Building Bridges, Changing Lives

Founded by a patient, for the parts of care nobody warns you about

Tina's Warriors is a collaborative patient advocacy organization, founded in 2024 by Tina Valbh after her own cancer treatment.

Our story

Tina’s Warriors began with a care package. I was going through treatment myself, and someone I had never met sent me one — and it told me, at a moment when I badly needed telling, that I had not been forgotten.

What I learned as a patient is that the hardest parts of cancer care are often the ones nobody talks about: the wait for a test result that decides your treatment, the scan your insurance will not cover, the trial that exists but not near you, the phone call where nobody explains what happens next.

So we built an organization to work on exactly those things — with patients, and with the healthcare leaders, pharmaceutical partners and providers who can change them. Not against anyone. Alongside everyone.

This work is only possible with your help. Your partnership lets us extend hope further, open doors to care, and build a future where no one faces cancer alone.

Our goal: a world where no cancer patient feels alone, with barriers to treatment eliminated.

Our mission

Tina’s Warriors brings the patient voice into the decisions that shape cancer care, closing the gaps that leave patients waiting and helping them move from delay to dignity.

Our vision

A healthcare ecosystem where barriers to treatment and care are removed, every patient can access what they need, and patients have a seat at the table, shaping the solutions created for them.

What we do

Four focus areas, and the work behind each one. Everything Tina's Warriors does sits in one of them.

01

Expanding access to precision medicine

What: Make biomarker and genetic testing a routine part of care from the start, so patients reach targeted treatment faster.

How: Advocate for coverage, educate patients and providers, and push for testing to happen early, not after delay.
02

Removing barriers to early detection

What: Push for coverage equity so high-risk individuals and people with dense breast tissue can access the imaging they need.

How: Support policy efforts like the Find It Early Act, educate communities on dense breast risk, and work with partners to reduce out-of-pocket costs.
03

Advancing inclusive innovation in research

What: Expand equitable access to clinical trials so innovation reflects the real-world patient population.

How: Partner with industry on decentralized and community-based trial models, and deliver education that builds trust and trial readiness.
04

Cultivating a dignity-centered patient experience

What: Humanize the healthcare journey by embedding compassion and the authentic patient voice into care delivery and support operations.

How: Improve the way patient support programs and specialty pharmacies talk to patients, create self-advocacy tools, and review scripts and materials for clarity and cultural relevance.

How we work

Alongside, not against

Healthcare improves one practical change at a time, and almost none of those changes can be made by a patient organization alone. So we work with the people who can make them — and we are straightforward about what patients need from them.

That collaborative footing is why our partners include pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors, specialty pharmacies, patient support program vendors, provider organizations and the consultants who advise them — and why patient voices get heard rather than filed.

Leadership Board

Decades of experience across specialty pharmacy, distribution, manufacturing, market access and law — most of them volunteering alongside a day job.

Executive board

Tina Valbh

Chief Inspiration Officer

Co-founder and Managing Partner, PharmaKonnect
Sara Amani

President

Chief Executive Officer, Hercules
Phyllis Kidder

Secretary

Retired Market Access Consultant, Blue Fin Group
Brian Swain

Treasurer

Manager, Market Access — Government Programs and Price Reporting, Telix Pharmaceuticals

Operating officers and chairs

Rena K. Goins

VP Governance

Global Commercial Trade & Distribution, Regeneron
Julie Zatizabal

VP Membership

Retired Chief Revenue Officer, Amber Specialty Pharmacy

Board members

Shannon Wiley, JD

General Counsel

Member, Bass Berry and Sims
Marc O'Connor

Marketing Committee Member

Principal / Chief Business Officer, Curant Health
Natalia Padilla

VP of Fundraising

Manager, Business Development Specialty Pharmacy, Walmart
Denise Shirrell

Volunteer Committee Member

Channel Account Director (retired), GSK
Dana Dickens

Volunteer Committee Member

Sr. Director, Trade & Distribution, Gilead Sciences
Cheryl Allen

Board Member and Volunteer Committee Chair

Partner, Curatio Scientia, LLC