At Humanimal Trust, our corporate partners play a vital role in our mission – raising essential funds, building awareness, and helping us drive forward the One Medicine movement. We take pride in forming partnerships that are bespoke, mutually beneficial, and highly impactful.
We’re thrilled to introduce our newest corporate partner: The Salve, a global medical affairs consultancy committed to creating meaningful impact in healthcare through purposeful communications.
Recently, our CEO Joe Bailey sat down with Elena Mills, co-founder and Managing Director of The Salve, to discuss why this collaboration matters and how it will advance our shared goals.
Joe: For those unfamiliar with The Salve, could you tell us about your mission and the services you offer?
Elena: The Salve is a women-founded, strategic medical communications consultancy. We work with pharmaceutical, biotech and life sciences clients to develop clear, evidence-based strategies and materials that help bring clinical research to life for healthcare professionals. We offer services across a medicine’s product lifecycle, from early-stage planning to post-launch activities, and pride ourselves on being collaborative, curious, and ethically driven.
Joe: Why did you choose to partner with Humanimal Trust?
Elena: We were drawn to Humanimal Trust because your mission aligns so closely with our own values. The medical and veterinary worlds often face similar clinical and drug development challenges, and we believe professionals working in both disciplines can and should collaborate more closely. This isn’t just the right thing to do, but it also makes sound economic and commercial sense. We’re actually quite stunned that this concept isn’t more widely known in the pharmaceutical sector. We knew we could support the goals of Humanimal Trust through our skills in medical writing and communications strategy, including helping to make the One Medicine conversation more accessible, which, in turn, we hope will drive greater cross-discipline collaboration.
Joe: We’re incredibly excited to work with you. What will the partnership involve?
Elena: As a Certified B Corporation, we are committed to doing business in a way that benefits both people and the planet. As part of our B Corp mission, a proportion of our medical communications work is done free of charge (‘pro bono’) for not-for-profit organisations in the healthcare space. So we’re going to be supporting the development of your One Medicine Network (formerly known as the Humanimal Hub).
We’re undertaking a comprehensive literature search to develop an up-to-date and easily searchable library of One Medicine scientific and research papers, and we’re also creating a clear and helpful glossary (‘lexicon’) to support audiences understand and use One Medicine terminology consistently and correctly.
The aim is to help reduce barriers to professional engagement, and facilitate connection, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. By offering our skills in evidence-gathering, medical writing and communication, we hope to help the Trust build a professional community across medicine and veterinary disciplines to create better outcomes for both humans and animals.
Joe: One Medicine clearly means a lot to you. Why is it so important to you and your team?
Elena: One Medicine is rooted in the shared biology and medical needs of animals and humans, and we think the One Medicine philosophy represents a smarter, more ethical way to advance animal and human health. It’s about recognising that many of the same diseases, challenges and treatments affect both human and animal species, and that breakthroughs in one area can (and should) inform the other. We spend a lot of time helping our clients in the pharmaceutical industry navigate complex healthcare challenges, and we know how easy it is for knowledge to stay locked within silos. One Medicine offers a different vision; one where collaboration is the default and learning is shared. That’s why we’re proud to support Humanimal Trust in helping to define and communicate this concept clearly. One Medicine is a powerful idea, and we hope our contribution helps more people understand and embrace it!
Joe: We’re so grateful for your support. What would you say to others thinking about pro bono work?
Elena: We believe that pro bono work should be part of every agency mindset, not as an afterthought, but as a strategic choice. In the agency world, we’re often solving problems for commercial clients, but the same skills can have a transformative impact when offered to organisations with limited resources and where there is a clinical unmet need. That’s what makes pro bono work so powerful. It gives purpose to our professional capabilities and reminds us why we do what we do. We have found that the pro bono work we do elevates the skills of our team, expands our impact, and inspires creativity in ways that benefit every part of our business. If more agencies committed to just one meaningful pro bono partnership a year, the ripple effects would be enormous.
We’re proud to have The Salve alongside us as we expand the reach and impact of One Medicine.
If your organisation is interested in becoming a Humanimal Trust corporate partner, please contact our Fundraising and Partnerships Manager, Sarah Colbourne. You can also join our exclusive 100 Club – open to both individuals and corporate partners – find out more here.