Feb 20, 2025
Helen Laurence | SVP, MD, International Agencies, Precision AQ
Helen Laurence, SVP, Managing Director, International Agencies, explores some of the 2025 trends we are expecting to take root over the coming months, and shares how we are responding to these as an organisation.
As with many in the industry, I often find myself taking stock at this time of year. Excited by the possibilities of a ‘clean sheet’, I find it interesting to reflect on what lies ahead and try to spot the trends that are likely to have a longer-term impact in the field of healthcare.
This year, I asked leaders across our International Healthcare Communications offering for their views and have summarised a few key nuggets below that we’ll be using to shape the direction for our clients in 2025.
- Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence (AI) is a key theme. With the increased financial pressures across the pharma industry in recent months, cost- saving initiatives are front of mind for many, with AI offering a seemingly ideal solution. However, there is still a large degree of caution needed around where and when to use AI, and there exist many potential areas of risk . At Precision AQ, we will be focussing our efforts on how AI can be used to ease and improve the patient journey; enhancing the tailoring of materials for different audiences with a view to increasing healthcare access
- Continuing the patient theme, we’ve seen a move towards patient authorship and a drive to include the patient voice in publications, as spearheaded by the BMJ. Similarly, the International Society for Medical Publications Professionals (ISMPP), has set up a patient engagement task force, working to develop best practices for involving patient authors in peer-reviewed pharma-sponsored publications. To our mind, this can only be a good thing and we will be encouraging our clients to consider patient opinion leaders in both the development and delivery of their strategies and contentoutputs
- Our learning and development team anticipates a move from bite-sized to micro-learning, taking their cue from Instagram and TikTok to, delivering educational content in brief snippets that take their cue from Instagram and TikTok. Managing this in a field where scientific robustness is a fundamental is a challenge, but one our learning, scientific, creative and digital experts are well placed to solve together
- Finally, we’ve recently noticed a more cross-functional approach to agency selection, with many clients now looking for teams that can work across several service areas. Fortunately, we are in a strong position to tackle this trend head on, with Iinternational expertise spanning market access, med ed, omnichannel strategy, brand promotion, training, PR and patient insights. Bringing this expertise together in a form that works seamlessly and practically for our clients will be a continued focus for us throughout 2025.
We are looking forward to the year ahead –, to continued agility and evolution, and successful, creative work. When December 2025 comes, we canit will be interesting to look back and assess how accurate our trends and predictions were, and to find out if there were any surprises.