SERVICES
Global Services
Your partner in external affairs
Leading external affairs for public policy, brand teams and government affairs
In our primary Markets of Japan, Europe, UK and Australia, we work with associations leading policy change and professionals working in senior healthcare public policy or government affairs roles. We work to take healthcare and pharmaceutical policy shaping and advocacy activities to the next level, developing high-quality strategies that are always practical to implement.
This includes:
Strategic Planning
Pharmaceutical and healthcare strategic planning is crucial when implementing effective advocacy strategies.
We develop and use tools like landscape analysis and policy analysis to understand the context and underlying reasons behind key barriers to innovation. This informs your company’s policy positions and helps develop pragmatic end goals.
From this, we use tools such as stakeholder maps to identify stakeholder positions and influence networks to inform execution planning and advocacy strategies.
This enables us to create tailored materials which maximise the effectiveness of advocacy engagement, including:
Landscape Analysis
Policy analysis and policy formulation
Stakeholder Mapping
Strategies to address barriers to innovation
Execution planning
Technical support
Effective policy shaping usually demands technical understanding of the rules and policies you are planning to influence. This provides deep insight into these barriers in the context of the broader system, allowing you to meaningfully articulate the barrier itself as well as determine effective solutions.
We largely focus on HTA and reimbursement processes as well as policy barriers to key innovations entering the market.
Such barriers can include rejection of evidence, overly restrictive criteria for different forms of evidence, hypercritical reviews, lack of pathways suitable for specific types of innovation, lack of recognition for key aspects of the value proposition, inappropriate comparator choice, and lack of predictability.
Our focus is on shaping these processes and policy frameworks rather than working on specific product submissions. We will work with you to develop effective, practical strategies to address these barriers.
Our approach includes:
Technical analysis of complex policies, rules or processes
Identifying technical, political and other solutions to the barriers, for example reforming an HTA process or changing a pricing rule
Determining evidentiary gaps and what is required to support the case for change
Developing credible, meaningful and compelling evidence to support advocacy, both with decision-makers and for technical implementation
Advocacy support
A common challenge for companies and associations is translating internal environmental shaping, policy positions and messaging into effective advocacy with key external stakeholders.
We are proud to have a strong track record in achieving meaningful environmental shaping through strategic evidence development and tailored messaging which is compelling to key external decision-makers.
Our services in advocacy support include:
Advocacy strategy
Internal /external reports such as briefings and white papers
Advocacy communications including materials, talking points, speeches
Event support, such as meeting design, implementation, and facilitation
Stakeholder engagement
Stakeholder engagement – whether negotiating a position within a trade association or convincing a decision-maker to change a rule – is where the strategic plans, technical analysis and advocacy preparations come together. It is key to whether your goals are realised or not.
While it is our preferred approach to bring different parties together to identify common problems and solutions, there are many different strategies to engage stakeholders, especially where direct communication is unfeasible.
We use our networks and market knowledge to successfully engage stakeholders at all levels.
This includes:
Stakeholder access and appropriate, meaningful engagement
Finding solutions to common problems
Bridging communication gaps within and between organisations (global and local; senior and technical, Western and Japanese)
Bridging communication gaps between commercial innovators with health system decision-makers.
External affairs support and coaching
Ongoing coaching for pharmaceutical government affairs, policy and other senior leaders can noticeably improve a company’s effectiveness in external affairs. We will work with you to provide support and coaching and maximise the value of your external affairs function.
This includes:
Capability building to strengthen existing teams
Designing and building functions at global and local levels
Coaching on how to demonstrate value, leverage cross-functional collaboration and set appropriate KPIs
Training leaders and staff on how to optimise engagement with trade associations and key decision makers
Strengthening capacity by backfilling external affairs functions that are understaffed, new or in development.
Accurate technical messaging
Reaching an agreement with a senior-level counterpart is an important milestone, but it’s not the end of a project.
In fact, it’s crucial to follow up with technical-level messaging in order to support smooth and effective implementation.
We will use our technical expertise to ensure messaging is correct and supports the project to completion.
