While artificial intelligence (AI) has become strategically essential in commercialization and marketing, challenges in scaling and connecting piecemeal solutions have stalled adoption. In this conversation, Hemal Somaiya and Derek Choy of PharmaForceIQ share insights on how AI can help biopharma unify brand and field strategy, drive efficient execution, measure impact on business outcomes like script lift in real time and seize the opportunities of optichannel marketing.
1. PharmaForceIQ recently acquired Aktana. What drove that decision and what new capabilities are now on offer?
Hemal: In an era of specialized medicines and reduced budgets, field teams need to be empowered with deep, predictive insights in real time on who to see, when to go, and what to say. AI-driven Next-Best-Action (NBA) platforms can orchestrate field activities and arm teams with the knowledge they need to deliver truly personalized information to healthcare professionals (HCPs). Rather than building these capabilities in house, PharmaForceIQ decided to add Aktana’s capabilities and real-world knowledge base to deepen our existing real-time orchestration engine. We can now connect data, deployment, and measurement across all channels in a way that is unprecedented in pharma.
Derek: As a co-founder of Aktana, I admired PharmaForceIQ’s aim to build the fastest, most meaningful ways to engage customers and their deep capabilities within digital orchestration. Our new unified platform now combines these two powerful orchestration engines, which have both already achieved real scale. It can help teams understand their customers even more deeply, enabling them to predict, orchestrate, and measure personalized journeys across the right field and digital channels within one system.
2. How can AI be used effectively in marketing and what is holding back adoption?
Hemal: One exciting application of AI in pharma marketing is the ability to understand each HCP’s preferences and needs dynamically. Instead of relying on historical, static data from a year ago, this reveals the specific channel, vendor, format and message type which will resonate most effectively with prescribers based on their actions right now. By deploying assets based on those preferences in personalized journeys, we improve efficiency and performance. Another application is the ability to unify impact data and get near real-time insights into what is working and what is not. This includes leading and lagging indicators, as well as impacts on KPIs like script lift in real time. This allows every dollar to be deployed where it will yield the highest ROI and lets teams optimize much faster when something isn’t working.
Derek: Many factors are holding back adoption. One major challenge is scaling solutions across decentralized, global teams. To overcome this, the industry needs to invest in end-to-end solutions, which can be implemented quickly, measure outcomes in real-time and deliver ROI. When a holistic, multi-agent AI system is deployed across teams rather than into separate systems, it can coordinate actions with awareness of shared goals and communicate context. This can also incorporate feedback from all functions and adjust based on what’s actually happening, so the system continuously refines recommendations and ensures teams stay aligned. Another challenge, as with all AI, is the quality of source data. These systems must be built on robust historical data and be fed dynamically by source data pipelines. Advanced AI techniques built upon this solid data foundation can then enable rapid, data-driven, and context-aware decision-making. For example, that might mean investing only where data predicts resonance for an audience or prioritizing one action over another if it better fits the brand’s strategy or must adapt due to real-world constraints.
3. What are the advantages of optichannel marketing compared to traditional omnichannel approaches?
Hemal: The old spray-and-pray approach no longer works. HCPs want hyper-personalized information, delivered when they need it and via the channel of their choice. Achieving that requires a deep understanding of customer behaviors informed by real-time data. Instead of buying media on every channel, optichannel is about investing in the optimal media mix for an audience, ensuring engagement precisely where it matters, when it matters. It also focuses on deploying media immediately based on real-world signals of intent or need so we create relevance, not noise. That rapid deployment across every channel has been deeply challenging for pharma to achieve until now.
Derek: I think another key advantage of optichannel is its ability to clearly demonstrate impact. Unlike conventional buying models, which incentivize broad, costly campaigns, optichannel allows teams to not only optimize their approach on the right channels but also show how they are decreasing media cost and increasing incremental revenue. Shared journey visibility helps pull journey, deployment, and measurement all together across functions. By using real-time dashboards to gain insights on where spend is working and when teams need to pivot, we can save reps time, optimize digital far faster, and increase ROI.
4. How can we ensure the adoption of new technologies enhances personal channels, rather than replacing personal engagement?
Hemal: For me, it is about coordinating personal and non-personal channels so we optimize insight data, deliver a unified journey and engage HCPs in the ways they want to engage. The advantage of optichannel is that it creates that personalized experiences. AI-powered platforms can create thousands of truly one-to-one journeys across all digital and field touchpoints and deploy content within 24-48 hours of an HCP seeing a patient. This is targeted at channels and platforms HCPs currently interact with, not just based on what they wrote in the past. Content lands with a higher chance of action, while reps receive the full context of a HCP’s journey to better inform their planning and maximize engagements.
Derek: We should view new technologies as a tool to enhance both field and digital engagement and empower our teams, rather than as a threat to personal relationships. For example, by using dynamic affinity data to gain intelligence on which HCPs prefer sales engagement over digital engagement, we can empower reps to spend their limited time more effectively. This can be particularly useful in areas like rare diseases where a limited field force may be trying to reach a specialized provider pool spread over large territories.
5. What one piece of advice would you give to industry to enhance pharma marketing?
Hemal: Companies need to dive deeper into personalization and prioritize better data integration alongside embracing new technologies like AI. This will give your customers better experiences, strengthen internal collaboration, and make every dollar work harder for you.
Derek: Absolutely, we need to explore how to harness the combined power of AI and data to deliver personalized journeys at scale, more effectively plan communications and automate tactic optimization. Ultimately, this is about enhancing the HCP journey while also improving ROI for pharma and biotech companies.
Authors:
