2024 PM Society Digital Award Winners

Syneos Health Communications & Precision AQ lead agency list Novartis, Roche & Takeda share top client spot

Over the course of 15 phenomenal years, the PM Society Digital Awards have become an unmissable sellout event in the healthcare marketing calendar. Every year provides a new opportunity for agencies and client organisations to celebrate their achievements in innovation, quality and outcomes within digital communications. The PM Society Digital Awards 2024, supported by Twist Health as the main sponsor, welcomed over 500 people to The Brewery in London and was expertly hosted by the comedian, television presenter and actor, Joel Dommett.

Syneos Health Communications and Precision AQ were the most successful agencies; Syneos took a Gold, a Silver and a Highly Commended, as well as winning the accolade of Digital Agency of the Year. Precision AQ won two Golds and a Silver. Other Gold winners included Cognitant Group, Digital Control Room, Havas Red with Havas Life Medicom, Langland, M3 (EU), MedShr, Page & Page, Prime | earthware, Radical Departures, Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, Varn Health, Golin and VML Health.

Best Project or Account Manager of the Year was won by performance.io’s Lawrence Ward-Lilley. Lawrence made a huge impact on the judges, demonstrating the skills that make for excellent client delivery in a digital setting; they felt he exemplified what it means to be an Account Manager.

Digital Agency of the Year winner, Syneos Health Communications, wowed the judges with their deep focus on innovation coming from a clearly tight-knit team. “The high levels of originality and the boldness in their approach to generative AI have transformed Syneos’ own practices as well as offering gamechanging solutions for clients. The team gave a great presentation, and judges could feel the unity and real passion!” The standard was high with four agencies reaching the Digital Agency of the Year finals. Havas Lynx Media were awarded Highly Commended.

New category, Pharma Technology Impact, had an incredible array of entries and we were delighted to see Gold go to Digital Control Room for their solution, Harnessing Technology to Deliver Digital Compliance, for AstraZeneca. The judges said, “Compliance is rarely seen as a ‘sexy’ subject, but Digital Control Room have delivered an incredibly impactful digital solution to an established and ongoing problem that many companies face. A robust, agile and rapid solve, leading to a dramatic improvement in compliance. Generating true impact with tangible results!”

Another new category, Proud to Promote, aims to recognise the ethical value of promoting medicines. Precision AQ won with their omnichannel campaign for Takeda. Judge Nick Broughton said, “This promotional campaign, aimed at healthcare professionals and organisations, was designed with the impact on patient care in mind. It positively changed the lives of patients in a way that wouldn’t have happened otherwise—this is promotion to be proud of.”

On the client side, there were three pharma companies at the top of the leader board. Novartis (including Novartis and Novartis UK) won two Golds, a Silver and two Bronzes; Roche also took two Golds; Takeda took home two Golds, a Silver and a Bronze.

There were other impressive pharma results; GSK won a Gold, two Silvers and one Bronze and AstraZeneca won a Gold, three Silvers and a Bronze. Other Gold-winning clients included Europa Donna, GE Healthcare, medac Pharma, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer UK, Theramex, UCLH NHS Foundation Trust and Valneva.

The final award of the night, that for Pharma Digital Partner, was won by Sarah Bartlett from AbbVie, with Highly Commended going to Sam Lands from Alliance Pharma. This award goes to an individual working in the pharmaceutical or life sciences industries who is a digital champion within their organisation, pushing boundaries and championing innovation, as well as being a great agency partner.

Pharma Digital Partner judges said, “Sarah radiates energy and enthusiasm that’s infectious and makes it easy to see how she manages to co-ordinate so many moving parts in her role. Her 'people-first' approach really impressed, and no doubt is key to how Sarah gains the buy-in of a multitude of stakeholders when persuading them to try new digital approaches. Her expertise and thought leadership shine through and she has clearly drawn on her own agency experience to establish a more progressive partnership approach with her agencies. Sarah’s ability to sparkle even when facing the most daunting of goals, plus her ability to bring people together is so refreshing. We need much more of that in this industry.”

Chair of the PM Society Digital Awards, Rachel Farrow, was interviewed about this year’s milestone event. “I can’t believe it’s been 15 years! What a journey we’ve been on. I am so proud of how this awards event has developed, evolving each year to keep up with digital advancements in healthcare communications. The outstanding work that made it to the finals this year came from over 50 different agencies, which is the highest number we’ve ever seen. While the range of work was huge, spanning healthcare professional education, patient support, pharmaceutical promotion and disease awareness, the projects and campaigns taking home awards this year have something in common—they have all pushed the boundary of the digital medium to enhance lives. This is ultimately why I continue to work on leading this event year after year. Here’s to the next 15!”

Full list of Gold winners

Brand Promotion: M3 (EU) for Theramex
Customer Experience Excellence: Precision AQ for Takeda
Disease Awareness: Public: Havas Red/Havas Life Medicom for Novartis UK
Engaging HCP Communities: MedShr for Novartis
Evolving Campaigns: Radical Departures for Valneva
External Communications: Varn Health for Roche
Film, Animation & Video: Syneos Health Communications for Roche
HCP Education & Support: Prime | earthware for medac Pharma
Healthcare Charities: VML Health for Europa Donna
Innovation: Creativity: Langland for GE HealthCare
Innovation: Technology: Page & Page for Pfizer UK
Internal Communications: Golin for Novo Nordisk
Meetings & Events: Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness for GSK
Patient Programmes: Cognitant Group for UCLH
Pharma Technology Impact: Digital Control Room for AstraZeneca
Proud to Promote: Precision AQ for Takeda
Project or Account Manager: Lawrence Ward-Lilley (performance.io)
Digital Agency of the Year: Syneos Health Communications
Pharma Digital Partner: Sarah Bartlett (AbbVie)

About the PM Society

The PM Society is a not-for-profit organisation, which was founded over 40 years ago. Today it has over 4000 active members from over 250 companies and has three aims—to support organisations and people in health care, to recognise excellence and promote best practice, and to provide education and training. Profits from the two awards events go into funding our CSR activities, including free careers events, our Creativity for Good initiative that helps a charity each year find pro bono support, our interest group activities and our learning and development focus. For more information see our website at www.pmsociety.org.uk