How I helped healthcare companies get their strategic disease area a priority for governments

The Problem

The regional directors of two multinational healthcare companies encountered significant challenges in promoting diagnosis and treatment for a specific disease in the Asia-Pacific region. Their discussions with country teams revealed that policymakers did not prioritise the disease despite its huge healthcare, economic, and social implications. This neglect stemmed from low awareness, competing healthcare priorities, and insufficient or nonexistent funding.

Consequently, they not only struggled to achieve their business objectives but also inadvertently allowed a major health issue to worsen, despite the availability of effective prevention, diagnostic, and treatment solutions.

To solve their problem, they wanted to:

• Raise awareness of the disease burden in the APAC region.

• Advocate for improved political commitment and response.

• Provide evidence-based knowledge to inform policymaking.

Achieving these goals required broad collaboration. However, they lacked the internal capacity and expertise to drive the necessary changes. Having previously worked with me to build a regional alliance focused on shaping digital health policy, they trusted my ability to deliver results.

My Approach

To address my clients’ problem, I implemented the following solutions:

1. Alliance Building: Established an alliance engaging respected stakeholders from other healthcare companies, academia, NGOs, funding organisations, and patient advocacy groups.

2. Strategic Planning: Developed strategic and action plans to guide alliance activities.

3. Comprehensive Management: Delivered end-to-end management of the alliance, including website development, member onboarding, communication, strategic documents (e.g., charters, terms of reference), and partnership agreements.

4. Knowledge Dissemination: Led key initiatives like publishing white papers, creating infographic fact sheets, and hosting webinars to educate stakeholders and present policy recommendations.

5. Policy Engagement: Organised policy roundtables to connect with country policymakers, share insights, and advocate for policy changes.

6. Regional Event: Delivered the inaugural regional conference, bringing together top-level government officials, policymakers, clinicians, academics, and patient advocates. This included:

   • Concept development and speaker coordination.

   • Agenda planning and event logistics management.

   • Event moderation, social media amplification, and post-event evaluation.

The Result

As a result of my efforts, my clients achieved several impactful outcomes:

• Increased Credibility: Evidence-backed tools elevated their credibility among policymakers and key stakeholders.

• Structured Partnerships: The alliance created a sustainable and neutral platform for collaboration with academia, NGOs, clinicians, policymakers, and patient advocacy groups.

• Policy Influence: Policy roundtables and conferences brought the disease onto policymakers' agendas, creating opportunities for direct engagement and influencing discussions.

• Enhanced Communication: My clients gained the expertise and confidence to engage decision-makers in meaningful discussions tailored to their priorities.

• Business Alignment: Their key disease area now commands attention at policymaking forums, paving the way for improved access to care and health outcomes.

Read their experiences in their own words on the Testimonials page.