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Performance

Revenue increased 35% from $7.5 million to $10.1 million

Plans

“We plan to extend in three areas: providing clients with full-service media strategy and planning services; leveraging emerging marketing practices in healthcare; and being a leader in immersive technologies”
— Sanjiv Mody

Prediction

“We see more firms leveraging emerging marketing practices in healthcare like programmatic buying”
— Sanjiv Mody


Pixacore enjoyed a successful 2016 as its revenue jumped from $7.5 million in 2015 to $10.1 million, a 35% increase. Similarly, it added 10 new employees, swelling the ranks to 35 full-timers.

Sanjiv Mody, Pixacore’s CEO and founder, attributes the success to Pixacore’s analytical focus. “We ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing everything we can to review the metrics? The analysis? The key performance indicators?’” he notes.

The agency also began a transformation of its own, from a digital and analytics shop to one capable of handling broader assignments.

According to Mody, the agency leverages analytics and research to create “tactical programs to meet each brand’s imperatives.”

“Our strategies, and subsequent tactics, encompass understanding the customers, as well as appropriately creating actionable segments,” he explains. “Then the focus shifts to developing personalized communication for these segments that is based on their relationships with both the brand and their expectations.”

Pixacore also maintains a presence in Mumbai, as well as New York, which “enables a scalable model to support our growth in the U.S., as we capitalize on India’s exploding pharma marketing opportunities,” Mody says.

We ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing everything we can to review the metrics? The analysis? The key performance indicators? – Sanjiv Mody, CEO and founder

Among the firm’s clients and accounts are Celgene’s pancreatic cancer treatment Abraxane and the experimental luspatercept, for patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes; Bayer’s Nexavar, for liver, thyroid, and kidney cancer, along with Bayer’s Stivarga, for liver cancer; and Sun Pharmaceuticals’ Levulan Kerastick, for actinic keratosis.

The agency did well on the new-business front in 2016, with a host of additions from Bayer for work on Xofigo and for Regeneron’s Eylea, and pipeline compounds copanaslib and anetumab.

It also added additional brands from Boehringer Ingelheim and medical-affairs work for Celgene.

In the months ahead, Mody has big plans for virtual reality, believing it has become one of his company’s differentiating service offerings. “We became a leader in VR, which has allowed us to provide novel solutions to existing clients, as well as to branch out to new clients inside and outside pharma,” he says, adding “current industry trends favor smaller, agile agencies with abundant digital smarts.”

When Pixacore took the marketing reins last year for Abraxane, the agency was determined to help its client become a thought leader in the hotly competitive category. The brand had been facing competition from new product launches and generics in the category, and it needed to communicate to “physicians and caregivers and nurses and patients about [the drug’s] benefits compared to other options,” adds Mody.

To that end, Pixacore devised a plan — more video communications and a stronger SEO effort — designed to spur interest and awareness. Did it work? Pixacore declines to elaborate, but it’s worth noting Abraxane sales remained strong at $973.4 million, flat against the year-ago period, despite intensified competition.

This profile has been updated.