Headwinds loom for pharma web strategy

We’ve come a long way since pharma’s websites were “best viewed with Netscape Navigator 1.0” and the web designs that were prevalent way back in the mid-1990s would hurt modern eyes with their lack of sophistication.

Nonetheless, how to best respond to what 30 years ago was still the world wide web remains a question that has yet to be wholly answered. The industry has some pressing new challenges to face in the web space, but many companies also have yet to confront some legacy issues.

Preeminent among these are the huge variety and number of websites that most pharma companies still have. Within a single company these might be in the high hundreds, or even the low thousands, many of which may not be known about at a central level or have no clear strategic intent. Without some serious review or consolidation, this causes significant problems of efficiency, not to mention the negative end-user experiences most of our benchmarks are showing.

Charting a course for ongoing omnichannel excellence

The early sailors that steered their way around the Mediterranean would often do so by staying in sight of land. In this way they felt they could move most safety, but by staying within their comfort zone they also limited how far they could travel.

New approaches, like the development and refinement of celestial navigation, broadened travellers’ horizons, and then tools such as the compass – and ultimately modern ‘technology’ – allowed them to visit new and wonderous lands.

The pharmaceutical industry’s own journeys in customer engagement can similarly sometimes look as if they reside too securely within their comfort zones, limiting the success of its own engagement strategies. But, with the basics in place (see creating the right foundations for omnichannel success), new discoveries are waiting to be made by those companies that are set up to succeed with omnichannel customer engagement.

How pharma’s sales and marketing teams are starting to use AI

This summer a fully AI-generated drug entered phase II clinical trials for the first time, as Hong Kong-based biotech Insilico Medicine broke new barriers with its potential treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

The milestone is emblematic of the AI focus in life sciences, which to-date has heavily skewed towards applying the technology across its research and development operations.

Making the drug discovery process quicker, and more effective in terms of patient outcomes, is a logical target, given the huge investments pharma and biotech companies make there. For companies like Insilico and some of their peers the focus is also one that’s paying off, with years shaved off traditional research timelines.

But, while it looks like there will be no shortage of AI progress for pharma and biotech R&D, the sector has had less experience with applying the technology within its commercial organisations. Now, with the rapid ascent of generative AI tools, this year is poised to be the turning point for commercial pharma organisations and artificial intelligence.