5 key digital CX challenges in pharma, and how to start solving them

Pharma’s digital estates have grown organically, often with country teams, brands, and functions each building their own platforms and tools. The result is a fragmented experience for both patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs), and limited ability to act on shared data or deliver personalised engagement.

This fragmentation doesn’t just affect users — it creates inefficiencies internally too. Teams spend time duplicating work, rebuilding assets, and managing separate systems. Content updates can take weeks to cascade across local markets, and campaigns often have to be adapted manually to fit different platforms.

Why it matters

Disconnected ecosystems limit agility and scalability. Without a unified approach and shared goals, teams can’t deliver the seamless, omnichannel experiences that users expect - or measure what’s working across touch points.

Where to start

A Digital Ecosystem Audit provides a holistic map of your current digital platforms, offering clarity on where you are today, and what needs to change to drive growth. It highlights functionality gaps, optimisation opportunities and areas of duplication and inefficiency, helping you plan for a more connected, modular ecosystem that supports better user experiences.

Despite the growing emphasis on customer-centricity, many pharma websites, portals, and apps still prioritise internal structures and approval processes over user needs. The result is complex navigation, inaccessible content, and interfaces that fail to match the usability of consumer tools. This doesn’t just affect user satisfaction — it impacts engagement, conversion, and ultimately the return on digital investment. When users can’t find information easily or complete tasks smoothly, the value of even the most well-planned digital initiative is diminished.

Why it matters

Patients and HCPs expect digital experiences that are intuitive and supportive. When usability falls short, engagement drops — and people lose trust in pharma-provided platforms.

Where to start

A UX Audit or Heuristic Audit can identify usability issues, accessibility gaps, and areas for quick improvement.

To align teams around real user needs, a Customer Pain Point Workshop brings stakeholders together to explore friction points, prioritise fixes, and embed user-centred design principles in everyday workflows.

Pharma has access to more data than ever before — from CRM systems and analytics to engagement metrics and market research — but the challenge lies in turning that information into meaningful understanding. Data alone often lacks real-world context; numbers can show what people do, but not why they do it. To uncover the motivations, frustrations, and unmet needs behind the data, teams need to speak directly with patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs).

Why it matters

Without that real-world insight, digital investments risk missing the mark. Research from Graphite and Sermo found that while most teams collect customer data, few use it to inform design decisions or personalise experiences. The result is digital solutions that meet internal goals but fail to resonate with users.

Where to start

Running User Research or a User Survey helps teams build a clearer picture of what patients and HCPs actually need. Combining qualitative interviews with quantitative analytics adds depth to the data, helping identify what users truly value and where current experiences fall short.

Pharma’s internal structure can make collaboration difficult. Teams and functions often operate separately, each with their own KPIs, systems, and priorities. This slows delivery, limits creativity, and makes it harder to experiment or respond quickly to user needs.

Innovation isn’t just about adopting new technology — it’s about solving the right problems first. When teams are disconnected, innovation efforts often focus on outputs rather than outcomes. Aligning around shared challenges and user needs is what turns good ideas into meaningful digital solutions.

Why it matters

True innovation happens when strategy, insight, and execution work together. Without that alignment, even the best ideas struggle to progress, and opportunities to improve engagement, efficiency, or patient outcomes are lost.

Where to start

A Design Sprint or Innovation Workshop provides a safe, structured space for teams to come together, define challenges, and co-create solutions.

Guided by design thinking and deep industry expertise, these sessions help teams move quickly from discovery to execution — designing the right thing, and designing the thing right. They build alignment, break down silos, and demonstrate tangible value within days, making innovation more accessible, compliant, and measurable.

With digital budgets tightening and expectations rising, pharma teams are under increasing pressure to prove the value of their digital investments. Yet measurement frameworks often fall short, focusing on compliance and vanity metrics rather than true impact.

While access and engagement have improved, many teams still measure success through reach or clicks — not learning, behaviour change, or patient outcomes. Without clear links between digital activity and business or health impact, it’s difficult to prioritise resources or make the case for continued investment.

Why it matters

When ROI is defined too narrowly, progress stalls. Demonstrating impact requires connecting engagement data with real outcomes — for both users and the business. That clarity helps teams focus effort where it delivers the most value.

Where to start

A Strategic Workshop can help define success metrics that link engagement, experience, and commercial performance. With shared KPIs and stronger data governance, teams can move beyond surface-level reporting to measure what truly matters, and build confidence in the value of digital experience.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it does start with clarity.

Short, structured engagements like these are designed to help pharma teams cut through complexity, uncover insight, and make measurable progress quickly. Whether you need to evaluate your ecosystem, understand your users, or spark innovation, these starting points provide a simple, proven way to move forward with confidence.

By tackling these challenges head-on, pharma can move beyond outdated systems and internal silos — creating more connected, trustworthy, and human digital experiences that truly put patients and professionals first.

If you’d like to explore how we can help you take the first step, get in touch today. We’d love to discuss your current challenges and share practical ways to accelerate your digital progress.