Creating a unified Design System vision for a leading life sciences company

We partnered with a top 10 global life sciences brand to help shape a future digital vision for its US market, centred around the value of a unified design system. The organisation’s existing digital ecosystem had become fragmented across brands, creating inefficiencies in the creation and delivery of digital experiences, as well as challenges with consistency, governance, and speed to market.

Our goal was to understand what was working well across priority brands, where the gaps and opportunities existed, and what teams needed from a future shared system. Through a strategic workshop with brand marketers, we gathered first-hand insight into day-to-day challenges, priorities, and expectations, helping uncover both common needs and areas of divergence across brands.

Alongside stakeholder research, we conducted a review and mapping exercise across several key brand websites to identify common patterns, gaps, and opportunities. These findings were combined with stakeholder insight to help define a scalable foundation for future digital architecture and more efficient ways of working.

To help teams visualise the opportunity, we created a series of concept designs demonstrating how a unified design system could support both stronger brand consistency and creative flexibility. The approach was well received internally, helping secure stakeholder buy-in and alignment around a shared future vision.

One of the key concerns raised during stakeholder engagement was whether a unified system would limit creativity or reduce brand individuality. This is a common challenge we see when working with pharmaceutical organisations, where global, regional, and brand teams often have different objectives, priorities, and measures of success.

To address this, we developed visual design concepts for multiple brands to demonstrate how shared components and structures could still allow for distinct brand expression. The work helped show that consistency in user experience, governance, and scalability does not need to come at the expense of flexibility across therapeutic areas, audiences, or markets.

By making the future vision tangible, we were able to build confidence across teams and create stronger alignment around the long-term value of a unified approach.

A major part of the project focused on bringing together perspectives from across the business. Through workshops and collaborative discussions, we created space for teams to share challenges, priorities, and expectations openly. This helped shift conversations away from isolated brand requirements towards a broader strategic vision for scalability and connected digital experiences.

When organisations are building business cases for wider digital transformation initiatives, research and collaboration are often critical to success. Large-scale change is rarely just a technology challenge. It requires alignment across teams with different priorities, responsibilities, and measures of success. 

Bringing stakeholders into the process early, giving them visibility of challenges and opportunities, and helping them shape the future direction can play an important role in building confidence, reducing resistance to change, and creating momentum behind transformation programmes.