Last week, we attended Digital Pharma East in Philadelphia where we connected with top healthcare industry innovators and leaders. From delivering presentations on stage to hosting an exclusive VIP dinner, our experience was filled with valuable discussions and thought-provoking ideas.
We left the event energized, but also with a sense that the healthcare marketing landscape is still grappling with familiar challenges, AI, content creation, and omnichannel integration. As agencies, this is where our role becomes pivotal, acting as guides in an ever-changing landscape, helping to make sense of complexity and ensuring our clients don’t just follow the trends, but lead them.
Below, we break down our top takeaways from the conference, exploring how these recurring themes continue to evolve and where the industry might be heading next.
AI in Pharma Marketing: Are We There Yet?
AI was, unsurprisingly, a major theme at the conference. Businesses are continuing to learn how best to utilize this technology.
- The potential is undeniable—AI promises to streamline processes, predict behaviors, and deliver personalized content like never before. But there was a lingering question: is every stakeholder that holds a level of accountability for our industry ready and able to adopt completely new ways of thinking?
- The example of PRC was a hot topic, which is easily quashed with the idea that you can put scripts and rules through MLR review and come out with greater confidence, but pharma is rarely early adopters of controversial technology. The big question was, do we really think AI will be any different?
The excitement around AI was palpable, but the details are still foggy, with realism shown by the speakers, many of whom acknowledged that while the tools are advancing, we’re not at a point where AI is fully understood or seamlessly integrated into our day-to-day work yet. And that’s okay. The conversations focused as much on AI’s limitations as it did its potential, a necessary perspective to hear.
2. Content Creation and Curation: How Custom Can or Should We Get in a HIPAA-Compliant Environment?
We heard from a panelist, “patients don’t read this stuff for fun,” while that may sound obvious, hearing this perspective lends a lens to when we think about the excitement of content development and leveraging it for pharma. Creative, when it boils down to it, is another tool to help change lives and we have an obligation to make the complex clear.
- We’ve been hearing about dynamic content creation and having the ‘right message at the right moment’ for years. The promise of content that adapts in real-time to different audiences is exciting, but we found ourselves wondering: Is the challenge really about the tools, or is it more about how we’re using them?
- Dynamic creative is an old buzzword now, and there are a lot of players in this space. Instead, the focus shifted to individual manufacturers curating their own content based on disease-state expertise and deep knowledge of their patients and HCPs. Only with that strategic foundation can ‘omnichannel approaches’ be leveraged with the technology at hand.
- The struggle lies in implementing creative effectively, thoughtfully, and efficiently when (as one speaker said) “just because a group of patients with the same disease watch football, doesn’t mean they watch football the same way.”
We were reminded of the importance of understanding the audience at a deeper level (lifestyle-wise, disease-wise, psychology-wise) before diving into the tech element. That takeaway felt almost nostalgic—a reminder that sometimes, it’s not about doing more, but doing it better.
3. Omnichannel Integration: Choose Your Own Adventure (Wisely)
Omnichannel marketing was another major topic. It’s the idea of integrating multiple channels—social, digital, and traditional media—all in real time, using data and insights to make smarter, faster decisions. Many of our clients and partners are activating this for HCP, but patient is still a new frontier of opportunity. Many of the partners we connected with around this topic asked the same question; are pharma manufacturers gearing up to build their own demand side platforms? As the landscape deepens and widens, agencies can be even more critical, if we adapt and rise to lead the way.
Then there’s privacy and ethical data use. As exciting as AI, dynamic content, and omnichannel are, they mean little without a solid foundation of trust and compliance. Without national legislation present, we’re beholden to bespoke state-level law that can be viewed as vague to guide our decisions. We are going to deploy state-level media plans out of fear of infringement? No, there’s a cleverer way to navigate this and that is where pharma media marketers get to shine.
Interested in connecting on any of these takeaways from Digital Pharma East? We would be happy to chat, contact us today!
Contributors: Stephanie Alexander, Gina Whelehan
