Strategic Partners & Advisors
The people who keep our thinking honest.
A boutique of ten people doesn’t hold institutional depth on its own balance sheet. It earns it through the people who challenge its thinking, validate its claims, and deliver the specialism it deliberately doesn’t try to own. Three groups: the advisory board, the clinical and academic expert panel, and the strategic delivery partners we bring in by name on real engagements.
“Most ten-person agencies don’t have a Master Cutler on the advisory board, a former MedTech CEO co-positioning, three professors validating the work, and four NHS consultants on the expert panel. That is the level we operate at.”
Michael Colling-Tuck · Founder
Governance & Advisory
Three people who hold AGENCY’s thinking to account.
These advisors are not endorsers - they challenge. Board-level governance, patient advocacy depth, and regulatory authority that makes a strategy more rigorous before it reaches a client.
Patient Advocacy & Governance
Howard Widdall
Chairman, Board of Trustees, Age UK. Nearly forty years in healthcare and patient advocacy, including senior roles at Smith & Nephew and JRI Orthopaedics. Brings the patient and governance perspective that keeps commercial thinking grounded in real-world outcomes. Informs how AGENCY frames patient marketing and access strategies.
Commercial Governance
Prof. Keith Jackson
The Master Cutler. CDir, NED, IoD Director of the Year Awards Judge. Former CEO of two MedTech companies with products delivered to more than seventy countries. Forty years of commercial wisdom. Wrote the foreword to It's Not a Sales Problem. Brings the board-level challenge that makes strategy sharper before it reaches a client.
Regulatory Strategy
Andrew Dubowski ↗
Founder, ClearPath Health Tech. Regulatory pathway mapping, claims matrix development, and compliance frameworks across markets. Ensures commercial messaging is built on claims that can be defended across new markets, new indications, new claims.
Clinical & Academic Expert Panel
Who keeps our commercial thinking clinically honest.
Clinicians and academics whose work shapes how we think. From the Painful Conversations research at the Centre for Pain Research to consultant surgeons and NHS physiotherapists, these are the people who validate what we write before it reaches a client.
- Prof. Christopher EcclestonDirector, Centre for Pain Research, University of Bath. Painful Conversations research partner.
- Prof. Richie GillChair of Healthcare Engineering, University of Bath.
- Mr. Damian ClarkConsultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, North Bristol Healthcare Trust.
- Ruth BakerResearch Physiotherapist, NIHR & North Bristol NHS Trust.
- Mr. JJ GilloolyConsultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Emersons Green Hospital, Bristol.
- Dr. David GarleyGP & Managing Director, The Better Sleep Clinic.
Strategic Delivery Partners
Firms we bring in by name on real engagements.
Where a client needs depth AGENCY doesn’t try to own - digital performance execution, regulatory affairs, medicolegal review - these are the firms named on the SOW. No subcontracting through opaque agencies; every partnership is contractual, visible, and active.
Digital Performance
Believe Digital ↗
Web development, paid search, and ongoing performance management. When AGENCY builds digital demand generation strategies, Believe Digital execute the technical build and run the campaigns.
Client Services
Laura Beard
Senior client services practitioner with a decade in healthcare accounts. Embedded across programme engagements to keep delivery quality and commercial outcomes aligned, week by week.
Medicolegal & Clinical Insight
Rebus Medicolegal
Collaborator on the AGENCY internship programme. Clinical and medicolegal expertise that keeps commercial work grounded in real-world clinical practice.
Regulatory Strategy
ClearPath Health Tech ↗
Andrew Dubowski's firm. Regulatory pathway mapping, claims matrix development, and compliance frameworks. Used on every engagement where new claims or new markets are in play.
For firms considering joining the network
What we look for in a partner.
Specialist depth we don't have.
Regulatory, health economics, clinical trial design, medical writing, reimbursement, specialist PR. Where partners are better than us, we use partners.
Real healthcare literacy.
Not a pharma page on the website. Actual work with actual commercial healthcare clients. The learning curve is too long for anyone else to be useful.
Shared standards.
Compliance-first. Pay freelancers on time. Credit the work. Don't brief blind. If we agree on those, most of the partnership admin takes care of itself.
A reason to collaborate.
Partnerships that don't produce work for anyone aren't partnerships. We favour joint-named deliverables, co-written thought leadership, or explicit co-sell motions.
Two ways forward
Buyer first. Partner second.
If you arrived on this page checking AGENCY’s depth before a triage call - the next step is the call itself.
Book a Triage CallOr, if your firm offers specialist depth AGENCY doesn’t hold - regulatory, health economics, medical writing, specialist PR - the form on the right is reviewed by Michael personally.