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Precision For Value

Performance

Revenue increased 21% to $90.9 million

Plans

“We’ll expand more in global markets, starting with our small base in the U.K. We’re looking at acquisitions there and on the continent”
— Dan Renick

Prediction

“The 21st Century Cures Act in some ways lowers the bar for evidence needed to get FDA approval. That will be problematic for payers”
— Dan Renick


Stilt walkers. That’s the metaphor president Dan Renick is kicking around to symbolize Precision For Value’s 2016 — or maybe it’s a sneak preview of the type of performer he might hire for the opening of the company’s new New York office.

“I’m thinking stilt walkers on the terrace are a fun way to show how we can keep reaching up, even in a very complex business,” he quips.

While Renick has ruled out fire-eaters, there was plenty of heat in the agency’s 2016 performance. Besides moving into a new office to accommodate its growing New York presence, Precision For Value also expanded in Chicago and opened new outposts in Costa Mesa, California, and Boston to accommodate significant business additions. Revenue increased to $90.9 million in 2016, up from $75.4 million the year before (after the firm restated its 2015 revenue), and the company now has about 400 employees. It counts 50 clients on its roster, including numerous heavy-hitters such as Eli Lilly, Amgen, Astellas, and Pfizer.

The firm is still digesting a series of acquisitions — Precision Health Economics, LehmanMillet (now Precisioneffect), and Redwood Outcomes — and reorganizations that began back in 2014.

But the company didn’t stray from its longtime strength: It focused on the development of evidence, and the communication thereof, before most agencies recognized the importance of securing favorable market access.

I’m thinking stilt walkers on the terrace are a fun way to show how we can keep reaching up, even in a very complex business. – Dan Renick, president

The firm’s offering “reflects a comprehensive set of services put together to address complex issues clients face while demonstrating value,” Renick says. That work can begin up to two years before a drug launch and usually includes the creation of strategies for substantiating a product’s value and establishing pricing.

Renick likes to refer to this landscape as “payerland.” To that end, he believes his agency made huge progress in deepening its payerland expertise in 2016, especially on the personnel front. New hires included PBM-world stars Todd Edgar, SVP, specialty solutions, formerly with OptumRx, and Charline Shan, senior director of formulary access solutions, formerly with Express Scripts.

But while Renick says 2016 was a good year for the firm, he acknowledges it was a punishing one for the industry, due to “the triple threat of election uncertainty, what the outcome might mean for the Affordable Care Act, and pricing pressures. And those pressures have created this steady drumbeat that isn’t going away,” he adds.

He also believes that scrutiny of drug prices, whether from consumers or regulators, can be a good thing for the firm. “It puts more pressure on our clients to demonstrate value — and in helping them do that, we become more key partners,” Renick adds.

The agency’s revved-up content-marketing engine is part of that solution and it hit a recent home run, he says, with reporting on biosimilar drugs: “That’s an area of the market that could be disruptive, and we’re delivering in-depth analysis.”