Why JG Zebra Consulting?
Bridging health policy, advocacy, and sustainable access
If your challenge doesn’t fit into a standard box, a standard agency won’t solve it.
JG Zebra is a senior strategic advisory practice built for moments when complex challenges demand more than siloed, traditional thinking. We provide the vital bridge connecting global health policy, patient advocacy, and patient access.
We specialise in rare diseases and novel therapies—areas where standard frameworks frequently fail. Whether you need a collaborative programme builder, a strategic policy guide, or expert ad hoc advice, we help clients move beyond conventional thinking to overcome healthcare’s most stubborn barriers
JG Zebra works alongside pharmaceutical leadership, patient advocacy organisations, and health policy stakeholders to navigate the grey areas of healthcare, ensuring breakthrough science reaches the people who need it most.
A 360-degree view across policy, advocacy, and market access
JG Zebra is led by Josie Godfrey, a senior strategic advisor with 25 years of experience working across health policy, patient access, and multi-stakeholder advocacy. Her perspective is shaped by a career spent bringing together payers, industry, and patient communities to align strategy, drive consensus, and navigate complex healthcare environments.
- International HTA & Patient Access Leadership: Established the Highly Specialised Technologies (HST) programme at NICE, creating a benchmark framework that redefined global HTA evaluation for rare and complex treatments.
- Pioneering Access Collaborations: Strategic Director for Project HERCULES (with Duchenne UK), an award-winning multi-stakeholder initiative developing HTA tools, economic models, and evidence to accelerate patient access.
- Commercial Access Strategy: Advises global pharma leadership on commercial access, helping teams align product launches with evolving health system realities across international markets.
- Health System Insight: Background includes roles within the NHS and England’s Department of Health and Social Care, providing practical insight into internal health system pressures and decision-making processes.
- Advocacy & Policy Leadership: Co-founder of Realise Advocacy and former patient organisation board member, driving initiatives that give patient communities a seat at the decision-making table.
- Policy Research & Evaluation: Co-lead investigator (through Realise Advocacy) on the NIHR-funded RareCare evaluation of England’s Rare Diseases Action Plans, generating evidence to shape national rare disease policy.
Josie serves as a trusted advisor to senior leaders looking to resolve complex access challenges, influence health policy, and build high-impact multi-stakeholder coalitions.
Pragmatic solutions for uncommon challenges
We partner globally with individuals and organisations to assemble the right team for every challenge. Our work focuses on four pillars where standard processes don’t always fit:
Market Access and Evidence Strategy
- Launch Readiness and Market Access Roadmaps: Readiness health checks, strategic roadmaps, and strategic evidence plans to navigate HTA bodies like NICE.
- HTA Preparation: Supporting access strategy and value narratives, preparing for negotiations, reviewing dossiers and conducting mock appraisals.
- Collaborative Tools: Driving the evidence generation required to prove value in small or complex populations.
Public Policy and Stakeholder Engagement
- Consensus Building: Designing and managing collaborative platforms to address international and local health policy challenges.
- Policy Audits: Identifying specific barriers to access and healthcare and developing strategies to overcome them.
- Strategic Positioning: Drafting white papers, consultation responses, and position statements.
Leading global patient initiatives
- Capacity Building: Supporting international and local patient advocacy organisations in building the evidence, data tools, and infrastructure needed to engage as equal partners in HTA.
- Strategy & Engagement: Developing multi-year roadmaps for global patient communities to prepare for first-in-class drug approvals.
- Patient-centred research: Designing and delivering complex patient-centred research programmes.
Collaborative Programme Building and Speaking
- Multi-Stakeholder Alliances: Building and leading successful collaborations between industry, patient advocacy organisations, clinicians and other experts.
- Expert Contribution: Josie is a regular speaker at international congresses, providing pragmatic insights on international access, advocacy and policy challenges.
Recent Projects
HERCULES (Duchenne muscular dystrophy): Josie serves as Strategic Director for Duchenne UK’s award-winning, world-first collaboration. By bringing together patients, clinicians, industry, and HTA bodies, the project created a gold standard economic model, a bespoke measure of Health-Related Quality of Life and an evidence base that now serves as a global template for rare disease access.
Policy evaluation: Co-lead investigator on the NIHR-funded RareCare study evaluating England’s Rare Diseases Action Plans—a two-year, patient-centred policy research initiative co-led through Realise Advocacy, alongside co-founder Lindsay Birrell as RareCare’s PPIE lead.
Global Access Strategy (Project MERCURY): Established the global access workstream for this international multi-stakeholder FSHD initiative. As founding Global Access Lead, Josie developed the core access strategy and evidence generation framework to prepare the community for future drug approvals, building the foundations before transitioning delivery to the ongoing project team.
European Policy Collaboration: Designed and managed a collaborative platform of leading companies to shape industry policy positions on European HTA and pricing challenges.
Contact
If you would like to get in touch to discuss how we can help your organisation please contact admin@jgzebra.com