Happy talk…

The Briefing Room – what comes next for healthcare communications?

The Healthcare Communications Association (HCA) interviews senior leaders from across pharma to explore how healthcare communications must evolve in the face of growing complexity, accelerating technology and rising expectations of trust.

The pace of change in healthcare communications continues to accelerate. New technologies, shifting stakeholder expectations and increasing scrutiny of the pharmaceutical industry are reshaping not just how organisations communicate but what is expected of them.

So how should healthcare communications respond – and what will matter most in the years ahead?

We spoke to industry experts from companies including Takeda, UCB and LEO Pharma to find out.

Together, they offer a candid view of how healthcare communications is changing – from who we communicate with to how technology is used to the enduring importance of trust and value.

What emerges is not a single, linear roadmap for the future but a series of shared tensions that communicators are being asked to navigate every day.

Leaders describe a function pulled between speed and rigour, innovation and responsibility, measurement and meaning. The interviews suggest that the organisations making the most progress are those willing to acknowledge these tensions openly rather than pretending they can be solved with a single new tool or structural change.

Across the interviews, technology is framed less as an end point and more as an accelerator.

While it has undoubtedly expanded what is possible in healthcare communications, it has also intensified expectations around speed, responsiveness and sophistication, often without reducing the underlying complexity of the environment in which teams operate.

Artificial intelligence in particular is a heavily discussed topic but it is rarely described as a simple solution.

For Oluwa, AI has already demonstrated its potential to improve education and engagement. She describes using AI-enabled holographic key opinion leaders at medical congresses, allowing delegates to interact with a realistic avatar, ask questions and receive pre-approved, accurate responses.

“It creates that person-to-person feeling,” she says. “That sense of interaction really matters, because even when technology is involved, people still want to feel like they are engaging with a human being rather than a system. It’s quicker, it’s engaging, and people really remember it.”

Moore highlights a different technological reality, explaining how many pharmaceutical companies are now rich in data but poor in insight.

As data volumes continue to grow, the risk, he suggests, is not a lack of information but a lack of focus, with teams unclear on which insights should drive action and which are simply noise.

“We’ve invested heavily in platforms and infrastructure,” he explains. “Now the challenge is moving from being data-rich to insight-driven. Otherwise, you end up with paralysis by analysis.”

But alongside the opportunity comes risk.

Osei-Bonsu describes social media as “a blessing and a curse”.

“It gives us reach we could never have had before,” he says. “But it also creates real risks around misinformation and misinterpretation. That’s why responsible communication and strong guard rails are so important in our industry.”

James Osborn, an independent consultant currently working with LEO Pharma, raises deeper ethical questions, particularly around the use of AI in patient engagement.

“We’ve spent years talking about the authentic patient voice,” he says. “Now we’re getting to a point where it’s technically possible to generate a patient using AI. It might meet the communications objective, but what does that mean for authenticity? Are we at risk of undermining something we’ve worked very hard to build?”

If technology and complexity define the external landscape, trust is what ultimately determines whether communications succeeds or fails within it.

Across all four interviews, trust emerges not as a single initiative or campaign outcome but as the cumulative result of consistent decisions about transparency, tone and intent.

For Osei-Bonsu, trust begins with clarity and precision.

“Great healthcare communication is about being concise, factual and audience-focused,” he says. “If you lose trust, it becomes very difficult to do your job effectively.”

Oluwa broadens this further, pointing to the role communications plays in shaping perceptions of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.

“There’s a responsibility not just at company level, but at industry level,” she says. “If people don’t understand the value the industry brings, trust can quickly erode.”
Osborn has seen firsthand how trust is built when communications reconnect organisations with real human experience.

“I’ve been in rooms where patient stories have been shared and you can see the impact immediately,” he says. “People’s expressions change. It reminds them why they do what they do. That kind of emotional engagement is incredibly powerful.”
This human dimension, he argues, cannot be replaced by automation.

“AI can support us, but it can’t replace judgement, experience or relationships,” Osborn says. “They are built over time, and they’re what allow communications to land in a way that feels credible rather than manufactured. Those things still matter enormously.”

Alongside questions of trust and technology, all four interviewees point to growing pressure on communications teams to demonstrate tangible value in an environment of constrained budgets and heightened scrutiny.

Expectations are rising at the same time as resources are being stretched, making prioritisation and clarity of purpose more important than ever.

“Budgets are tighter,” says Osei-Bonsu. “So, there’s more focus on what difference communications is really making.”

But Moore cautions against viewing value too narrowly.

“Not everything that matters is easy to measure,” he says. “Influence, understanding and long-term behaviour change don’t always show up neatly in a dashboard.”

Osborn agrees, particularly when it comes to patient engagement and corporate communications.

“Quantifying activity that’s not directly revenue-generating requires alignment with colleagues”, he says. “It’s often important to illustrate how your work is creating value for other functions, as well as the organisation overall.”

The challenge, the leaders suggest, is to balance accountability with purpose, ensuring communications supports commercial and organisational goals while remaining grounded in improving outcomes for patients and healthcare systems.

Rather than calling for wholesale reinvention, the leaders consistently point to evolution by strengthening fundamentals, making more deliberate choices about where to focus effort and being clearer about where communications can have the greatest impact.

Taken together, the Briefing Room interviews present a picture of a discipline at a turning point.

Healthcare communications must now operate across more audiences, more channels and more scrutiny than ever before. Technology will continue to accelerate what is possible, but it will also demand stronger judgement and clearer ethical boundaries.

Perhaps the most striking message comes from Moore, who calls for greater confidence across the sector.

“We do a lot of good work,” he says. “Maybe we just need to be a little bit bolder and a little bit prouder of it.”

As the HCA Foresight Committee reflects on these conversations, one thing becomes clear: the way the pharmaceutical industry is understood is shaped by decisions made every day, across every function.

The choices people make about what to say, how to say it and when to listen all contribute to trust.

“The interviews also suggest that progress comes not from certainty, but from a willingness to engage with complexity,” says Jo Spadaccino, member of the HCA Foresight Committee and one of the interview leads.

“That means acknowledging trade-offs, asking difficult questions and resisting the temptation to oversimplify in a landscape that rarely allows it.”

For those working across pharma today, the opportunity is to pause and reflect on the part each of us plays, in conversations with colleagues, partners, healthcare professionals and the public, and how those interactions collectively influence confidence in the industry.

Spadaccino concludes, “Because as expectations continue to rise, the most meaningful progress will come not from louder messages or the latest shiny tool, but from clearer intent, better judgement and a shared commitment to trust”.