Overview
Egality and National Voices collaborated to support a top-10 global pharmaceutical company on a project to test and rehearse strategic co-production.
We brought together eight cross-functional company staff and eight lived experience partners with deep insight into health, care, and research systems. Over five co-facilitated workshops, we explored the principles of co-production and applied them to high-priority challenges, including:
- Building trusted relationships with under-served communities
- Strengthening public trust in the company’s role and purpose
Outcomes
- Created space for open, honest dialogue—surfacing critical issues around systemic racism and exclusion in healthcare
- Built trust in both the team and the company, reinforcing that commercial success can align with a strong societal purpose and deliver meaningful impact for patients
- Equipped staff with the tools and confidence to champion co-production internally and apply it meaningfully across future projects
Quotes from workshop participants
“I had an existential crisis where I realised my work wasn’t ‘co-production’ but now I’ve found it easier to start to pivot these projects from engagement to co-production”
“ I feel much better now I’ve heard you talk about the purpose, pharma companies make drugs and that is why I’m sitting here today. There’s a lot of polarisation on these big topics, but in reality there’s a grey space – the commercial and non-commercial can live together”
“We (company team) express gratitude for the challenge in the last workshop, and collective regret for not expressing how we felt when you shared your stories. We need to be better at sitting in the uncomfortable”
