What Is Pharma Marketing in 2025?

What’s in store for 2025?

For the past nine years, EVERSANA INTOUCH has done a “look ahead”: a forecast based on input from leaders on what trends may shape pharma marketing in the year ahead. Unlike previous years where five to seven trends were examined, the 2025 report narrowed its focus to three that matter most and will make the most impact across the pharma landscape this year: applied AI, the Direct-to-Patient (DTP) model, as well as globalization and health equity. Technology—specifically AI—is enabling an entirely new way to do business through models like DTP, creating a paradigm that’s interconnected globally at every level.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these trends:

Applied AI: As excitement continues to grow and AI becomes more real, how is it being deployed by pharma marketers? Should it be? Daily, we’re seeing new use cases, but what does success really look like?

Connecting directly to patients: Kickstarted by the pandemic and lifestyle drugs, the industry continues to explore new models—digitalfirst patient journeys—in which educating, acquiring, prescribing, and supporting are led by the patient and conducted largely online.

Globalization and health equity: Healthcare is global, and patients are diverse. But the extent to which brands still have U.S.-insured-only thinking remains surprising. Even the most targeted therapies need to expand their perspectives, and we as marketers play a big role in this.

Applied AI: Integrating into the Everyday
Pharma marketing has been limited by an industry-wide conversation about AI that still lacks practicality. Without specific case studies, many organizations remain understandably hesitant to dive deep into the AI pool, even though it promises great potential ROI.

And it’s perfectly reasonable to be cautious. Integrating AI into marketing processes means considering ethical, regulatory, and compliance issues such as access, inherent bias, privacy, and transparency. The stakes are high, and expertise is crucial to avoid pitfalls. To truly harness AI’s potential, organizations must continue to prioritize educating themselves and their stakeholders, while fostering a culture of experimentation and piloting.

The Value of Experimentation
Marketers also need to see the breadth of AI’s application: in R&D to speed up drug development; in research to find, recruit, and enroll diverse patients; in sales to summarize calls, develop trends, and aggregate messaging; and in marketing, for more informed targeting, efficient content creation, and impactful promotional and media plans. New use cases continue to emerge, but skepticism on accuracy and stagnant review processes can hold back progress.

AI as a part of your Marketing Tech Stack
AI—infused throughout every tool in every tech stack—is fundamentally changing marketing and marketers’ roles. To unlock AI-powered ROI, marketers should look at three things in 2025:

Creative automation: Using AI to produce derivative assets at scale and fuel personalization, makes it possible to scale creative output. Moving from efficiency into personalization should be key.

Eliminating friction across a vertically integrated content supply chain: This capitalizes on that creative scale.

Interoperability: The ability to connect content with customer profiles and create responsive ecosystems at scale.

Prophesying, Simulations, and Predictive Insights
Some still think about AI purely based on efficiency, but that’s just part of the goal, especially for marketers. It’s also about uncovering new insights and driving success with predictive—instead of retrospective—analysis. And it’s the machine-learning algorithms that identify patients, a year before diagnosis, that need life-changing treatments.

We’re building marketing simulators with AI that improve forecasting and outcomes. Ironically, AI holds the promise of making the customer more central to marketing decision-making, by making ‘artificial’ interactions with on new KPIs—such as time to therapy, conversion rates, patient acquisition, and support costs—and end-to-end optimization of the patient experience.

Its impact has huge potential to not only improve the experience for patients, but also will force brands to rethink how they are connecting with patients, so as to not be left behind.

Globalization: Healthcare for All
Healthcare systems worldwide face challenges including rising chronic diseases, aging populations, workforce shortages, and sustainability concerns.

Traditional care pathways often suffer from fragmentation and inefficiencies, impacting clinical outcomes and patient experiences. This year, the industry’s focus must be on the international nature of our work, especially regarding global equitable access.

Equitable access is seeing groundbreaking work, such as The Chrysalis Initiative, which improves breast cancer outcomes for Black women in the U.S. Tiered pricing strategies by companies like GSK offer medicines at lower costs in lowerincome nations.1

However, the quality and geographic spread of access plans still vary widely.

Gilead’s PURPOSE program2, which is the most comprehensive and diverse HIV prevention trial ever conducted, is a prime example of advancing access in the developing world. Beyond the trial, Gilead has implemented a voluntary licensing program with six generic manufacturers, ensuring the product is provided at no profit until they can meet demand. This approach highlights Gilead’s commitment to making HIV prevention accessible and affordable worldwide.

Healthcare expenses in emerging markets are expected to grow and reach parity with developed nations. The use of medicines worldwide grew by 14% over the past five years, and is expected to grow an additional 12% by 2028. More patients are being treated with better medicines as healthcare infrastructures improve.

Plus, the proportion of people over 65 in emerging markets is increasing at more than double the rate of that in the developed world. All these factors create challenges, and the increasing healthcare infrastructure is encouraging, but more will be needed as the financial burdens grow. Governments, international organizations, and corporations must continue to work together to protect healthcare systems and patients.

For marketers, even those without a global footprint, decision-makers vary by country. It’s not just about clinical data but also the value of the product: price, cost avoidance, and real-world evidence. Some countries require local studies due to different safety and efficacy results. Regulatory processes also vary widely.

In the absence of direct-to-consumer advertising, innovative approaches with patient empowerment apps and wearables continue to emerge. Traditional pharma companies have not fully explored these opportunities, often defaulting to clinical trials and DTC. Yet, there’s a wealth of personalized data that goes unused.

A flawless global approach isn’t just about process; it’s about mindset. Successful global launches require tailoring messages to resonate across cultures, languages, regulations, and healthcare systems. Avoiding cultural blind spots at every step is crucial.

Navigating global regulations shouldn’t be seen as a hurdle; it’s a competitive advantage for the  brands that do it well. The key to global success is mastering localization to create connections that resonate with audiences wherever they are.

Our Future and Impact Are Bright
Pharma marketing has never been static, but this may be one of the most dynamic periods in recent memory.

AI-powered tools will enable us to work more efficiently and understand more than ever, enabling accurate predictions about how the world will evolve. This will revolutionize how we bring medicines to patients. It’s also strengthening the interconnected global community. As we start a new year, let’s embrace the opportunity ahead for us, leverage the power of technology and innovation to drive change, and never forget our purpose—to make a difference.

References
1. https://thechrysalisinitiative.org/
2. https://www.purposestudies.com/
  • Angela Tenuta
    Angela Tenuta

    President of Full-Service Agencies - EVERSANA INTOUCH

    Angela has a proven track record of building integrated teams, pushing for novel approaches, and “stopping at nothing to deliver great work.” With over 20 years of healthcare marketing experience, Angela has been recognized as a Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Luminary, a PM360 Elite 100, Elite Mentor, and Trailblazer. Contact her at angela.tenuta@eversana.com.

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