Ashfield Healthcare Communications rebrands as Ashfield Health

Ashfield Healthcare Communications rebrands as Ashfield Health, launches two new global agencies and appoints former McCann Health Americas head as Global President.

• Former 19-year McCann Health veteran, latterly President of the Americas, Amar Urhekar, joins as Global President of the >1,450 people-strong Ashfield Health network.
• Ashfield Digital and Creative (UK), Cambridge BioMarketing (US) and Pegasus (UK) merge to form Mind+Matter, a new global, data-driven creative communications agency.
• Ashfield Health’s 14 medical and scientific communications agencies come together to create Ashfield MedComms, a new 700 strong global powerhouse.
• Ashfield Health agencies unified by common brand identity and shared new purpose to ‘make it matter’

Following a healthcare communications career spanning over two decades of leadership in five countries, Amar Urhekar takes the helm as Global President of the >1,450 strong network that is rebranding from Ashfield Healthcare Communications to Ashfield Health. Since joining, Amar Urhekar has led the network through the challenges of COVID-19, resulting in continued growth, and has put a new strategy in place, which sees Ashfield Health emerge as a new agile, dynamic network – data and technology driven, creative, and diverse.

“Ashfield Health is now designed to respond better and quicker to the new challenges our clients face. We encourage independence and entrepreneurialism in our specialist agency teams but also have the unique ability to work as one team when needed. By unifying around our common purpose of make it matter, we have stronger connections that enable us to scale rapidly and provide our clients with tailored expert teams. We can truly deliver life-changing work that matters,” said Amar Urhekar, Global President of Ashfield Health.

Central to Ashfield Health’s new strategy has been a merging of some of the network’s standout acquisitions from the past 10 years to form two exciting new global agencies - Mind+Matter and Ashfield MedComms.

Mind+Matter is a new 250-strong global creative communications agency that creates meaningful experiences by bringing data and emotion together to drive behavior change. Formed through the merging of three successful Ashfield Health agencies – US-based Cambridge BioMarketing, UK-based Ashfield Digital and Creative and Pegasus – Mind+Matter will span the breadth of health from consumer health through to established pharma and rare and novel therapies. Mind+Matter will be led by former President of Cambridge BioMarketing, Ben Beckley.

“We’re already using data and descriptive analytics to predict behaviour before it happens, but Mind+Matter will be breaking new ground by significantly investing in new data talent and technology and combining this with emotionally powerful creativity. By bringing these three individual agencies together, we have built a new team that can operate globally and uniquely apply this across the full spectrum of health – a perfect example of how Ashfield Health is answering the big challenges our clients have,” comments Urhekar.

Ashfield MedComms brings together over 700 creatives, scientists, strategists, and client partnersto form one of the largest scientific and medical communications agencies in the world. Ashfield MedComms’ work will continue to span new medicines for diseases where no treatment existed, to paradigm-shifting advances, to precision medicines, real-world evidence and patient-relevant outcomes, to technologies and diagnostics.This new global powerhouse will be headed up by regional Ashfield Health Presidents Richard Lawrence (International) and Matt Jacobson (North America), reporting into Amar Urhekar.

“The scientific strength and leadership in our individual agencies has been built over decades, but the creation of Ashfield MedComms signals our ability to evolve for today. By bringing our agencies together and investing heavily in strategic and creative talent, our clients will have a unrivalled global partner that can help them play a bigger role in shaping the future of healthcare and ultimately patient’s lives,” said Urhekar.

The Ashfield Health network has grown rapidly in recent years following a series of select – specialist acquisitions, including CanaleComms, CreateNYC, Galliard, Incisive Health, and MicroMass in addition to the former Cambridge BioMarketing and Pegasus agencies.  All Ashfield Health agencies are united by a new brand identity and shared purpose to make it matter.

“Central to connecting this great network of agencies is a shared purpose,” explains Urhekar.  “Our drive to ‘make it matter’ inspires us to grow, adapt, be more creative and work smarter than anyone else to deliver work that is truly life changing.From making discoveries to making a difference, we will take every opportunity to challenge convention and spark change for better health – this is something that you will see in every Ashfield Health agency.”

The new strategy has seen several new positions created to support capability development, growth and innovation – an example of this is the appointment of former Business Unit Head with responsibility for Ashfield Digital and Creative and Pegasus, Simon Hackett, into the role of Global Growth Director, Ashfield Health.

Visit www.ashfieldhealth.com to find out more