Driven by a clear vision, Entrée Health New York continued its steady expansion in 2016, more than replacing two accounts with a mix of pitched and organic growth. President Andrew Gottfried attributes this to a winning combination: “We’re proud of having a leadership group that has one of the longest tenures in the market access agency world. This management stability is supplemented by our annually refreshed Clarity Council advisory board, our ever-expanding payer KOL network, and the promising new talent we are able to bring in as we grow.”
Adaptation and growth were the key themes in 2016 for Entrée Health Princeton, executives say, who add that the market access agency continued a trajectory of attracting clients looking to find a way in for their products to reach patients and providers. “Those themes permeate the everyday business of the agency,” management says.
According to agency leaders, Excitant saw an opportunity and pivoted to focus on small to medium-sized brands across the pharma, biotech, medical device, and diagnostic markets in 2015. “Our focus is on serving clients with brands with sales under $50 million, and the vast majority of our assignments are on brands with under $20 million in sales,” says Excitant President and CEO Mark Perlotto. “These small to medium-sized brands have significantly different needs from their agency partners in terms of strategy, agility, flexibility and cost efficiency. Those clients do not operate like ‘big pharma’ and they need an agency who understands that fact and approaches their brands accordingly while still providing the service and creativity needed to make their brand successful.”
Evoke Health finished 2016 celebrating its 10th year in business with double-digit year-over-year growth, eight new brand wins, and revenue surpassing $50 million for the second year in a row. Having come a long way from the small band of healthcare veterans and digital innovators that first founded the agency, Evoke rolled into 2017 with the confidence of an industry leader, according to agency managers.
“When FCB Health was founded with 16 people in 1977, little did we know that 40 years later we’d be one of the largest and most successful healthcare agencies in the world, with more than 1,600 people leading the way in innovation, technology, behavioral science, data, and creativity,” executives say.
2016 will be remembered as a milestone in Fingerpaint history, according to agency management. “It was a year of evolution and advancement, where changes were made to meet the challenges of the marketing landscape head on with a zeal and energy that told the world (and each other) that Fingerpaint is ready for whatever may come,” executives say. “With a new mantra to ‘Never paint by number,’ Fingerpaint planted its flag as the independent, people-first, client-investing, outside-the-line-creating, brand-activation machine.”
GCG Marketing is a 43-year-old agency owned and managed by CEO Scott Turner and President Neil Foster. According to its leadership team, Foster has been the visionary behind the agency’s healthcare focus, which began during the 1980s but grew throughout the years and was formally defined in 2003.
ghg | greyhealth group had another consecutive year of growth, fueled by breakthrough, multichannel agency launch campaigns, innovative medical education, healthcare-access programs, and cutting-edge health IT. “As a recognized leader in partnering with medical affairs for ‘pre-commercialization,’ ghg achieved high growth in our scientific and value-based communications,” agency management says.
With growth in revenue, headcount, and clients, 2016 was a strong year for Giant. The largest independent healthcare agency in the West made significant strides in building its business with wins in emerging categories, including cancer immunotherapy, gene therapy, and molecular diagnostics.
For more than a decade, Greater Than One (GTO) has made a name for itself as one of the few agencies that truly understands health care as well as it understands digital channels that have, for so long, served as an agency dividing line, management says. Agency executives say it may come as a bit of a surprise that this pioneer in media and digital today derives more than three quarters of its revenue from higher-level work that includes AOR assignments, launches, strategy consulting, and conference experiences.
