News and Insights
Leading New York-Based Health Agency Lazar Partners Joins Finn Partners to Create One of the Sector’s Largest Practices
September 4, 2019
Acquisition Expands FINN Capabilities in Patient Communications, Clinical Trial Recruitment, Scientific Writing, Employee Communications, Marketing, and Public and Investor Relations
Complements FINN Strengths in Advertising, Branding, CSR, and Digital and Research, and Reach in Asia, Europe, Middle East and U.S.
NEW YORK – (September 4, 2019) — Global marketing and communications firm, Finn Partners, has acquired Lazar Partners, a 22-person, health-dedicated public and investor relations agency headquartered in New York City. The firm serves clients in the digital/health, health/tech, medical device and biopharma sectors.
Fern Lazar, Founder and CEO of Lazar Partners, will join FINN as a managing partner and become part of the agency’s Global Health Practice leadership team, led by Gil Bashe. The addition of Lazar ranks FINN among the largest independent health agencies* with more than $30 million in revenues. The practice will grow to 150 colleagues globally and FINN to nearly 800 employees.
FINN Founding Partner Peter Finn said, “Lazar Partners is an amazing addition to FINN and demonstrates how shared values unite communities and fuel performance. This important addition shows our vision at work, focused on high-growth global sectors such as Health, Sustainability, Technology and Travel, and geographic concentration of talent and resources to best serve client interests. The Lazar team boosts our biopharma, provider and health/tech brand-building capabilities globally.”
“We are passionate about our people and clients,” comments Fern Lazar, who led health and financial practices at two global PR firms before founding Lazar Partners in 2001. “Joining FINN allows us to deliver the cutting-edge services and reach of a global agency and provide our amazing team with expanded career opportunities in an entrepreneurial environment. Having admired FINN for its award-winning Health and Digital Practices, as well as a “people-first,” best place to work culture, becoming part of the firm was an easy decision to make.”
Gil Bashe, Managing Partner leading the FINN Global Health Practice, said, “The addition of Fern and the Lazar Partners team sends an important message to colleagues, clients and the industry community: everything we do must improve people’s lives. Communicators who share ideals build bridges between healers and those seeking to be healed. Lazar is a perfect fit in that mission.”
“After getting to know Peter, Gil and the FINN team, it was clear that our values and goals align,” stated Fern Lazar. “Now, by merging Lazar’s high-science offerings with the benefits of FINN resources and highly respected health expertise, we can offer more to our customers who inspire us each day. I’m excited about what the future holds for us and our clients when we unlock the potential of this powerful combination.”
Added Bashe, “I met Fern almost 20 years ago when we led different agencies with a shared client. Fern was collaborative and client-centered, and recognized that when people work together, everyone benefits. That is the very energy that makes FINN a leading agency and this relationship with Lazar Partners mutually additive.”
Lazar Partners and the FINN Health Practice share perspective on the complex U.S. health ecosystem and the belief that consumers need access to high-impact creative – across media channels – in order to make informed choices around their health and wellbeing. The two agencies have no client conflicts on their rosters, and match strengths in the digital/health, health/tech, medical device and biopharma sectors and across Food and Drug Administration regulated and direct consumer product categories.
Lazar Partners acting CFO, Seth Rosenstein, advised Lazar on the negotiations.
About Lazar Partners
Lazar Partners is a health communications consultancy offering deep expertise in investor relations, public relations, marketing communications, patient-to-patient communications, medical writing and key opinion leader engagement. Led by a team of senior advisors with agency, corporate life science, journalism and financial experience, Lazar Partners delivers personalized, results-oriented solutions for every client, from early-stage to industry leaders. Lazar Partners has professionals in New York, Los Angeles, North Carolina and Seattle with partners in Europe, Australia and Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit lazarpartners.com.
About FINN Health Practice
FINN is an award-winning, integrated marketing agency on pace with the pulse of health. Navigating the health ecosystem requires communication skills in aligning patient, payer, policymaker and product innovator interests. FINN health clients span biopharma, devices, diagnostics, health systems, patient groups, service and technology sectors. The agency represents many of the world’s largest and most innovative healthcare companies. FINN has won the Holmes Healthcare Agency of the Year and is included among the Top Five Global Healthcare Agencies.
About FINN Partners, Inc.
Founded in late 2011 on the core principles of innovation and collaborative partnership, FINN Partners has quadrupled in size in seven years, becoming one of the fastest growing independent public relations agencies in the world. The full-service marketing and communications company’s record setting pace is a result of organic growth and integrating new companies and new people into the FINN world through a common philosophy. With 800 professionals, FINN provides its clients with global access and capabilities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, in addition to PROI Worldwide. Headquartered in New York, FINN’s other offices are located in: Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Nashville, Paris, Portland, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore and Washington D.C. Find us at finnpartners.com and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @finnpartners.
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*O’Dwyer’s PR 2018 Ranking of Healthcare PR firms