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8 weeks to your milestone.

Does everyone use the same narrative?

Before your Phase II readout, Series C, or partner meeting, I identify where your scientific messaging fragments across functions, and build the infrastructure to fix it.

 Is your story ready for the upcoming pivotal conversations? 

How I work

Every engagement starts with a diagnosis. What gets built after depends on what the diagnosis finds and what your timeline requires.

Audit Concept. Word on Folder Register of Card Index. Selective Focus.

 Narrative Risk Audit

See where your story fragments before partners do. 

Duration: 2 to 3 weeks

A structured diagnostic conducted before your next high-stakes external moment. I interview your key functions, review your external-facing documents, and score the gaps. You get a prioritized report and an executive readout with a clear picture of what to fix and in what order.

What you get

  • Stakeholder interviews across Clinical, Regulatory, Medical Affairs, and Commercial
  • Document review of active external-facing materials
  • Narrative Coherence Score across five dimensions
  • Gap Analysis Report with prioritized risk mapping
  • 90-day action plan tied to your milestone timeline
  • Executive readout to the leadership team
Standards Concept. Word on Folder Register of Card Index. Selective Focus.

 Narrative Alignment Sprint

One science. One story. Zero conflicting versions. 

Duration: 6 to 8 weeks

Builds what the Audit diagnoses. A facilitated cross-functional process that produces one unified scientific narrative your team can defend in any room with your KOLs, your investors, and your FDA reviewers. Includes a simulated stress test before your real external exposure.

What you get

  • Core Positioning Framework: one canonical scientific claim agreed across all functions
  • Messaging Architecture by audience: KOLs, investors, regulatory, BD partners
  • Claim Substantiation Matrix: every external claim mapped to its evidence source
  • Cross-functional alignment workshop with all stakeholders
  • Narrative Playbook: the single document every function pulls from before external exposure
  • Pre-external Stress Test: simulated advisory board or investor Q&A
  • 30-day follow-up support
Policies Concept. Word on Folder Register of Card Index. Selective Focus.

 Truth Architecture Build

Infrastructure that makes consistency inevitable, not aspirational.

Duration: 3 to 6 months

For companies that need the story to hold after I leave. The Build puts governance, modular content, and onboarding systems in place so that narrative coherence survives new hires, data updates, and the next milestone without starting from scratch every time.

What you get

  • Narrative Governance Framework: who owns what, how conflicts get resolved, how language gets approved
  • Modular Content System: pre-approved, scientifically vetted content blocks each function builds from
  • Monthly Narrative Health Checks
  • Pre-milestone Stress Tests before each major external exposure
  • New hire onboarding protocol
  • Quarterly executive reviews

Interactive Narrative Gap Audit Example

Click around to see where the story breaks.

Interactive Messaging Gap Audit · Yoanne Clovis LLC

Messaging Gap Audit · Constructed Example

Three functions.
Three versions of the same drug.

Meridian Therapeutics · MRD-471 · Treatment-resistant MDD · Phase III Upcoming: Type B meeting with FDA · Series C close · Q3 partnering conference

This is a constructed example. Meridian Therapeutics and MRD-471 are fictional. The gaps shown reflect patterns observed across pre-commercial biotech companies preparing for advisory boards, Series C raises, and partner meetings.

What each function says about MRD-471

Select any underlined phrase to see the gap it creates. All three documents describe the same drug.

Clinical ClinicalTrials.gov registration

"MRD-471 is a novel serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake modulator being evaluated for efficacy and safety in adult patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, defined as inadequate response to two or more antidepressant regimens of adequate dose and duration . The primary endpoint is change from baseline in MADRS total score at Week 8 . Secondary endpoints include response rate (≥50% reduction in MADRS), remission rate (MADRS ≤10), and durability of response through Week 24 ."

Gap identified

Defines TR-MDD by treatment history, not disease biology. This is a regulatory anchor, not a commercial story. Commercial is already using a different patient definition.

Gap identified

Primary endpoint is symptom scale change. Commercial is leading with "rapid onset within 72 hours" — a claim unanchored to this registered endpoint.

Gap identified

24-week durability is a secondary endpoint here. Medical Affairs is building the entire differentiation story on an exploratory anhedonia subgroup, not on this registered outcome.

Commercial Investor press release (Series B close)

"MRD-471 addresses a $14 billion market opportunity in patients who have failed standard-of-care antidepressants. In clinical studies, MRD-471 demonstrated rapid onset of action within 72 hours and a favorable tolerability profile compared to existing therapies. Meridian believes MRD-471 has the potential to become a first-line option for patients with difficult-to-treat depression , transforming the treatment paradigm for millions of Americans living with this debilitating condition."

Gap identified

Rapid onset within 72 hours is not a registered endpoint. If a partner asks which trial result supports this claim, no one from Clinical or Regulatory can point to it.

Gap identified

The trial defines a TR-MDD population that has failed at least two regimens. "First-line option" contradicts the protocol definition of every patient enrolled in the study.

Gap identified

Mechanistic overclaim not supported by Phase III data. This is the sentence a KOL will push back on in public. It also puts Regulatory in an impossible position before the Type B meeting.

Med Affairs Medical Affairs KOL slide deck (advisory board prep)

"MRD-471 offers a differentiated mechanism of action targeting both serotonergic and noradrenergic pathways, with emerging data suggesting particular benefit in patients with anhedonia as a predominant symptom cluster . The medical team is focused on building scientific exchange around the anhedonia subpopulation analysis ahead of the upcoming advisory board. We believe this subpopulation data, if confirmed, could reframe how clinicians think about patient selection for MRD-471 . If confirmed , this signal could meaningfully change the label conversation."

Gap identified

A subgroup exploratory analysis is being positioned as the differentiation story. The registered primary endpoint is MADRS change. These are not the same argument, and they lead to different advisory board conversations.

Gap identified

This implies a different patient population than Clinical registered or Commercial is pitching. Three functions, three patient definitions. A KOL will notice within the first ten minutes.

Gap identified

"If confirmed" signals the data is exploratory. Commercial's press release communicates certainty. This contradiction lives in the same company's external documents, readable side by side.

Ask the same question. Get three different answers.
The KOL in the advisory board is asking all three.
▾
Who is the patient?
Clinical

Failed ≥2 adequate antidepressant courses (TR-MDD per protocol definition)

Commercial

Anyone with difficult-to-treat depression, potentially including first-line candidates

Med Affairs

TR-MDD patients with anhedonia as the dominant symptom cluster

What does the drug do?
Clinical

Reduces MADRS score by Week 8. Durability through Week 24 as a secondary outcome.

Commercial

Rapid onset within 72 hours. Favorable tolerability vs. existing therapies.

Med Affairs

Dual serotonergic-noradrenergic mechanism. Anhedonia subpopulation benefit (exploratory).

What makes it different?
Clinical

Not stated. The protocol defines endpoints, not differentiation.

Commercial

Speed of onset. Tolerability versus existing standard of care.

Med Affairs

Mechanism of action. Anhedonia signal (not yet confirmed in the data).

What does this look like at your company?

The gaps above took three minutes to find. They exist because Clinical, Commercial, and Medical Affairs are each right about their piece of the story. The problem is that no one has built the version that holds across all three.

Take the assessment →
Yoanne Clovis LLC · yoanneclovis.com Meridian Therapeutics is a fictional company. The gaps are real.

Not sure where you are?

Take the five-minute assessment. Answer questions about your team, your milestone timeline, and how your functions currently communicate about the science. You'll get a score and a plain-language read on your narrative risk level before you talk to anyone.

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MESSAGING STRATEGY

Credentials

Why this works when internal meetings don't

The people who need to reconcile the story have conflicting incentives.

  • Your CSO is protecting scientific precision.

  • Your CMO is protecting the clinical relationship.

  • Your Head of Medical Affairs is holding the version control together with both hands.

  None of them can concede to the other without it reading as a loss.  

An external voice with no stake in any one function can do what internal alignment meetings can't.

I come in as a scientific and commercialization peer. I've held a pipette. I've sat in leadership and investor meetings. I've been in the agency debriefs when MLR, clinical or R&D veto'd months of work for being promotional.

Screenshot 2025-03-31 135444
 
SAY THIS, NOT THAT.

Building a lexicon and single source of truth that unifies.

Every department gets a reference document.

It answers one question: what can we say, what can we not say, and what are the approved variations in between.

Not a style guide. Not a messaging deck. A claim-level reference any function can use before any external conversation without asking someone to adjudicate it in real time.

Screenshot 2025-06-29 113828

Companies we've worked with