Our work
Norstella
Norstella is one of the largest global pharma intelligence solution providers, uniting market-leading companies including Citeline, Evaluate, MMIT, Panalgo and The Dedham Group, which all have a shared goal of helping bring life-saving therapies to market quicker and help patients in need.
Diffusion began work with Informa Pharma Intelligence in 2017, which then become Citeline and then was acquired by Norstella. Diffusion now represents the entire Norstella brand and its portfolio companies into 2025.
Diffusion was tasked with defining Norstella’s overall brand voice and reaching key audiences through press, demonstrating how the company and its portfolio of brands help major pharmaceutical and life sciences brands make decisions throughout the entire drug development pipeline to patient journey.
Insight & Idea
Diffusion conducted extensive share of voice analysis for Norstella and each of its brands to determine its current position in the media landscape and identify areas of growth. Diffusion knew it needed to consistently leverage and address the news of the day to ensure the PR campaign was carving out a larger share of voice against competitors who were trying to reach the same business leaders.
Diffusion used an aggressive always-on media approach, responding to the news cycle and conducting proactive storytelling to secure coverage maximizing Norstella’s brand awareness, credibility and executive visibility with media. For example, when the FDA approved Eli Lilly’s Alzheimer’s amyloid-plaque clearing drug, Kisunla, Diffusion was able to offer reporters expert commentary and briefings with key trades in the space like MM+M, PharmaVoice and Pharmacy Times – saturating the news cycle with Norstella’s thought leadership around a key topic in drug development.
Diffusion also works with the Norstella and brand teams to identify media-worthy internal reports, launching them to provide media with exclusive, accurate, timely and original data around key topics such as the M&A market, AI advances in pharmaceutical R&D and more. For example, Evaluate’s 2024 World Preview Report, which focused on pharma’s growth boost, generated 90 pieces of total coverage stemming from Diffusion’s proactive outreach around the report, positioning Norstella as a trusted resource in a rapidly evolving dealmaking environment.
Additionally, Diffusion increased attention to bylines and op-ed channels to strengthen Norstella’s executive presence and profiles across brands and topics.
Impact & Action
Diffusion drove individual brand and broader Norstella awareness in valuable mainstream, business and vertical media such as The Financial Times, Forbes, Fast Company, NPR, Drug Discovery & Development, FierceBiotech, PharmaVOICE and more, garnering over 1.1 billion media impressions. Furthermore, 44% of all earned coverage featured expert commentary and 49% of all media coverage cited Norstella or its brands’ internal data, further entrenching the company’s core messaging on its unique position to help pharmaceutical and business leaders connect the dots and make the right decisions throughout the entire drug development pipeline to patient journey.
Thanks to its work with Diffusion, Norstella was named to Fast Company’s 2025 World’s Most Innovative Companies list in the data science category.