News

Water Street and JLL Partners annouced today that they invested in The Patient Experience Project (PEP), a full-service, patient-centric healthcare marketing and communications agency based in Saratoga Springs, New York. Water Street and JLL will combine PEP with their global life sciences platform.

"This is a natural next chapter for an expanding and innovative business like PEP,” said PEP Founder and President Dan Bobear. “It will give us the resources we need to bring additional services to our clients, advance our mission to improve the patient experience, and take the agency to the next level.”

PEP will continue to operate under its existing name and management team from its locations in Saratoga Springs and Chicago. Bobear will remain as PEP’s president and will manage the firm and lead its operations in the same capacity he has since its inception in 2012. “For our clients and our employees, it will be business as usual,” Bobear added. The agency plans to continue to hire and, in fact, anticipates adding a number of new employees in 2018.

“Water Street and JLL have a proven track record of growing companies by investing in infrastructure, technology, and human resources to enable that growth,” said Bobear. “I am confident that PEP and our clients will see great benefit from their experience and expertise.”

Water Street and JLL have significantly expanded their life sciences platform since forming it last year through the merger of Alliance Life Sciences and Health Strategies Group with The Access Group. The firms recently added Triplefin and Dohmen Life Science Services to the platform to extend its solutions to patient-centered services.

With the addition of PEP, the platform will offer customers a comprehensive portfolio of offerings, including channel, market access, patient support, marketing, communications, and regulatory solutions to improve the speed and success of bringing complex therapies to market. It will employ nearly 1,500 global professionals who will serve more than 300 of the industry’s top biopharmaceutical and medical device companies.

“We are thrilled to have PEP, one of the fastest growing healthcare agencies in the country, join our platform. We share their commitment to the patient being at the center of everything we do,” said Jim Lang, executive chairman of the life sciences platform. “PEP offers leading-edge approaches that enable life sciences companies to create unique solutions for patient support in complex and rare therapies. Together, we can offer patients comprehensive support, including using evidence/outcomes-based frameworks to show the value of their treatment.”