Spectrum Science: 2024

Spectrum Science

2001 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, 2nd Floor, Washington, DC, 20006

202-955-6222 • spectrumscience.com

 

Quick facts

Accounts

• Account wins: 23
• Active business clients: 104
  

Services mix

• Scientific communications (PR): 53%
• Clinical trial recruitment: 20%
• Advertising: 19%
• Medical communications: 4%
• Consulting: 3%

Finalist

• Best Agency Campaign

“2023 was a year filled with changes, challenges, notable wins, and reminders of what makes Spectrum Science an organization like no other,” agency leaders state. “Being named North America Healthcare Agency of the Year by PRovoke Media and winning the Heart Award from Med Ad News were just two highlights reinforcing what makes Spectrum truly special.”

Recent accomplishments

Following the receipt of strategic investment from Knox Lane to kick off the year, Spectrum went on to increase its active client roster by 20 percent, bolstering work across all areas of expertise, including product and corporate communications, advertising, clinical trial recruitment, and medical communications.

The acquisition of CrowdPharm and Hot Iron Health in late November solidified Spectrum’s growing work in promotional engagement and advertising, and formally established the company’s strategic advertising and consulting pillar. Executives say the agency’s commitment to growth and new acquisitions continues to spur the company’s innovative structural evolution and positions Spectrum as a major strategic platform player in the industry.

Structure and services

Even as more specialized capabilities are added to Spectrum’s suite of services, leaders say the organization prides itself on a long-standing commitment to integration, collaboration and holistic strategic thinking for clients. Describing the agency as an organization that incentivizes collaboration over silos, executives say Spectrum is an independent, integrated healthcare and scientific marketing, communications, media, and strategic services firm focused on the pharmaceutical, biotech and broader lifescience industry.  With the year-end acquisition of CrowdPharm, a full-service healthcare advertising agency, and its partner consultancy, Hot Iron Health, Spectrum continued to add to its strategic pillars of services, which executives say is all designed to meet evolving client needs and demands of the industry.

These pillars include scientific communications, providing public relations, corporate communications, social media, issues management, advocacy engagement, paid media, earned media and medical communications; clinical trial recruitment, focused on patient engagement, recruitment and retention, paid media and social media; and advertising and consulting, providing advertising, brand marketing and strategic advisory services. Additionally, Spectrum Science Europe, based in London, provides integrated communications solutions, including public relations, corporate communications, and patient advocacy engagement. 

“Over the past several years, we’ve greatly expanded our capabilities – and clients have responded with rapid uptake of new strategic services as we’ve rolled them out,” says Jonathan Wilson, CEO. “As we continue to grow, it made sense to formally establish pillars that could really focus on scalable depth in each of these key areas that our clients value – marketing, advertising, communications, and patient recruitment – while staying connected and integrated on a shared science and strategy-first foundation. We feel what we’re building is unique among our peers and we’re excited to continue evolving in lock-step with the evolving needs of our industry.

A key part of this structural success came with the hiring of Amy Hutnik as chief commercial officer, an industry veteran known for building depth in commercialization, communications and growth capabilities at platform players including Syneos Health and EVERSANA. Spectrum also gained industry leadership with the addition of Mike Myers, who has worked in the advertising industry for 30 years and founded CrowdPharm in 2017. Myers joined Spectrum’s executive leadership team at the time of the acquisition in November.

Future plans

In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, life science innovators benefit from a strategic partner like Spectrum, who can support assets, brands, and portfolios with a holistic, connected approach,” agency leaders declare. “As the lifesciences industry continues to seek both innovation and efficiency – both internally and with strategic partners – Spectrum’s connected strategic platform offers rare insights that begin with the patient experiences at an asset’s earliest phases of development and carry through to interconnected engagement strategies for medical education, brand promotion, and corporate and organizational narrative. That differentiated capacity for expansive thinking has effectively made Spectrum an indispensable extension of client resources, real thought-partners, and uniquely capable of connecting dots across functions to minimize friction and maximize success.”

Philanthropy/citizenship

Under its “Spectrum of Good” umbrella, which encompasses its corporate social responsibility and diversity, equity, and inclusion work, all agency employees are encouraged to get involved in matters and organizations that mean the most to them, executives state. In 2023, Spectrum used the power of its voice and platform creating multi-channel campaigns and education around the Black maternal health crisis to coincide with Black History Month, taking a strong stance on gun violence as a public health issue during June’s Gun Violence Awareness Month, highlighted genderqueer and nonbinary brands, influencers, and resources for Pride Month, and continued to share its perspective on the importance of diversity in clinical trials. 

Spectrum has also been a longtime advocate for taking care of one’s mental health, leaders maintain. For its 2023 holiday campaign, the agency decided to lean into what it does best: turning complex science into engaging, informative, and digestible content, all while giving back. The campaign centered around a festive star, the Mental Elf, who shared tips and tricks to keep stressors at bay and spirits soaring during the holiday season via a microsite, custom GIPHYs, and an elf-on-the-street video. Proceeds from the campaign benefited MQ Mental Health Research, a global organization dedicated to investing in mental health research programs worldwide.

Spectrum also continues  its partnership with GoodToday, an online platform that sends employees a daily email with the ability to allocate a Spectrum–sponsored donation to one of two featured charities.