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Specialist
Former executive at Real Chemistry International Ltd
Agenda
- Medical communications agencies’ market evolution and sustainability outlook
- Macroeconomic pressures and labour dynamics, noting potential impact on medical communications agencies
- Real Chemistry’s key service offering and competitive market positioning
- Growth outlook and scalability for Real Chemistry, focusing on automation and digitalisation capabilities
Questions
1.
Could you discuss the broader market for medical communications and medical affairs agencies? Could you outline your demand outlook for these services? How sustainable do you see the environment being across key services?
2.
You made some comments around the sustainability of demand. I was curious to understand whether, with respect to the type of services – and you delineated across commercialisation as well as marketing and communications – is there a service in which we’re seeing demand being typically strongest?
3.
Looking at the broader customer base for some med-comms and med-affairs agencies, and considering the trend of essentially cost-cutting activities across pharma companies that we’re seeing at the moment, to what extent do you think this is having an impact on the broader demand we’ve discussed for med-comms services? How do you see that evolving?
4.
Do you expect the trend of pharma companies typically going with fewer providers to continue, or would you say that is particularly relevant for the moment we’re in right now?
5.
One key headwind in the wider med-comms and med-affairs industry seems to be the ability to attract and retain talent. Do you agree? If so, how do you see this changing? Might it differ across med-comms and med-affairs services?
6.
Specialists in previous Forum Interviews have noted a 20-25% attrition rate for med-comms agencies. Is that in line with your estimations? If not, what might it be?
7.
Based on the 20-25% you’ve described, how do you see the attrition rate changing?
8.
In the context of the demand outlook we’ve discussed, how should we think about the level of labour shortage and some of its related dynamics, specifically for med-comms and med-affairs agencies in the broader industry?
9.
Could you roughly quantify the labour shortages that the industry is seeing at the moment?
10.
Looking at the current macroeconomic environment and focusing on inflation, how significant is the wage inflation in the market? Could you roughly quantify this? How might it trend going forwards?
11.
Could you provide a rough estimation for the wage inflation that we’re seeing now and how it compares to 12-18 months ago?
12.
How successfully do you see med-comms agencies passing on certain costs to customers? Do you see that differing across customer type, for example, across a larger or a mid-sized pharma, or a biotech company?
13.
Could you provide an overview of Real Chemistry and its core offerings? Could you delineate across the offerings that the company refers to as the integrated marketing communications, the commercial and medical solutions as well as the data and AI solutions?
14.
Do you expect Real Chemistry to increasingly and successfully focus on its data and AI solutions, strategically speaking? You mentioned the company being in more of a developmental phase as opposed to being rather established. Do you think the core of Real Chemistry’s services will remain around marketing communications as well as commercial and medical solutions?
15.
In terms of what you mentioned around Real Chemistry’s core focus being in the more traditional services, how should we think about the key sources of differentiation for this company vs some of its competing players or peers? Why might a customer want to go to Real Chemistry vs a different player?
16.
Thinking about what we discussed around Real Chemistry’s AI and analytics capabilities, although they’re not the core offerings, how would you say those capabilities benchmark vs other med-comms or med-affairs agencies?
17.
If we had to distinguish across AI or automation vs analytics, do you see Real Chemistry being stronger in one vs the other, or otherwise?
18.
To what extent do you think the ability to provide the analytics solutions we’re discussing will lead to increased customer stickiness?
19.
According to Real Chemistry’s website and FY22 financial results, the company achieved revenue of around USD 555m, which is equal to 17% YoY growth compared to USD 475m in FY21. Based on everything we have discussed, what do you think has been driving this growth?
20.
Could we assume that the majority of the 17% growth reported by Real Chemistry was inorganic vs organic?
21.
Real Chemistry also reports double-digit growth in its advertising and communication businesses – as much as 50% growth in several categories, including data, AI, market access and med-affairs. How sustainable do you see that, based on everything we’ve discussed?
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