The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recognizes the importance of trust—a key intangible factor that facilitates its work as a regulator. This is especially true with the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation & Research (CDER), the arm that ensures safe and effective drugs are available, from newly developed prescription drugs to generics to over-the-counter medicines. Some consumers might not fully understand the complex agency, which regulates goods that account for some 20% of US consumer spending. Others question whether corporate or political influence could sway the vital agency, while others still have been victims of misinformation. FDA CDER turned to Palladian for help in communicating more strategically, clearly, and simply with key audiences about its vital work to regulate medicines.
Agency staff and the Palladian team agreed that a strategic communications plan would be instrumental in building understanding and trust. The planning process would need to analyze the landscape in which drug regulators were doing their work. And to hear directly about stakeholders’ experiences with agency communications, the planning team would need to interview a broad range of them. Several made the same request: demystify complex scientific and regulatory information and make it more accessible. This phase of work helped Palladian understand CDER’s situation and begin to uncover the most promising path forward—one that embraced plain language as an enabler of public trust.
Internal stakeholders were just as central to the strategic planning process as external ones. That’s because Palladian believes every organization’s imperative is to clearly, compellingly paint a picture of its destination, but we also believe that every employee and branch of the organization has a role in how that picture turns out. The next phase of the project was to forge internal consensus, drive alignment, generate excitement, and establish processes that would catalyze and cement change. CDER’s Office of Communications (OCOMM) felt setting up an internal communications hub would be a crucial tool for managing, updating, and disseminating all the strong, clear, and consistent messaging that we just developed. So we developed a centralized hub that would help “keep everyone on the same page,” fulfilling a key project objective.
From start to finish, Palladian’s collaboration with the OCOMM team spanned leadership meetings, working sessions, content outlines, wireframe development, and much more. The comprehensive effort was premised on the fact that creating a strategic plan is thrilling, but it isn’t enough. To achieve the desired results, the plan had to be implemented diligently and consistently for years to come.
The plan and communications hub are new, but OCOMM reports they are already paying dividends: there’s a seamless flow of information within the organization, messages are being more effectively conveyed to the public, and the agency can respond more swiftly to emerging issues. It’s too early to say whether trust in FDA has increased, but as Benjamin Franklin admonished, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” That’s not a risk FDA was willing to take, and Palladian is proud to have helped put FDA CDER communications on a new trajectory through 2025.