Healthcare PR Consultancies of the Year 2024

2024 Healthcare PR Consultancies of the Year

The 2024 Asia-Pacific PR Consultancies of the Year are the result of an exhaustive research process involving more than 100 submissions and meetings with the best PR firms across the region.

Consultancy of the Year winners are announced and honoured at the 2024 Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards, taking place in Singapore on 19 September. Analysis of all Finalists and Winners can be accessed via the navigation menu or below:

Finalists

DeVries Global (Interpublic Group)

Backstory

Interpublic agency DeVries Global has progressed far beyond its roots as a P&G spin-off to become a regional boutique that is focused on cultural marketing across a range of sectors, with lifestyle and healthcare to the fore. Under the leadership of Darren Burns, DeVries’ efforts to become a global consumer comms agency with an Asian lens is now more than a decade old, and has benefited from the firm’s sustained healthcare growth across pharma and consumer health, underpinned by depth in strategy consulting, branding and integrated marketing.

Locations

There are 100+ staff DeVries Global employees across offices in Beijing and Shanghai (70 in total), Taipei (20) and Singapore (25).

Performance

Healthcare grew by 14% across the region, around the same rate at which it expanded in 2022, accounting for 35% of DeVries’ regional revenue, and particularly notable from Shanghai and Beijing, where it accounts for half of revenue. The firm’s work spans such areas as oncology, hematology, rare disease and chronic disease, for a client roster that features GSK, Organon, Roche and more, supplemented by new business from Sebamed, BMS, Novo Nordisk and Merz. In Singapore, the practice focuses more in the the intersection between healthcare and consumer wellness, with a notably Gen Z slant, for such clients as P&G, Abbott and Kenvue.

People & Culture

Burns’ leadership team includes mainland China leader Lydia Shen, Singapore MD Rafidah Rashid, Taipei MD Vivian Liu and Julie Wu, who oversees healthcare across Shanghai and Beijing. DeVries scored well in PRovoke’s Best Agency to Work For research, reflecting a strong DEI focus that includes employee assistance, LinkedIn learning, extensive leave, and a range of cultural and creative initiatives. DeVries also brings more Gen Z understanding than most firms, applying that to its teams across the region.

Thought Leadership & Work

DeVries’ focus on culture decoding has become increasingly relevant for healthcare clients, including an inclusive audience incubator, a brand love tool, and specific expertise in influencer marketing. Campaign highlights included the SABRE-nominated Live Smart to Outsmart campaign for Braun, and work for SKII and Olay.

— Arun Sudhaman

GCI Health (WPP)

Backstory

WPP’s GCI Health is now five years old in Asia-Pacific, and long ago shed its startup status to become one of the region’s strongest healthcare players, growing rapidly across under the leadership of Rikki Jones, who also oversees parent firm BCW in Singapore. GCI Health’s regional expansion is reflected in a service offering that has pivoted beyond health communications into advertising, public affairs and policy, clinical trial experience, medical education and market access, and the firm makes much of its positioning as the only global healthcare specialist with an Asia-Pacific footprint.

Locations

GCI Health has more than people across offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and India. And, of course, GCI has a strong global network, ranking among the market leaders in healthcare in the US and the UK.

Performance

GCI Health grew its Asia-Pacific revenue by 14% in 2023, comfortably making it one of the largest healthcare firms in the region. The firm’s medical strategy and education helped drive growth, while 30% of revenue now includes emerging market work across Latin America, Middle East and/or Africa. Notably, public affairs and policy accounts for 15% of regional revenue, which is more weighted towards Singapore, while there has also been expansion in terms of clinical trial experience, biotech and market access. GCI Health partners with many of the globe’s top healthcare players, including Roche, AstraZeneca, Organon, Exact Sciences.

People & Culture

Jones has built out an Asia-Pacific leadership team that includes regional MD Sophie Asker and local market MDs Chitose Yamada (Japan), Hemali Bhutani (India), Maria Cheong (Hong Kong) and Amanda Colaco (Singapore). There are also specialty leads for medical communication, creative strategy, policy communications and content. The firm continues to prioritize its people experience, implenting localised plans, more structured training, refreshing its benefits and boosting senior HR resources.

Thought Leadership & Work

A major key to GCI’s success in the region is its ability to move rapidly beyond traditional public relations, offering clients a blend of scientific communications, medical education, medical affairs strategy and public affairs expertise in an integrated manner. That approach has helped the firm make a difference on some major challenges, resulting in SABRE nominated work for Roche’s cervical screening programme, along with notable campaigns for Exact Sciences, Organon and AstraZeneca.

— Arun Sudhaman

SPAG (Finn Partners)

Backstory

In the decade since its launch, SPAG has already established itself as an industry game changer in the Asia-Pacific region — a hybrid firm operates at the crossroads of healthcare communications and advocacy. And that expertise was further recognised when the firm was acquired by leading US independent Finn Partners in mid-2022, giving it the access to the kind of global scale and expertise that are already helping its regional growth aspirations. Finn, of course, is one of North America’s best healthcare agencies — and adds formidable research, digital, creative and medical content expertise to SPAG’s existing capabilities in pharma, medtech, public health, wellness and corporate.

Locations

SPAG has grown beyond its three Indian offices to now operate a growing Singapore presence, along with offices in Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Greater China, adding up to 175 people in total.

Performance

SPAG/Finn grew its health practice by 18% in 2023, driven from across its geographies and underpinned by the firm’s social/digital and medical comms capabilities, along with continued expansion into health tech, employee engagement and internal comms. Key clients include Novo Nordisk, Roche, AbbVie, Abbott, Sanofi, Astra Zeneca and Janssen in pharma, along with medical tech/devices players such as GE Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers, Varian, Stryker, J&J Vision and Medika Bazaar. And SPAG Finn’s focus on healthcare policy is reflected by work for the US Chamber’s Global Innovation Policy Center and John Snow International. Over the past 12 months, there was new business from P&G Health, Medtronic, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, Miltenyi Biotec, Institute of Global Tobacco Control, Bayer, Dr Reddy’s, Cooper Vision and DKSH.

People & Culture

Founders Aman and Shivani Gupta continue to oversee SPAG, supported by senior partners Priyanka Bajpai and Jason Cao in Southeast Asia and China, respectively, along with SVP Desiree Ann and India senior partner Ritika Jauhari. New hires included Sarah Rajan and Devleena De as partners in India. The firm’s employee culture benefits from a global exchange program, employee retreats, plenty of recognition and global internal training progra,s that cover digital, AI, soft skills and social media. As you would expect from a firm as culturally-focused as Finn, there are also a range of employee benefits, including flexible working programs, wellness and mental health support. 72% of the firm’s leadership is women, and it is committed to pay equity and increased diversity among its senior ranks.

Thought Leadership & Work

There has also been a notable uplift in the firm’s thought leadership output, most notably the launch of the Health Issues India platform that focuses on policy, alongside such initiatives as the first Healthcare Changemakers Conclave, with the HEAL Foundation, and several roundtables that discussed social impact in business practices. Campaign highlights included IGTC’s tobacco-free initiative, #ReadytoSlowDown for Bayer CKD, #ProtectMyVision for Coopervision, and Connecting Healthcare for All for DKSH Healthcare.

— Arun Sudhaman

Weber Shandwick Collective (IPG)

Backstory

Weber Shandwick’s cohesive regional strategy for the past decade often means that the whole often adds up to more than the sum of its parts, with healthcare emerging as the firm’s key growth driver in recent years. Significantly, the firm has devoted considerable energy to an “intersectional” strategy which recognises that today’s PR challenges are complex and cross-functional, and nowhere, perhaps, is that more important than for its healthcare practice — which regularly combines expertise from the firm’s formidable technology, corporate and consumer operations, illustrated by its focus on health strategy, sustainability and women’s health.there is significant depth in therapeutic, regulatory/compliance, medtech, consumer health, brand, and medical education, along with new offerings focused on women’s health, health strategy, and arming Asian doctors with relevant Asian data.

Locations

There are more than 100 people across Weber Shandwick’s Asia-Pacific healthcare practice, with Hong Kong/Singapore serving as the biggest markets, followed by significant depth in Japan and smaller operations in China, Korea and India.

Performance

Healthcare was again Weber Shandwick’s strongest-performing sector in 2023, growing 38% across the region thanks to specific expansion in China (+239%), HK/Singapore (+45%), Japan (+37%) and Korea (+10%). There was expanded business from Illumina and Merz, along with new assignments from Hilleman Labs, Haleon and Kite Pharma. joining a client roster that features. Much of that reflects Weber Shandwick’s ability to provide creative and strategic insight, along with counsel into such areas as data/analytics, corporate affairs, ESG and DEI for a client roster that also features MSD, Moderna, Gilead, Abbott, Pfizer, J&J, Novartis.

People & Culture

Key figures include Hong Kong/Singapore healthcare EVPs Robert Broad and Windcy Chan while Kaoru Nakagawa and Wei Wei head healthcare in Japan and China, respectively. The Weber Shandwick Collective has four core values—curiosity, courage, inclusion and impact—and “DE&I and values” are viewed as inseparable, with inclusion laying the groundwork for equity and belonging. In Asia, there has been significant progress to empower employees to lead initiatives that foster collaboration, mutual support and belonging — highlighted by several workplace awards.

Thought Leadership & Work

Weber Shandwick’s creative capabilities remain in strong shape, reflected in a thought leadership platform that focuses on solving at the intersections, at a time when the overlap between practice areas and sectors calls for a more integrated mindset. That approach has brought particularly benefits in terms of Weber Shandwick’s work across business/society, health and brand, along with a strategy and analytics/insights practice that spans cultural relevance, ESG, change/employee management, geopolitical strategy/risk and Asian companies going global. In the healthcare space, it is particularly notable in the Women’s Health offering that includes proprietary data, in-culture workshops and female-focused campaigns. Campaign highlights include work for MSD in China, Moderna in North Asia, Pfizer, J&J Labs, Tata Trusts, Novartis and Motherhood Hospitals, much of it SABRE-nominated.

— Arun Sudhaman

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