Disclaimer: The information provided here is not intended to be, and does not constitute legal advice. This is merely our point of view. Before acting on the information provided in this blog post, customers should seek their own legal advice.

Introduction

2024 was an interesting year. Unlike 2023, which was still somewhat clouded by the pandemic, the trends observed by life sciences marketers in 2024 were more indicative of a permanent change in consumer behavior.  

These trends will very much set the stage for organizations in 2025 and beyond. Whether it is the rise of AI, the regulatory landscape becoming more challenging, or there being an increased need for hybrid multi-channel engagement of patients and Healthcare Providers (HCPs), successful life sciences marketers would need to embrace and adapt to these trends.

In this blog post, we will take a close look at 5 such trends and the accompanying challenges that marketers need to be aware of for 2025:

Multi-Channel Engagement

2024 proved that digital engagement of patients and HCPs wasn’t just an anomaly brought upon by the pandemic. Digital is here to stay, but it continues influencing physical channels on which patients and HCPs engage with your brand.

For example, in addition to launching campaigns on endemic channels, successful pharma brands leveraged social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. to engage HCPs and patients. Whether it was discussions about new treatments, patient testimonials, or creating disease awareness, successful brands had the opportunity to engage their target audience proactively. Such an approach will continue to bear fruit in 2025.

Regarding digital’s impact on physical channels, the data generated by HCPs’ interactions with a brand’s digital assets offered organizations critical insights into the HCPs’ preferences and enabled reps to schedule meaningful face-to-face meetings.

The Rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

As with other industries, AI had a huge impact on life sciences marketing as well. 

AI-driven analytics helped organizations analyze enormous amounts of prescription data, owned channel engagement data, etc. to determine which HCPs to engage, when to engage them, what channel to engage them on, and with what content. This led to powerful and personalized HCP campaigns, leading to increased brand awareness and script lift.

In addition, leading pharma organizations continued using digital assistants and chatbots to meet the demand for treatment information among HCPs and patients. These assistants can always be on, which means they can serve the customers 24/7. In addition, AI is also being leveraged for diagnosis and patient health monitoring.

These are just a few examples of how AI has transformed marketing and patient engagement in life sciences. We foresee new applications and use cases where AI will play a crucial role in 2025.

Marketing Automation

Several life sciences marketers made major efforts in 2024 to optimize their marketing efforts and spend. As per this Pharma Leaders article, there are significant benefits from having marketing automation, and marketers looking to deliver personalized experiences to HCPs and patients in 2025 can take advantage of this.

With the marketing ecosystem comprising disparate channels such as third-party sites, owned properties, and physical channels, there is a need for a mechanism to automatically collect behavioral data from these disparate channels, analyze the collected data for critical insights, deliver personalized experiences across the engagement channels, and measure the effectiveness of these experiences.

Whether your goal is campaign management, re-engagement, or relationship management, marketing automation can help life sciences marketers achieve these goals at scale and seamlessly.

For example, even if thousands of HCPs or patients visit your brand website in any given week, by having the right technology in place (see our product, Tealium for Pharma), you can automatically look for meaningful signals from these visitors, segment them intelligently, and re-engage them in an automated fashion without the need for manual data gathering and analysis.

The benefits of having a robust marketing automation framework include: enhanced data collection, increasing ROAS, offline and/or real-time personalization, enhanced targeting, and more.

Patient Centricity

Patient centricity was a major trend and driver in pharma marketing in 2024, and continues to be so. With patients’ expectations evolving and the number of patient touchpoints increasing, marketers and patient support professionals need to continue to deliver personalized experiences.

Patients obtain information on treatments through various sources like social media, brand websites, apps, etc. Therefore, life sciences marketers should not only focus on patient education but also pay attention to engaging patients seamlessly across these touch points as much as possible. This means understanding patients’ pain points, content preferences, channel preferences, etc.

Once patients start treatment, it is important that they feel heard and engaged. Even if they stand to benefit from the treatment, several factors may lead to non-adherence. Therefore, brands would be well-advised to continue to engage patients after treatment starts to ensure they have access to the right information and support.

Certain life sciences organizations have brought patient care into patients’ homes. For example, one pharma company’s digital health solution aims at helping patients manage chronic health conditions through evidence-based interventions, digital coaching, etc. 

By focusing on providing customer-centric experiences when and where patients need them, organizations have a tremendous opportunity to improve health outcomes.

Evolving Regulations

The past few years have seen major changes involving healthcare privacy, and 2024 was no exception. Whether it was General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the court ruling on the lawsuit between the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the American Hospital Association (AHA) regarding HIPAA, or Meta announcing new data-sharing restrictions for regulated industries, patient privacy tends to be a hot-button issue.

With new devices, wearables, and other touch points collecting and storing patient data, there is a higher risk of data breaches and privacy violations. Obtaining granular and informed consent from patients is crucial to meet regulatory obligations. Ensuring only authorized personnel and technologies can access sensitive patient data is yet another concern.   

The most successful life sciences marketers were the ones who implemented a flexible data framework to gain end-to-end control of patient data. Having such a framework means having the ability to collect, manage, and activate patient data in a secure way. It also means the ability to adapt to future regulatory changes and challenges. Tealium for Healthcare is an industry-leading solution that can help healthcare and life sciences organizations create a secure data foundation to achieve regulatory compliance when dealing with sensitive patient data.

Conclusion

2024 was the year that proved that the trends that emerged during the pandemic may play a long-term role in life sciences marketing and customer engagement. 

In addition to AI playing a significant role in how HCPs and patients are engaged, trends such as multi-channel experiences and patient centricity remained extremely relevant for life sciences marketers. Marketing automation continued to deliver several benefits in terms of cost savings, efficiency, an increase in ROAS, and enhanced targeting at scale. Regulations, both local and national, continued to evolve.

Successful organizations were well-equipped to take advantage of these trends and overcome challenges. They did so by having in place the right technologies, strategy, as well as a robust data and governance framework.

These trends and challenges will continue in 2025 and beyond. The good news is you are not alone. Tealium has deep expertise working with leading life sciences organizations all over the globe. We are here to help you navigate these challenges and make the most of these ongoing trends. For more information, check out Tealium for Pharma.