We are assemble.

assemble was founded to reform the healthcare consulting status quo. We believe patient communities and industry share the same ambitions and must realize those ambitions in partnership.

What we do (like really well)

POSITION THE PATIENT VOICE AS A BUSINESS DRIVER

Patient voices are more than a stream of inspirational quotes to galvanize a workforce. We elevate the value of the patient voice as a strategic business driver, challenging industry stakeholders to adopt their own patient-centric manifestos in new ways that yield metrics that matter.

We help open the eyes of advocacy organizations and industry stakeholders, identifying highly productive collaboration opportunities that bring patients into the R&D process.

NAVIGATE COMPLEXITIES - TURNING CHAOS INTO CALM

From fractured patient communities to nuanced organizational structures, we are adept at identifying efficiencies and navigating highly regulated, high stakes conversations. Chaos doesn’t scare us, we thrive on solving it.

ADVISE AGAINST SPEED DATING ADVOCACY GROUPS

We help align commercial, regulatory, research & development, policy, medical, and access realities with patient advocacy group objectives, brokering powerful partnerships that make a significant and lasting impact. Demonstrating commitment to partnership beyond a transactional need and ensuring no shared interest or untapped value is left sitting on the table.

EMPOWER PHARMA TO ACHIEVE MORE FOR PATIENTS

We help advocacy organizations understand and harness the power that they hold to achieve more for their community beyond disease awareness and research funding.

In turn, we prepare advocacy groups to better partner with industry. We arm them with the tools that they need to play a more active role in guiding the development of new therapies.

Working with Us

  • Fresh thinking for product launches, pitches, proposals, campaigns, and difficult issues.

  • Nimble support to meet dynamic business needs.

  • Targeted counsel to meet high-stakes deadlines like regulatory milestones and funder proposals.

  • On-call expertise that infuses teams with new skills and ways of working.

  • We’ll ask you the hard questions in a nice way.

Get to Know Us

Managing Partner and Founder

Alix Floyd

Alix founded assemble in 2018 to help organizations live up to their commitments to “put patients first”. It was a whole lotta talk and no pull through so Alix charted her own path to help companies do better. She aims to reform the consulting status quo and provide organizations with patient lives on the line a better way to work.

Before launching assemble, she managed patient advocacy at a pharmaceutical company working in rare disease. Alix also spent time at a large agency, advising companies on pharmaceutical industry issues, global and public health matters, and responsibility strategies.

Alix has worked with Fortune 500 companies, small and mid-size biotech companies, and advocacy organizations of all sizes. She is a big picture, dot connector, sees issues from all sides and builds consensus that drives better outcomes.

She likes ambitious work and a good chicken parm.

She’s going to ask you hard questions in a nice way.

Strategist

Emily Gusse

Emily is a seasoned strategist focused on patient engagement in R&D. Emily brings deep experience in patient advocacy, market commercialization, and digital health strategy. Before joining assemble, she led pipeline advocacy initiatives for a pharmaceutical company for several years. Emily also spent time as a life sciences consultant at a major firm, specializing in corporate strategy.

Emily has worked throughout her career to provide evidence-based insights and solutions to biotech companies of all sizes. She is comfortable collaborating with a wide ecosystem of partners at the intersection of health, advocacy, policy, and technology. Emily is passionate about growing assemble’s unique strategic offerings to enable our clients to bring meaningful innovations to patients when they need them most.

Senior Director

Liza Allner

Liza grew up in the pharmaceutical marketing and advertising world. She joined assemble in 2023, bringing 5+ years of experience in client services, project management, and strategic business development to the table. She adds vital capacity to our team, enabling us to deliver more, faster for our clients. 

She is well-versed on the ins and outs required to navigate this highly regulated space with experience ranging from product-specific programs–for assets across different lifecycle stages and numerous therapeutic areas–to above-brand corporate communications, patient engagement, and advocacy initiatives for leading pharmaceutical and biotech enterprises. Liza is passionate about crafting creative solutions that disrupt the traditional conventions of life science industry communications in ways that improve health experiences for patients, HCPs, and caregivers AND move the needle for our clients.

She is obsessed with puzzles–from professional jigsaws to the Gray Malin beach scene variety.

Clients engage assemble to solve specific problems.

Sometimes these problems require us to roll up our sleeves or backfill positions. Other times, we come in to support high impact project-based work, setting strategic roadmaps for other teams to execute. Other times, we define the problem, map the solution, and execute as a partner.

Bespoke teams for every client.

We love knotty problems and are flexible when it comes to the best way to approach solving them.

  • Strategic Advisors: Retained to advise on specific issues and/or initiatives, offering always-on senior counsel throughout the year

  • Serving as an Extension of Your Team: Contracted to support your team and oversee agency partners to ensure execution of deliverables is on strategy (we take on interim secondments and/or fractional executive roles for certain clients) 

  • End-to-End Services: Project-based partnerships and year long scopes for full service support–from strategic planning to execution