JPA Health’s growth spurt continues, as the marketing and PR agency has made its second acquisition in less than a year.
The Washington, D.C.-based JPA has picked up BioCentric, a medical communications agency that has offices in New Jersey and Switzerland. Throughout its more than two decades of existence, BioCentric has made a name for itself setting up its life sci partners with scientific platforms that can be used in drug development and commercialization.
According to JPA’s announcement, BioCentric will serve as the “medical communications and learning experiences arm” underneath the JPA umbrella and will continue to be led by BioCentric founder Sherine Aly.
The acquisition folds BioCentric’s signature medical expertise and gamification tactics into JPA’s tech- and data-driven approach to marketing and communications, which includes the use of predictive analytics and other artificial intelligence-based tools.
In a statement, Aly suggested that merging the two would allow the combined company to “offer our clients end-to-end solutions that make a real difference in patients’ lives.”
“This acquisition is a great union, bringing together BioCentric’s medical prowess with JPA’s deeply rooted expertise across marketing, patient advocacy, and corporate communications,” JPA CEO Carrie Jones added in the announcement. “Our clients will benefit from a fully integrated agency that can deliver unparalleled solutions to help them achieve their goals efficiently and effectively.”
With their combination, JPA now counts more than 120 employees across the U.S. and Europe.
The BioCentric buy comes less than eight months after JPA announced another buyout—which also marked the agency’s first-ever acquisition. In that case, it tacked on True North Solutions, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based consulting firm focused on providing emerging biopharma companies with support and guidance around commercial and medical affairs.
That purchase brought True North’s predictive analytics, natural language processing and other AI-powered solutions, plus its Google Cloud partnership, into the JPA fold.
Financial terms of both acquisitions were not disclosed.