The boom in the biotech industry has meant more career opportunities for healthcare communicators - but only those prepared to weather the drama of IPOs, mergers, tight budgets, and, in many cases, deep ethical dilemmas.
As technology pushes the limits of what medicine can do, PR professionals in the biotech industry are increasingly on the firing line, fielding questions not just about market availability and product safety, but also about the moral efficacy of the products they represent.
From a business standpoint, however, the industry poses other challenges. "Biotech is [a harder sell] because you don't have the traditional franchise credibility of a major pharmaceutical company in the therapeutic area," says James O'Shea, an executive who recently left a comfortable position with Zeneca to become CEO of Sepracor, Inc. in Marlborough, Mass. Sepracor develops improved versions of existing pharmaceuticals and patents them. In 1998 it launched Allegra as an alternative to Seldane after the FDA withdrew its approval of Seldane.
"[In biotech] you are continually breaking ground," O'Shea says. "The challenge is, how do you launch products in the face of little reputation or credibility?" An even bigger hurdle is capital. While biotech labs may have been the darlings of the investment community a few years ago, these days they're taking a back seat to Internet start-ups. It's not hard to understand why. Even the most cutting-edge gene therapies can take years to emerge from clinical trials and pass FDA muster to become brands. E-commerce ventures, on the other hand, can yield nearly instantaneous returns.
The same trend extends to media coverage. "These days, biotech gets relegated to Popular Science," says Aimee Corso, VP of the medical devices and technology practice at Fischer & Partners in Los Angeles.
The current lack of interest among business media is forcing biotech communicators to reevaluate some of their rote PR strategies, which previously hinged exclusively on investor relations.
"Before, a company would have taken a product through pre-clinical development and would want to indicate the successes of animal studies to financial markets prior to going public with a focus on the business media," says Pat Jones, managing director of Feinstein Kean Healthcare in Cambridge, Mass.
"Now we're recognizing that we can add more value to the product by communicating with clinical audiences much earlier in the pipeline development," she says.
This means sharing research findings with physicians, and even patients, well in advance of product launches - through scientific trade journals and consumer health media.
Expanding Targets
Spurring early demand among clinicians, patients, and advocacy organizations can help "seed the market for commercialization," Corso says. This is critical for building a strong base of industry allies, particularly in cases where you need to show key support for expediting the FDA approval process. A case in point occurred last year when breast cancer advocacy groups, armed with research reports, forced the launch of the biologic antibody Herceptin sooner than manufacturer Genentech had planned.
The FDA has since initiated an accelerated review process for breakthrough treatments that address life-threatening illnesses.
Sharing preliminary research with physicians also is beneficial because it helps increase the pool of participants for clinical trials, Jones adds. "Biotech companies need to invest in the accrual of clinical trials to shorten development time."
Herein lies a reminder that, while the biotech industry is diversifying its constituencies, it's still bound to investor concerns. Whereas pharmaceutical giants are large enough to fund their own research, most biotech firms are "inextricably linked to capital markets," Jones says.
Fishing for Funding
To bankroll new biotech innovations, many executives are shopping for alternative business partners in the pharmaceutical industry. This is the tact Stephen Sudovar, CEO of EluSys Therapeutics is taking. This two-year old start-up in Pine Brook, N.J., is one of many new biotech firms targeting "Big Pharma."
In Sudovar's case, he hopes to secure a major pharmaceutical manufacturer partner in order to leverage the development of new products using EluSys' patented HP technology designed to treat viral, bacterial and auto-immune diseases.
Pharmaceutical powerhouses are constantly looking to invest in new technologies because products lose market value as older, patented drugs go generic, Sudovar explains. For EluSys, giants like Pfizer, Glaxo and Eli Lilly offer greater resources in areas such as financing, sales and overall brand recognition as well as direct access to patients and consumer groups.
Sudovar also is optimistic that the Wall Street pendulum will swing back toward biotech. "We think [the market] is cyclical and people will return to science," he says. "In two years the dotcoms will be consolidating and they won't be making any money."
This optimism is fueling his plans to take EluSys public in 18 to 24 months.
Another feather in the cap of biotech companies is shortened time frames for new product development given the FDA's more efficient approval process recently enacted. (The FDA's approval process formerly took up to four years.)
To tap into this exploding biotech marketplace, communicators must have an entrepreneurial spirit and a keen understanding of how to help these infant companies mature into desirable investments.
(O'Shea, 508/481-6700; Corso, 310/577-7870; Jones, 617/577-8110; Sudovar, 973/808-0222)
Biotech Promotional Opportunities
Communications departments at biotech start-ups are usually limited to one person with expertise in investor relations. As such, the biotech boom has also meant big business for healthcare agencies. According to Pat Jones, managing director at Feinstein Kean Healthcare, agencies are winning account work in areas such as:
- Annual report development
- Media relations
- Meeting planning
- Strategic planning
- IPO communications
-Source: FKH/HPRMN