Top 10 Pharma Marketing Predictions for 2018

R.J. Lewis, President and CEO of eHealthcare Solutions has made a top 10 predictions list for the last several years. R.J. is a thought leader in the pharma industry and has published a book for pharma marketers. For more info on R.J., see his bio.

1. Pharmaceutical sales teams continue to get shut out of increasingly larger hospital groups, and thus become increasingly less relevant and effective.
2. Client trust of agencies is at an all-time low, and account movement has become a game of musical chairs. Expect this to continue as clients dig into the details, and don’t always like what they see.
3. Programmatic will continue to grow in pharma because it’s efficient, clients will demand more transparency, and it works.
4. In part due to a shift to programmatic, and in part due to the continual wringing out of efficiencies through the supply chain, there will be a continued shake out of DTC media properties.
5. 2018 is the year of Physician Level Data (PLD). Publishers who fail to deliver it in the HCP space, will face significant revenue declines.
6. There will also be a shake out of physician/HCP media properties as those who can’t offer authentication or PLD get left behind.
7. Transparency and audited reporting at point-of-care (POC) market will be required going forward.
8. 2018 will see more marriages between pills and devices, pills and adherence programs, and all three combined.
9. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will act as an accelerant in an already rapidly changing landscape. Pharma will continue to play on the fringe and become increasingly reliant on large partners to benefit from these technologies.
10. AR/VR continues to be explored with some real “pharma” innovation shining through in multiple areas of the business from conferences to rep delivered programs.

Read the full post at PM360.