I’m very excited for my first end-of-year blog as part of the ICR family. It’s been an incredible year for us at ICR Consilium, and already we are beginning to benefit so much from being part of the US group.
Mapping the market, we have outperformed due to our strong public company client work, M&A and special situations advisory and a significantly higher amount of private financing work. Of course, we would love market conditions to recover quickly, but in the meantime we’ve had plenty to keep us engaged.
Bearing in mind the geopolitical situation across the globe, and never forgetting how fortunate we are compared to others, we have continued to work hard as a team, hire well, live every day according to our values, enjoy good office banter and deliver exceptional results for our clients.
The highlight for us this year was without doubt our acquisition by ICR, which felt smooth and positive due to our long-term and successful joint venture partnership.
While there are many positives from the year, they are all overshadowed by the tragic loss of our colleague Matthew Cole, who we miss dearly every day. In his honour we are launching the ‘Matthew Cole Award for Excellence’ internally, so we never forget him or the analytical robustness, brilliance and wit he brought to our firm.
Since founding the company in 2013, the team at Consilium has achieved extraordinary results leading to the agency becoming Europe’s leading independent financial PR and IR firm servicing the global healthcare sector. And it has been an absolute joy to lead this firm with these great friends, colleagues and clients during this time, and of course rewarding for all of us. We now have enjoyed integrating with our American colleagues and bringing many new important IR and PR offerings in the US to our loyal clients as they continue to build their strategies and grow with us.
As underlined during the Covid era, the healthcare sector has continued to thrive and demonstrate its immense value to society. Science is a space I fell in love with from around the age of ten when I set up my own lab at home in my parents’ utility room, complete with a microscope, freezers, sterile dissection areas, tubs and boxes clearly labelled and full of anything I could find – dead or alive, plant or animal. I continue to love working in healthcare where medical advances happen each year and this year in particular it has been fabulous to see breakthrough data in areas including the GLP-1s – not just for weight loss but for cardiovascular disease. There have also been breakthroughs in malaria, cancer – in particular in radiopharma and RSV to name a few other highlights. – There have also been advances in Alzheimer’s disease, after decades of disappointment
Although it’s been a buzz word for decades, AI is becoming embedded in everything we do. Thankfully, no one will replace us yet as financial PR and IR advisors although internally at ICR we are already refining our own internal technology engine that’s becoming richer and more useful for our staff, and therefore our clients, by the day.
Thanks to everyone for working with us this year. It’s been a pleasure creating success and serving you all again as well as meeting so many new and valued clients. Have a very merry Christmas and a happy restful holiday.
