Data Comms sits at the core of our industry, so it’s time to inspire more communicators about the dynamic role it plays in healthcare communications

By Lizzie Wright, Executive Director and Laura Strain, Executive Vice President.

Data sits at the heart of our work in pharmaceutical communications, flowing into and influencing everything that we do on a daily basis. It is critical that to run a successful campaign, we understand the science and can effectively interpret the data so that it resonates with the different audiences we work with.  

Yet data communications itself – the communication of scientific data from clinical trials and real-world studies – seems to have a bit of a bad rep. We ran a small survey of pharma PR pros¹ at mixed levels and experience and found words such as “dry”, “formulaic” and “difficult” came to mind, with most people identifying data comms only as writing a press release and a Q&A for clinical trial data. 40% stated they were not confident in data comms and 11% stated they would avoid it at all costs!  

Part of the reason why we see such a variety of perspectives on data comms is that we cannot communicate about a lot of the work we do because of strict regulations and confidentiality. Therefore, it’s hard to show the power of the specialism and break down the barriers and perceptions of data communications.  

In communicating data, we get to be at the heart of change – changing treatment decisions, changing the result for patients to changing stock prices. Granted, we are a small part of this change, but we are part of it.  

Communicating data goes way beyond creating press releases and Q&As. Truly understanding the data allows us to propose more robust communication programmes to our clients. The science impacts high-level strategic scenario planning workshops all the way through to attending congresses and how we speak with media.  

In understanding the power of data and learning to critically assess it, pharma comms pros can contribute to high-level strategic discussions with senior clients and attend scientific meetings around the world to witness first-hand the impact and response to some of the most ground-breaking medical and scientific research being conducted across the world today. 

While behaviour change or disease awareness campaigns tend to inspire more communicators in healthcare, if you have a passion for the science and research it could be that you need to rethink how you perceive data comms.  

We’ve been working in data comms for over 10 years each and have been to congresses all around the world, from Orlando to Amsterdam and New Orleans to Paris. Data comms is truly at the centre of cutting-edge science and innovation, helping scientists communicate their success and continue the great progress they’re making, and after all, that enables all the rest of the pharma communications to happen. 

[1] N=28. Conducted on LinkedIn in November 2023

• Lizzie Wright completed a PhD in cardiovascular medicine before starting in pharma PR and has worked at agencies in the UK and US for 10 years. She is currently a Executive Director at Virgo Health.
• Laura Strain completed a PhD in genetic predictors of diabetes and obesity, starting her career as a medical writer before transitioning into pharma comms. She has 15 years of agency experience, and is currently Executive Vice President at Virgo Health.

We work in a female dominated industry, which in my twenty plus years in PR, has always been the case.  But we don’t have the same proportionate number of woman in leadership positions across the industry and I have often asked myself why. What happens to cause this in the employee experience and life cycle somewhere between entering the PR industry and retirement? My conclusions aren’t rocket science, but the reality is far more complex than it might at first appear because there are historical barriers in the way of female progression, from society’s expectations of how to act and behave, to stereotyping and biases. Over time women have learned to conform and mask parts of themselves to fit in with a workplace historically designed by and for men. To survive, let alone progress, women have often needed to overcome, ignore, or accept ways of working that are not inclusive to them or designed with their needs or success in mind.

Both in my role as a leader in the UK business, but also as a parent to 3 school aged daughters, I am passionate about women not just in the workplace but in all aspects of life, having an authentic equal playing field. This means being confident and comfortable to be themselves, to ask for help and support without fear of judgement and not having to mask their true self to thrive.  For this to happen, we need to think, act and talk truly inclusively, in all walks of life allowing people to be themselves, to ask for what they need because to treat people fairly and equally takes time, effort, intention and empathy. It’s a world where differences are celebrated and not just tolerated or worse.

In the UK office, we have put a lot of thinking, time and intention behind our people, learning and DEI work, words and actions. This includes enhancing the terms (including remuneration) for our gender-neutral Family Friendly Leave and focusing on the time re-onboarding back into the business for those returning from family leave. We also recently introduced a range of new policies to support employees at critical life moments, including menopause, fertility, and menstruation. We have partnered with a women’s health charity, The Eve Appeal, to raise awareness of gynaecological cancers. In the year in which our Global DEI theme is focusing on Mental Wellbeing and Neuro-Diversity, in the UK we are deepening our longstanding work around wellbeing in the workplace through our ‘How Are You’ approach to open up conversations, mental health talks and a planned programme of ‘movement’, for 2024.  We believe that these programmes and actions help us to better understand how to support and encourage everyone to feel empowered to overcome the hurdles in their way and to proudly be themselves, asking for what they need to succeed. 

Making sure that everyone, including women at all levels and stages of their life and careers, are seen and heard, and we are doing all we can to understand them and their needs, whether that be through wellbeing, career progression, neuro diversity, life as working parent – whatever that might be. This is our goal. 

-Rebecca Hall, Group HR Director

By Natasha Weeks, Executive Director, Virgo Health  

I can’t quite believe I joined Virgo Health almost 18 years ago. I started out at our first office in Richmond as a JAE working across a range of pharma clients. At the time I was one of around 20 people and we were on a mission to create Communications without Compromise. Perhaps it was my journalism training, but my passion was and still is storytelling – I wanted to tell health stories to consumers. 

So as Virgo Health hits its 20th milestone, apart from making me feel old 😉, I can’t help but reflect on what it is about Virgo that’s made me stay so long. 

Yet it’s simple really – because I love the people I work with and the work that we do.  

And it’s stayed that way, as the one thing that hasn’t changed in all this time is Virgo’s ethos and values. From Day 1 Virgo was a people-first agency, driven by our mission not to compromise our people or our clients. Over the years our culture has been kept alive by the old-timers and made more relevant by Virgo’s new generations. 

But of course, even the nicest place to work doesn’t mean much if you can’t find purpose in your work. I’ve been fortunate enough to find plenty, from creating ‘Emma: Work Colleague of the Future’, the most awarded health campaign of the year in 2020, to supporting parents through lockdown with Waterwipes, increasing representation during Breast Cancer Awareness Month and being part of an incredible media team that launched the world-first bivalent Covid-19 vaccine for Moderna. 

I do wonder if Virgo and I simply grew together, first as a young PR in a fledging agency it was wonderful to be part of building something new, then when we were acquired by Golin my life was also changing as I started a family. Being part of Golin also offered new challenges and opportunities, providing access to a global network and I’ve been lucky enough to spend time at Golin in Chicago and New York and work with colleagues across the world.  

A real highlight for me, as Consumer Health lead, has been working in collaboration with the Golin consumer teams to work on big consumer brands benefiting from healthcare expertise. Our hybrid working model is something that continues to set us apart and I’m hugely proud to work on Asics and Specsavers with the best creative and earned media minds in the business. 

Of course, across 18 years it wasn’t all plain sailing, moving from Richmond to Central London and being part of a network was a huge transition, and then there was lockdown-working with two young kids! But the magic has been, and hopefully will always be, Virgo’s strong sense of purpose as an agency that wants the very best for its people and its clients.  

Who knows if I’ll be writing this column again in another 20 years, but if I’m not, I imagine someone else saying something very similar. 

That’s the Purple Power. 

By Natasha Weeks, Executive Director, Consumer Health

Virgo Health’s Natasha Weeks, discusses how the recent ASICS Mind Games campaign earned a rightful place in health and well-being conversations.

Sometimes we have a hunch. We know the likely outcome. But how do we ensure meaningful data is behind those headline-grabbing stats? Today, ASICS launched Mind Games: The Experiment. We all know that exercise is good for our mental health, but could it improve the mental performance of even the brightest minds?  

To bring this concept to life, we could have easily asked an expert or commissioned a survey. But would that earn a place in the global health and wellbeing conversation? Not anymore. In order to generate an evidence-based consumer story, we blended Virgo Health’s informed healthcare expertise with Golin’s powerhouse consumer team to help ASICS co-ordinate a global experiment in partnership with renowned researcher in movement and mind, Professor Dr Brendon Stubbs. 

Targeting inactive competitor gamers, specialising in mind games from Chess to Esports, we recruited 77 people who rely on their cognitive function from across 22 countries and matched them up with personal trainers. We put them on a training programme designed by runner turned international coach, Andrew Kastor, including medium impact cardio and strength training. The gamers gradually increased their exercise levels to 150 minutes per week and Professor Stubbs measured the mental improvement of the participants based on their performance in their mind games, cognitive tests and wellbeing questionnaires over the course of a four-month research period. The results showed vast improvement in their cognitive functioning, including concentration levels and problem-solving abilities.

So, could exercise be the key to boosting brain power ASICS? Pass me my trainers.