Patients & Purpose: 2023

Patients & Purpose

200 Varick Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10014

[email protected] • patientsandpurpose.com

Quick Facts

Accounts

• Account wins: 5
• Active business clients: 13

Brands by 2022 sales

• Brand-product accounts held: 24

Services mix

• DTC/DTP: 50%
• Consumer interactive: 30%
• Social/influencer: 20%

Client roster

• AstraZeneca
• Bausch+Lomb
• Biogen
• BioMarin Pharmaceutical
• Corcept Therapeutics
• Eisai
• Novavax
• Novocure
• Otsuka Pharmaceutical
• Pfizer
• Provention Bio
• Takeda
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Patients & Purpose (P&P) is the health marketing industry’s premier patient agency, according to leaders. “For 20-plus years across 150-plus brands, P&P has been transforming the patient experience through digital innovation, data mastery, unparalleled insights, and breakthrough creative,” executives say. “It’s an agency that lives up to its mantra: no one knows patients better.” 

Leaders say P&P saw double-digit growth in 2022 and is poised to match that by “doubling down on its patient-centric, future-focused vision.”

“One of the things that’s made us an industry leader all these years is our commitment to evolving how we work, how we partner with clients, and most importantly, how we engage patients,” says Deb Deaver, CEO of P&P. 

Recent accomplishments

The agency launched a wide range of brands and programs in 2022, from breakthrough DTC campaigns to best-in-class patient support, leaders say. 

P&P President Eliot Tyler states that he’s proud of the agency’s diversification across therapeutic areas and clients. “Not only is it healthy for our business, but it also broadens our experience,” Tyler says. “And we’re able to draw on that to better serve brands and their patients.” 

Social marketing was a bigger part of P&P budgets in 2022, according to the leadership team, adding that 80 percent of the agency’s brands are deeply engaged in social. 

“Many of our brands are continuing to broaden their social horizons on platforms like TikTok, where authenticity is critical,” says  John Deely, director of digital experience. “Our end-to-end social center of excellence works with patients, influencers, and other creators to make sure brand experiences are authentic.”

Leaders maintain that historically, P&P has earned some professional work from brands impressed because of the agency’s work on the patient side. Because of growing demand in recent years, P&P launched a sister agency, Science & Purpose, with a particular focus on integrated HCP and patient marketing.

“Science has never been more relevant or transformative,” Deaver says. “By amplifying the science of data, behavior, language, and design, and bridging the gaps that exist in healthcare, we can have a greater impact on HCPs and patients. She adds that the launch of Science & Purpose also led to the newly formed Purpose Group that will continue to expand for client needs.

Structure and services

Leaders describe P&P as a  full-service agency that has a broad range of patient experience and expertise across brand building, creative, digital, and data. Executives say the awgency works on brands of all types and sizes, from pre-launch to post-LOE, rare to common, and DTP to DTC. The agency also has global partners across every area of health, as part of Omnicom Health Group. 

The agency’s offerings include centers of excellence (COEs) that executives state truly live up to the title. “Our specialized COEs get to the heart of patient needs,” Tyler says. “By pinpointing those needs, we’re able to bring in just the right expertise, when and how brands need it.”

Through the agency’s Emerging Digital Group (called “Edge”), leaders say P&P helps clients embrace the latest trends to create more engaging and impactful patient work. “There’s a lot to be excited about,” Deely says. “Web 3, the metaverse, virtual humans, and next-level AI tools, like ChatGPT… But our focus is on purposeful innovation. It always comes back to a patient-first approach that can create the most value for brands.”

Much of the agency’s work is in the digital space, so the leadership team believes experience design is a key discipline. Beyond best practices and design trends, accessibility has been central to the agency’s approach, which it calls Healthy Communications and Healthy Design. 

According to Dina Peck, chief creative officer, “Especially in healthcare, we need to be mindful of the needs and limitations of patients and those that love them. With a consistently expanding health literacy offering that includes language, accessibility, and more, we can turn barriers to engagement into drivers of it.”

P&P executives believe that patient services programs can be a difference maker for adherence and outcomes, and a differentiator for clients and brands. “With our Patient Services Experience team, we’ve created many of today’s best-in-class programs,” says Dana LaPiana, director of client services. “It all starts with looking at the bigger patient picture, which helps us take a more holistic approach to driving treatment success.”

According to managers, with its Equal Health Group, the agency pulls DE&I principles through to brand work, to help close the gap for underserved patients. “It’s important to understand each patient community’s unique cultural codes, lexicon, and habits,” Peck says. “Straight translations do brands a disservice, because they don’t properly account for cultural nuances. That’s a big reason why we advocate for cultural adaptation.”

Future plans

To P&P, meeting patients where they are isn’t going far enough. Leadership says a key goal for 2023 is to help more brands meet patients where they’re going – with data-driven, omnichannel experiences. “With our Emerging Digital Group, we can deliver the personalization and integration that patients have come to expect,” Deely says. “The key with omnichannel is to build toward it and make impactful improvements to your brand experience along the way.” 

DTC is another area where P&P will be helping brands stretch, according to leaders, adding that the agency has been redefining the broadcast model to help clients’ budgets go further by using connected TV, web TV, and even social,

P&P managers state that the agency has long seen social as a core marketing channel for patients, and in 2023, will be pushing brands to get more out of it. By leaning into partnerships with influencers and creators, the agency believes it can help brands extend reach, enrich content strategy, build credibility, and more deeply connect with patients. And with its lo-fi creator studio, P&P can meet the content demands of social feeds with authentic, efficient production.

The leadership team says it recognizes that timelines are increasingly crunched and the bar for breakthrough creative continues to be raised,  so P&P is responding by rolling out new processes for creative sprints and holistic ideation.

Philanthropy/citizenship

According to agency leaders, P&P takes its mission to heart so much that every employee gets a paid service day off each year, called a “Purpose Day.” They add that the agency is just as committed to DE&I and embedding it in culture. Executives say from talent sourcing to employee training, P&P has many initiatives designed to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace. 

In terms of pro bono work, P&P is particularly proud of its partnership with the New York City Parks Foundation, leaders maintain. “Something many of us experienced firsthand was the impact the pandemic had on mental health,” Peck says. “And with our Nature Heals campaign, we were able to open New Yorkers’ minds to a simple solution, right in their own backyard: city parks.”