Eversana has acquired Alkemy Partners, a pharmaceutical training and digital engagement firm.

The deal adds Alkemy’s 12 full time staff to Eversana, who will be integrated with Eversana’s field solutions group. Alkemy founder and president Jim Kaveney will report to Peter Marchesini, president of field solutions at Eversana. 

The two companies have been working together for over a year, with Eversana tapping Alkemy Partners to develop training solutions for its clients.

“What we do at Eversana is a complete commercialization approach. It’s a big piece of the puzzle building infrastructure for organizations. That could be on the clinical side, market access or training folks in the field,” Marchesini said. “Sales reps and managers, all those folks need training and development. When we were asked to do these things we would go to [Alkemy]. Training is a highly outsourced piece of business because a lot of these training departments have been downsized over the years. We thought we can fill a void with this acquisition.”

Alkemy Partners is based in New Hampshire. The company has four main offerings: clinical learning and development, market access, contract training services and its mobile learning platform.

For Alkemy, joining Eversana gives it more resources and helps the company achieve its long-term goal to expand outside of the U.S., Kaveney said.

“Eversana provides us additional resources, a pipeline of global growth and helps reach my desire to impact patients lives through training and development,” Kaveney said. “While I believe Alkemy would ultimately get there, having a catalyst like Eversana behind us will make it that much easier.”

The acquisition also comes at a time when virtual learning is exploding in the pharma industry. With large meetings and in-person trainings canceled due to COVID-19, technology like Alkemy’s learning platform is becoming more important.

Kaveney believes Alkemy’s platform makes Eversana “well-positioned for the future.”

“Normally we would hold live meetings, but the platform is enabling an engaging environment and allowing learning to happen virtually right now,” Marchesini said. “Alkemy has been doing this for years, they understand the time and budget and travel that are alleviated by holding things virtually. Because of the [COVID-19] situation we’re in, I feel we’re at the forefront of pivoting to something that will become a bigger piece of the puzzle in the future.”