The Westwicke Blog is designed to deliver information and insights into the ever-changing world of healthcare communications.
As life science and medical device companies seek regulatory approval for their products, they will likely encounter difficult disclosure decisions around clinical and regulatory events. Clinical trial data and milestones can present great opportunities as well as significant challenges.
The challenges of functioning successfully in an extended COVID-19 environment have presented many new ways of doing business. This is especially evident for events such as non-deal roadshows (NDRs).
Public healthcare companies often question the best course of action during quiet periods — those stretches of time during which they should limit their interaction with Wall Street due to their knowledge of material and timely information that has not yet been disclosed. Specifically, management teams struggle to figure out what the quiet period means for their investor relations (IR) efforts.
There are many things public companies must consider when disseminating news. What is the most appropriate vehicle to disclose news to investors? In some instances, you will need to file a Form 8-K, the disclosure from the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). Sometimes, the news will necessitate issuing a press release. And sometimes, you will file both.
Today, potential investors who are interested in learning about your company will likely visit your website before anything else. To make a good first impression, your investor relations website should be informative, appealing, and easy to navigate. This will allow investors to quickly understand all the fundamentals of your business before setting up a time to meet with management.
Over the past few weeks, cities, states, and businesses have begun taking measures to help slow the spread of COVID-19. For many companies, that means encouraging or requiring employees to work from home. For others, it means cancelling conferences, meetings, and investor days.
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.
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.
For publicly traded healthcare companies, clinical trial data and milestone disclosure can present great opportunities as well as significant challenges.
On the path toward regulatory approval, life science and medical device company management will encounter difficult disclosure decisions surrounding clinical and regulatory events. Finding the right balance between the “duty to disclose” vs. “pressure to disclose” dilemma is not easy. If done right, such milestones are a great way to raise visibility within the investment, clinical and scientific communities. If done wrong, the consequences may be severe.
