Private Equity & Portfolio Companies
Marketing for Private Equity-Backed
Life Sciences Companies
Private equity ownership changes what marketing has to deliver.
Marketing needs to support the commercial plan, execute quickly, show what is working, integrate acquisitions when needed, and give management and investors a clear view of what the function is contributing.
High Touch Group specializes in working with private equity-owned and PE-backed life sciences companies. We can take operating responsibility for most or all of a portfolio company’s marketing function, or step into the capabilities that need to improve.
Strategy. Campaigns. Scientific content. Digital. Events. Marketing operations. Measurement and reporting. We determine what should remain inside the company, what HTG should run, and how the two sides work together.
Then we take responsibility for the work.
We Work to the
Investment Clock
A PE-backed company cannot afford to have marketing running on a separate track from the commercial plan.
We start with the company’s growth objectives. Which products, markets, buyer groups, and geographies matter most? What does the commercial organization need marketing to accomplish? Where is the current function helping? Where is it moving too slowly? Which capabilities are missing? What is being measured? Where is money being spent without enough evidence of what it is producing?
Those answers determine the marketing model.
For some companies, we work alongside an effective internal marketing leader and team. For others, we take responsibility for several functions that are under-resourced or underperforming. In some engagements, HTG becomes the operating marketing team, with company leadership setting commercial priorities and making the decisions that properly belong inside the business.
The goal is not to build the largest possible marketing organization. It is to give the company the marketing capabilities its commercial plan requires.
Many agencies are set up to execute a brief.
HTG can own the brief, the execution, the measurement, and the decision about what happens next.
When we operate the marketing function, our scope can include:
- Marketing strategy and annual planning
- Website strategy and management
- Email and lead nurture
- Sales enablement
- Analytics
- Campaign ownership from brief through measurement and adjustment
- SEO and visibility across AI-driven search
- Product and service launches
- Market intelligence
- Management and board reporting
- Scientific and technical content
- Advertising and media
- Trade shows and proprietary events
- Marketing operations
- Marketing integration following acquisitions
The portfolio company retains its commercial strategy, scientific expertise, executive decisions, and appropriate approvals.
HTG provides the operating capacity to turn those decisions into marketing programs and results.
Not every portfolio company needs HTG to run everything.
Some already have strong marketing leadership but lack scientific content capacity. Some execute campaigns but cannot tell management what those campaigns produced. Some have capable individual marketers but no one accountable for a campaign from beginning to end. Some spend heavily on events without connecting that investment tightly enough to sales activity. Others have accumulated websites, brands, agencies, technologies, or processes through acquisitions and need to bring them into a coherent commercial program.
We can work inside the structure that already exists.
- Strategy and leadership
We develop or rebuild the marketing plan, positioning, messaging, market intelligence, campaign strategy, editorial plan, and operating rhythm around the company’s commercial priorities. - Digital and discoverability
We evaluate the website as a commercial asset, including technical performance, content architecture, SEO, conversion pathways, and visibility to the AI-driven research tools buyers increasingly use.
- Campaign execution
We can own campaigns from audience and offer definition through production, launch, measurement, analysis, and the next decision. - Events
We treat events as commercial programs, not isolated calendar commitments. That means target accounts, pre-event outreach, meetings, on-site sales activity, follow-up, market intelligence, and reporting.
- Scientific content
Our team produces technically credible content for scientific and clinical audiences across life sciences tools and services, CROs and CDMOs, diagnostics and IVD, medtech and medical devices, and biotechnology. - Measurement and marketing operations
We define what marketing is accountable for, establish the reporting model, connect campaign activity to the systems that matter, and give management information it can use to make decisions.
Whether HTG owns one capability or most of the function, the work has a clear commercial objective and a named owner.
First, We Decide What
Should Stay Inside
We do not assume that a marketing function needs to be replaced wholesale. We determine what is working first.
For PE operating partners and portfolio-company CEOs, we typically evaluate four areas together.
01
Team
Who is doing excellent work today? Which capabilities genuinely need to remain inside the company? Which roles are missing? Where does the company need more capability, and does that capability actually require another permanent hire?
02
Technology
What is already in the stack? What is being used well? What is duplicative, poorly configured, or adding work? Are the website, CRM, marketing automation, analytics, and content systems helping the team execute?
03
Measurement
What is marketing accountable for? What does management actually know about campaign, channel, event, and content performance? Is reporting showing activity, or is it helping management decide what to fund, change, expand, or stop?
04
Ownership
Who owns a campaign from beginning to end? Who can approve it? Where do decisions stall? What happens when a program underperforms? Who is responsible for changing it?
From there, we establish what stays inside the portfolio company, what HTG runs, who makes which decisions, and how performance will be reviewed.
For Private Equity Firms
Operating partners and investment teams need to know whether marketing has the capabilities required by the value creation plan, where execution is falling short, and whether additional permanent headcount is the best answer.
We give the portfolio company an accountable marketing operating model and give the sponsor better visibility into what marketing is doing and what it is producing.
That can mean improving an existing function. It can mean adding capabilities without building another internal department. It can mean taking over functions that are not performing. And it can mean running most of marketing while management concentrates on the business.
When acquisitions are part of the growth strategy, we also help turn acquired brands, capabilities, websites, customer relationships, and market positions into a coordinated commercial program.
For PE-Backed CEOs and Commercial Leaders
A CEO should not have to personally manage the gaps in the marketing department.
HTG can provide one accountable operating partner across strategy and execution instead of requiring management to coordinate separate writers, designers, digital resources, event vendors, agencies, analytics support, and internal staff.
If you already have a strong internal marketing team, we work with it and expand what it can accomplish.
If the organization needs broader marketing ownership, we can provide that too.
The structure depends on the company. The responsibility is clear.
What Marketing Needs to Do in
a PE-Backed Company
01 / 06
Support the commercial plan
Marketing priorities should follow the company’s growth priorities. Product families, markets, buyer groups, geographies, campaigns, content, and events should have a reason for being on the plan.
02 / 06
Move quickly
Commercial opportunities do not wait for an organization to finish recruiting every role it might eventually need. HTG can add operating capacity quickly while management determines what capabilities should ultimately remain inside the company.
03 / 06
Have clear ownership
Every significant program needs someone accountable for getting it from the commercial objective through execution, measurement, and the next decision.
04 / 06
Produce useful measurement
Management needs more than activity reports. Reporting should show what happened, what it means, what should change, and what marketing will do next.
05 / 06
Give the sponsor appropriate visibility
When needed, we establish reporting that works for management and for the people overseeing the investment, without creating another reporting exercise for the sake of reporting.
06 / 06
Use permanent headcount deliberately
Not every missing capability needs to become another full-time position. HTG can provide specialized expertise, production capacity, campaign ownership, analytics, or the broader marketing function while the company keeps the internal organization focused on the roles it genuinely needs to own.
Add-on acquisitions can create immediate commercial opportunity. They can also leave a portfolio company with multiple brands, websites, product architectures, customer lists, agencies, channels, event programs, and different ways of describing the business.
If those pieces are not integrated, the acquired capability may exist inside the company but remain difficult for customers to find, understand, or buy.
We help management decide what should remain distinct and what should be integrated. That can include:
- Brand and messaging architecture
- Acquired websites and domains
- Product and service positioning
- Cross-selling and customer communications
- Content and campaign integration
- Search and AI discoverability
- CRM and marketing automation processes
- Editorial planning
- Event strategy
- Introduction of acquired products, services, and capabilities to existing and new customers
The purpose is not to consolidate everything under one brand.
The purpose is to make sure the commercial value the company acquired is actually being put to work.
We are particularly useful when a sponsor or CEO knows the marketing function needs to perform differently and does not want another conventional agency relationship.
That may be:
- Following an acquisition or recapitalization, when the existing marketing function needs to be assessed
- When strong individual marketers are in place but important capabilities have no clear owner
- When management cannot clearly see what significant marketing spend is producing
- When marketing is not supporting the commercial plan as aggressively as the company’s growth objectives require
- When management needs substantially greater marketing capacity without recruiting an entire department
- When the company needs to build commercial momentum on a timeline the existing marketing organization cannot support
- When marketing headcount or spend is not translating into enough execution, measurement, or commercial impact
- When add-on acquisitions have left fragmented brands, websites, campaigns, systems, or customer communications
- When leadership needs someone to take responsibility for getting the marketing work done
We can assess what needs to change, establish the operating model, and stay to run the parts of the function the company wants us to own.
Private equity experience is not enough if the marketing team has to spend months learning the market.
HTG works with life sciences tools and services companies, CROs and CDMOs, diagnostics and IVD companies, medtech and medical device companies, biotechnology companies, and related scientific businesses.
We understand technically trained buyers. Scientific content has to withstand scientific review. Regulated products create real constraints on claims and commercialization. Different products reach different buyers through different conferences, publications, professional communities, sales motions, and channels.
Our team already works in those markets.
That means we can spend the beginning of an engagement learning the portfolio company, its customers, its competitors, and its commercial priorities instead of learning life sciences from scratch.
Work inside a PE-backed company can involve commercial priorities, acquisition integration, organizational decisions, product strategy, performance data, and information prepared for management or the board.
We are accustomed to working with confidential information and operating behind the scenes.
Our client relationships do not need to become public case studies.
A portfolio company does not need to expose its strategy, operating model, or proprietary information for us to prove that the work matters.
Frequently Asked
Questions
01 Can High Touch Group run the entire marketing department for a PE-backed life sciences company?
Yes. Depending on the company and its existing team, HTG can operate most or all of the marketing function. The portfolio-company CEO and commercial leadership retain the business priorities and appropriate approvals, while HTG can own strategy, campaigns, content, digital, events, marketing operations, measurement, and reporting.
02 Can HTG work with an existing CMO or internal marketing team?
Yes. Full functional ownership is one model, not a requirement. We regularly work alongside internal marketing leaders and teams, taking responsibility for specific capabilities, programs, or areas where additional expertise or execution capacity is needed.
03 What is different about marketing a private equity-backed life sciences company?
Marketing is being asked to perform against the company’s commercial objectives and the timetable of the investment. That puts more emphasis on prioritization, execution speed, clear ownership, useful measurement, management visibility, and disciplined decisions about what the company should build internally versus what can be operated externally.
04 Does HTG support post-acquisition and add-on integration?
Yes. Marketing integration can include positioning, brand architecture, websites and domains, content, campaigns, digital discoverability, events, marketing systems, customer communications, cross-selling, and the introduction of acquired products or services to the broader market.
05 Is HTG a fractional CMO?
Our work can include senior marketing leadership, but the model is broader than a traditional fractional CMO engagement. A fractional executive generally provides leadership. HTG can provide both the leadership and the operating team needed to execute the work, including campaigns, scientific content, digital, events, marketing operations, analytics, and reporting.
06 What kinds of life sciences portfolio companies does HTG work with?
Our work focuses on life sciences tools and services companies, CROs and CDMOs, diagnostics and IVD companies, medtech and medical device companies, biotechnology companies, and related scientific businesses.
Private Equity & Portfolio Companies
Build the Marketing Function
the Investment Needs
Your portfolio company may not need a larger marketing org chart. It needs the right capabilities, clear accountability, faster execution, useful measurement, and a marketing program that supports the commercial plan. We can strengthen the function you already have or take responsibility for running it.