Calcium 2023

Calcium

245 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10019 • The Curtis Center, 250-S Independence Square West, Philadelphia, PA 19106 

429 Lenox Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139 • 315 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94104 

215-238-8500 • [email protected]CalciumUSA.com

Accounts

  • Account wins: 7
  • Active business clients: 19

Brands by 2022 sales

  • Brand-product accounts held: 29
  • $25 million or less: 3
  • $25 million-$50 million: 3
  • $50 million-$100 million: 6
  • $100 million-$500 million: 7
  • $500 million-$1 billion: 3
  • $1 billion or more: 2
  • Products not yet approved/launched: 5

Services mix

  • Engagement/digital: 75%
  • HCP: 55%
  • Patient: 45%
  • Brand strategy/Creative development: 25%
Calcium

Finalist | Heart Award
At a time when food insecurity is a significant issue, Calcium continues to support The Great American Milk Drive, a program, launched in partnership with Feeding America and U.S. dairy farmers, that provides milk to families across the United States, in communities large and small.

Client roster

  • Acceleron 
  • Avion Pharmaceuticals
  • Blueprint
  • Bristol Myers Squibb 
  • Bryn Pharma
  • Chiesi Pharmaceuticals
  • Genentech
  • Harmony Biosciences
  • Incyte Corporation
  • Karuna Therapeutics
  • Nabriva Therapeutics
  • Organon
  • Pfizer
  • Savara Pharmaceuticals
  • Sumitomo Pharma Oncology
  • Stemline Therapeutics
  • Sun Pharma
  • Veradigm

Finalist

  • Heart Award

2022 was Calcium’s best year to date for adding talent and building capabilities. And executives say although 2022 didn’t start out with a bang for Calcium, the fourth quarter ended in a boom, with multiple new business wins.   

“2022 was an exciting year for investing in ourselves by adding talent and building multiple divisions to better drive our clients’ brands and businesses,” says Steven Michaelson, Calcium’s founder and chairman. “We created Calcium + Company to house these divisions.

Judy Capano, CEO, adds that “Calcium + Company is our brand architecture that leverages the DNA of nourishment across multiple marketing disciplines, allowing us to add relevant capabilities to drive our clients’ businesses.”

Recent accomplishments

Under the new overarching Calcium + Company, Calcium has introduced three new divisions. Two of these new divisions were introduced in 2022: Vitamin MD, a medical communications division led by Dr. Lauren Lazar, executive VP, medical director, and Brad Quosig, senior VP, growth and client engagement; and PRotein, a public relations division helmed by Stacey Gandler, a new addition as managing director, PR and brand ideation. In early 2023 Calcium + Company launched Amino, a dedicated oncology marketing division headed up by Josh Righter, associate managing director, a Calcium alumnus who helped build the agency’s oncology presence.

All these divisions sit under Calcium + Company, which is headed up by and Greg Lewis, group president. “Calcium + Company will serve as an anchor brand – expanding our model of delivering powerful, diverse, and integrated solutions that reflect the complex and rapidly evolving client needs of today and tomorrow,” Lewis says. 

The leadership team states that Calcium is known for its great work environment, as indicated by its inclusion on MM+M’s 2022 ‘Best Places to Work’ list. 

“We’ve built an agency that puts our people first and created a process where our people can fulfill their career dreams here at Calcium,” Capano says. “All they need to do is live the Calcium core values of commitment, integrity, and respect.”

Whatever Calcium is doing, it seems to be working, executives state. 

In the fourth quarter of 2022, the agency won six new accounts: Karuna Therapeutics, Organon (corporate), Stemline Therapeutics, Sun Pharma, Venatorx, and Viatris. In early 2023, the PRotein division won business from Pharma Two B and WhisperSom. The Vitamin MD division was awarded business from Averitas. 

As Lewis says, “We were very selective in choosing which RFPs we responded to in 2022, and luckily we were awarded very meaningful assignments that have set up Calcium for a growth year in 2023.” 

Other 2022 investments included the addition of talent in Calcium’s Strategy group, headed by long-time Calcium managing partner and Chief Strategy Officer Steve Hamburg. “Our Integrated Strategy Group expands our robust brand strategy expertise into other critical areas like medical and engagement strategy – further ensuring strategic consistency and driving superior results.” Hamburg says (who executives say is known to all Calciumites and their clients as Hammy).

In 2022 Calcium launched Avion’s Dhivy (carbidopa/levodopa), providing a new dosing option for people with Parkinson’s disease. Dhivy took home the Gold Award for Marketing Team of the Year in PM360’s Trailblazer Awards. 

Executives say Calcium and its clients continue to be recognized by their peers and the industry in general: I Don’t Have A Box, a pro bono campaign focused on expanding the race boxes on official forms and documents, won the Gold Award at the PM360 Pharma Choice Awards. Calcium’s HR department won ‘HR department of the Year’ from the Philadelphia HR Awards. And Calcium was an Agency of the Year finalist from PM360 and Med Ad News. 

With overall agency recognition came the recognition of several individuals within Calcium, including Michaelson, who received ‘The Lifetime Achievement Award’ from the PM360 Trailblazer Awards. Capano secured a spot on the MM+M Pinnacle Awards list, and June Carnegie was recognized for her creative leadership in her role as executive creative director as one of the PM360 Elite 100 and is serving as a judge for the 2023 Clio Health Awards. In terms of specific campaigns, the Gavreto HCP Digital Campaign won Silver at the PM360 Pharma Choice Awards.  

According to the leadership team, the sum of these individual recognitions was Calcium’s spot as a finalist in the MM+M Agency of the Year (with PE backing) category. 

In talking about Calcium’s individual and overall agency awards, Michaelson explains, “Awards can be perceived as self-serving. However, we believe they are a testament to our people and our clients. We wouldn’t receive any awards if it weren’t for them.”

 This year, Calcium moved to a new office space in New York at 245 Fifth Avenue. “We are very excited about our new space,” Michaelson says. “We’re in the same building where it all started, the original building that our first agency, Wishbone, was in. The space is being built out as you’re reading this and should be finished in the spring. In the meantime, the landlord has given us an amazing temporary space on the same floor. We are in it now, and loving it, and continuing to ‘Calciumize’ it.” 

Future plans

Building on our successful fourth quarter of 2022, Calcium is well positioned to continue our growth,” Lewis says. “We’re expanding our staff pool by 15 percent over the first quarter of 2023. We are excited to continue to deliver best-in-class work product by staying true to our operational pillars of agility, collaboration, and transparency.”

There is still more agency growth Calcium has planned. “We are currently in the process for finalizing a deal to acquire a med ed agency,” Michaelson says. “We will merge that agency into Vitamin MD. Our clients will feel the benefits on day one. Fingers crossed, when this is published that deal will be closed. We will continue to look for opportunities that will best build our clients; brands and strengthen Calcium while nourishing our people.” 

Philanthropy/citizenship

Nourishment continues to be a fundamental human need,” the leadership team says. “That’s why Calcium is proud to continue supporting The Great American Milk Drive. In partnership with Feeding America (the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization), The Great American Milk Drive delivers milk – and vital nutrition – to families across the U.S., in communities large and small. Together, Feeding America and The Great American Milk Drive deliver more than 44 million servings of fresh milk each year to families in need. That’s the kind of nourishment we’re honored to support.” 

Managers say Calcium partnered with a new nonprofit this year called Child’s Play, an organization that improves the lives of hospitalized children through the power of play and therapeutic gaming. Part of this partnership included the launch of a new corporate website.

Calcium continues to partner with Haven Kids Rock, a music program that empowers underserved youth at Mott Haven Academy in the Bronx, who have experienced abuse, neglect, or trauma. Calcium creates their branding and collateral materials for the off-Broadway production. “Some Calciumites even attended the show in NYC last fall for the first time since COVID!” executives say.

Calcium 2023

(top row) Steven Michaelson, founder and chairman; Judy Capano, CEO
(bottom row) Steve Hamburg, managing partner, chief strategy officer; Greg Lewis, managing partner, group president