T2B Monthly | August 2026

Hi!

What. A. Summer. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster, and somehow we’re already gearing up for fall (and JPM). September brings a full slate of T2Bmeets, and in November, we’ll be back in London during Jefferies. Lots ahead, and I’m glad you’re along for it.

Today's email is 2,640 words, a 9-minute read.

🗓️ T2B programming snapshot

» Q3 Students & Recent Grads Roundtable Event: Navigating the Unwritten Rules of Being a Biopharma Communicator | Friday, September 11th @ 12-1 p.m. ET [VIRTUAL]

This inaugural Students & Recent Grads Roundtable session brings together comms leaders (Christine Lindenboom Akinc, formerly Alnylam; Samara Dowe, Catalytic Agency; & Rushmie Nofsinger, Cellarity) from across biopharma comms to share the unwritten rules they've learned on the job and the moments that taught them. We're so pleased to introduce programming for emerging communicators, but please feel free to join if you're in the midst of a career transition of your own!

Sign up here. | Free for all T2B members including Basic members.

» Q3 T2Bmeet @ D.C. | Tuesday, September 15th @ 5:30-8 p.m. ET [IN-PERSON]

We're back for our second annual community meetup in Washington, D.C.! Come and go any time between 5:30 and 8 p.m.

Sign up here. | Complimentary for T2B Pro and Student members. | $30 for Basic.

» Q3 T2Bmeet @ Philly | Wednesday, September 16th @ 5:30-8 p.m. ET [IN-PERSON]

Join fellow biopharma communicators in the Philadelphia area for an evening of networking, conversation, and community. Whether you're local or in town for Fierce, we'd love to see you there.

Sign up here. | Complimentary for T2B Pro and Student members. | $30 for Basic.

» Q3 T2Bmeet @ Boston | Thursday, September 17th @ 4:30-7 p.m. ET [IN-PERSON]

Come meet biopharma communicators from across the Greater Boston Area. Hosted in Waltham by the Alkermes Corporate Affairs Team with support from Biosector 2, this meetup will also include a panel discussion on "Staying Relevant Between Milestones," as well as optional, short ad hoc individual executive coaching sessions. Come catch up with colleagues and strengthen relationships within the T2B community.

Sign up here. | Complimentary for T2B Pro and Student members. | $50 for Basic.

» Q3 T2Bmeet @ San Francisco | Tuesday, September 22nd @ 4:30-7 p.m. PT [IN-PERSON]

Mix and mingle with SF Bay Area biopharma comms pros during our Q3 community meetup at Exelixis in Alameda. In addition to networking, join us for a live case study, "​How Exelixis Grew Employee Volunteering 41% and Made the Business Case for Giving."

Sign up here. | Complimentary for T2B Pro and Student members. | $50 for Basic.

» September Comm Convo: Beyond the Binder in the Era of Constant Crisis | Thursday, September 24th @ 12-1 p.m. ET [VIRTUAL]

Looong gone are the days when we could create a big crisis scenario binder and put it on the shelf. Don't get me wrong -- that scenario planning is of course still imperative, but during this Comm Convo, we'll be talking about readiness in an age of constant crisis, from real-time decision-making to sustaining teams when there is no recovery period between incidents.

Sign up here. | Complimentary for T2B Pro and Student members. | $40 for Basic.

» Q3 Culture Connect Roundtable Event: Building a Credible Biopharma Employer Brand Through Growth and Change | Tuesday, September 29th @ 12-1 p.m. ET [VIRTUAL]

This panel will examine what makes an employer brand credible, how communications, people, and business leaders shape it together, how AI is changing discovery and candidate experience, and how organizations sustain trust through change. The discussion will offer practical guidance for communicators, HR leaders, hiring managers, consultants, and business leaders working across biopharma.

Save the date – additional details coming soon! | Free and exclusive to T2B Pro and Student members (Basic members not permitted).

» Q3 T2Bmeet @ San Diego | Wednesday, September 30th @ 5-7 p.m. PT [IN-PERSON]

Close out the third quarter with an intimate mixer of T2B community members in San Diego!

Sign up here. | Complimentary for T2B Pro and Student members. | $30 for Basic.

» 2nd Annual Virtual Biopharma Comms Forum | Tuesday, October 6th & Wednesday, October 7th

As communications becomes central to business strategy, success is often being measured by outcomes and impact (vs. only outputs). This year's virtual forum, Owning the Outcome, will explore over two half-days how communicators can connect their work to business decisions, stakeholder confidence, employee alignment, investor clarity, and organizational readiness.

Sign up here for Day 1 and here for Day 2 | Free and exclusive to T2B Pro and Student members. | $275 per day for Basic.

» October Comm Convo: The Comms Risk Recalculation | Thursday, October 22nd @ 12-1 p.m. ET [VIRTUAL]

Every consequential communications decision carries multiple forms of risk, and communicators are often the ones helping leadership see those tradeoffs clearly. This Comm Convo will examine how senior communicators can bring perspectives together, clarify the organization’s risk appetite, and help leaders make defensible choices when every available path carries consequences.

Save the date – additional details coming soon! | Complimentary for T2B Pro and Student members. | $40 for Basic.

» Q4 Patient Advocacy & Engagement Roundtable Event: Beyond the Walk | Thursday, October 29th @ 12-1 p.m. ET [VIRTUAL]

T2B's Patient Advocacy & Engagement Roundtable members will share their own experiences and have a candid conversation about how patient advocacy has evolved beyond traditional awareness campaigns and fundraising walks to drive meaningful impact in research, policy, access, innovation, and healthcare delivery.

Save the date – additional details coming soon! | Free and exclusive to T2B Pro and Student members (Basic members not permitted).

» Q4 T2Bmeet @ Jefferies | Tuesday, November 17th @ 5:30-7 p.m. GMT [IN-PERSON]

Whether you’re based in London or in town for the conference, join fellow biopharma communicators at Rondo for our second networking meetup at Jefferies. Can't wait!

Complimentary for Pro and Student members | £50 for Basic. Register here.

🎥 ICYMI: Recent event replays

We aim to record most T2B virtual programs so you can revisit useful discussions or catch up when schedules get busy. Recent replays are available to T2B Pro and Student members via your Dashboard.

• ​T2B Info Session​
• ​August 2026 Comm Convo: Rethinking What We Ask of Patients​
• ​Q3 AI Roundtable Event​ – ​How Agentic AI Is Moving Strategic Communications From Prompting to Delegating​

🤖 Scoping Your First Agentic Workflow Workshop @ 2nd Annual Virtual Biopharma Comms Forum

Registration is officially open for our 2nd Annual Virtual Biopharma Comms Forum, happening Tuesday, October 6th and Wednesday, October 7th.

This year’s theme is Owning the Outcome -- we're looking at how we communicators can effect change and impact outcomes through our work. The virtual forum will span two half days and is designed to pick up where our in-person forum in June left off.

Plus, back by popular demand, another AI workshop! Following our recent, foundational agentic AI Roundtable webinar, biopharma communicator and AI extraordinaire Skye King is back for a new, hands-on workshop as part of Day 1 (October 6th) on "Scoping Your First Agentic Workflow." There, she'll work through a real-world comms scenario and what would need to be true to move a corresponding agentic workflow forward responsibly.

DAY 1: Tuesday, October 6th | 10:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m. ET
​REGISTER FOR DAY 1​

DAY 2: Wednesday, October 7th | 2-4 p.m. ET
​REGISTER FOR DAY 2​

🏛️ Welcome to our new Government & Public Affairs Roundtable members

Congrats to T2B's inaugural Government & Public Affairs Roundtable members!

• Dan Gaynor - Executive Fellow, Harvard Business School
• Meredith Isola - Managing Director, Healthcare, Narrative Strategies
• Miriam Kalnicki - Deputy Head, Corporate Affairs Practice and Head, Reputation and Risk Management, Syneos Health Communications
• Lee McGuire - Chief Communications & Government Relations Officer, Broad Institute
• Michael Pratt - Chief Communications Officer, National Pharmaceutical Council
• PM/Chief of Staff: Myles Goldman - Director of Communications & Media Relations, Centering Healthcare Institute

Under the leadership of Bret Coons (Takeda), our newest roundtable connects biopharma communicators at the intersection of policy, politics, public perception, and trust:

Forthcoming programming will explore how strategic engagement with policymakers, coalitions, and the public shapes market access, strengthens reputation, supports innovation, and drives long-term success globally. Stay tuned for updates!

📣 AI Roundtable Year 2 accepting applications

Applications are open through September 8th for three spots on the T2B AI Roundtable as the group enters its second year.

During its inaugural year, the AI Roundtable helped our community stay at the forefront of a technology that is quickly reshaping what it means to be a corporate affairs practitioner. This roundtable led our annual AI in Biopharma Communications Survey, developed practical monthly resources, and shaped some of T2B’s most popular webinars.

In year two, the group will build on that foundation under the leadership of Monica Aguilar (DragonflyAI Consulting). One of her goals this coming year is to help us communicators move from generative AI to agentic AI and adopt the leadership judgment that demands, ultimately reaching beyond our teams to the patients we serve.

​More details + apply here.​

💎 Building a biotech culture that holds up under pressure

A clinical setback, restructuring, or first commercial launch doesn’t create a company’s culture so much as expose it. Employees watch what leaders reward, what they tolerate, and whether the decisions being made line up with the values they’ve been asked to believe in.

That’s the lens Ann Melinger brings to the latest resource from our Culture Connect Roundtable, which looks at how communicators can help build a culture that continues to guide people when the company is under pressure or entering a new stage of growth.

The connection to the employee experience is clear. Gallup research found that employees who feel connected to their organization’s culture are 4.3 times as likely to be engaged and 47% less likely to be looking for another job. In The Culture at Work Study from life science advisory firm bink, 87% of respondents said culture has significantly influenced business performance, while 84% said it has significantly influenced retention.

A few takeaways from the article:

• Pressure tells employees which values are real. Ninety-one percent of Culture at Work respondents said a disconnect between leadership messaging and behavior is one of the most damaging cultural forces inside an organization.
• Culture belongs in the conversation before a major decision is made. Communicators can help leaders consider what needs to be protected, what needs to evolve, and what new behaviors the company’s next stage will require (vs. only communicating the change once it's final).
• Managers need more than an announcement to forward. Fifty-five percent of respondents said middle managers are expected to drive culture change without enough support or resources. They need context, practical tools, and a way to share what they’re hearing from their teams.
• Sometimes a communications problem is really a systems problem. Sixty-eight percent said structural systems matter more than messaging in shaping culture. If incentives, performance expectations, and leadership decisions reward the wrong behaviors, another campaign won’t fix the disconnect.

T2B Pro and Student members can view the full article here.

🔋 What AI makes more valuable

Panelists in the "What AI Makes More Valuable" session at June's forum emphasized judgment, on knowing what is worth your attention and what a faster output costs (like, metaphorically, not in tokens).

That is one of the questions feeding our October Virtual Biopharma Comms Forum theme. Owning the Outcome asks what we are accountable for when the work itself gets easier to produce, and this panel starts that conversation -- here are our top 10 takeaways:

1. Expect the least help from AI on your newest science. The less that has been written about a program, the more the story depends on people who understand both the data and the audience.

2. Give up wordsmithing and keep control of the company voice. Arguing over a comma is not worth the time; how the company sounds is the harder thing to replace.

3. Use AI in the order that fits how you write. Some people get stuck when they start from a machine draft, so writing first and handing it over afterward could be an approach to keep your own thinking in the piece.

4. Put the time you save into talking to people. Faster drafting frees up hours, and the next good story often comes from a scientist you wouldn't have visited when you were still writing first drafts.

5. Ask AI to argue against you before the meeting. Colleagues now show up with AI-built support for their position, so running the same exercise on your own recommendation tells you what's coming.

6. Explain what AI is actually doing at your company. People keep asking what all of it adds up to, and collecting real examples with measurable results is work communications is well placed to do.

7. Use a design project to get leaders to agree on something. Sitting people down to decide what they want from a logo or a new building often does more for alignment than the finished item does.

8. Present the deliverable as part of a bigger process. A logo generated in minutes looks cheap on its own, but framing it as one outcome of a named strategy sprint keeps the thinking visible.

9. Build your brand rules into the tools people use. Policing every deck is impossible, and an agent trained on the corporate narrative or templates loaded into an internal tool holds the line without your team chasing slides.

10. Expect people to get tired of AI-made content. Audiences already recognize it, and work that looks handmade or slightly imperfect is likely to stand out for a while.

👀 Seen on social

Have you all heard about Claude's new watermark? My imagination ran wild with what that could mean, so I found incredibly helpful AI engineer Elvis Sun's FAQ for PR pros (here and below). In short, there is NOT hidden text buried in your draft coming out of Claude. Rather, Claude favors certain word choices that create a statistical signal.

His TL;DR:

There are definitely things I still want written the old-fashioned way, especially when the language itself incorporates judgment, sensitivity, or personal accountability. But there are also plenty of tasks where AI can produce a better result faster, and in these cases, -- my opinion is! -- I honestly don’t think it matters whether AI authored most of the words. Is the output accurate, appropriate, and something a real person is willing to stand behind?

Elvis is also well worth following on LinkedIn. He's been sharing useful free resources for comms teams, including a Claude routine that monitors journalist requests and a much larger collection of free tools. From one entrepreneur to another, I find his story of how he came to devote so much energy to building practical tools for PR practitioners fascinating and genuinely admirable!