider for life sciences companies, announced its acquisition of Across Health, a global omnichannel engagement consultancy focused on providing clients an analytical and evidence-based framework for commercial strategy, execution, and resource optimization. More than 40 pharmaceutical companies rely on their Navigator365 product suite for omnichannel planning and resource allocation. Now, the Across Health team is paired with Precision’s medical communications, creative, and data sciences teams to offer analytically driven launch and commercialization programs across the product lifecycle.

Precision Value & Health’s EVP, Physician and Patient Engagement Carolyn Morgan explains, “The cultural fit between our teams was immediate and collaboration began almost instinctively. Across Health is built around a family of proprietary products that helps clients optimize their go-to-market strategy and resources using a uniquely actionable analytical framework. Their expertise, plus the Navigator365, allows us to step into a new level of evidence-based omnichannel customer engagement that will drive better decision making, and even greater success, for our clients.”

W2O Transforms into New Company Called Real Chemistry

The well-known, 20-year-old healthcare marketing and communications agency, W2O, has become a new kind of healthcare company known as Real Chemistry. The company is addressing rapidly changing areas of healthcare innovation, including digitization, consumerization, and value-based care, as a unified “health innovation company” that combines award-winning expert services in digital marketing, creative, and communications with clinical trial, health economics and outcomes, as well as value, pricing, and access advisory expertise. These services are powered by proprietary data and technology that deliver comprehensive health solutions.

“For 20 years, our work and our passion have been about making the world a healthier place for all,” states Jim Weiss, CEO and Founder of W2O and now, Real Chemistry. “Innovation in healthcare has never been faster or more important. The pandemic has shown us that communications plays a more vital role than ever to ensure life-changing healthcare solutions get to the right person at the right time and place. That is why this moment is about so much more than a new name or approach. It’s about how our ethos of action, our two decades of intentional evolution, and our drive for constant improvement helped us create what we see as the real chemistry between people and the brands born to change their lives.”

Calcium Expands to Miami, Florida

The full-service, independent healthcare marketing agency announced the opening of a new office in Miami. The move highlights the firm’s strategic operations plan in the wake of COVID-19.

Calcium Founder and CEO Steven Michaelson said, “The agency has thrived since going fully remote during the pandemic, but we’re excited to return to in-person interaction, as it becomes safe to do so, with our client partners. We’re thrilled to take advantage of a fresh talent pool and offer our existing talent a southern home base.”

Julie Tripi, SVP, Global Client Lead is relocating to oversee the Miami office, with plans to connect the agency’s education and advertising to the Spanish-speaking and Latino community. Miami is Calcium’s fourth office, adding to its existing offices in New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

Genentech’s New Diversity Strategy

Quita Highsmith, Genentech Chief Diversity Officer

The pharma giant promised to deliver on its findings from last year that one in three people in marginalized communities avoid participating in clinical trials, shun vaccines, and reject testing because they don’t trust the industry. They’re now planning to double the number of Black and Latinx directors and officers in leadership positions by 2025 and committing $1 billion in spending with diverse suppliers.

Quita Highsmith, Genentech’s Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, vowed to act on the 2020 survey’s unacceptable findings, and said in a statement that she will lead changes to make patients “feel valued, respected, and understood. We must give them reasons to believe in the healthcare system. Until then, health equity cannot be achieved.”

Genentech has had success implementing diversity changes before. Its 10-year commitment to increasing the number of women in leadership roles and creating gender pay equity practices has resulted in 43% officer level representation by women, up from 24% in 2010. And their pay rates are almost equal today, with women making 99.6 cents for every dollar men earn and employees of color earning 99.5 cents for every dollar white employees make.

Highsmith’s new plan focuses on encouraging belonging, addressing health inequity—especially in clinical research—and reaching out to diverse communities. Genentech has already been increasing its outreach, having spent $90 million last year, its highest annual amount to date, on patient support, STEM education, and health equity programs.

Red Havas Health Has Arrived

Havas Health & You has launched Red Havas Health, a global micro-network focused on health, bringing together HCPs from their network spanning the U.S., Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines, as well as Havas Health PR in New York and Milan, and Havas Life Medicom PR based in the UK. All agencies will now represent the Red Havas Health brand and follow the agency’s Merged Media approach, which integrates earned, social, and experiential capabilities with content at the heart. The new offerings focus on B2B and P2P (Person to Person), Consumer and Lifestyle, Purpose and Cause, Tech and E-Commerce, and Health.

“More than ever before, scientific innovation, technology and world events are transforming how we consume and interact with health information,” said James Wright, Global Chairman of the Havas PR Global Collective and Global CEO of Red Havas. “Backed by the Havas Health & You network, the new Red Havas Health brand will be at the forefront of the changing way we are learning about our own health and that of our loved ones. By uniting our fantastic talent from key markets, our new full-service global PR offering will provide clients even greater access to the best thinking, technology, data, and insights.”

In response to demand from clients globally, the new Red Havas Health offers a full-service PR suite, including full brand lifecycle communications; disease awareness storytelling; content strategy and creation; traditional, online, and social media; clinical and regulatory milestone support; patient/HCP advocacy engagement; cause communications; corporate reputation management; and employee relations.

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