Challenge/Opportunity

Company B was in the process of rebuilding and refocusing its pipeline and had only a single research analyst whose coverage no longer fit with the Company’s portfolio. The Investor Relations & External Communications team was retained initially to help them build a new following of research analysts knowledgeable in the Company’s area of expertise to initiate coverage.

Strategy

  • Begin an active, targeted sell-side program designed to introduce the Company to many of the industry’s key research analysts
  • Aim to obtain several coverage initiations, and over time, a mix of different tiers of coverage, thereby reaching a broader audience and increasing credibility

Tactics

  • Kicked off the program with a week’s worth of meetings at the annual JPMorgan healthcare conference, one of the year’s top industry events, where the Company met with a number of key firms and contacts in the industry
  • Revised the Company’s messaging in its corporate presentation, press releases, earnings conference calls, and other key documents
  • Created a distribution list to help promote company news to key industry contacts
  • Scheduled roadshows in key areas to meet with relevant sell-side contacts
  • Courted analysts and investors with an event to celebrate data and an upcoming clinical trial initiation at a major industry scientific conference
  • Recommended and supported bank-sponsored roadshows

Results

  • Established relationships with a broad spectrum of analysts
  • Three new sell-side analysts at boutique banks initiated coverage of the Company within the first year of the IREC program, and several additional analysts, some at top national banks, expressed serious interest in initiating
  • The Company presented at twice as many investor conferences as the year before and saw its stock rise about 50% vs the BTK