Deerfield Agency is adding to the herd as it rounds up Verge Scientific Communications to bolster its healthcare marketing and communications offerings.
Specifically, Deerfield is snapping up Verge for the corporate and brand marketing it does for precommercial healthcare clients, adding an earlier phase of the marketing pathway to Deerfield’s repertoire.
The Virginia-based agency is only six years old but has risen quickly, becoming a leading boutique health and science comms agency that works with biotech startups, early-stage biotech and pharma companies, health tech firms and consumer science brands.
Lissette Steele, one of Verge's owner-partners, said in an interview that strong brand creation and scientific storytelling are “critical for life science companies always,” but that's particularly true in “a down market.”
Steele and Amanda Sellers, her co-partner and owner, “will continue to lead day-to-day operations,” Deerfield said in a statement, as it will “operate as an independent, sister company.” Verge currently has 40 staffers.
A Verge spokesperson told Fierce Pharma Marketing that the firm will stay in Arlington, Virginia, and will be “actively hiring and growing.”
Steele and Sellers will also join Deerfield's senior leadership team. Financial details of the buyout were not disclosed.
The new partnership “will allow us to deepen our offerings and enhance our ability to serve organizations at all stages of development and growth," Steele said. Deerfield clients “will benefit from Verge’s capabilities in corporate branding and scientific and corporate communications,” she added.
Frank Burrell, managing partner at Deerfield Agency, added that when it came to the product side, his agency had started to see “significant shifts” in sales force interactions and doctor engagement even before COVID.
“With the pandemic, that dynamic has become even more challenging, requiring both creative approaches to marketing as well as thoughtful data capture and analytics to guide marketing strategy and thoughtful interactions,” he explained.
One major change, he said, is that omnichannel marketing is now the norm. “Evaluating and identifying all of the appropriate marketing and communications channels to effectively reach and engage with customers and influencers” has become an essential part of the industry.