Patient advocacy is a strategy to ensure those most affected by health policies and industry decisions—patients—have a voice in shaping outcomes. The approach connects communities, researchers and pharmaceutical companies to improve access, demystify science, and build trust. It empowers patients to participate in public dialogue, equipping them with tools to influence how treatments are developed, delivered, and understood.
At the forefront of this movement is Janet McUlsky, a pharmaceutical industry veteran who leads a firm that organizes what she calls a “health force” of informed, engaged patient advocates.
McUlsky is founder, president, and CEO of McUlsky Health Force. The company draws on her 25 years inside the pharmaceutical world—twenty at Pfizer and five with the industry association PhRMA. Her small-business is an almost entirely female team.
She launched her company in the spring of 2020 in the middle of COVID-19 lock downs. “The vaccine team at Pfizer called me and said, ‘We need you,’” she remembers. She and her husband recruited longtime colleague Nona Bear to “roll our sleeves up and get things done.”
Within months the start-up was guiding communications for scientists searching for vaccines and for communities hungry to understand mRNA technology. “There are huge needs in the Washington space,” for her services, she says.
Those needs shape a business model that pairs pharmaceutical clients with consumer, rural-health, and disease-specific nonprofits. “Our clients are pharmaceutical companies, but what makes us distinct is how many nonprofits we serve,” McUlsky says. She quotes a former Pfizer CEO who told her, “anything you’re doing that helps build the voice and credibility of patient groups—do more of it.”
Today she wants every constituency, from the National Grange to urban consumer coalitions, “speaking on behalf of patients.”
Finding the right voice requires training, so McUlsky Health Force hosts media-readiness breakfasts, sometimes enlisting veterans like former White House press secretary Mike McCurry. “Nonprofits are afraid of the media,” she says. “We show them how to talk so people hear what they’re trying to say.”
In one session at Pfizer’s Groton, Connecticut, labs, McUlsky says mental-health patients told company scientists that sexual-dysfunction side effects from certain medications worry them more than weight gain. “You could see the scientists’ eyes widen,” she says. “That is why the patient has to be in the room.”
Communication gaps, she argues, feed wider misunderstandings about drug development. “A lot of it is miscommunication,” or worse, she says, “a lack of communication.” Real innovation, she stresses, sprouts from a chain that starts with NIH labs, runs through pharmaceutical investment, and depends on patient input.
She often cites Pfizer’s World War II pivot from chemicals to mass-producing penicillin as an example of industry repurposing itself for public need. “The whole ecosystem is critical,” she says. “You need every link working together.”
McUlsky is blunt about vaccine “hesitancy.” She supports making COVID-19 shots “available— not mandated—so parents who want them can get them.” Prevention, she argues, “is vital for patients and for the health-care system at large,” because avoiding disease curbs downstream costs. Whether for viruses, pneumonia or other ailments, her refrain is consistent: “If you prevent it, you save a lot more money than treating it later.”
To break ideological stalemates around policies, McUlsky hosts a monthly, after-hours salon that brings together conservative think-tank analysts, pharmaceutical executives, and progressive consumer advocates—complete with “a little libation to help people relax.” The gatherings produce unlikely moments, like National Consumers League veteran Sally Greenberg posing for a photo with anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. “We just need to talk more,” McUlsky says. “When you realize the other person is human and cares, you can find the one issue you agree on and move the ball.”
The firm’s women-led culture shapes its tone. “We are a women-owned company—almost all women,” McUlsky notes with pride. She extends that respect to the nonprofits she serves, pushing back when critics dismiss them as industry mouthpieces. “The vast majority work for half the salary they could make elsewhere because they have a personal passion,” she says. “It’s outrageous when people try to discredit them.”
Five years in, McUlsky Health Force has grown to 15 employees, but the firm keeps the focus tight: amplify patient stories, demystify science, and connect adversaries who rarely meet.
“Our North Star is making sure patients get good care,” she says. “Good health treatment is vital not just for individuals—it is vital for the entire system.”
