For biotech, 2022 may be best described as a cumulative hangover year. Sector indices plummeted, M&A opportunities dried up and the IPO window slammed shut. The year stood in stark relief to what LifeSci Communications founding partner and CEO Matt Middleman characterizes as the “market exuberance” of 2021.
“Everyone got funding in 2020 and 2021, even if you were five years away from launch,” he explains. “A lot of companies that shouldn’t have gotten funding got funding. That had to work its way out of the market.”
By all accounts, then, 2022 should have been a trying time for an agency such as LifeSci, which caters to developmental biotechs. But it played out differently: Even in a year that didn’t quite live up to expectations, LifeSci saw revenue jump by 8%, to $17.5 million from $16.2 million in 2021. Head count nudged up slightly, from 70 at the start of the year to 74 at its conclusion.
“Most of the agencies that handle emerging companies suffered quite a bit, but we didn’t,” Middleman adds. “We grew because of the quality of the work.”
LifeSci added assignments from Calliditas Therapeutics (on its proteinuria drug Tarpeyo) and from fungal disease company F2G Pharma. Other additions to the client roster included Janssen Global Services, Tessera and Novo Nordisk Research Center Seattle.
Coming out of 2021 into a sobering and more uncertain 2022 prompted LifeSci to “take a deep breath,” Middleman says, with the hope of teeing up the company for its next phase of growth. The agency took advantage of this inflection point as a year to scale up and further professionalize some of its capabilities.
A significant part of that effort was building out its medical communications practice. “It’s a longer-term play,” notes president Maggie Helmig, and one designed to better position LifeSci to capture business further along the drug- development spectrum.
Agency veteran Sarah Wheeler joined LifeSci as SVP of medical communications to formalize that mandate within the company. Her addition adds further scientific heft to an organization at which about 20% of staffers have a Ph.D.
One might look at the recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank as another potential headwind for LifeSci, as a significant amount of the biotech industry and venture capital community worked with the institution. But so far, that hasn’t materialized, Middleman says.
“We’ve had one client that was affected for a couple days, but it hasn’t been as impactful as we thought it could be,” he notes. “The longer-term impact, though, we don’t know yet.”
Despite this and any other creeping uncertainty going forward, Middleman remains bullish.
“We’re in a golden age of medical innovation, in which innovation doesn’t stop. The science paired with the best management always finds a way to get funded,” he explains. “The other side of that is that these are sophisticated products. They require technically fluent communications teams to tell that story to patients and caregivers.”
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Our marketing role model…
Teona Johnson, head of marketing at Calliditas Therapeutics, is a visionary who embraces a mindset of possibility. She is creative, sharp and passionately dedicated to bringing first-of-their-kind medicines to people living with rare diseases. Teona’s leadership was instrumental in transitioning Calliditas from a clinical to a commercial-stage company, and her ability to adapt rapidly and resourcefully to build core commercial functions is unparalleled. — Helmig
Click here to see LifeSci Communications’ Agency 100 2022 Profile.
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From the June 01, 2023 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
