What will Pharma Marketing and Medcomms be like in 2020?

The media have spent a week or three looking at the ‘noughties’ and marvelling at how far we’ve come, but we ain’t seen nothin’ yet in the digital revolution.

There are massive changes happening in our society, relationships with corporations and governments are shifting in ways never seen before, ordinary people have a voice in their community that they last had in feudal times…the difference is that today, the ‘community’ is global.  We have moved from the ‘information age’ to the ‘interaction age’.  The human need for a voice is the driving force, but there can be no doubt that digital is the key enabler.   

I wonder what Medical Communications and Pharma Marketing will look like in 2020? 

Here are a few thoughts.  What do you think?

1. The Pharmaceutical industry will spend 90% of its marketing communications budget on digital channels and 10% on face-to-face channels.
2. Physicians will have, at their fingertips, on their phone/camera/handheld device, all the clinical evidence for any drug, and diagnostic/prescribing decision-tools for the majority of clinical situations.
3. Medical education will be delivered in a multi-media format (sound/video/animation/game) and will most often be consumed in healthcare professionals’ living rooms or home offices.  The hardware will be televisions (which will be computers, and vice versa).
4. Each major disease area will have a global online community of stakeholders (HCPs, carers, providers, patients) who will drive decision-making in that therapy area.
5. It will be the norm for the pharmaceutical industry to deliver “whole products” not just medicines.  These will include services and information to add value and deliver better patient outcomes.  
6. Sales stories in pharma will be based on patient benefit (outcomes) rather than product features (efficacy/safety).  Clinical evidence to support these stories will be well-developed and readily available in a variety of formats and media.
7. Thought-leadership in healthcare will be created online, through blogs, microblogs and social networks – and their descendents.
8. International medical meetings will still happen, but more than 90% of the content consumption from these meetings will happen remotely and digitally.  
9. Pharma companies will have a seamless, integrated relationship with each customer – a single relationship from clinical to commercial, global to local, brand to brand. 
10. The general public will see the pharmaceutical industry in a positive light as an important player in improving human health.

A little aspirational, perhaps, but all (and more) are achievable.  Pretty exciting stuff.  It gets me out of bed each day, anyway.

About Kay Wesley

Congleton Town Councillor for the Women's Equality Party. CEO of Kanga Health Ltd - practical digital transformation of healthcare.