2015 – 2019

Looking back at the medical advertising industry from 2015 to 2020 reveals an amazing arc of change.

Among other observations, we can see that the industry prepared itself exceedingly well for the cataclysmic changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the years prior to 2020, literally everything in the industry felt like it was changing–roles, therapeutic modalities, ways to reach customers, how agencies organized themselves, even the nature of the agency/client relationship.

Yet, despite all the flux, the industry did manage to grow–significantly. Using the MM+M Agency 100 revenue tables as the standard, growth was nearly 31%, and income rose from $4.4 to $5.7 billion dollars. (As a benchmark, the overall consumer advertising and marketing industry grew 30% in this time frame.) The compound growth rate for the industry was about 7%, compared to an anemic 2.3% for the GDP in the same period.

As our industry grew, so did staffing levels and salaries. This, of course, was exhilarating. The average agency salary rose 31% from $137,000 in 2015 to $180,000 in 2019. The cost of living in the United States grew 2.8% in the same span.

Change in life is inevitable and constant; to the laborers in the fields, it felt concomitantly exhilarating and discomforting. Ginni Rometty, former CEO of IBM, famously said that “growth and comfort do not coexist.” In a hashtag, #Word.

Growth among agency segments was not uniform, by any means. Capital was flowing into the industry to capture and amortize the strong revenue growth among biopharma companies. And private equity, already established, saw its role grow disproportionally. As the overall industry grew at a 31% rate, PE firms grew at an astonishing 318%!

Some illustrative examples. Fingerpaint’s revenue in 2015 was $21MM; in 2019 it reached $50.9 MM. W20, on its way to become industry giant Real Chemistry, grew from $88.5 million in 2015 to $200 million in 2019. Overall, the PE segment grew at a compound rate of 43%.

Meanwhile, networks began an ongoing process of rolling up their practices to meet the needs of larger clients and to reduce expenses. Havas Health & You and WPP Health and Wellness announced their new personas in 2015.

The business landscape changed dramatically in the 2015-2020 period. Focus was much higher on products for rare diseases and for cancer. In 2015, FDA approved 21 new orphan drugs for rare diseases, nearly half of the total approved drugs for that period. The first antibody-drug conjugate agent, Pfizer’s Mylotarg, was FDA approved for the treatment of AML in May of 2017. Close on its heels, Novartis’ Kymriah, the first gene therapy, was approved in August 2017 for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The end of a consumer advertising era ended in 2017, when both Viagra and Cialis ended broadcast promotions. More and more, consumer promotion moved to digital promotion, with outreaches to select cancer and rare disease patients.

With an increased focus upon cultivating the future of the industry, the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame upped its game with respect to education, hosting events beyond the gala, including YENO (Young Executive’s Night Out) events both large and small with a regular cadence. The Future Famers award picked up steam, growing from 16 Future Famers in 2015 to 28 in 2020.

Yes, change. And plenty of it.