The Westwicke Blog is designed to deliver information and insights into the ever-changing world of healthcare communications.
Any company looking to attract market attention today shouldn’t underestimate the importance of a sophisticated corporate website with a high quality investor relations section.
Potential investors interested in learning more about your firm will likely visit your website before anything else, so put your best foot forward by making your IR website appealing and its pages informative and easy to navigate.
Patient advocacy is a part of public relations that has always held a special place in my heart. It’s easy for us in the healthcare industry to get so caught up in our day-to-day to-do lists that we forget the reason (namely who) we are actually working for. Patient advocacy is the piece that brings it back home. I’ve been in the industry long enough to have seen a lot of change in how healthcare companies include patients in what they’re doing, and I’m proud to say that we’ve made huge strides and are continuing to advance toward the place where patients are full partners.
Financial markets are notoriously difficult to predict. However, armed with decades of Wall Street experience, our investor relations professionals know what can create a strong IPO market — and what can close that window of opportunity.
As we enter the new year, there are several factors to consider for companies that may be considering an IPO. Based on our experience, here are our predictions for the life sciences IPO market in 2020.
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Finding out how others view your company can be intimidating, but to make sure your business is headed in the right direction, it’s necessary. A perception audit — an independent investigation into investor and analyst impressions of a company — can help you benchmark your progress over time, identify ways to improve your investor relations plan, and pinpoint any misperceptions in market views. Learn the basics of how to conduct a successful perception audit with this checklist.
In today’s world of ubiquitous, instantaneous, and interconnected information, integrated communication should be a key strategic priority for all companies. However, it is even more important in the healthcare space, especially for early stage, pre-revenue life sciences companies, where the investor story is indistinguishable from the product or technology story.
Many companies struggle to unify their message and deliver a cohesive story to the marketplace. As a consequence, the many other voices in the arena — competitors, analysts, key opinion leaders, regulators, investors, advocacy groups, the media, and others — shape the perception of your company for you.
The decision to host a company research and development (R&D) event for investors and analysts should not be taken lightly. Beyond the associated costs, the amount of time it takes to properly prepare is a big endeavor and can be a significant distraction to a company’s management team. Continue Reading
Any company, no matter how diligent, can find itself suddenly thrust into a crisis — a natural disaster, product safety issue, whistleblower claim, or other unforeseen emergency. When an incident occurs, especially one that disrupts operations or threatens the company’s reputation, stakeholders, be they customers, shareholders or partners, will want to immediately know what happened and how they’re affected. Mishandling the crisis can exacerbate the problem and shake public trust, causing long-lasting harm. And in the current era of instantaneous digital and social media communications, if you don’t communicate during an urgent situation, others may get there first and define it for you.
As the rock ‘n’ roll generation begins settling into their senior years, the “Baby Boomer factor” is wielding its heavy influence on healthcare as it has on other industries. Healthcare spending has grown substantially over the past few decades, and demand will likely remain strong as the number of Americans aged 65 and older will more than double by 2060. At the same time, technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, software-as-a-medical-device and other advances are transforming the healthcare industry and threatening the status quo through rich networks of connection, collaboration, and interdependence.
Creating a presentation for an audience of investors is a balancing act. On the one hand, there are specific pieces of information that investors want to see in a certain way, and if you don’t provide that information, they’ll wonder what you’re trying to hide. On the other hand, investors see so many presentations every month — hundreds of slides, thousands of charts, and an endless barrage of bullets and sub-bullets — it’s no wonder that so few make a lasting impression.
Face-to-face meetings with key members of the institutional investor community can be critical to your company’s success in the public markets. However, it can often be challenging for companies to reach the right institutional accounts and appropriately balance these IR activities with the many other demands on management’s time.
