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Sohail Kasmani

Sohail Kasmani. Brand and marketing strategist in London: pharma brand management at Cipla and Alembic, now marketing strategy and AI adoption at ACTAsia. MBA, Brunel University London.

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Home Pharma Marketing How pharma engages healthcare professionals digitally in the UK
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How pharma engages healthcare professionals digitally in the UK

Pharmaceutical companies engage UK healthcare professionals digitally through a handful of channels: rep-triggered or consented email, company HCP portals, webinars and accredited medical education, third-party HCP platforms such as Doctors.net.uk, Medscape UK, Pulse and Chemist+Druggist, programmatic advertising aimed at verified HCP audiences, and LinkedIn. The companies doing it well connect these into one plan per customer, under ABPI Code rules on consent and certification.

The UK is a harder market for this than most. IQVIA’s 2025 ChannelDynamics Channel Preference Survey of more than 33,000 HCPs in 38 countries found only 24% of UK HCPs prefer face-to-face meetings with reps, the lowest of the major European markets, and the UK and Germany had the worst match between how HCPs want to be engaged and how they are actually engaged, at 43%.

How do pharmaceutical companies engage with healthcare professionals digitally in the UK?

Most UK pharma companies run some version of the same stack. A CRM (usually Veeva, which says its data covers more than 80% of commercial biopharma field teams worldwide) holds the HCP record, consent status and call history. Around it sit the channels listed above, plus whatever the medical team is doing at congresses.

The weak point tends to be the content sitting unused inside those channels. Veeva’s Pulse report of May 2025, based on more than 600 million HCP interactions a year, found that materials are shared in fewer than half of customer interactions and that nearly 80% of approved content is rarely or never used. Where content was used, Veeva reports treatment adoption doubled and the time between meetings fell by up to 25%. So we spend months getting a leave piece through medical, legal and regulatory review and then it sits in the library like a gym membership in March.

That figure is global, not UK-specific, but it matches what I saw in pharma brand management at Cipla and Alembic: the brand team measures assets produced, the field team measures calls made, and nobody owns whether the doctor actually saw anything useful.

Why does the NHS change what works for GPs and pharmacists?

The BMA’s analysis of NHS England data puts the number of patients per full-time equivalent GP at 2,176 as of July 2026, up 238 (12.3%) since 2015, with 33.9 million standard appointments delivered in July 2026 across 6,147 practices. NHS England Digital’s workforce statistics for 31 July 2026 count 29,057 full-time equivalent fully qualified GPs, and the BMA puts registered patients at 63.2 million. A 20-minute lunchtime rep slot is a big ask of someone who is already running late for the afternoon clinic.

The decision-making has also moved away from the individual prescriber. GP practices sit in 1,250 primary care networks (PCNs), each typically covering 30,000 to 50,000 patients, and PCN clinical leads can be GPs, nurses or clinical pharmacists. Above them, local formularies and prescribing guidance come through integrated care boards. Those are shrinking fast: Healthcare Leader reported in September 2025 that England’s 42 ICBs would become 26 from April 2026, under a target running cost of £19 per head, roughly half the previous level. For a brand team, that means fewer, bigger formulary decisions and more medicines optimisation pharmacists in the room than GPs. The market access side of that is covered in market access strategy for a new drug in the UK.

Community pharmacy is now a prescribing audience

Community pharmacists used to be a stock-and-OTC conversation for most prescription brands, until Pharmacy First. The service, launched by NHS England on 31 January 2024, lets community pharmacies complete episodes of care for seven conditions (sinusitis, sore throat, acute otitis media, infected insect bites, impetigo, shingles and uncomplicated UTIs in women aged 16 to 64) under defined clinical pathways. NHSBSA data shows 6.7 million clinical pathway consultations between February 2024 and May 2026 across around 11,300 pharmacies, with a medicine supplied in 5.0 million of them. Monthly volume went from 125,275 in February 2024 to 308,185 in May 2026.

Then on 10 September 2026 NHS England announced five more conditions for autumn 2026, reported by The Pharmaceutical Journal: low-frequency episodic migraine in adults, seasonal allergic rhinitis in children, acute otitis externa in adults, mild-to-moderate acne and scabies. The difference this time is that only pharmacies with a registered independent prescriber can offer them, and NHS England expects up to 3 million appointments a year once fully rolled out. If you market a migraine or acne treatment, the pharmacist in those pharmacies is now making the prescribing choice, so they need the same evidence and pathway content you would give a GP.

Digital marketing tools for reaching pharmacists and GPs

The GP and pharmacist fit columns are my judgement based on the NHS context above, not survey data.

Channel Best for GP fit Pharmacist fit Watch-outs
Rep-triggered approved email from the CRM Following up a real conversation with certified content High, if a rep has a relationship with the practice Medium; fewer reps call on community pharmacy Needs prior permission under Clause 15.5; each email needs an unsubscribe; templates certified in final form
Company HCP portal Prescribing information, dosing tools, on-demand education Medium; GPs rarely visit a single brand’s site unprompted Medium to high for pathway tools and patient materials Must keep POM content away from the public; registration friction kills traffic
Webinars and medical education New guidance, new pathways, complex therapy areas High, if evening slots and CPD value High for new Pharmacy First pathways Promotional vs non-promotional status must be clear; hospitality limits apply to any in-person element
Doctors.net.uk (M3) Reaching GMC-registered doctors in email, forum and CPD contexts High Not applicable; doctors only Sponsored content must be declared; doctors are wary of anything that reads like an ad in a forum
Medscape UK (WebMD) News, education and programmatic to consented HCP profiles Medium to high Medium; audience includes pharmacists Its UK programmatic product launched with unbranded content only
Pulse and Pulse 365 (Cogora) Display, sponsored education and surveys for GPs High Low Editorial is independent and often critical of pharma; placement next to a practice funding story is a risk you accept
OnMedica Free CPD for GPs Medium to high Low Education-led; overtly promotional material fits badly
Chemist+Druggist Community pharmacy news, events, awards, display Low High Mixed audience of pharmacists, owners and counter staff; check who you actually reach
Programmatic to verified HCP audiences Frequency and reach once a message is established Medium Medium Verification quality varies widely; demand the source of the HCP match
LinkedIn Corporate reputation, medical affairs thought leadership, PCN and ICB decision makers Low for prescribing messages Low to medium Targeting relies on self-reported job titles; PMCPA treats naming a POM as likely promotion

Third-party HCP platforms, one by one

Doctors.net.uk is run by M3 (EU) Limited, part of the M3 group, and describes itself as the UK’s largest online professional network of doctors, with more than 270,000 UK doctor members and more than 50,000 accessing their doctors.org.uk email accounts daily. Membership requires GMC registration, so you know the audience is doctors. The membership figure is the network’s own, so ask how many GPs in your target PCNs are active in a given month.

Medscape, part of the US health information company WebMD, lists UK primary care physicians, pharmacists and PCN clinical directors among its audience for advertisers, and in February 2024 launched Medscape Extend, a programmatic product with PulsePoint that uses Medscape’s opt-in, first-party HCP profiles to find the same professionals across other websites in the UK, EU and Canada. It launched with unbranded content only, which says something about how carefully even the vendor treats UK promotion rules.

Pulse, owned by the healthcare publisher Cogora, is the GP trade title most brand teams already know. In the GP Media Survey 2024 of 361 GPs, 39% had accessed the PulseToday website in the previous month and 53% in the previous year. OnMedica is an independent education platform for GPs offering free CPD modules, quizzes and newsletters. For pharmacy, Chemist+Druggist sells online, print and event packages and quotes 114,000+ unique monthly visitors across its network, without splitting pharmacists from everyone else behind the counter.

Programmatic and LinkedIn

Programmatic to “verified HCPs” is only as good as the verification. I’d ask every vendor what the match source is (a register, a logged-in profile, or inferred browsing), what share of impressions landed on matched HCPs, and for the list of sites. If the answers are vague, you’re buying display with a stethoscope drawn on it.

LinkedIn says its targeting uses member-generated professional data such as job title, company and seniority, which is self-declared and not checked against the GMC or GPhC registers. That’s fine for corporate reputation, medical affairs content and reaching ICB and PCN leaders by role, and a poor fit for anything naming a prescription medicine.

Which digital marketing platforms are best suited for pharmaceutical brands in the UK?

For a prescription brand targeting GPs, I’d start with the CRM and approved email for accounts where reps have relationships, then a GP education partner (Pulse, OnMedica or Doctors.net.uk depending on the therapy area and budget), then verified programmatic for frequency. For a brand affected by the new Pharmacy First pathways, the pharmacy trade press, pharmacy-focused webinars and pathway-specific tools on your portal matter more than anything aimed at GPs.

Consumer platforms (Meta, TikTok, Google Search ads for a named POM) are off the table for prescription brands in the UK, because advertising prescription-only medicines to the public is prohibited. Disease awareness is possible but tightly controlled, as covered in UK pharma advertising rules.

Effective strategies in pharma marketing for the UK healthcare sector

The IQVIA numbers say UK HCPs are the least interested in Europe in face-to-face rep meetings, and the most mismatched between what they want and what they get. That’s an argument for fewer, better-planned digital touches, and this is the order I’d build a GP or pharmacist programme in.

  1. Map everyone in the decision. For each target area, identify who sets the formulary position (ICB medicines optimisation team), who shapes practice behaviour (PCN clinical pharmacists and leads) and who writes or supplies the prescription (GP, pharmacist prescriber). Each gets different content.
  2. Audit consent before content. Pull your CRM and count how many target HCPs have given permission for promotional email. If it’s a small share, earn consent first through something useful (a webinar, a tool, a CPD module), because no email design fixes an empty list.
  3. Build content around the NHS pathway. GPs and pharmacists work to NICE guidance, local formularies and, for pharmacy, the Pharmacy First pathway documents. Content that shows where your product sits in that pathway gets used.
  4. Pick two or three channels per audience and connect them. A rep conversation, then an approved email linking to a webinar replay, then programmatic reminders to those who watched, is omnichannel in practice, and it only works if the CRM records each step.
  5. Set next-best-action rules you can explain. The rule “if an HCP opened the dosing email but didn’t click, the rep raises dosing next visit” is worth more than a black box nobody in the field trusts.
  6. Track which certified assets were used and by whom. If 80% of your library never gets used, retire it and put the review budget into the 20% that does.

What are the compliance guardrails for digital HCP engagement?

The ABPI Code of Practice, administered by the PMCPA, applies to every digital channel above, and these four areas cause digital teams the most trouble.

  • Consent. Clause 15.5 of the 2024 Code says telephone, text, email and other digital communications must not be used for promotional purposes except with the prior permission of the recipient, and each promotional email should explain how to unsubscribe. Clause 15.6 says promotional material must not be disguised, so no “personal” emails from a rep that are really campaigns.
  • Certification. Under Clause 8.1, promotional material must not be issued until its final form has been certified by a nominated signatory, who must be a UK-registered doctor, pharmacist or dentist. For audiovisual and interactive content, the company needs a written transcript including graphs and tables, which is worth remembering before you commission an interactive dosing tool with 40 screens.
  • HCP-only content. Anything promoting a prescription medicine must reach HCPs only, hence gated portals and register-verified platforms.
  • Social media. The PMCPA’s first social media guidance, published on 26 January 2023 and summarised by the Inside EU Life Sciences blog of the law firm Covington, says companies should assume the Code applies to employees’ work-related personal posts, that a UK employee liking or sharing a post can bring it within scope, and that any mention of a POM is likely to be considered promotion. The sales director’s enthusiastic repost of the global launch announcement is exactly the case they had in mind.

How is AI used in pharma marketing?

AI in pharma marketing mostly shows up inside the CRM to prepare reps and suggest next actions, in content pre-review before medical, legal and regulatory sign-off, and in drafting and adapting materials. Veeva made its first AI agents generally available on 3 December 2025: a Pre-call Agent that offers insights and suggested actions before a rep meets an HCP, a Voice Agent for capturing notes, a Free Text Agent that flags compliance issues in call notes, and in PromoMats a Quick Check Agent that scans content against brand, channel and compliance guidelines before formal review. For how agents differ from generative drafting tools, see generative vs agentic AI in marketing.

In a Q&A from June 2025, the PMCPA said AI can support compliance review but the Code’s requirements are unchanged, certification by a nominated signatory still requires a human, companies should have policies, training and risk assessments for AI use, and in a complaint the Panel may look at the company’s AI governance. So the AI can read the leave piece first, but a registered pharmacist still signs it, which is probably how most signatories would want it anyway.

AI in healthcare marketing: where I’d be careful

The case for AI-drafted creative is weaker than the cost savings suggest. Adam Peruta of Syracuse University, writing in HBR on a study he co-led with Ipsos (“AI-Generated Ads Perform Worse Than Human-Made Ones“, 3 September 2026), had 3,000 US consumers watch 20 video ads, half of them rebuilt entirely with AI from the same briefs. The AI versions were 14% weaker on short-term sales potential and 17% weaker on long-term brand equity, and people struggled to tell them apart. That was consumer advertising, not HCP content, but the lesson carries: a certified, compliant, AI-drafted email that no GP remembers is still a waste of a consent.

Where AI earns its keep in HCP marketing is the unglamorous work: tagging and finding the right approved asset, summarising call notes, spotting which HCPs in a PCN have gone quiet, and pre-checking claims against references before review. The approach used for AI adoption at ACTAsia applies here too: start with the task that wastes the most human hours and has the clearest check. A prompt for pre-review might look like this.

You are helping a UK pharma brand team prepare a promotional email for GPs
before formal certification under the ABPI Code of Practice.
For the draft below:
1. List every claim and the reference cited for it. Flag any claim without a reference.
2. Flag wording that could be read as disguising promotion (Clause 15.6).
3. Check that prescribing information, adverse event reporting wording and an
   unsubscribe route are present.
4. Flag comparative or superlative claims ("best", "first", "only").
Do not rewrite the email. Return a table of issues only.
[paste draft]

Treat the output as a checklist for the human reviewer and keep unpublished data out of any tool your company hasn’t approved. If I were starting a UK HCP programme next week, the first job would be counting how many target GPs and pharmacist prescribers have actually given email consent, because that number decides which of the channels above you can use at all.

FAQs

How do you reach GPs digitally in the UK?

Use consented, rep-triggered email where a relationship exists, GP-focused education and media partners such as Pulse, OnMedica and Doctors.net.uk, and programmatic advertising matched to verified HCP profiles. Keep content short and tied to NICE guidance or the local formulary, because GPs in England are each responsible for 2,176 patients on average (BMA, July 2026) and have little time for generic brand messages.

How do pharma companies reach community pharmacists?

Through pharmacy trade media such as Chemist+Druggist, pharmacy-focused webinars and education, and portal tools built around NHS pathways. Pharmacists matter more to prescription brands now because Pharmacy First delivered 6.7 million consultations between February 2024 and May 2026, and five new conditions from autumn 2026, including migraine and acne, need a pharmacist independent prescriber.

Can pharma companies send promotional emails to UK HCPs?

Yes, but only with the recipient’s prior permission. Clause 15.5 of the 2024 ABPI Code bans promotional use of email, text and other digital communications without it, and each promotional email should explain how to unsubscribe. The email must also be certified in its final form and must not disguise promotion as personal correspondence, under Clauses 8.1 and 15.6.

Can pharma companies use LinkedIn to promote medicines in the UK?

Not for prescription medicines in any practical sense. LinkedIn targeting relies on self-declared job titles, so you cannot guarantee an HCP-only audience, and PMCPA social media guidance says any mention of a prescription-only medicine is likely to be promotion. LinkedIn works for corporate news, medical affairs content, recruitment and reaching NHS decision makers by role.

Is AI allowed in pharma marketing under the ABPI Code?

It is allowed, with conditions. The PMCPA said in June 2025 that AI can support the review of promotional materials, but the Code’s requirements do not change and final-form certification by a nominated signatory still needs a human. Companies should have AI policies, training and risk assessments, and the PMCPA Panel may consider that governance if a complaint is made.

Sources

  1. IQVIA, “From Preference to Practice: Understanding the Evolving Channel Preferences of Healthcare Professionals” (Toby House and Kirstie Scott), 17 November 2025. https://www.iqvia.com/locations/emea/blogs/2025/11/from-preference-to-practice
  2. Veeva, “Veeva Pulse Report Finds Content-Driven Engagement Lags Despite Proven Boost to Treatment Adoption”, 29 May 2025. https://www.veeva.com/resources/veeva-pulse-report-finds-content-driven-engagement-lags-despite-proven-boost-to-treatment-adoption/
  3. BMA, “Pressures in general practice data analysis”, updated 28 August 2026. https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice-data-analysis
  4. NHS England Digital, “General Practice Workforce, 31 July 2026”, published 27 August 2026. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/general-and-personal-medical-services/31-july-2026
  5. NHS England, “Primary care networks”. https://www.england.nhs.uk/primary-care/primary-care-networks/
  6. Healthcare Leader, “What does the ICB landscape look like now?”, 11 September 2025. https://healthcareleadernews.com/insight/what-does-the-icb-landscape-look-like-now/
  7. NHS England, “Pharmacy First”. https://www.england.nhs.uk/primary-care/pharmacy/pharmacy-services/pharmacy-first/
  8. NHSBSA, “NHS Pharmacy First Clinical Pathways Data”, data to May 2026. https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/pharmacies-gp-practices-and-appliance-contractors/dispensing-contractors-information/nhs-pharmacy-first-service-pfs/nhs-pharmacy-first-clinical-pathways-data
  9. The Pharmaceutical Journal, “Migraine and acne included in new prescribing Pharmacy First pathways”, September 2026. https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/news/migraine-and-acne-included-in-new-prescribing-pharmacy-first-pathways
  10. Doctors.net.uk, homepage and membership information (M3 (EU) Limited). https://www.doctors.net.uk/
  11. Medscape Global via PR Newswire, “Medscape Global Launches Innovative Programmatic Offering Setting a New Standard in Targeted HCP Engagement in the United Kingdom, European Union and Canada”, 14 February 2024. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/medscape-global-launches-innovative-programmatic-offering-setting-a-new-standard-in-targeted-hcp-engagement-in-the-united-kingdom-european-union-and-canada-302061163.html
  12. Medscape Global, “Our audience”. https://www.medscapeglobal.com/our-audience/
  13. Cogora, “PulseToday is most accessed medical journal website according to annual GP Media Survey”, 11 July 2024. https://www.cogora.com/pulsetoday-is-most-accessed-medical-journal-website-according-to-annual-gp-media-survey/
  14. RCGP Building the Future, “OnMedica”. https://rcgpbf.org.uk/onmedica/
  15. Chemist+Druggist, “Advertise with us”. https://www.chemistanddruggist.co.uk/more/advertise-with-us/
  16. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, “Ad targeting with LinkedIn Ads”. https://business.linkedin.com/advertise/ads/targeting
  17. PMCPA, “Clause 15 High Standards, Format and Suitability”, 2024 Interactive ABPI Code of Practice. https://www.pmcpa.org.uk/the-code/2024-interactive-abpi-code-of-practice/clause-15-high-standards-format-and-suitability/
  18. PMCPA, “ABPI Code of Practice 2024” (full text, Clause 8 certification). https://www.pmcpa.org.uk/media/r0anf5ya/2024-abpi-code.pdf
  19. Covington, Inside EU Life Sciences, “UK PMCPA Publishes First Ever Guidance to Pharmaceutical Companies about Social Media”, 30 January 2023. https://www.insideeulifesciences.com/2023/01/30/uk-pmcpa-publishes-first-ever-guidance-to-pharmaceutical-companies-about-social-media/
  20. PMCPA, “Can the PMCPA give companies any guidance about using artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the review of promotional materials and activities covered by the ABPI Code?”, June 2025. https://www.pmcpa.org.uk/guidance-and-qas/qas-by-topic-or-clause/can-the-pmcpa-give-companies-any-guidance-about-using-artificial-intelligence-ai-to-assist-in-the-review-of-promotional-materials-and-activities-covered-by-the-abpi-code/
  21. Veeva, “Veeva AI Agents Now Available to Increase Productivity and Customer Centricity”, 3 December 2025. https://www.veeva.com/resources/veeva-ai-agents-now-available-to-increase-productivity-and-customer-centricity/
  22. Harvard Business Review, Adam Peruta, “Research: AI-Generated Ads Perform Worse Than Human-Made Ones, Even When Customers Can’t Tell Them Apart”, 3 September 2026. https://hbr.org/2026/09/research-ai-generated-ads-perform-worse-than-human-made-ones-even-when-customers-cant-tell-them-apart