For decades, pharma communications spoke the language of health systems, designed to inform healthcare professionals, reassure regulators and support access decisions. The audience was clinical, the tone scientific and the messages built around evidence and safety.
But the industry is entering a new era. Across the UK and beyond, private prescriptions, subscription models and consumer-facing digital health platforms are quietly reshaping how people access medicines. The ‘patient’ is no longer a passive endpoint in a clinical pathway. They are a consumer, actively choosing how and where to engage with care. This shift changes everything for those of us developing communications campaigns.
The rise of the consumer mindset in healthcare
The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital healthcare. Online consultation services, telemedicine and pharmacy-led platforms such as Boots Online Doctor and Superdrug Health Clinics have normalised healthcare that is convenient, on demand and personalised.
This brings a new set of expectations. People want clear, human language; transparency; flexibility and a positive experience, the same standards they expect from retail and technology brands. Health communications must evolve. Where healthcare product messaging once focused on efficacy, it now also needs to convey experience and value. For client teams, this means balancing regulatory compliance with creativity, speaking both to the system and to the emerging consumer.
From compliance to consumer-first communications
Pharma operates in one of the most highly regulated environments in the world. Advertising directly to consumers remains tightly restricted, but regulation need not stifle innovation.
The challenge lies in meeting rising consumer expectations while staying within compliance boundaries. This means reframing scientific data into human, benefits-led narratives, developing digital tools to help people understand their condition and treatment options, and working with intermediaries such as pharmacists and clinics who can translate the value story credibly. It is about maintaining trust and transparency while evolving tone, design and engagement strategy.
Health and value meet human value
Pharma has invested heavily in demonstrating value to payers and health systems through health economics, outcomes research and real-world evidence. Yet the definition of value is expanding. For those paying privately, value now includes emotional, experiential and time-based elements. Communications must translate value beyond data, making it tangible in people’s daily lives. Done effectively, health and value messaging promotes not only outcomes, but optimism, empowerment and agency.
A new skill set for a new era
This evolution demands fresh capabilities across communications teams. Insight-driven storytelling must translate evidence into human narratives, digital empathy must guide how people navigate information online, compliance must be embedded to align innovation with regulation, and partnerships with pharmacists, digital providers and communities must carry messages authentically. Agency teams that blend the rigour of pharma with the agility of consumer marketing will lead this next chapter.
Looking ahead
The convergence of healthcare and consumer experience is a structural shift, not a passing trend, and it is one I believe deserves far more attention. Pharma is no longer operating solely within public health systems, they are now part of a mixed model where people have choice, voice and purchasing power, and that change has real consequences for how we communicate.
This brings both risk and opportunity. The risk is staying rooted in frameworks that no longer match how people experience health. The opportunity, and the reason I see this as such an important moment, is the chance to build communication programmes that lead with authenticity, empathy and clear evidence, and that resonate with both payers and the individuals navigating their own care.
The next generation of pharma communication will not just be about what is proven, but about what is felt. As the boundaries between patient and consumer continue to blur, those of us working in healthcare communications have a critical role in bridging evidence and experience, data and emotion, system and self. Agencies that adapt early will help set the new standard for trust in healthcare communications.