Wilrijk & Ghent, Belgium, April 13th, 2022 – Quality by Design (QbD), a privately held company in Belgium offering quality solutions to companies in the life science and healthcare industries, today announced the acquisition of ‘Monkeys not Donkeys’ (MnD), a fast-growing agency offering communication consultancy and support services to life science companies. Founder Kristoff Baeten will stay on to further grow the agency and its reach under the wings of QbD.
By acquiring ‘Monkeys not Donkeys’, QbD will strengthen its ‘from idea to patient’ offering, building on the commercialization strategy offered by QbD’s joint venture with Inovigate, ‘Health to Market’ (H2M), to include communication and digital marketing expertise. MnD will continue to offer its tailored communication support from strategy, through content creation, to assisting life science companies in their outreach. Together, both H2M and MnD will form QbD’s go-to-market, marketing & communication division.
Bart Van Acker, founder and CEO of QbD, said:
“Adding ‘Monkeys not Donkeys’ to our family takes us one step closer to achieving our mission to assist life science companies throughout the entire product life cycle by adding support for the often underestimated, but crucially important, marketing and communication strategy. ‘Monkeys not Donkeys’ are the ideal partners in this, with their unique combination of scientific knowledge, creative inspiration and experience in creating strategy, together with their proven process for building brand awareness and lead generation.”
Kristoff Baeten, founder and managing director of Monkeys not Donkeys, commented:
“This is a very exciting opportunity for the Monkeys. Since we focused on life sciences and built a team of experts with a profound background in biology, the company has grown quickly as we’ve demonstrated that we were successfully addressing a need for communication support with knowledge of the industry and the science. We believe QbD is the right ‘home’ for us to continue that growth. Bart and I are very similar in our approach and, most of all, we both respect and help our customers to overcome the challenges they are facing.”
About Quality by Design:
Quality by Design (QbD), founded by Bart Van Acker in 2011, connects expert consultants with life science companies to help them develop safe therapies and technologies for patients and consumers. QbD operates worldwide, with over 450 people who are highly qualified in QA, validation, regulatory affairs, clinical, quality control, software solutions and commercialization in the IVD, pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare, and medical device industries. (www.qbd.eu)
About ‘Monkeys not Donkeys’
Founded in 2010, Kristoff Baeten transformed his company into a full-service communication agency for life science organizations in 2018, by introducing the brand ‘Monkeys not Donkeys’. The brand name refers to the creativity, inventiveness and positivity that drives its dynamic and well-balanced team of scientists, creative profiles and strategists. (www.monkeysnotdonkeys.agency)
About H2M:
Health to Market (H2M) is a contract commercialization organization helping life science start-ups and scale-ups to define an effective commercial strategy to support their business development. H2M is a joint venture between QbD and Inovigate. (www.healthtomarket.com)
Media contact:
Monkeys not Donkeys
Kristoff Baeten
General manager, MnD
hello@monkeysnotdonkeys.agency
Quality by Design
Peter Goossens
Head of marketing & communication, QbD