helen johnson

A qualified lawyer with an MBA from Cranfield School of Management, Helen Johnson has seventeen years’ practical experience of healthcare policy and regulatory issues, commercial law and political relations, including ten years working in the pharmaceutical industry.

After graduating with a first class honours degree in law, Helen qualified as a solicitor and, in 1992, joined the legal department of pharmaceutical and healthcare company, Roche.

In 2000, Helen was appointed to the new post of Head of Public Affairs and was given sole management responsibility for devising, developing and implementing Roche’s first government relations strategy.

Helen left Roche in 2002 to operate as a public affairs and policy consultant in her own right, setting up HJCL. She is currently working with a number of commercial and voluntary sector clients on a range of healthcare policy and political projects ranging from obesity, arthritis, cancer and Multiple Sclerosis, to the commissioning of specialised healthcare services, NHS commissioning and NICE technology appraisals.

Helen currently sits on the Management Committee of the Association of Professional Political Consultants and has been an occasional contributor to Pharmaceutical Marketing’s Communiqué Journal PMLive.com on topical communications and public affairs issues.

sarah cotton

Sarah graduated from Bristol University with a degree in Politics and Social Policy in 1999.

After leaving University, Sarah ran the Parliamentary office of Ivan Lewis MP (now Minister for International Development), followed by a secondment during the 2001 re-election campaign for Oona King MP.

Sarah joined the Public Affairs team of Consolidated Communications in 2000, where she devised and implemented integrated media and political campaigns for a range of clients in the healthcare, financial services and telecommunications sectors.

Having built particular expertise in healthcare issues and stakeholder relations at Consolidated, Sarah was briefly seconded to the Audit Commission as Stakeholder Relations Manager, before joining global healthcare company Merck Sharp & Dohme as Political and NICE Policy Manager in 2003. As MSD’s expert in the workings of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), Sarah drew on her previous public affairs experience to positively shape MSD’s engagement with both the organisation and its processes.

Sarah left MSD in November 2006 following the birth of her first baby, and is now working with HJCL on a variety of healthy policy and public affairs projects for commercial and voluntary sector clients.

john spoors

John Spoors graduated from the University of Manchester with an Upper Second Class Honours degree in Politics, Economics and Social Sciences in 2007.

Immediately upon graduation, he joined Merck Sharp & Dohme as Market Access Executive. In this role, he developed an expertise in health policy, particularly market access and HTA, and played a key role in project managing Merck’s product submissions to NICE, SMC and the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group.

John joined HJCL in January 2009.

kait ayres

Kait Ayres has twenty-two years’ experience in healthcare sales and marketing; media, public and corporate relations, gained in big Pharma, med-ed, PR, events-management and digital marketing companies. Her unique blend of skills has been developed in a multi-channel environment and is combined with a broad therapeutic knowledge-base.

This includes cardiology, diabetes, rheumatology, oncology, respiratory medicine, anaesthetics, gynaecology, sexual health, anti-infectives, dermatology, obesity and critical care. Her ability, training and experience ensure a high level of strategic and implementation expertise, working across the communications ‘mix’, to achieve your business objectives.