You spent over a decade at the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, moving from direct patient services to leading industry partnerships. How has your career path shaped your perspective as you transition into a strategic partnerships role at VOZ?
I began my career at PanCAN in the Patient Services department, where I spoke directly with individuals living with pancreatic cancer and their families. Through these conversations, I gained firsthand insight into the critical challenges they faced, from navigating diagnoses, making treatment decisions, understanding the clinical trial landscape and biomarker testing, and managing financial and insurance issues.
It quickly became clear that even policy changes, such as improving access to clinical trials or ensuring timely biomarker testing, can have a meaningful impact on patient outcomes. During my time at PanCAN, I collaborated closely with pharmaceutical and biotech partners to help deepen their understanding of the pancreatic cancer experience and incorporate those insights into therapeutic development.
I am excited to bring that experience into my role at VOZ, where we’re working to build and strengthen partnerships across industry, non-profit organizations, and most importantly, the patient community. Our goal is always to center and amplify the patient voice in the drug development and commercialization process.
Learning from patients:
What lessons from your direct work with patients and families have been most valuable in helping clients authentically integrate the patient voice into drug development?
The most important lesson I have learned is truly listening, not only to patients, but also to care partners. Both perspectives offer powerful, often overlooked insights into the patient experience that are essential to shaping meaningful drug development strategies.
I’ve also seen how challenging it can be for patients to enroll in clinical trials, whether due to restrictive eligibility criteria, travel limitations, or other avoidable barriers. When we take the time to identify these challenges early and co-create more accessible, patient-centered solutions, we can transform not just the trial experience but the overall impact of life-saving interventions.
Looking ahead at VOZ:
What excites you most about this work, and where do you see the greatest opportunities to drive meaningful change?
Coming from a patient advocacy organization, I truly understand the value of partnering with advocacy groups. VOZ does an extraordinary job staying connected to the patient community, and these organizations have a direct line to the patients and play a vital role in advancing awareness, understanding, and progress across a wide range of conditions, especially those that are often overlooked or misunderstood. But I have also seen firsthand that advocacy groups do not always have the resources to launch or sustain the kinds of projects that amplify patient voices. I’m excited about the opportunity to build meaningful partnerships that can offer additional support to patient groups to integrate the lived experience of patients and care partners. One area of interest, for example, is AI, with countless opportunities emerging across the healthcare landscape, from supporting diagnosis and clinical research to treatment choices. The same patient engagement principles we apply to therapeutic development also guide how we approach AI. It is equally important to focus on educating patients about AI and helping ease any uncertainty they may feel. We have seen several organizations doing innovative work in this space, and I’m eager to explore new collaborations in this area.
