How it Started

In summer 2019, after her daughter’s first drug shortage, Laura made the decision to launch Angels for Change. She reached out to her personal network for initial support and talent. A dinner invitation to 8 women led to the creation of our founding board and our name, Angels for Change.

These professional, highly educated women, all mothers themselves, were as horrified and frustrated as Laura that anyone–especially a child–could be denied life-saving medication in our country.

“How could this be the state of our pharmaceutical supply chain?” they asked. Knowing that their children and loved ones could also be endangered during a medical crisis because of shortages, each agreed that something must be done. They had faith in Laura’s ability to do anything she put her mind to, and committed to help.

All had children ranging from babies to teens and full-time careers in everything from law to non-profit management to marketing, yet they volunteered and got to work.

Angels for Change’s work, led by Laura and supported by this volunteer Board is guided by 2 truths:

1. Life-saving treatments exist.

2. All patients MUST have equal access to the drugs that can save their lives.

As a team we began to tackle this crisis asking ourselves, “What is one thing we can do today to end drug shortages?”

In the beginning, our focus was to help any patient facing any drug shortage find the medicine they needed. We have been honored to walk with Laura as she has helped families and hospital systems, in the US and abroad, navigate shortages to find thousands of treatments of more than 6 dozen medicines on shortage.

Some of those families’ experiences can be found in “Shortage Stories.” They have both individually and collectively moved us to tears.

It was enough to know that Laura and her family had to go through a drug shortage nightmare. To know that it was happening to other children and adults–fathers of young children who depended on them for their livelihood, military veterans who risked their lives for our freedoms–it seemed there was no demographic free from the scourge of these shortages. No one was immune. We were all potentially just one step away from a diagnosis that would lead to a treatment that could not be accessed.

While we celebrated with Laura every time she helped individual families navigate the drug supply chain, we all agreed when she said she was only dealing with the symptom of the real problem—a broken system.

So, Angels for Change took a leadership role in advocating for proactive solutions rather than reactive actions in the fight to end drug shortages.

We work with every stakeholder to build the resilient supply chain of the future. Time and time again, as an advocacy organization, we would call on supply chain members to help and they did. We found a supply chain filled with experts and champions willing to end drug shortages with us one challenge at a time.

In 2023, that work led to a new phase of our advocacy, meeting with the United States Administration during their drug shortage task force, testifying as the only patient advocate during drug shortage hearings, and working with policy leaders to build the solutions that will align the economics of this broken marketplace with a goal of ending drug shortages for all patients. In this new path, again, Laura led the way, and again, we joined and supported the journey.

We are boldly and innovatively building the supply chain of the future while ensuring that no patient is left behind by our nation’s current brittle supply chain during a shortage.

In just a few years, our Change Maker movement has grown. It extends to some of the nation’s top leaders and pharmaceutical organizations. This growth has given us great hope that this crisis will end. We must continue to turn this work into action for patients. We are the team of citizens who stood up, volunteered, demanded better, and got to work.

Our story is a story of hope, courage, and determination. It’s a story of the goodness of people willing to do more together than apart for people they may never meet.

• Using our principle of Connectivity, we launched SummitONE, the first and only national conference for supply chain members hosted by a patient advocacy organization dedicated to ending drug shortages.

• Then, we worked with Champions to launch the End Drug Shortages Alliance (EDSA), a group of stakeholders from across the industry who have committed to end drug shortages.

• Using our principle of Transparency, we work to gain visibility into the factors that lead to shortages and the patient harm caused by them launching our Change Maker Institute. 

• Using our principle of Redundancy, we launched Project PROTECT sheltering patients from the impact of essential medicine shortages through proactively increasing capacity and supply of shortage vulnerable medicines.

• In 2023 alone, PROTECT accessed more than 750,000 life-saving treatments for patients across the US. The success of this project led us to scale protect 7 times larger than in 2022, securing more medicines for all patients in need.

Since becoming Chief Change Maker in the fall of 2019, we have made a real and lasting impact toward ending drug shortages. As the only charitable, patient advocacy non-profit organization with a mission to end drug shortages we are driven by a single principle: what I would do for my daughter, Abby, is what should be done for every patient.

This drive has built a new awareness of and interest in this 25-year crisis. But awareness is just the beginning. Our mission is action based. We are working to end drug shortages for all patients. We can’t let this new sense of urgency dissipate and resolve without systemic change. We mustn’t miss this moment. Change Makers are a movement of the culture of the willing. We must continue to activate patient focused work with all stakeholders at the table.

As you read this, please consider: what can you do, this coming year, to be fully committed to ending the drug shortage crisis? Then give us a call. You won’t have to do it alone. You have a partner in Angels for Change.

Become a Change Maker with us. Join the Movement!