Pharma has never been better at generating awareness.
Commercial and brand teams are investing billions in digital advertising, direct-to-patient programs, telehealth partnerships, patient support services, and omnichannel engagement.
Digital advertising alone is projected to account for more than 80% of healthcare and pharmaceutical media spend within the next few years as investment continues to shift away from traditional channels.
Yet despite this investment, significant barriers remain between awareness and treatment initiation. Recent research highlighted by Fierce Pharma found that six in ten patients never fill a prescription after seeing an advertisement for a medication that interests them.
Commercial leaders are responding.
According to a survey conducted by ixlayer, a cloud-based health tech platform, in partnership with the Digital Health Coalition, 73% of pharmaceutical leaders are already running or planning to launch a direct-to-patient (DTP) program, and half believe DTP will become standard practice across most brands within five years. At the same time, 82% say fragmented healthcare experiences are reducing the effectiveness of traditional direct-to-consumer advertising.
Whether through direct-to-patient programs, telehealth partnerships, digital pharmacy fulfillment, or affordability initiatives, many of the industry’s largest investments share a common goal: reducing friction between clinical need and treatment initiation.
The challenge is that many commercial data sources still provide a retrospective view of patient demand. By the time activity appears in claims, prescriptions, or patient support data, key decisions may already have been made.
The shift toward clinical readiness
Commercial investment continues to expand patient awareness, but awareness alone does not translate into treatment. As more patients enter the healthcare system seeking care, the opportunity shifts to recognizing emerging clinical demand as it develops. The obesity market provides one of the clearest examples. Analysts estimate the market could exceed $126 billion by 2030, fueled by expanded indications and oral GLP-1 therapies that will bring millions of additional patients into clinical evaluation. In this environment, the differentiator is no longer creating demand; it is understanding when patients are entering the care journey, when providers are evaluating treatment options, and where evidence-based engagement can have the greatest impact.
The blind spot commercial teams still face
Claims and prescription data provide valuable insight into diagnosed and treated populations but offer limited visibility into earlier clinical activity. As a result, commercial teams often lack insight into emerging patient demand until it has already progressed through the healthcare system.
The challenge is not a lack of data – at least, the kinds of data traditionally used for analytics. Commercial organizations have access to more information than ever before. The challenge is how clinical activity is transformed into structured, actionable signals that are analyzed at scale. Because critical details are muted or lost in this transformation, many of the earliest indicators of patient demand remain difficult to identify and operationalize in time.
The next competitive advantage
As brands invest more heavily in activation, access, and patient engagement, opportunities for further growth shifts upstream. Commercial teams increasingly need visibility into where demand is forming, not just where it has already materialized.
Understanding patterns of clinical activity before they appear in traditional commercial data sources can provide a more complete view of future market opportunities. This visibility allows organizations to engage earlier, prioritize resources more effectively, and better align commercial strategies with the realities of patient care.
In an increasingly competitive market, the advantage will be identifying the right opportunities sooner – not just identifying more eligible patients.
