Hello, welcome back! This month I’m delighted to introduce the first in a series of conversations I’ve held with the crème de la crème of pharma comms leaders, and there’s no one better to kick us off than Kylie Cuff.

Kylie currently holds the role of Global Communications (Vaccines) at GSK, which means she’s immersed in a market that’s up against huge change and complex challenges.

We spoke about how her team has been adapting and responding, and she shared some sound advice on how to co-create behaviour change campaigns that strike the right chord with patients.

A veteran comms leader, Kylie moved across to healthcare five years ago during the post-pandemic boom. She brought a fresh perspective on the particular quirks of our sector, telling me she was immediately struck by the tension between, the industry’s need to be reactive and innovative, and on the other, a cautious approach to disrupting established processes.

I’m sure many readers will relate to Kylie’s observation that approval procedures can unintentionally iron out the novel edges of an idea, leaving it looking like everything else.

But this fate is not inevitable. To avoid the gradual shrinking of your best plans, Kylie stressed that we have to be both bold and rigorous. This means bringing in our internal allies early in the creative process.

When they understand the vision from the start, we can use data and early feedback to show them how a new approach stays compliant while being far more effective than the older, more established ways of doing things.

Our conversation then turned to how quickly the patient information journey has changed. We all know that trust is under pressure, and the clinician-first hierarchy is no longer a given. Many people now consult LLMs, TikTok or Reddit before they ever speak to a healthcare professional – and before they even ask Google.

That shift changes what effective pharma comms looks like. Kylie stressed that we now have to think about content in the round – not only its accuracy and clarity, but whether it can be found and reused by LLMs without being distorted. In short, if we are not designing for discoverability across channels, formats and plain language, we’re now leaving too much of the health narrative to chance.

That is one of the reasons why Kylie is such a strong advocate for building proper partnerships with patient organisations. Insights from these groups are essential to keep pharma campaigns grounded in lived experience and relevant to the people we are trying to reach. But for that collaboration to add real value, it needs to be treated as a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship, not a one-off request or a badge-and-logo exercise.

Kylie’s practical advice is to bring patient partners in while the campaign is still taking shape. Share more context and plans than you normally would and be clear about what you are trying to achieve. Then ask what success looks like for them and make space for their input to influence the work.

My conversation with Kylie covered many of the same themes I’ve discussed with dozens of comms leaders over the past few months, but her measured optimism, pragmatism and commitment to pursuing work that will meaningfully improve patients’ lives are what shone through.

I was left reflecting that, in 2026, audience trust is won through the details. It comes from information that is easy to find and understand, relationships with patient organisations that are built for the long haul (and feel mutually beneficial), and campaigns with enough substance to survive the complexities of the real world.
Working like that inside a regulated system takes patience and a fair bit of stamina, but now we know how it can be done!