The ICR Westwicke Blog is designed to deliver information and insights into the ever-changing world of healthcare communications.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting provides a unique opportunity to connect with oncology professionals, major media outlets, and other industry representatives from across the globe. It’s undeniably one of the most important conferences for the oncology community every year.
In a search for a healthcare communications partner, one public relations agency’s proposal begins to look just like another’s. Smiling headshots, decades of experience, strong communications skills, great media relations programs, all promising great results for a low fee. With so many similarities, how are you supposed to know which one is the best fit for your company?
Because investor relations and public relations do not have the same audience, the same objectives, and often do not report to the same supervisor within a given company, they frequently work in isolated silos with limited interaction. But there is a need for collaboration between the information “silos” that exist within some organizations, especially in publicly traded companies and private companies preparing for an IPO. For these types of companies, it’s important to establish — and stick to — an internal control process for issuing public information.
While SVB was the 16th largest U.S. bank and second-largest bank failure in U.S. history before it closed last week, those numbers don’t tell the whole story.
SVB was the bank for tech, biotech, digital health companies and venture capital firms, banking with nearly half of U.S. venture-backed healthcare and tech IPOs, as well as nearly half of venture-backed tech and life sciences companies. It was popular with startups and venture funds because it can be more difficult for early-stage companies to get loans from larger, more established banks. SVB made a point of being seen as a friendly lender to innovative companies.
In May, the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) that was officially declared more than three years ago will officially end. COVID-19 has killed about 1.1 million Americans and is still responsible for the deaths of between 2,500 and 3,500 Americans every week.
As the MedTech and broader healthcare investment community returns from the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and embarks on a new year, our experts provide insight and perspective on the key topics and variables that will influence activity in 2023.
Innovation, progress in clinical trials, and new breakthrough therapies have been and will continue to be the bedrock of value creation for investors in the biotech sector. We expect the sector will announce strong achievements in 2023, but investors may react with restraint as we have seen in 2022, which led to generally poor stock performance. A continuation of rising interest rates, ongoing Congressional scrutiny over drug pricing, and a subdued financing environment will be just a few of the headwinds the sector must contend with as we move through 2023. This underscores the need for a back-to-basics investor relations strategy that should position companies for the challenges that lie ahead. A well-planned investor relations strategy should include the following:
While layoffs in the technology sector haunted 2022, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and all things digital in healthcare continue to gain traction in the quest to improve patient care and reduce healthcare costs. In fact, AI and ML in healthcare are expected to surpass $20 billion in 2023 due to increasing adoption at record pace. Its application spans from drug discovery/development, a competitive race comprised of both the pharmaceutical and technology industries, to actual clinical use as evidenced in algorithms now used in identifying and better managing disease and in particular, neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s.
Healthcare continues to change at breakneck speed. Some of that change is clearly linked to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but other factors — politics, the courts, research, regulatory decisions, supply chain issues, a looming recession — are poised to have an outsized influence on an industry that has already undergone a radical transformation. What’s in store for healthcare and health policy in 2023? We took a look at a few critical areas.
The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is a few weeks away, and just about every management team and major investor in the industry understands the crucial role this conference plays in bringing all sides together. Simply put, there is no more important single event of the year within the world of healthcare investing.
However, this year will be different in San Francisco, not only from the standpoint of increased in-person attendance, but also much has changed in the equity markets over the last 12 months. With the NYSE and NASDAQ reflecting negative returns for 2022, the IPO market has seen a significant pullback in activity – down more than 80% from the new issue volume in 2021. These factors have led investors to become more cautious with an increased level of due diligence related to both new and existing investments.
