Frequently asked
questions.

FIXING US is a specialist and global leader in creating authentic health content derived from real-life patient journeys and lived experiences from a wide range of stakeholders including caregivers, physicians, healthcare professionals (HCPs), providers and policymakers. We work in global and local markets with pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare brands as well as health systems to produce authentic content that improves internal and external communications, accelerates stakeholder engagement and alignment, increases patient and HCP engagement, and increases return-on-investment (ROI).

FIXING US specialises exclusively in healthcare and differs fundamentally from conventional content agencies by producing authentic, unscripted content — raw narrative stories rooted in real lived experience — rather than curated, scripted or simulated material. Our authentic approach captures the physiological and psychological nuances that scripted content cannot replicate, while remaining fully aligned with each brand’s strategic goals and messaging. Uniquely, our methodology not only delivers powerful content for clients and broadcasters but also functions as a stakeholder-engagement mechanism, enabling transparent recruitment and collaboration between diverse groups — including pharma brands, patient advocacy groups, charities, clinicians and policymakers — in ways that conventional content creation cannot facilitate.

FIXING US works with external- and internal-facing teams from leading global and local pharmaceutical, biotech and healthcare brands, as well as health system stakeholders including patient advocacy groups, healthcare professionals (HCPs), key opinion leaders (KOLs), charities, public bodies and policymakers. We are trusted by clients including AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Daiichi-Sankyo, Novartis, Roche, Pfizer, Dexcom, Ascensia, Prudential, GSK, Bayer, BBC, NHS England, NBC, Medela, Valneva, Amazon, CellCentric, Nestlé Health Science, Raisio and Air Liquide.

FIXING US is a strategic partner, not simply a production supplier. In addition to delivering video and other forms of content, FIXING US can help clients embed patient voices into wider business processes, strategies and decision-making. Our capabilities span project design, participant recruitment, bias reduction, and multiple types of footage capture — enabling us to deliver stakeholder-engagement mechanisms, events and virtual forums as well as qualitative research and insights via our AI-powered Authentic Intelligence™ tool.

Authentic content is video content derived from the unscripted, unstaged, real-life experiences of actual patients, caregivers and other stakeholders — not actors, not recreations, not storyboarded narratives. It is designed to capture the physiological, psychological and emotional nuances of lived experience that scripted or curated content cannot replicate. Unlike conventional health content such as animated explainers, simulated training videos, promotional films using actors, or aspirational advertising, authentic content delivers measurable engagement, credibility and a natural mechanism for multi-stakeholder engagement — all while remaining fully aligned with brand strategies, campaigns and compliance requirements.

Authentic content outperforms curated or scripted video for health communications for several measurable reasons. Traditional and mainstream curated content can create a credibility gap: narratives that feel manufactured diminish trust and trigger scepticism among patients, caregivers, HCPs and other stakeholders. Healthcare requires a different approach, and authentic content featuring real people with lived experiences produces higher empathic engagement — some authentic video campaigns have generated an ROI of £60 for every £1 spent. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that authentic content inspires audiences, influences behaviours, improves treatment adherence, increases stakeholder engagement and collaboration, drives innovation, and acts as a proxy for institutional transparency.

Yes. Authenticity and brand alignment are fully compatible. It is a major misconception that authenticity prevents alignment with brand goals, or that compliance, legal and ethical safeguards require content to be scripted or pre-determined. FIXING US specialises in producing content that is both authentic and fully aligned to a client’s communications and business needs — what we call “authentic+”. Our process ensures the final output meets all regulatory, compliance and brand requirements while also serving as an effective mechanism for stakeholder-collaboration.

Yes. FIXING US continuously works with clients, health systems and academic partners to build the evidence base for authentic content and patient voice integration in health innovation. There is a growing body of research that supports the effectiveness of authentic content, including new research available for free at doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/d2n3r_v1 that directly examines authentic content as a strategic imperative and as a highly effective mechanism for multi-level stakeholder-engagement, enhanced patient access and stronger financial outcomes.

At FIXING US, ‘journeys’ are defined by the specific pathway that is relevant to each brand’s context. A journey may span from initial diagnosis, through discovery and treatment, to patient advocacy — or it may focus on a single encounter with a healthcare professional in response to a discrete unmet need. FIXING US journeys are authentic and dynamic, not static or retrospective, and can encompass barriers, motivations, adherence realities, family dynamics, care pathways and systemic friction points.

Authentic content is proven to be effective at every stage of health innovation — not only at later, commercial stages. It is also particularly effective earlier in the lifecycle, supporting clinical trials (enhancing recruitment, increasing trust and adherence, reducing protocol amendments, and supporting the presentation of findings) and HTA submissions (supporting more effective, patient-centric submissions aligned with regulatory recommendations). The earlier it is used, the more transformative it is in outcomes and efficiencies for patients and brands.

Authentic content is highly effective for all health system stakeholders — not only patients and caregivers. FIXING US produces content for and featuring HCPs, physicians, key opinion leaders (KOLs), nurses, hospital workers, providers, scientists, payors and policymakers. Content can be created with a single stakeholder group as its focus, or designed to resonate with multiple audiences simultaneously. For HCP and professional audiences, authentic and patient-centric storytelling consistently outperforms data-heavy brochures and curated content in terms of attention, recall and engagement.

FIXING US creates content that adds value across the full health ecosystem, including: patients and caregivers; healthcare professionals (HCPs); policymakers and payors; patient advocacy groups; charities; internal stakeholders (globally and locally); and broadcast audiences via sponsored television programmes on networks including NBC (US), BBC (UK) and Amazon Prime Video. A single film can be designed to appeal to multiple stakeholders, or a suite of targeted content assets can be produced from the footage — each tailored to specific audiences and stakeholders.

Yes. FIXING US has a strong track record of helping clients maximise impact at internal and external congresses, events, conferences and presentations. Content created for events can also be repurposed for internal and external diffusion, ongoing campaigns and corporate communications, as well as being a platform for advocacy — extending its value well beyond the original engagement.

The Health Innovation System (HIS) Framework is a conceptual model developed for healthcare innovation positing that embedding authentic content within a drug innovation lifecycle increases collaboration and value generation across all development stages. The framework demonstrates how incorporating patient voices early in the innovation process can shift the development trajectory, increasing engagement, accelerating timelines, maximising market exclusivity and significantly improving ROI.

FIXING US has expertise and experience at both. FIXING US offers a full turnkey service that minimises burden on client workflows within proven delivery frameworks, and also adapts to client systems — shaping around specific organisational resources, processes, teams, and compliance requirements. Within a single client organisation, FIXING US may deliver turnkey projects for some teams and bespoke modular services that integrate with existing internal teams and agencies for others.

Yes. Because of the broad range of techniques FIXING US employs to capture footage, we can deliver both edited content and raw footage to support a range of communications and research needs. The measures we take to reduce bias in footage are central to our SaaS Authentic Intelligence™ tool — an AI-powered large language model (LLM) that uses transcripts from authentic patient and stakeholder interactions to generate qualitative insights about behaviours, emotions, barriers and motivators, delivering almost unlimited analytical value for clients from footage we collect for them.

FIXING US delivers authentic content locally and multilingual content globally, operating across Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. FIXING US has produced content from more than 20 countries across all continents so far and, whether through in-person filming or remotely-captured footage, there is no health system or country from which we cannot create content.

FIXING US has built deep, longstanding networks of patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals (HCPs), key opinion leaders (KOLs), patient advocacy groups, charities, payors and policymakers in different health systems from around the world. Recruitment can be delivered through a combination of existing or new, bespoke proprietary databases, partnerships with patient organisations and clinical networks, professional society relationships, and targeted outreach into specific patient communities and HCP specialties.

Both. FIXING US offers fully turnkey recruitment that removes the burden from clients entirely — handling sourcing, screening, consent, scheduling, logistics, compensation and compliance from end-to-end. Equally, where clients have existing patient panels, KOL relationships, medical affairs networks, agencies or specialist recruitment partners, FIXING US can work alongside them using frameworks that complement rather than duplicate internal capability.

Yes. FIXING US recruits across all therapeutic areas and can target highly specific subgroups by disease stage, treatment line, comorbidity, age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, caregiver role or geographic region — with specific areas of expertise including oncology, cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, immunology, rare disease, gene therapies, respiratory, weight management and neurology. Recruitment can be local, multi-country or fully global, and is delivered in the languages and cultural contexts appropriate to each market.

Authentic content depends on engaging the right people in the right way. Recruitment is therefore not an operational step to support conventional scripted or curated content — it is central to the credibility, relevance and impact of the content that we create. By recruiting patients, caregivers, HCPs, KOLs, policymakers and other stakeholders thoughtfully and compliantly, FIXING US creates processes that help clients create content and engagement programmes that are grounded in authentic lived experience, strategically aligned and capable of influencing behaviour, understanding and decision-making.

No. Recruitment can support a much wider range of activities than video content creation. FIXING US recruits stakeholders for filmed content, virtual forums, advisory-style discussions, stakeholder engagement programmes, qualitative research, insight generation, internal learning, congress activity, patient panels, advocacy initiatives, campaign development, message testing and content diffusion.

Recruitment timelines depend on cohort complexity, geography and eligibility criteria, but FIXING US is set up to move quickly. Common-condition cohorts within a single or multiple market can typically be recruited and screened within a few weeks. Complex briefs such as rare-disease patients, niche KOLs, policymakers or hard-to-reach communities can typically be recruited within 2–8 weeks.

Yes. FIXING US can support participant consent and permissions as part of the recruitment and production process. This can include consent for filming, content use, data handling, transcription, analysis, internal use, external publication or campaign activity, depending on the project scope. Consent processes are adapted to client requirements, local regulations and the intended use of the content.

The FIXING US content-creation process is built to align with regulatory, compliance and ethical standards without sanitising the patient experience. By capturing, securely storing and utilising raw footage and transcribed datasets for analysis, FIXING US maintains authentic narrative integrity while meeting the rigorous standards required by modern healthcare and pharmaceutical regulatory environments. The FIXING US team supports current and evolving compliance requirements in any jurisdiction.

FIXING US designs every recruitment workflow to align with the regulatory, ethical, legal and data-protection standards applicable to each jurisdiction, including pharmaceutical industry codes (such as ABPI, EFPIA, PhRMA and IFPMA), data-protection regimes (such as GDPR, HIPAA and equivalents), and any client-specific standard operating procedures (SOPs). Informed consent, fair-market-value compensation, conflict-of-interest declarations, adverse-event reporting protocols and secure handling of personal and health data are embedded throughout.

Delivery timelines depend on the scope, scale and complexity of each project. As a general guide, from proposal approval to delivery, local market projects featuring patients or HCPs can be delivered in as little as 3 weeks and international projects featuring patients, caregivers and HCPs from multiple jurisdictions can be delivered in as little as 5 weeks. Larger-scale initiatives — such as TV show productions or complex multi-stakeholder programmes — may take several months from proposal to delivery. FIXING US makes a pledge to shape all delivery timelines around each client’s specific requirements.