The esteemed members of PM360’s Editorial Board share what they forecast happening within our industry in the New Year that you should start preparing for now.
What might change in the life sciences industry in 2024?
Which factors will be the most talked about by year’s end? How will those in the industry need to adjust their strategies? To find out, we asked the members of our Editorial Board to
peer into their crystal balls and deliver their industry predictions for 2024.
1. Political Pressure Leads to Tighter Budgets
“I predict political pressure will lead to changes in the reimbursement model,” says
Sandy Sexton, Strategic Business Planning & Execution, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. “An election year, further fueled by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will force companies to get ahead of any significant impact to revenue and be proactive in adapting their strategies and pricing accordingly. However, actions will be delayed until after the presidential election. A domino effect from this will be reduced media spend. Pharma is currently a top spender in TV media and the supporting media, but we are likely to see a decrease on advertising dollars at the product level because of the changes to the pricing strategies under consideration.”
2. Possible IRA Modifications, But No Overhaul
Mike Michael, Associate Vice President, Business Intelligence and Strategy, United Therapeutics, will also be watching the impact from the IRA, which he thinks will be a positive for patients. “Starting in 2024, there will be a cap on annual out-of-pocket costs for Medicare Part D,” he explains. “This greater affordability for patients should lead to better access to medicines, and patients will be more likely to initiate and stay on therapy.” Additionally, he believes there is good bipartisan support to modify the IRA, potentially through H.R. 5539: ORPHAN Cures Act to protect orphan drugs from direct price negotiation. However, he doubts we will see a major overhaul to the IRA as it relates to the benefits to patients. “Manufacturers’ lawsuits may have a difficult path to success,” Michael says, “but this will be an interesting story line to follow in 2024.”
3. AI-Enhanced Advances in Gene Editing
Michael also plans to follow the hastened evolution of gene editing thanks to the ability of artificial intelligence (AI) to further advance the technology by clearly identifying targets and predicting off-target effects. “Genome editing technologies have been around for decades, but recent advances (e.g., new iterations of CRISPR, NICER, etc.) may move applications beyond rare genetic disorders to common conditions, such as high-cholesterol and diabetes treatments,” Michael envisions.
“To connect with providers and patients alike, brands must optimize their
content for voice search.”— Frank X. Powers, Managing Partner, Elevate Healthcare
4. Small Molecules Will Be Cool Again
On the other hand, David Davidovic, President of the strategic consulting firm pathForward, predicts a comeback of sorts for a different area of medicine. “Small molecules, i.e. those drugs that are generally based on chemical synthesis rather than bio-engineering such as monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, and so forth, will get a deserved renaissance based on advances in synthetic methodologies, research, and manufacturing,” Davidovic says. “A driver of this is the ease of administration (often orally), different cost, pricing, and reimbursement dynamics that favor small molecules over large proteins or biologics.”
5. The Era of Personalized Marketing
“Personalization is not merely a buzzword; it’s a powerful tool for reshaping healthcare marketing,” says Frank X. Powers, Managing Partner, Elevate Healthcare. “The era of one- size-fits-all marketing is giving way to a more nuanced and targeted strategy. Personalized marketing goes beyond addressing individuals by name or customizing; it involves crafting bespoke content that resonates with specific individuals. In 2024, brands that tailor their marketing messages accordingly will thrive.”
Jim Lefevere, International Business Leader, Digital Partnering Solutions, Roche Diabetes Care, specifically sees the need for increased personalized marketing when it comes to precision medicine. “Embracing precision medicine requires a shift from broad marketing to targeted campaigns,” Lefevere explains. “Understanding patient segments based on genetic profiles and healthcare needs is crucial. Leaders should leverage data analytics and advanced targeting tools to personalize messaging, focusing on conveying the value of tailored treatments to specific patient cohorts.”
6. A Magnified Focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
“This year, SEO will be seen by industry as less of a backend feature and more of a frontend backbone,” foresees Carmine J. Attanasio, MBA, Founder and President of consultancy Mouthpiece LLC. “It will not be enough to develop aesthetically appealing content. Pharma will build technical, artistic, and indexable assets. Videos, podcasts, and applications will be accessible to serve and meet people where they are. Industry will embrace best practices such as keyword research, referral traffic, site maps, URL taxonomies, canonicals, alt tags, and anchor links in concert. And every point of care or educational asset the industry creates will be translated with accurate linguistics, appropriate multicultural nuance, and proper discoverable metadata for all audiences in any language.”
Meanwhile, Powers is particularly focused on voice search optimization as the popularity of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home continues to escalate. “To connect with providers and patients alike, brands must optimize their content for voice search,” Powers explains. “Failing
to adapt to this trend could mean overlooking a vast pool of potential opportunities.”
7. Medical Affairs Will Close the Gap in Omnichannel Strategy
“Cell and gene therapies are getting more complex every year, and pharma is investing more money in them,” says Kurt Mueller, Senior Partner at The Bracken Group. “Medical affairs teams understand they need to step up their game. That’s why I’m glad to see organizations like MAPS (Medical Affairs Professional Society) holding webinars that show companies how to develop omnichannel strategies for medical affairs. They have webinars that teach teams how to do it right. How to segment your doctors, how to personalize your communications, and how to respect their channel preferences. Medical affairs teams are also capturing both quantitative and qualitative data—and they’re ensuring they have the analytics tools to track and analyze them. While their omnichannel programs are fairly basic at the moment, watch out commercial… medical affairs are catching up.”
“It will be important to get people back in person.”— Dora P. Shankman, President and CEO DPS Strategic Media Enterprises, LLC
8. Fewer Hybrid Meetings
“The major conventions seem to find when offering the hybrid or digital approach fewer attendees show,” says Dora P. Shankman, President and CEO, DPS Strategic Media Enterprises, LLC. “I foresee fewer virtual meeting options with societies since it is limiting the number of sponsors. It will be important to get people back in person. Therefore, I believe we will have more conventions, more meetings, and more business travel than we did the last three years.”
9. Medical Journals Go Digital
While Shankman sees fewer digital options for events, she expects to see more medical journals go completely digital. “Given advertising and editorial ratios are key, I believe the independent journals will start becoming thinner and will either completely close or go digital if they can get a sponsorship from one or two companies,” she explains. “As a result, you will see larger ticket programs like monthly ads across all audiences and fewer programs by product.”
10. AI Will Make an Impact—For Some
While many of our board members agree AI will make its presence felt in 2024, not everyone is on the same page about its actual impact. Lefevere for one believes: “Incorporating AI and machine learning into marketing strategies is crucial. These technologies offer insights into customer behavior, enabling predictive modeling for targeted interventions. Marketing leaders should invest in AI- driven tools for market segmentation, optimizing advertising spend, and refining messaging strategies.”
Powers also sees potentially “mind- blowing” possibilities as marketers can already streamline and elevate their efforts by harnessing AI robust data analysis, automation, and building one-of-a-kind personalized campaigns. He adds, “As AI continues to evolve, its potential to not only revolutionize marketing and patient engagement but also change the future of diagnostics and treatment plans cannot be overstated.”
While Mueller predicts generative AI (GenAI) will be transformative for agencies and HCPs, he sees it being a challenge for pharma. As examples of its benefits, he points to how Peer is building a GenAI/large language model (LLM)-powered medical writing solution that automates the
generation of high-quality, regulatory-grade content, including documents such as patient narratives or clinical study reports (CSRs). Additionally, Doximity GPT can help HCPs generate clinical notes, summaries, reports, emails, prior authorizations, and patient communications.
“Pharma companies, on the other hand, face several challenges and risks that prevent them from adopting this technology,” Mueller says. “First, they need to ensure that the content generated by AI does not violate any intellectual property rights or confidentiality agreements or infringe on any copyrighted content. Second, they need to comply with the regulatory requirements and guidelines for content approval and submission, but the FDA has not yet issued any guidance, which creates uncertainty and liability for pharma. Third, they need to ensure that the content generated by AI is accurate and reliable. So we can expect to see a widening gap between agencies and HCP practices that use generative AI and pharma companies that are still struggling to adopt this technology.”
Davidovic believes most companies will give it a try, but maybe not for the best of reasons. “Virtually every company will start multiple AI initiatives; however, it will not be because they have a clear strategy, vision, and goal for its implementation but more a fear of missing out (FOMO). The cost of entry and risk are quite low so it will be easy to start projects and pilots, but not necessarily because they’re well thought-out.”
Finally, Shankman is leery about how it will impact the workforce: “My prediction is agencies will try to use AI to save in staff, but this could result in needing more repairs from actual people like copywriters or medical experts with experience to catch an AI’s mistakes. AI is certainly growing in our business, but we must be very careful how it is used across advertising, legal, marketing, and publishing—and we need to make sure that it doesn’t rule out jobs for professionals.”
