Hello!
I'm Hillary Savoie, PhD
I translate between drug developers and patient communities to advance better science for the people who need it most
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Consulting, speaking, and strategy for organizations building better science for patient communities
You’re here because you recognize that some of the biggest barriers to scientific innovation aren’t scientific. They’re human.
Whether you’re a drug developer working to build trust with a patient community, a patient advocate trying to understand sponsor decision-making, or an investor evaluating the risks surrounding a program, the quality of the relationships around the science can make or break its success.
And the data backs this up. Strategic engagement with patient communities isn’t simply the right thing to do—it can materially affect the value of a development program.
A single patient engagement activity that prevents one protocol amendment can improve enrollment, adherence, and retention yielding a net present value increase of $65M in a pre-Phase 3 project*.
But knowing that the human side matters doesn’t necessarily tell you what to do about it.
I bring a rare perspective to my work: I have spent more than fifteen years inside rare disease advocacy, biotechnology, and life as the mother of a daughter with profound disabilities and medical fragility. I help organizations uncover the assumptions, stories, priorities, and relationships shaping their work—so they can communicate more clearly, build deeper trust, and make better decisions about the programs they want to see advance.
How to work with me
Consulting
Are you looking for an outside perspective on the relationships, assumptions, and decisions shaping your work with patient communities?
Speaking
Are you looking for a speaker who can make your audience think differently about science, lived experience, and the people at the heart of both?
Coaching
Are you leading a patient advocacy organization and looking for an experienced sounding board as you navigate strategy, partnerships, and drug development?
Hillary translates between worlds that rarely understand one another
Hillary Savoie is a writer, speaker, and rare disease advocacy strategist who has spent more than a decade translating between worlds that rarely speak the same language. From boardrooms to hospital rooms, research labs to living rooms, her work explores what happens when science, lived experience, and story are allowed to inform one another.
Whether speaking, writing, or advising organizations, Hillary helps bridge the gap between the people pursuing scientific breakthroughs and the people whose lives depend on them. She believes that better science begins with better conversations—and that the stories we tell shape the futures we build.
She lives where science, narrative, and love collide.