Last July, RevHealth became part of the trend of medical marketing firms looking to the world of private equity for additional capitalization. Not surprisingly, its partnership with PE firm Windrose Health Investors helped set the tone for the months that ensued. Among other activities, the cash infusion has allowed RevHealth to solidify its
global footprint.
The firm enjoyed another fine year on the financial front. It grew revenue by 20%, from 2021’s total of $48.5 million to 2022’s sum of $58.2 million. New client engagements included work for Amgen (on cardio blockbuster Repatha), Alfasigma (on its medicinal foods), Ortho Dermatologics (on four skincare brands, including Arazlo and Siliq) and OraPharma (on gum disease treatment Arestin). They joined Daiichi Sankyo, Merck, Sanofi, Regeneron and Jazz Pharmaceuticals on RevHealth’s roster.
“We had another solid year,” reports founder and managing partner Bruce Epstein. “We seem to consistently grow by about $5 million to $10 million a year in revenue. And we have never had a layoff in our history.”
In line with that, staff size grew in the wake of the client additions, from 205 people at the start of the year to 240 at its conclusion. Important additions included chief people officer Colleen Gangl, chief education officer Sharon Savel and CFO Paul Trager. Gangl, the first person to hold the CPO role at the agency, has had an outsized impact since joining in February from Dotdash Meredith.
“The reason we hired Colleen is that we needed somebody who worked in a virtual environment way before COVID,” Epstein says. “We want to have the best hybrid and virtual practices possible, and Colleen shows us how to do it.”
Amid everything else, nourishing talent ranked among Epstein’s top priorities in 2022.
“You have to have a culture of caring. Otherwise, what we do doesn’t really work,” he explains. “When you’re in a place where people care about you, you’re motivated. You want to stay and you want to support your team.” By way of example, RevHealth celebrated Employee Appreciation Day in March by sending its people a host of sweet treats.
The staff-management challenge, of course, has intensified in the world of hybrid work. “There’s no reason for people to have to sit in an office all day,” Epstein continues. “Our goal is to make sure that our approach is still very, very personal and to always show that we care about each other.”
As far as recent work goes, Epstein is particularly proud of an awareness campaign for US WorldMeds’ opioid antagonist Zimhi. “I like working on those therapeutic areas that actually make a big difference to patients,” Epstein says. “Because if you’re clinically smart, you can find patient types that aren’t being treated correctly.”
With pandemic-era concerns fading into the background, expect RevHealth to expand its ambitions.
“If you have a forest, it’s hard for something new to grow. But as soon as there’s a fire, it opens everything up — and COVID-19 was that fire,” Epstein explains. “We have opportunities in the digital world to do so much more.”
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Our marketing role model…
In Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers theorized that the adoption of any product or service goes from awareness to loyalty/advocacy by communi-cation through participants in a social system over time. That’s why he emphasizes the importance of early adopters, who spread the innovation until critical mass is reached. What Rogers wrote should be a lesson to us all: For the best chance at market leadership, our communications need to be targeted heavily toward early adopters. — Epstein
Click here to see RevHealth’s Agency 100 2022 Profile.
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From the June 01, 2023 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
