Cossette has launched a new healthcare practice to help healthcare companies disrupt, rather than be disrupted.
The new division, called Cossette Health, focuses on three key areas: integrated communications, healthcare innovation, and a startup incubator that builds on the success of Cossette Lab.
“Healthcare, like every vertical in the world, is going through a rapid transformation,” Dr. John Reeves, managing director at Cossette Health told Marketing.
“Outside startups and smaller companies are coming in and disrupting the healthcare landscape because they behave in a different way. The entrenched healthcare companies need to transform themselves and act more like startups if they’re going to be successful in this new future of healthcare. They need help in that innovation and transformation.”
At the same time, added Reeves, whether healthcare companies are building new products or launching startups, “[they] have to leverage the persuasive advertising model that Cossette brings to the table… It’s important that we build technology, but also activate patients to use that.”
Prior to joining Cossette Health, Reeves (pictured above left) ran his own healthcare startup, Liberate, a patient engagement and adherence platform. He’s also held senior digital leadership roles at Elsevier and McCann Healthcare Worldwide in New York.
Joe Dee, formerly VP of product and technology strategy at Cossette, is now head of product and technology at Cossette Health.
“We’re really focused on developing things that add value or a new experience between our clients and their clients,” said Dee, who was instrumental in developing Cossette Lab.
Cossette Health will work with existing Cossette creative teams as needed. Reeves said the management team has “very healthcare-focused expertise,” and does the strategy, innovation and transformation work with clients. “But, we can selectively pick any of the resources within the Cossette family to execute upon those ideas,” he said.
The group is currently working with around 10 healthcare startups on everything from strategy and CRM to creative and design. It’s also working with the Canadian Medical Association on Joule, a CMA company driving physician-led innovation.
Cossette Health is headquartered in Toronto and has an office in Chicago. The agency plans to add a healthcare practice in the Montreal office in the next couple months.
