This excerpt is from a recent interview with Angela Tenuta, President of EVERSANA INTOUCH, featured in PharmaLive. You can read the full article here.
It seemed like every EVERSANA INTOUCH client came into annual planning this year with a workstream to address global health equity. In the past, this topic tended to be deprioritized, but the industry is shifting to address this with meaningful, change-making initiatives.
While wider access plans are being implemented, the quality and spread of this work still varies widely.
One shining example of success is The Chrysalis Initiative, which works to improve breast cancer outcomes for Black women in the United States. Another is Gilead’s landmark PURPOSE trials for HIV prevention, and its voluntary licensing program with generic manufacturers to provide products at no profit until manufacturers can meet demand.
Efforts like these are promising, but governments, nonprofits, corporations, activists and other organizations must continue to work together to create and build others.
This includes marketers!
We must ensure our messaging is tailored to apply and resonate across cultures, languages, regulations and healthcare systems.
The United States spends more on health care overall than any other country. Correspondingly, pharmaceutical manufacturers spend exponentially more on marketing healthcare, including more than $6 billion annually on direct-to-consumer advertising. As U.S. marketers, we have an ethical duty to position purposeful marketing initiatives not only for the insured American, but for humanity.
Global thinking needs to be better applied everywhere. Even within “global” marketing campaigns and initiatives, we are not doing enough.
Sometimes, it’s geographically driven. For example, high-science products require scientific conversations that are driven through peer-to-peer engagement at global conferences. These opinion leaders can truly make an impact in creating more access to care through these conversations and speeches in these locations. And marketing conferences such as HLTH and Cannes have opened health equity tracks to share and elevate learnings.
On the other hand, sometimes geography matters less. In today’s digital-first world, geographical boundaries are becoming less relevant. We’re in one world of ideas and influencers.
As healthcare markets evolve and technology fosters a borderless world, globalization presents a paradox for pharma marketers. On one side, the complexity of challenges such as regulations, decision-makers, and processes is rising. Conversely, the opportunities to gain insights into patients, diseases, and treatments, and to reach more people with the help they need in increasingly innovative ways, are also expanding.
If it were easy, we’d all be doing it. But to do difficult things requires grit, persistence and a passion to change the world. In pharma, we get the chance to do that as we all fight for health equity in 2025 and beyond.
Read the rest of Angela’s interview in PharmaLive here.