Eveo, a 18-year old agency known for its digital chops, has been acquired by customer-engagement firm LiquidHub. Eveo will now operate under the LiquidHub banner as part of a new health offering known as LiquidHealth.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Eveo will combine with LiquidHub’s existing life sciences team to create the new offering, and no layoffs are planned as a result of the acquisition, the parties said. Olivier Zitoun (pictured), previous founder and CEO of Eveo, is now a partner at LiquidHub. He will lead the new entity with Hank Summy, LiquidHub’s chief revenue officer and partner.

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Zitoun said the rationale behind the acquisition was to marry Eveo’s creative and strategic expertise with LiquidHub’s data offering for specialty pharma. “What’s always been missing [from our business] was the data and the ability to fully close the loop and measure, at the patient level, how our digital and marketing tactics could make an impact,” he explained.  

The acquisition highlights the marketing and advertising industry’s ongoing shift from merely collecting large amounts of information to leveraging data like real-world evidence to inform the patient- and HCP-engagement strategy.

LiquidHub’s Summy said the two companies were already working with the same drugmakers, which made the acquisition that much more appealing. “We were involved with the same clients, at about the same time, and doing complementary work without knowing it — bringing it together made so much sense.

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“We’re taking the strategy, insights, design and engagement work that Olivier’s team has done to engage patients and providers and combining that with data and analytics hubs,” Summy continued.

Zitoun added, “this is an unmet need in healthcare marketing. This is the next step from big data — instead of having a marketer deal with multiple vendors they have a one-stop solution.”

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LiquidHub has made a number of acquisitions in recent years, including bolstering its customer analytics capability. The company acquired data management and analytics company Annik in 2016. Prior to that, it bought Salesforce app developer ClosedWon in 2015.