Maximising the Impact from Significant Scientific News

Polyphor is a private Swiss biotech company providing innovative products with high therapeutic benefit to patients and high quality drug discovery support to its pharmaceutical industry partners. Polyphor has developed proprietary Protein Epitope Mimetics (PEM) Technology, built up an attractive PEM-drug portfolio and evolved into a clinical stage company.

College Hill supports Polyphor in managing newsflow and publications. At the start of 2010 Polyphor made College Hill aware that it had discovered a new class of antibiotics, a discovery of such importance that it was due to be published in leading magazine "Science".

College Hill worked closely with Polyphor's senior management to ensure that this important scientific news achieved the widest possible international coverage and in doing so supported the Company's story.

• Achieve widespread coverage of the scientific news in Switzerland, Germany, UK, USA and beyond.
• Ensure the Polyphor news stood out from all the other high impact scientific stories that week.
• Ensure that Polyphor is mentioned in the coverage.

Our Approach

• Working with Polyphor, College Hill supplied editorial input to the press release, Q&A and supporting documents in both English and German.
• With careful attention to the PR policy and guidelines of Science magazine, College Hill formulated a careful plan of embargoed advances to select journalists.
• Advances were provided to each of the key journalists who were also offered interviews and background materials.
• The press release was then distributed widely by email and newswire on the day of publication.
• Maximise opportunity to promote the new website by designing and distributing an e-shot to announce the launch of the website to key contacts.

Coverage was achieved in key global news wire Reuters, in daily newspapers in the UK and Germany - The Times, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, as well as trade press - Transkript, BioWorld Today and SciBx and widely in English and German language international media.

Michael Altorfer, CFO, Polyphor commented: "The support of College Hill has been very effective and allowed us to leverage the impact of the news internationally. College Hill also facilitated access to selected journalists for advance interviews during the embargo period."

November 2009

To discuss our capability in this area please contact:
Dr Douglas Pretsell - Associate Partner
+49 (0)89 5700 1806
douglas.pretsell[at]collegehill.com

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