Media Coverage Isn’t Guaranteed — But It Can Be Earned With the Right PR Strategy

PR for Increased Brand Awareness

X-Chem is a drug discovery and development service provider specializing in small molecule DNA-encoded libraries (DELs). X-Chem’s founders and staff include pioneers of DEL technology and DEL-based drug discovery, including some of the most experienced experts in the world for hit identification and hit-to-lead optimization from DEL screens.  

Despite having one of the inventors and pioneers of DEL technology and a well-renowned leader in AI for drug discovery on their executive team, X-Chem was struggling for awareness beyond their core customer base. They had grown their U.S.-based business, but exposure to and awareness of X-Chem’s brand was still relatively low across the world, with only a 1% share of voice (SOV) average compared to competitors. 

Beginning in February of 2022, SCORR worked with X-Chem for two years to build consistent coverage, setting goals to support increasing brand awareness through public relations strategies that included news releases, award submissions, and pitching to secure editorial and speaking opportunities. 

Over the course of two years, the SCORR PR team exponentially increased X-Chem’s earned media visibility and brand awareness: 

• By June 2022 (five months into the campaign), we had surpassed all of X-Chem’s PR goals for the entire year  
• By the end of December 2022 (11 months into the campaign), the SCORR PR team 
  • Increased X-Chem’s SOV from 1% to 38% 
  • Achieved 1,300+ media mentions in 11 months, nearly doubling mentions from 2021 
  • Secured earned media opportunities across 10+ publications — a more than 700% increase from the previous year 
  • Coordinated X-Chem winning submissions for three awards 
    • International Clinical Trial’s Women in Pharma 
    • PharmaVoice 100 
    • Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards 
• By February 2023 (first month of year two of the campaign), the SCORR PR team 
  • Achieved a number one SOV position for X-Chem among their competitors 
  • Doubled media mentions for X-Chem over 2022 and more than quadrupled them in two years’ time 
  • Created 1.5x more award opportunities for 2023 

PR for Expanding Thought Leadership Reputation 

Target audiences make decisions based on knowing, liking, and trusting you. Ensuring your subject matter experts’ reputation as thought leaders is essential to meeting this goal. Here’s how the SCORR PR team accomplished this for one of our clients. 

At the end of 2022, Kindeva Drug Delivery merged with Meridian Medical Technologies. Overnight, the company became a top global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO). Kindeva develops and manufactures pulmonary & nasal, injectable, and transdermal combination products, and their service offerings span early-stage feasibility through commercial scale drug product fill-finish, container closure system manufacturing, and drug-device product assembly. They serve a global client base from state-of-the-art manufacturing, research, and development facilities located across the U.S. and U.K. 

The newly combined company had very little published thought leadership spanning their broad, foundational array of drug-delivery expertise. They needed to quickly establish a reputation for their extensive history of innovation as well as their new scope of capabilities. 

From the end of 2022 through 2023, the SCORR PR team supported Kindeva’s business goal of being known as a global, innovative CDMO player through increased thought leadership. 

Since the announcement of the combined company, SCORR’s PR efforts supported a 15x increase in thought leadership by the end of 2023. More online visibility to Kindeva’s expertise was published across a variety of impactful industry publications, including: