Her Story
About Tammy
Tammy Russo has been in the pharmaceutical industry since 1998 and has dedicated the last six years to patient advocacy and engagement. She earned both her undergraduate degree in communications and her master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1990. Russo is a member of PPAL, Professional Patient Advocates in Life Sciences. Her inspiration for full-time patient advocacy stems from serving as her father's patient advocate, leading her to apply skills gained in other biopharma functions to this work. She has created advocacy functions at multiple biopharma companies and views patient advocacy as a bridge that aligns expectations between companies and the patient community through interpretation, partnership, and two-way communication. Russo attributes her success to honesty, integrity, commitments, and passion, and she advises that patients should always be seen first and foremost as people rather than consumers of a product.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tammy
01What do you attribute your success to?
My inspiration came from being my father's patient advocate. There was a point at which I recognized not everyone has a kid in pharma to navigate challenging diagnoses. I decided to turn my career and skill sets into patient advocacy full-time, and I've never looked back.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Let people talk about themselves. You can learn a whole lot, including their perspective, their priorities, what's important to them, and it can really help inform better interaction moving forward. This was advice from my life mentor, my father.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Patients are people, first and foremost. Please look at them in that capacity as opposed to looking at them as consumers of a product.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Aligning expectations inside of a biopharma company and translating and carrying those priorities over to the patient community and vice versa. Patient advocacy is a bridge between biopharma companies and the patient community, with traffic flowing both ways. It's an interpretation, alignment, and partnership endeavor.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Honesty, integrity, commitments, and passion. They apply very well to what I do for a living.
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