PEGASUS JOINS ASHFIELD HEALTHCARE COMMUNICATIONS
May 31, 2016 | Ashfield Healthcare Communications, Brighton, Pegasus, UDG Healthcare, acquisition, integrated health
Pegasus, one of the most successful integrated healthcare communications consultancies in the UK, has today announced it has been acquired by UDG Healthcare plc, a FTSE 250 listed international provider of outsourced healthcare services. Pegasus will join Ashfield Healthcare Communications, which is part of UDG Healthcare’s Ashfield Commercial and Medical Services Division.
Pegasus is a multi award-winning integrated communications consultancy based in Brighton. It is known for its focus on behaviour change and its compelling mission of ‘inspiring healthy decisions’ through integrated campaigns, engaging multiple audiences from consumers, patients and HCPs to influencers and other stakeholder groups. It is a recent winner of Consultancy of the Year awards from PR Week and Communique as well as receiving over 30 campaign and workplace awards in the last two years. It was a notable climber in the 2016 PR Week League Tables, rising from 38th position to 28th, making it the 2nd largest healthcare PR consultancy in the UK and the largest PR consultancy outside of London.
The Board of Pegasus will now report into David Moore, Director at Ashfield Healthcare Communications. Lisa Bradley, founder of Pegasus in 1992, will step into the role of Chairman, following the departure of previous Chairman, Tim Adams, and Simon Hackett will take over the role of Managing Director.
Simon Hackett, Pegasus Managing Director said: “We were looking for a like-minded partner that could help us deliver a step-change in the development of our business and UDG Healthcare and Ashfield are the perfect fit. While we will be keeping our name, location, great team and compelling mission of ‘inspiring healthy decisions’, all of which have been important ingredients in our success, we will enjoy the benefits of aligning with Ashfield in terms of service offering, talent, business development and global presence. With Ashfield we can see an exciting and strong future, where their reach and our shared values will mean we can compete with the well-established global networks, continue our successful growth and provide a world-class service to our clients.”
David Moore, Director at Ashfield Healthcare Communications, said: “This is a strategically important acquisition for UDG Healthcare and Ashfield. It strengthens our existing communications offering and broadens our capabilities in patient and consumer communications programmes, as well as corporate reputation and crisis management for our growing client base. Pegasus is leading the market in the way it creates and delivers integrated solutions for its clients and we look forward to adding their expertise to our fast-growing portfolio of specialist healthcare agencies.”
Lisa Bradley, Chairman, said: “It is very exciting to be joining UDG Healthcare and Ashfield at this new stage in our development. We know they are the right cultural fit for our agency and they share our passion for delivering innovative campaigns across healthcare. Joining Ashfield will increase the breadth and depth of services we offer to our clients and will provide our staff with the opportunity to acquire new skills.”
Pegasus primarily works in the UK market, but also delivers an increasing number of European and global projects for larger clients seeking strategic programme development and implementation. Its client list reflects the breadth of its ‘health first, sector second’ ethos and includes global pharmaceutical companies, public sector healthcare organisations, pharmacy and retailers, animal health brands, healthy beauty products, and food groups.
Clarity (corporate finance) and Osborne Clarke (legals) advised the Pegasus Board throughout the deal process.
For more information please contact:
Marketing/communications media:
Duncan Mackenzie-Reid +44 (0)1273 712000 dmackenzie-reid@thisispegasus.co.uk / info@thisispegasus.co.uk
Business / Financial media:
Lisa Kavanagh / Jack Hickey, Powerscourt +44 (0)207 250 1446 UDGHealthCare@powerscourt-group.com
Healthcare trade media:
Supriya Mathur / Hollie Vile, Hume Brophy +44 (0)20 7862 6475 udg@humebrophy.com
About Pegasus
Located in Brighton with a 100 strong team of communications experts, Pegasus specialises in helping private and public sector organisations communicate healthy messages through integrated communications programmes. Focusing on an overall mission of ‘inspiring healthy decisions’ and driven by a ‘health first, sector second’ approach, Pegasus has an award-winning track record of creating and implementing campaigns that inspire behavior change.
Our approach starts with strategic planning based on behavior change methodology and blends earned, owned and paid for marketing services including media relations, corporate communications, creative, social and digital. Pegasus develops integrated campaigns which engage multiple audiences from consumers, patients and HCPs to influencers and other stakeholder groups. Pegasus has a strong focus on measuring campaign effectiveness and best practice in evaluation.For further information, please visit www.thisispegasus.co.uk
About Ashfield
Ashfield Commercial and Medical Services, part of UDG Healthcare plc, is a global leader in providing outsourced healthcare services to pharmaceutical, device and biotech companies. The company has 6,000 employees, operates in 18 countries across Europe, North America, South America and Asia and works with more than 250 companies, including all of the world’s top 25 pharmaceutical companies. Its mission is to partner with its clients, improving lives by helping healthcare professionals and patients get the medicines, knowledge and support they need.
Ashfield’s provides contract sales teams, customer service reps, medical science liaison officers, remote detailing, nurse educators, medical information, healthcare communications, market access, market research, training, event management, digital, creative and pharmacovigilance services.
For more information go to www.ashfieldhealthcare.com.
About UDG Healthcare PLC
UDG Healthcare plc (LON: UDG) is a leading international provider of services to the healthcare industry, employing over 7,000 employees at operations across 19 countries including the US, UK, Ireland and Germany.
UDG Healthcare plc operates across three divisions: Ashfield Commercial & Medical Services, Sharp Packaging Services and Supply Chain Services. Ashfield Commercial & Medical Services is a global leader in the provision of sales, marketing and healthcare communications services to pharmaceutical companies. It focuses on supporting healthcare professionals and patients at all stages of the product life cycle enabling improved compliance and clinical outcomes. The division provides sales teams, healthcare communications, telesales, nurse educators, medical information, pharmacovigilance, regulatory and event management services to over 300 healthcare companies in 18 countries.
Sharp Packaging Services is a global leader in contract packaging and clinical trial packaging services for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, operating from state of the art facilities across the US and Europe. Sharp is also a world leader in ’Track and Trace’ serialisation services, which will require all prescription drugs to have a unique serial code for authentication and traceability.
Supply Chain Services consists of Aquilant, a leading provider of outsourced sales, marketing, distribution and engineering services to the medical and scientific sectors in the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands.
The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250.
For more information, please go to: www.udghealthcare.com
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