The following is part of our LinkedIn article series, the Leadership Lens.

Across healthcare, biopharma, and health equity advocacy, organizations face a common challenge in 2025: navigating political and economic volatility while proving their value in a system that demands more with less.

This challenge is familiar territory for Taft Communications, a division of RF|Binder. For more than 40 years, healthcare communications have been a bedrock practice for Trenton, NJ-based Taft, whose team sits in the heart of the Route 1 corridor, serving New Jersey and Pennsylvania-based life science companies.

Today, Taft Executive Managing Director Ted Deutsch leads a team that is building innovative programs that drive business and community results for healthcare clients. “In the current business and political environment, strategic communications isn’t just a supportive function for healthcare, life sciences and health equity — it’s foundational,” Deutsch said. “We help organizations weave it into their planning from the start, so that they are equipped to craft clear narratives that reinforce their business and organization goals.”

Throughout his career, Deutsch has helped clients expand access to quality care — whether by supporting innovative medicines that offer new treatments or by improving access to primary care and essential drugs that are often out of reach due to insurance gaps or ZIP code redlining.

In the 1990s, he worked on healthcare reform efforts for a Washington, D.C. public affairs firm during the Clinton Administration. Watching the push for broader coverage in Washington, Deutsch saw how critical public education was. While the Clinton effort fell short, nearly 20 years later, “Obamacare” combined innovation in life sciences with expanded coverage — and a pathway to the approval of more affordable biosimilars for complex diseases. This has been fundamental to his career in communications, and the work Taft has focused on over the years.

To highlight the firm’s healthcare experience and see where the sector is headed amid significant change, we spoke with Deutsch. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation.

Taft Communications was founded in 1983. What led the firm to focus on healthcare, life sciences and health equity?

Ted Deutsch: Part of it is geography. Our roots are in New Jersey — a state that’s an important corridor of life sciences in the U.S. Bristol Myers Squibb, Sandoz, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Novo Nordisk, and many other life science leaders are within a short drive of our offices. While our location was local, our work was global. We quickly earned a global client base, with other leading life sciences firms like AbbVie, Takeda and AstraZeneca coming to us for our expertise and services.

New Jersey is also home to the largest U.S. philanthropy focused exclusively on health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), which provides grants aimed at promoting health equity to organizations nationwide. It was natural for Taft to develop an expertise in health and life sciences, and over the last decade or so, in health equity.

Sounds like Taft’s work started narrowly but has evolved to encompass the entire spectrum of healthcare.

Ted Deutsch: That’s right. Taft’s early work focused on pharmaceutical regulatory communications — helping companies navigate the drug approval process. Over time, that expanded to broader communications strategies for both early-stage and established companies, with increasing emphasis on access and health equity, which are two very important issues to our clients. Our healthcare communications strategies are thoughtfully crafted to support and accelerate each client’s unique business objectives.

Today, a key area of focus in our work with Fortune 500 companies is employee engagement. Through our proprietary Clearpoint® workshops and one-on-one coaching, we help  leaders — from CEOs to functional R&D and supply chain teams — communicate with clarity, aligning their messaging, and inspiring action across their teams. This employee engagement work has grown in importance as corporations increasingly place greater focus on developing their employer brand and implementing change management communications.

Moreover, for more established companies like Sanofi, we often support corporate social responsibility initiatives, with a strong focus on tackling health equity and access issues that impact marginalized populations. In fact, we recently won a PRNEWS Award for our work producing a report on the company’s 2024 work.

We also handle a number of assignments for emerging companies like Halozyme and Cardiff Oncology. With these companies, we start by crafting compelling corporate narratives, which then enables us to put in place campaigns to elevate visibility for the C-suite and other leadership. The overall goal of these assignments is to accelerate growth by boosting their presence in trade media and with investors.

We have also long worked with nonprofits and foundations to help them address systemic barriers in healthcare. And with global clients like ISPOR, we focus on traditional marketing while supporting their mission to elevate real-world evidence in health economics — a critical need for informing policy and showcasing patient impact.

Healthcare communications present unique challenges for strategic communications. For instance, how do you balance scientific accuracy and technical language with accessible, engaging content?

Ted Deutsch: Communicating complex scientific or economic information is always a challenge — made harder today by the rise of misinformation. A core focus is taking complex information and synthesizing it in a way that is easily understandable. Still, storytelling is essential. One thing we emphasize with clients is that it’s not just about the data. Data must be paired with a compelling narrative about its impact. You have to explain why it matters — why regulators should act, payers should cover it, and patients should care.

A few years ago, we supported a client at an FDA advisory meeting for a drug approval. After detailed scientific presentations, one of the lead reviewers stopped and said, “I see the data. But tell me why I should care.” That was a wake-up call: If the data didn’t connect with an audience of leading MDs and Ph.D.s, it certainly wouldn’t win over patient advocates and the healthcare system at large.

Ultimately, the company learned that data alone won’t persuade. Getting to “the why” — a concept widely recognized in communications — is often best achieved through effective storytelling, and that is absolutely critical.

What’s an example of your award-winning work in healthcare?

Ted Deutsch: We’re incredibly proud of our work in helping large pharmaceutical companies strengthen their internal communications and navigate complex transitions while ensuring their teams stay motivated and aligned with their larger mission.

One example: We worked closely with Bristol Myers Squibb during its acquisition of Celgene to drive positive change management and help integrate the two company cultures. Our role was to ensure that employees understood and embraced the new mission. That involved organizing town halls, implementing innovative two-way communication tools, and using storytelling — through videos, blogs, and visual content — to drive engagement.

Another strong example of Taft’s impact is our work with RWJF. In 2023, they released “A Policy Agenda for a Healthier, More Equitable N.J.,” a comprehensive report on health equity and the role of racism in New Jersey. While rich in insights and recommendations, the report was dense and less accessible to political influencers and the broader public. To amplify its reach, we developed “Health Equity for NJ,” an interactive microsite with motion graphics, data visualizations, explainer videos and a real-life testimonial. Through compelling storytelling, we translated complex content into an engaging, digestible format with clear, actionable steps.

We also launched a paid digital campaign to drive traffic and an influencer campaign where New Jerseyans shared their lived experiences to further amplify the report’s priority areas. The result: strong engagement and a broader, more impactful reach for the report’s findings.

We are also proud to have won an award from PRNEWS for the RWJF project!

What advice would you give to healthcare organizations looking to improve their communications?

Ted Deutsch: The most important advice we have for clients across industries, but particularly in healthcare, applies to almost all corners of the sector — keep it simple, keep it clear, and make sure the “why” is front and center. Especially in healthcare and life sciences, communicators need to be crystal clear on why the work they’re doing is so important and how it’s going to make a difference, whether that’s a foundation doing grant-making, a life sciences company rolling out a new drug, or a scientifically focused organization like ISPOR launching a trends report. Clarity is essential in every aspect of the communications.

It’s not always easy, but the key is to keep it simple, keep storytelling front and center, and stay true to your mission. That applies across all healthcare sectors, and RF|Binder is in a great position to help clients achieve that.