Product-focused messaging stifles variability in content

Pharmaceutical marketing has traditionally been product-focused. Teams applied a one-size-fits-all approach to create promotional material and relied on meeting a threshold volume of content to reach target audience segments. Given the finite amount of literature available to generate claims, product claims were primarily derived from brand labels and mainly addressed the efficacy and safety profiles of a drug. The overuse of these claims stifled content creativity and usually turned campaigns stale. Separate constraints imposed by regulatory guidelines and the limited data on physicians further restricted differentiation between brands and their competitors. As a result, given this limited breadth and depth of content, commercial teams faced the challenge of driving measurable physician engagement. Even despite massive investments poured into many brand campaigns, pharmaceuticals marketers have not found a perfect way to truly personalize messaging and increase engagement.

The convergence of sales and medical teams

Commercial field teams have always been a key channel for pharmaceutical companies to communicate and interact directly with healthcare providers. However, several factors such as the pandemic as well as the decreased physician receptivity to sales representatives have led to an increase in the use of digital channels to influence HCP behavior. This suggests the diminishing influence of in-person detailing in driving product growth. In fact, physicians have consistently complained that sales representatives do not deliver any novel medical information and that their performance seems scripted. On the other hand, there is a growing involvement of medical field teams tasked to educate physicians about disease states and treatment options. As a result, pharmaceutical companies are leveraging this shift to drive physician engagement by communicating non-promotional, scientific content.

Despite the firewall that has always separated medical and commercial communication in the past, we are seeing a convergence between sales and medical teams. Commercial teams are leveraging insights gathered by medical field teams to deliver truly novel, targeted information to the physician. A key realization for most commercial teams is that marketing does not have to be promotional in nature. In other words, unbranded scientific communication should not be precluded as a core strategy to promote a branded product. Although unbranded content should not be labeled as promotional, brands are realizing the importance of compliantly facilitating communication between commercial teams and their medical counterparts to craft key tailored scientific messages on topics that physicians actually care about, rather than generic product-based messages.

Tailoring a claim to a target audience segment

Let’s walk through an example to show how a scientific claim can be much more tailored to a physician segment. We'll use the blockbuster brand, Dupixent, also known as dupilumab and to treat allergic diseases such as atopic dermatitis, as our case study. We’ll show how we can turn one claim to generate a few targeted unbranded educational messages for dermatologists treating atopic dermatitis.

First, we’ll show what a typical claim derived from a primary source document would look like. In this case, we will use a literature review titled: “Targeting key proximal drivers of type 2 inflammation in disease” by Gandhi et al. to generate a few claims. Claims can be categorized into a several number of categories including efficacy, safety, study design, disease education, and mechanism of action. Medical writers would use reference documents like this to extract and assemble relevant claims into a scientific platform.

For our example, let's create one claim about the mechanism of action of dupilumab, a human monoclonal antibody administered subcutaneously to inhibit the interleukin-4 receptor subunit α (IL-4R α). Let’s pick the claim below as the primary claim:

How can each of these claims be then tailored into a message to reflect the preferences of specific physicians? Say we ingest a bunch of market data about dermatologists treating atopic dermatitis into a platform and out pops some results. Let’s create some synthetic data below:

Some of the key takeaways here are that:

• Academic dermatologists tend to prioritize innovation and data, open to new MOAs like JAK inhibitors or IL-13 blockers.

• Private practice dermatologists are often more concerned with access, cost, and simplicity, especially for older or underserved patients.

• Younger dermatologists are more likely to factor QoL and itch relief as top priorities, especially with younger patients.

Now, let's demonstrate how we can segment our claim into personalized messaged based on each each of these three segments of dermatologists, knowing that they each have different preferences.

1. Academic dermatologists who prioritize innovation, mechanistic clarity, and cross-indication relevancy might be more interested in seeing this message:

   • Recent evidence supports the role of IL-4 and IL-13 as central drivers in type 2 inflammatory conditions, including atopic dermatitis, asthma, and chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps. Dual inhibition of IL-4 and IL-13 via IL-4Rα blockade (e.g., dupilumab) has demonstrated efficacy across these diseases, reinforcing the potential of targeting shared upstream mechanisms rather than condition-specific symptoms.

2. Private practice dermatologists who focus on treatment burden, practical implications of treatments, and considerations for underserved patients might be more interested in seeing this message:

   • IL-4 and IL-13 are central drivers of type 2 inflammation in conditions like atopic dermatitis, asthma, and nasal polyps. Blocking both through IL-4Rα inhibition targets this shared mechanism. For patients—especially older or underserved—who face multiple comorbidities, this approach may help simplify treatment plans and reduce reliance on separate therapies or referrals.

3. Finally younger dermatologists who care more about symptom control and patient-centered outcomes might be interested in this message:

   • IL-4 and IL-13 are key mediators in type 2 inflammation and are linked to several downstream effects relevant to atopic dermatitis, including skin barrier dysfunction, pruritus, and immune activation. Clinical studies have shown that dual inhibition of this pathway can reduce both systemic markers and subjective symptoms such as itch severity and sleep disturbance—factors that are often top of mind for patients, especially younger individuals managing daily life with visible or symptomatic disease.

The shift towards physician-centric messaging

While product-focused messaging was the dominant marketing strategy in the past, the purely volume-based mass marketing approach lacks focus, leaving physicians disengaged and uninterested. Like all consumers, physicians prefer seeing content that aligns with their personality, their field of practice, and the clinical problems they encounter daily. Drawing and deriving messages from scientific claims rather product claims offers marketers not only more flexibility but also much more optionality to cater content to the exact personas of the physician. In other words, scientific communication amplifies the scope, variability, and effectiveness of content allowing teams to target physicians based on their clinical expertise and interest. While there are only a finite number of claims that can be derived from a product label, scientific references and resultantly, scientific claims, offer teams an infinite number of ways to truly personalize messages that optimize engagement.