December 19, 2025 | ExperienceDesign, PharmaDigital, digitalhealth, digitaltransformation
What’s holding pharma back from true digital transformation? At NEXT Pharma 2025, Our CEO Rob Verheul and Roeland van der Heiden (AstraZeneca) argued it starts with design systems. This quick article distills their session into key insights on how shared frameworks are helping pharma scale smarter, launch faster, and deliver experiences HCPs actually want to return to

Pharma’s digital ambitions are bold, but execution often tells a different story. Experiences are fragmented, slow to launch, and inconsistent. Websites multiply, content gets buried, and brand experiences start to break down before they’ve even begun. The issue isn’t just volume—it’s the lack of a shared structure underneath it all.
As Rob put it at a recent industry talk, “You’ve got 35 products, 35 agencies, and 35 versions of a button doing the same job.” That insight cuts straight to the heart of the problem. Pharma is burning time, budget, and creative energy reinventing the basics, over and over again. The question is whether there’s a way to scale digital experiences without starting from scratch every time.
This is where design systems come in—not as rigid templates, but as flexible foundations for consistent, high-quality digital experiences. At AstraZeneca, design systems sit at the core of OneAZ, a strategic programme reshaping how digital is delivered across markets. They make it possible to standardise what truly matters at a global level, while still giving local teams the creative freedom they need to engage their audiences in meaningful ways.
The impact has been significant. According to Roeland van der Heiden, web launches have been reduced from three months to three weeks, development effort has dropped by as much as 90%, and accessibility and UX consistency have improved dramatically. Perhaps more importantly, trust in digital experiences is being restored.
Consistency breeds confidence. For healthcare professionals, it creates intuitive, seamless journeys. For brand teams, it frees up time to focus on content and outcomes instead of buttons and page templates. As Rob explained, “We’re not just making things look the same. We’re making them feel the same. That’s what builds recognition, trust, and return visits.” In a world where return visits are everything, that consistency becomes a real competitive advantage.
Design systems may not be flashy, but they’re the backbone of scalable, customer-first digital engagement. Done right, they don’t just save money—they unlock creativity, accelerate launches, and give pharma brands the foundation they need to truly transform. And that kind of transformation doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design.
This content was provided by Graphite Digital
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