Pharma Agencies Consolidate

CRM firm Rosetta Marketing Strategies Group has acquired interactive marketing agency SimStar. The deal, the terms of which weren’t disclosed, is aimed at creating a full-service marketing services firm that will initially focus on serving the pharmaceutical and biotech verticals.

“What we’re seeing in the marketplace is a very strong need to provide the integration between what makes consumers or doctors tick, and then driving that into really personalized marketing,” said Chris Kuenne, Rosetta’s president and founder. “Each company has been doing that separately with its own technology and approach. We serve many of the same clients, so we’ll be able to put the two pieces together quite elegantly.”

Both companies have existing client relationships with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, several divisions of Johnson & Johnson, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Other clients on the combined company’s roster include Gillette, Microsoft, America Online, Novartis, CIBC, Genentech, Chase, AmericanGreetings.com, Merrill Lynch, and Cingular.

Rosetta plans to focus on building its pharma and healthcare verticals first, and then will begin to focus on other verticals next year. Rosetta has been serving five other industries — financial services, consumer technology, digital entertainment, travel and leisure, and other e-centric businesses. Rosetta is now hiring both to handle its current workload and in anticipation of future growth.

“What we’re bringing to the table is the implementation capabilities, focused on interactive channels that will intersect with the strategic and analytical capabilities that Rosetta is bringing,” said Rob Rebak, former president of SimStar, and now the president of the SimStar business unit.