by Bob Burton and Andy Rowell 
Edelman is the largest independently owned PR firm in the world and is headquartered in New York with an international network of offices. According to O'Dwyer's PR Services, Edelman raked in fees of $57.9 million in 2001 from healthcare PR, more than a fourth of its total revenues of $220.7 million. Its client list includes Abbott Laboratories, American Health Care Association, American Home Products, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Eli Lilly & Co., GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffmann-La Roche, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Pfizer, Pharmacia, Procter & Gamble, and Schering-Plough Corp.
Ruder Finn earned $37.5 million from healthcare PR in 2001, nearly half of its total revenues of $80.3 million. Its client list includes Consumer Health Products Association, Eurocancer, King Pharmaceuticals, Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Novartis, Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Pharmacia, Prochon Biotech, Procter & Gamble, Schering Laboratories, and Solvay Pharmaceuticals.
In the UK, Medical Action Communications Ltd (MAC) generated revenues of $25 million in 2002. MAC employs 100 people in its offices in Surrey, UK and New Jersey, US and is a subsidiary of the Quintiles Transnational Corporation. Unlike other healthcare PR companies, MAC does not disclose the names of any of its clients, obliquely referring to them as "US & EU based multinationals."
Noonan Russo/Presence is a specialist healthcare PR company headquartered in New York that $19.7 million in business in 2001. Clients include Aventis, Eli Lilly & Co., Maxim Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacia Corp., Santen Pharmaceuticals, and United American Healthcare.
According to the British edition of PR Week, the Shire Health Group--which includes a number of healthcare PR and consultancy companies including Shire Health International, Shire Health New York, 4D Communications--billed clients more than £8.7 million (approximately $14.2 million) in 2001. Its client list includes AstraZeneca, Hoffmann-La Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Nucletron, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pharmacia, Roche, Schering and Wyeth. Shire is owned by the global advertising giant, WPP.
