Finalist
Medicines Access or Markets: How Novartis Led the UK Industry's Most Consequential Policy Debate in a Generation
Summary of work
By 2025, the UK's Voluntary Pricing and Access (VPAG) scheme had reached 23.9%: almost three times higher than comparable European markets and threatening both patient access to innovative medicines and UK life sciences competitiveness. When August 2025 negotiations between Government and ABPI collapsed without a deal, Novartis moved swiftly to align its corporate affairs functions – Communications, Patient Advocacy and Public Affairs – behind a single, unified narrative. Within days, Novartis UK country president Johan Kahlström became a leading voice, warning that the UK risked becoming largely “uninvestable” for life sciences, and the programme delivered more than 50 pieces of earned media, where Novartis was the #1 pharmaceutical share of voice with coverage in a wealth of top-tier media including BBC Radio 4 and Bloomberg, building towards the 115M+ reach. By December 2025, the Government had agreed the first NICE threshold increase in 25 years, a VPAG cap of 15%, and a commitment to double medicines spending to 0.6% of GDP by 2035, with Novartis the #1 in share of voice across VPAG coverage. This was integrated Corporate Communications at its most consequential.
Judges’ comments
This corporate communications and public affairs campaign from Novartis UK successfully influenced a major national policy debate. The strategic decision to reframe the issue around patient access was pivotal. Excellent benchmarking across metrics and highlighting the public knowledge gaps is great. Clear explanation of strategy including the insights that informed it and how those insights were garnered.
