Entries from February 2009
The Burnham Institute for Medical Research was in the national media spotlight with Nature Structural & Molecular Biology’s publication of a paper written by Robert Liddington, Ph.D. The paper summarized the work of researchers with Burnham, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control in identifying human monoclonal antibodies that neutralize a wide range of influenza viruses, including avian influenza A (H5N1). Russo Partners coordinated embargoed media outreach for Dr. Liddington that resulted in extensive print and broadcast coverage.
Cougar Biotechnology reported positive data from two Phase II trials of lead compound CB7630, abiraterone acetate, in patients with prostate cancer. Under the leadership of a former top biotech analyst, Alan Auerbach,this Los Angeles-based biopharmaceutical company is turning heads with its impressive data reports for a drug that has potential in multiple treatment settings. Russo Partners’ PR team has secured a radio interview for Alan Auerbach with Bruce Japsen, a Chicago Tribune healthcare business reporter who produces segments for satellite radio news program ReachMD.
Ambrx, a San Diego life sciences company, expanded its relationship with Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, through a collaboration for the development of ARX424, a preclinical product candidate for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. This is the second collaboration between the two companies. The first involves the development of a long-acting growth hormone that is in Phase II studies. Russo Partners’ PR program for Ambrx has helped to raise the profile of the company’s protein-optimization technology, ReCODE, among the pharma community.
Paris-based Fovea and Cambridge, Mass.-based Dyax entered into a development and commercialization agreement for the ocular formulation of DX-88 for the treatment of retinal diseases. Fovea is one of the many European companies for which Russo Partners provides U.S. communications support.
Other February highlights included:
-Our coordination of media and investor meetings for multiple clients at the BIO CEO & Investor Conference in New York City
-The taping of an interview segment with Geron’s Tom Okarma and Nightly Business Report’s Susie Gharib for a special 30 Top Innovations episode
-The handling of media relations for the third consecutive year at the Stem Cell Summit in New York City, where we set up CNBC for live broadcasts that featured interviews of CEOs with presenting companies
-Our coordination of a lengthy science/medicine story planning meeting with one of 60 Minutes’ senior producers
-Our participation in annual investor day events for two market-leading companies: St. Jude Medical and QIAGEN
-The welcoming of several new clients — Amira Pharmaceuticals, Calixa Therapeutics and Savara Pharmaceuticals – to our family of healthcare companies
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: 60 Minutes, Alan Auerbach, Ambrx, Amira Pharmaceuticals, BIO, bird flu, Bruce Japsen, Burnham Institute for Medical Research, Calixa Therapeutics, Centers for Diesease Control, CNBC, Cougar Biotechnology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Dyax, Fovea, Geron, growth hormone, H5N1, Merck Serono, multiple sclerosis, Nature, Nightly Business Report, prostate cancer, QIAGEN, ReachMD, retinal diseases, Robert Liddington, Savara Pharmaceuticals, St. Jude Medical, Stem Cell Summit, Susie Gharib, Tom Okarma
Russo Partners is now distributing breaking healthcare news from client companies via Twitter. As Twitter has gained in popularity because of users’ ability to disseminate information rapidly to highly targeted audiences, we have found this new tool to be a viable add-on to our PR toolkit. Follow Russo Partners on Twitter by clicking here and signing up.
Categories: Uncategorized
Dr. Timothy Rodell, GlobeImmune's president and CEO
Many emerging healthcare companies are operating today under orders to preserve cash to extend their “runways.” For some, this has required reviews of PR initiatives, with the outcomes being decisions to reduce spending. For others, this has led to the formalization and sharpening of the focus of PR efforts combined with increases in spending. That’s right, increases in spending on what are targeted efforts to support critical business-development and fundraising activities.
Take GlobeImmune as an example. When this Colorado biotech company approached Russo Partners late last year, it did so with the realization that a greater PR push before, during and after a significant data announcement could help substantially. While the GlobeImmune executives had relied on news releases to drive information to their target audiences, the understanding that a comprehensive PR program could produce better results led the executives to allocate more financial resources to work that would be led by Russo Partners as outside counselors.
To kick things off, the Russo Partners team of science/medicine communicators — PhDs and more — conducted messaging and positioning activities combined with its signature Newsmakers Workshop. Equipped with a storyline in hand and tactics for use in media interviews, the GlobeImmune executives hit the road — literally and figuratively. In-person and telephone meetings with reporters with wire services, major newspapers and life science publications produced immediate “hits” as well as commitments for reviews of the company’s data-driven story at the time of data release.
When GlobeImmune presented data on its targeted immunotherapy at The Liver Meeting, the information was greeted with open arms from journalists — and ended up in all significant media coverage of developments in the treatment of hepatitis C. GlobeImmune’s formal PR approach proved to be the right one for the company at its stage of development. In fact, the results produced a significant return on investment in the earliest times and led to a solid position of perceived value among the company’s target audiences.
The lesson learned? Yes, cash is king at this time for development-stage companies. However, very small investments in PR can often produce little in return. When handled the efficient way as Russo Partners teaches, PR with a little more “spend” can produce far greater returns that exceed the value of incremental investment.
Russo Partners encourages healthcare companies to evaluate their PR efforts at this time without rushing to judment on decisions. Had GlobeImmune followed this path, it would be one of many companies that cut a critical component of its business plan at a time of greatest need.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: GlobeImmune, healthcare, healthcare PR, Russo Partners, targeted immunotherapies, The Liver Meeting
Dr. Tom Okarma, president and CEO of Geron
The Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years
This was the title of a special episode of PBS’s award-winning Nightly Business Report that aired tonight. To provide viewers with perspective on innovation in healthcare, Anchor Susie Gharib conducted a one-on-one interview with Geron’s president and CEO, Dr. Tom Okarma. In the taped interview, which Russo Partners coordinated last week at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, Dr. Okarma discussed Geron’s position at the “dawn of a new era” in medicine with the company’s work in developing human embryonic stem cell-based therapies. Dr. Okarma’s comments properly position Geron’s significant progress in the transformation of medicine from scalpels and pills to one in which doctors will be able to administer therapies that create new tissue and “replacement parts.” The interview segment was a nice way to cap off Russo Partners’ recent work with Geron in announcing the FDA’s clearance of the company’s IND for OPC1, a stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury. Moreover, the segment was a nice lead-in to Tuesday’s Stem Cell Summit in New York City. The conference will feature product development updates from more than 30 top executives with stem cell companies along with the latest market forecast from analyst Robin Young. Russo Partners will continue with its streak of handling PR for major milestone events in the healthcare industry. Our team members will coordinate a major TV network’s live broadcasts from the Stem Cell Summit as well as line up interviews for more than 20 journalists with presenters.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Geron, human embryonic stem cells, innovation, Nightly Business Report, Robin Young, Stem Cell Summit, Susie Gharib, Tom Okarma
With the roll-out of the Russo Partners/Blue State Digital alliance, we’ve received many inquiries from current and prospective clients about their use of Web 2.0 communications tools. Our message is simple: Think strategy first, tactics and tools second. E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other tools mean nothing and add no value if they aren’t part of well-thought-out programs with specific, measurable goals and objectives. Moreover, the new-fangled tech tools, while hip and fun, will continue to take a backseat to e-mail. It’s clear that e-mail is the most important tool to push information to your target audiences to engage them and influence them to take action. Just look at Blue State Digital’s Obama for America 2008 campaign. Built around an action-oriented Web site, the campaign used all types of social networking tools to engage a very large, active audience. Still, e-mail was the versatile tool that drove the campaign, while the other tools simply served to pull people to the Web site for addition to the e-mail distribution list.
Russo Partners/Blue State Digital will provide frequent updates on our work to bring the right type of Web 2.0 communications initiatives to healthcare companies of all sizes and at all stages.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Blue State Digital, e-mail communications, healthcare PR, Obama for America 2008, Web 2.0 communications
Russo Partners recently sat with the three leaders of Oppenheimer & Co.’s healthcare investment banking team: Stuart Barich, managing director, who focuses on biotechnology and specialty pharma companies; Kee Colen, managing director, who handles medical device companies; and Josh Muntner, executive director, who also focuses on biotechnology and specialty pharma.
With decades of experience in healthcare financing, the Oppenheimer trio delivered their 2009 “down economy” advice in the form of three tips — much to the delight of our stick-with-three-message healthcare PR counselors.
1. Don’t wait until the last minute to develop and implement your financing strategy.
It is not uncommon for a company considering a future financing to wait until there is less than one year of cash before shopping around for investment banking services. It is understandable in this economic environment that a company requiring funding will wait for financing conditions to improve. However, it is a wrong-headed approach. Predicting when the market environment will turn is fraught with uncertainty. Therefore, build your banking relationships when you have more than one year of cash on hand and you are in a position of strength rather than desperation. You may have more flexibility on the terms of the deal.
2. Focus, focus, focus — Investors want to see focus as well as progress.
Platform companies, for the most part, are struggling to acquire funding today. The company focused on a lead product with a detailed plan and timeline for development is more likely to get funded. Money is scarce, at least for the time being, so investors want their investments to be directed toward a limited number of projects. Such focus limits company burn rates and prolongs the time before the company needs to dip into the financing well again.
3. Public companies should broaden their investor targets.
Historically, companies entering the public markets graduated from their venture investors who sold their shares as institutions and individual investors acquired positions through an IPO, a secondary offering or on the public markets. Today, public biotechnology companies should look back to their pre-quoted years and invite venture investors back as investors. Valuations of biotechnology and other healthcare companies are at historic lows. Valuations are attractive for VCs to build stakes in these companies. Therefore, public companies should consider VC participation in their financings.
Here’s information about the Oppenheimer trio:
Stuart Barich joined Oppenheimer in 2005 as a managing director focusing on biotechnology and specialty pharmaceuticals. He has participated in the successful completion of more than 150 transactions during his career covering a broad spectrum of equity and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to joining Oppenheimer, he spent five years at Leerink Swann, where he completed 45 transactions for life science companies. Prior to joining Leerink, he directed the healthcare banking efforts at Oscar Gruss & Son and Auerbach. Stuart began his career as a corporate finance associate with Paine Webber. He earned a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Rochester and an M.B.A. with honors from Columbia Business School.
Kee Colen has provided investment banking services to emerging growth and middle market companies for 20 years and has been with Oppenheimer and its predecessors since 1990. He has worked with a wide variety of healthcare and life science companies, including those in the biotechnology, specialty pharmaceutical, healthcare services and medical device sectors. Transactional experience includes over 125 closed transactions, including IPOs, follow-on public offerings, PIPEs, registered directs, private placements of equity, mezzanine and debt capital, M&A advisory services, fairness 0pinions, valuations and restructurings. Kee has a B.S. in finance from Northern Illinois University, where he graduated magna cum laude, and an M.B.A. from Indiana University.
Prior to joining Oppenheimer, Josh Muntner worked with CIBC World Markets. His recent experience includes a variety of completed transactions, including IPOs, follow-on offerings, private financings and M&A and financial advisory assignments. Before this, Josh worked in the healthcare investment banking group at Prudential Vector Healthcare in New York. Josh received a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.B.A. from the Anderson School at UCLA.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: biotechnology, healthcare investment banking, Josh Muntner, Kee Colen, medical device, Oppenheimer & Co., specialty pharma, Stuart Barich, venture capital
In response to yesterday’s post about “meeting the press” in New York City, we received many questions from executives with biotech and medtech companies about what they should do to prepare for these meetings.
At Russo Partners, all PR programs with media relations components involve story development and interview rehearsal sessions. Dubbed the Newsmakers Workshop, this client favorite consists of:
1. A review of the rights that you have as a newsmaker, or story teller, for your company
2. A discussion of the rights that journalists have in covering your company
3. The explanation of the news-reporting and -writing process (from our former journalists, of course)
4. The diagramming of the typical media interview — and a demonstration of who is the leader vs. who is the follower
5. The development of a media interview checklist (with our own science and medicine experts) that contains three key messages you need to deliver — points that “must air” — in order for your story to be told and to lead your audiences to desired conclusions
6. A discussion of difficult questions that you anticipate and possible answers you can use
7. The introduction of tactics that will enable you to take and maintain control of all types of interviews
8. Practice, practice and more practice – on-camera and off-camera
To reduce your story to three key messages, team members focus on whom you want to reach and what you want your audiences to think and do after reading the article or watching the segment that is the result of your interview.
We will provide more PR tips in future posts. This one, as we stated up front, is the result of inquiries to us following yesterday’s post. We are happy to see that Rx for PR is gaining in popularity among the audiences for which the content is intended. We welcome your questions and comments.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Biotech, healthcare PR, media training, medtech, Russo Partners
John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., President and CEO of Burnham Institute for Medical Research
While Web 2.0 communications is becoming more prevalent today, nothing can replace good face-to-face meetings with journalists to help you to forge relationships and earn media coverage. Russo Partners’ New York City base enables PR team members to coordinate multiple media meetings for clients as part of executives’ trips to the Big Apple for participation in conferences and investor meetings. For our agency, the relationships run long and deep, extending in many cases more than 20 years.
Earlier this week, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research’s president and CEO, Dr. John Reed, and vice president of communications, Andrea Moser, hit the streets of Manhattan for a full slate of meetings with top science editors and writers. The purpose of the meetings was nothing more than to bring the journalists up to speed on the bicoastal research institute’s programs and to point to the sources at Burnham with whom the journalists could work regularly.
The first stop: Newsweek’s offices in midtown, where Dr. Reed discussed several Burnham programs with Sharon Begley, the publication’s senior science editor. Topics covered included the diabetes research underway at Burnham’s Lake Nona, Fla., campus, the challenges of navigating the NIH roadmap to translate discoveries into cures and the many aspects of stem cells, which are the prominent focus of a Burnham research program in La Jolla, Calif. From this meeting, Burnham is poised to be an active participant in further discussion with Sharon — as well as the featured providers of news in Sharon’s online and print work.
The second stop: A restaurant in the financial district, where a lunch-time discussion with The Wall Street Journal’s Ron Winslow, deputy bureau chief, health and science, focused on Burnham’s regenerative medicine work as well as the cardiology expertise of Burnham faculty members. Ron’s message was to keep the Burnham news coming so he could connect with faculty members frequently for articles in their areas of expertise. Furthermore, Ron agreed that a tour of Burnham’s La Jolla campus would be an important stop on his next West Coast swing.
The third stop: AP’s international headquarters. Following a brief tour of the bustling newsroom led by Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Dr. Reed provided an overview of Burnham and honed in on areas that piqued Malcom’s interest. In addition to stem cell research, Dr. Reed introduced information about Parkinson’s research and other initiatives led by Burnham faculty members. Malcolm expressed his interest in receiving frequent Burnham updates along with the latest contact information sheet for the institute’s “experts.”
The day was marked as a success by Burnham’s management. Through a one-two-three punch, Russo Partners and the Burnhamites efficiently opened doors for the institute to well-respected journalists with high-profile media outlets. Furthermore, this day in New York City built upon a previous day of media meetings, established a platform for future meeting days in New York City on at least a quarterly basis and furthered Burnham’s PR mission.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Burnham Institute for Medical Research, healthcare PR, Malcolm Ritter, PR, Ron Winslow, Russo Partners, Sharon Begley, Web 2.0 communications
January 2009 has come and gone. A wrap-up report of Russo Partners’ activities shows that biotech and medtech companies kicked off the year with a fast start. Here are some of the January highlights:
S*BIO, Singapore’s most advanced biotech company, celebrated success on the business-development front with the announcement of two significant deals. The agreements, with Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Tragara Pharmaceuticals, involved different types of kinase inhibitors in early stages of development. Russo Partners worked closely with the communications teams at Onyx and Tragara to maximize publicity for the respective announcements. With the successful navigation of the media landscapes in the U.S. and Singapore, Russo Partners generated significant media coverage for all companies involved. S*BIO’s executive team was inundated by calls and e-mails from other possible partners worldwide.
Anadys Pharmaceuticals’ stock price soared by 114% following the announcement of viral load reduction data from an early study of ANA598 in chronic Hepatitis C patients. By working with the data and select media under embargo prior to the distribution of a news release and the company’s hosting of a conference call with investors, Russo Partners lifted the curtain on the data in a big way. This PR approach produced a tremedous return in the form of in-depth media coverage that contained the key messages developed for the announcement. The PR results were far greater than any others of comparable Phase I trials.
Many of Russo Partners’ clients spent the second week of the month navigating the hotels and restaurants in San Francisco’s Union Square for JPMorgan Healthcare Conference activities. Russo Partners scheduled and coordinated close to 100 meetings for clients with VCs, investment bankers, fund managers and journalists. For new clients CorNova and Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, the conference was their first agency outing and involved high-powered meetings with members of the investment and media communities.
Other conference participants with Russo Partners included BIOCOM, San Diego’s life science industry organization, and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research. Media interviews conducted at the agency’s base camp in the Hotel Nikko along with TV interviews taped at a nearby studio added to the lively mix of activities.
Corthera, which is developing the hormone relaxin as a treatment for acute heart failure, took the podium at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference and presented an update on the Phase II/III study. In late-2008, Russo Partners unveiled an interim analysis of the Phase II data to journalists at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions — a story that Cardiovascular Business reported as one of the most significant developments announced at the conference thanks to Russo Partners’ aggressive pursuit of media coverage.
Radi Medical Systems, which St. Jude Medical acquired in December, enjoyed broad media coverage of the New England Journal of Medicine’s publication of the FAME one-year follow-up data. See the January 20 blog entry to read more about this successful PR campaign.
In typical Russo Partners fashion, the agency continued its handling of the game-changing events in healthcare. This time the event was the FDA’s clearance for Geron to initiate the world’s first clinical trial of a human embryonic stem cell therapy. Take a look at the January 28 blog entry.
Russo Partners looks forward to maintaining the fast PR pace in February with major client and industry events around the corner.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Biotech, CorNova, Corthera, Geron, medtech, Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, New England Journal of Medicine, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Radi, S*BIO, St. Jude Medical, stem cells, Tragara Pharmaceuticals, venture capital
