Advancing an organization’s health policy agenda requires a strong understanding of the industry, business and the political landscape in which a company operates. Our policy and advocacy experts bring extensive knowledge of the legislative and regulatory environment when developing, managing and executing effective positioning, issues management and reputation campaigns for non-profit and for-profit organizations and companies.
Our teams have decades of experience in policy advocacy consulting for biopharmaceutical and device companies, and patient and advocacy organizations. As a result, our experts are adept at bridging the gap between patients and companies to find mutual solutions, and to support new and existing treatments that improve patient care.
We work with customers to understand the legislative and regulatory challenges and opportunities they face and develop a strategic framework for engaging key stakeholders on priority healthcare issues, products or programs. We engage, build and leverage champions to support and influence public opinion or advance specific legislative or regulatory outcomes.
Our teams offer integrated public affairs planning, constituency and alliance development, patient and professional policy advocacy support, coalition creation and management, media relations, communications training, event planning, and message and materials development.
Traditionally, the patient voice has been limited to discrete points later in the product development life cycle. Our policy and advocacy team helps customers infuse the patient voice throughout clinical development and commercialization with input mechanisms providing a continual feedback loop.
These are a few of the ways we ensure this happens:
Identification, Mapping and Engagement Strategy
Identifying and addressing shared goals within a particular community requires thoughtful analysis at the outset. Stakeholder mapping, which involves primary and secondary research, evaluates key groups and influencers on the basis of expertise, influence and partnership potential. It is from this foundational exercise that groups can be prioritized, and an engagement strategy aligned to business goals can be developed. Stakeholder mapping is a powerful, insightful process that allows customers to understand how best to engage third parties to help them achieve their business objectives.
Partnerships and Coalitions
We have orchestrated partnerships and coalitions of all shapes and sizes to address customer business needs. Successful partnerships and coalitions are transparent at the outset, have clear governance structure and are rooted in clear, measurable objectives that result in benefits for all engaged parties. Key areas where partnerships and coalitions are typically most successful include disease state education, clinical trial recruitment, preserving or securing access to treatment or services, patient literacy and screenings.
Advocacy Competitive Benchmarking
Keeping track of competitor engagement within a patient policy advocacy community can shed light on activities that have either worked or backfired in a particular community. Advocacy competitive benchmarking can also uncover shifts in strategy or priorities among competitors.
Comprised of desktop research, including a review of annual reports and other communications channels by advocacy groups and companies, this type of benchmarking allows for companies to gain a greater handle on how their competitors are operating within a particular space.
The first step in the process is to identify the key companies and organizations that matter most to a particular brand or franchise. Then, depending on customer need and the size of the community, regular reports (monthly or quarterly) are created, which highlight/consolidate information in the public domain into an easy-to-use format highlighting thematic changes in giving (e.g., company moving from supporting access initiatives to disease state awareness) and funding shifts (either increases or decreases in particular areas).
Our additional policy and advocacy offerings:
- Advocacy and stakeholder mapping
- Policy audits
- Disease awareness/public health initiatives
- Clinical trial recruitment
- Coalition development/management
- Patient advisory boards
- Community summits
- Hill day activities
- Awards programs
- Sponsorship strategy and management
- Issues management
