Henry Burkitt, former head of government affairs and policy at Novartis UK, has launched a new healthcare consultancy specialising in providing strategic policy advice for pharmaceutical clients.
Oxygen Strategy, which is based in London, hopes to change the increasingly discordant relationship between pharma and the NHS by offering companies a “fresh approach to strategy”.
In doing so the firm aims to challenge conventional tactics and create a range of new and disruptive methods in public affairs strategy development, project management, behaviour-change programmes and account transformation.
Drawing on 15 years of pharma and charity advisory experience, Burkitt said: “Traditional lobbying has failed to fix the broken relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS.
“Adversarial ways of working can harm patients and damage the commercial market for life sciences, which we need to protect in a post-Brexit world.
“My experience of helping pharmaceutical companies cooperate with the NHS, combined with my frustration over conventional lobbying, has inspired me to launch this new business.”
The Oxygen Strategy team will also work to stimulate debate about policy reform in the public affairs and market access spheres, as part of the consultancy’s efforts to address counter-productive policies in the healthcare sector.
Burkitt added: “I believe it’s an approach that will lead to better commercial outcomes and significant benefits for the health service.”