How pharma marketing needs to adapt as community pharmacies take centre stage
pharmafile | August 28, 2025 | Feature | Business Services, Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | 10 Year Health Plan, Pharmacy, m3, pharmacy
The UK government’s 10-Year Health Plan is moving pharmacists to the frontline of primary care
For decades, community pharmacies were viewed as the final link in the healthcare chain, the place where prescriptions were filled, questions were answered and patients left with neatly labelled medication in hand. The pharmacist’s role, although respected, was largely reactive: dispense, advise, repeat.
However, this is all changing.
The recent announcement of the UK government’s 10 Year Health Plan marks a decisive shift in how pharmacists are positioned within the NHS. Designed to free up pharmacist time for direct patient treatment, the plan expands pharmacists’ clinical responsibilities and places them firmly on the frontline of primary care. It’s a move intended to ease GPs’ workloads, improve access to treatment and address ongoing pressures in the healthcare system.
And the shift is already visible. The Pharmacy First scheme – enabling pharmacists to offer consultations for common ailments – has facilitated more than five million patient consultations. And the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s updated stance on P-medicine self-selection empowers patients to select certain pharmacy medicines with pharmacist intervention, opening up a new dimension of healthcare choice.
For the public, these are changes that improve convenience and speed of care.
For pharma companies, they represent a fundamental marketing challenge – and an equally significant opportunity.
Why pharma’s traditional playbook no longer fits
Historically, pharmaceutical marketing has centred on GPs, hospital specialists and procurement teams. This made sense when these professionals were the clear gatekeepers to prescribing decisions. The logic was simple – win influence at the top and the patient pathway would follow.
However, healthcare is no longer so linear. With policy changes accelerating, pharmacists are becoming proactive decision-makers, often initiating treatment rather than simply dispensing it. In some cases, patients may see a pharmacist instead of a GP altogether, particularly for common conditions or minor injuries.
This growing autonomy has commercial consequences. In the traditional model, pharmacists were a secondary audience, important for distribution and product knowledge, but rarely targeted as a core decision-maker. Now, they’re not just participants in the patient journey – they’re key influencers of that journey.
Pharmacists are now critical influencers, not just dispensers. If pharma companies don’t adapt their strategies to reflect this shift, they risk missing a crucial audience that can directly shape patient outcomes.
The patient journey has a new gatekeeper
In a recent M3 survey, 35% of pharma marketers said they rely on patient journey mapping to inform their campaigns. Yet, many of these maps still underplay or entirely overlook the role of pharmacies in early-stage decision-making.
Consider a typical patient pathway for something as straightforward as an ear infection or urinary tract infection. Ten years ago, this might have involved a GP consultation followed by a prescription collected from a pharmacy. Today, in many cases, the patient goes straight to the pharmacy, receives a consultation and leaves with the required treatment – no GP involved.
This has three major implications for marketing strategy:
- Educational engagement: pharmacists are busy professionals balancing clinical duties with operational management. Educational materials – from product updates to clinical trial data – must be concise, clinically relevant and easily accessible in digital formats
- Tailored messaging: communications need to reflect pharmacists’ expanding scope. That means recognising their clinical decision-making responsibilities, as well as their role in managing over-the-counter product sales and self-care advice
- Smarter multichannel strategies: a ‘one-size-fits-all’ GP-centric marketing plan will no longer work. Pharma marketers must integrate pharmacy-specific touchpoints, such as digital platforms, peer-to-peer learning and interactive tools, to cut through in a crowded information landscape from professional networks to digital platforms designed for pharmacists’ needs.
The rise of P-medicine self-selection
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s stance on P-medicine self-selection may seem like a small policy shift, but it has significant commercial implications. By allowing patients to select certain pharmacy medicines directly from the shelves with the assistance of pharmacists, the dynamic changes in two ways:
- Pharmacist as advisor: pharmacists remain trusted sources of guidance, particularly for new products or complex treatment categories, that opens up greater marketing opportunities.
- Increased patient autonomy: patients may make purchase decisions independently, influenced by brand visibility, consumer marketing or previous advice from a healthcare professional
This creates a dual-channel opportunity for pharma – building consumer-facing brand awareness to drive demand, while also ensuring pharmacists are confident advocates for the product.
Because of this, it is vital that consumer marketing and professional engagement is strategically aligned. Pharmacists sit at the intersection of healthcare advice and consumer choice. Pharma brands that can effectively support pharmacists in that role while also reaching the public stand to gain significant competitive advantage.
Commercial implications for brand teams
The empowerment of pharmacists is not just a clinical milestone, it’s a shift that could alter how entire brand strategies are built. Historically, pharmaceutical marketing strategies have concentrated on engaging GPs, specialists and hospital procurement teams. The assumption was simple – influence the prescribers at the top of the medical decision chain and the rest will follow.
Now, brand teams must design integrated strategies that view pharmacists not as an adjunct, but as a primary audience in certain therapeutic areas.
For example, in respiratory care, pharmacists are frequently involved in device demonstrations and inhaler technique reviews – these are direct opportunities for brand preference building.
Another example is in pain management – pharmacists are often the first port of call for over-the-counter and P-medicine products, shaping purchasing behaviour before a GP is consulted.
Why insight-led, adaptive marketing is essential
In this decentralised and fast-changing landscape, agility isn’t optional, it’s essential. Policy shifts, public health priorities and patient behaviour trends can all change the influence balance within months.
Data-driven insights are the key to staying ahead. Understanding not just what pharmacists prescribe or recommend, but how they consume information, the clinical pressures they face and which digital platforms they trust will be central to campaign success.
Adaptive, insight-led strategies will define the next era of pharma marketing. This means:
- Continuously updating segmentation models to reflect changing clinical responsibilities
- Using real-time digital analytics to assess message engagement and adjust campaigns dynamically
- Integrating cross-channel campaigns so that pharmacists encounter consistent, relevant messaging, whether they’re attending CPD training, scrolling professional forums or speaking with an MSL (Medical Science Liaison).
The new rules for pharma marketing in the pharmacy era
To compete in this new landscape, pharma marketers should consider three core rules:
- Redefine the target audience hierarchy. GPs and specialists remain vital, but the balance of influence is shifting. Pharmacists should be a defined, high-priority segment with dedicated messaging and engagement tactics.
- Invest in tailored pharmacy content. Generic repurposed GP materials isn’t good enough. Pharmacists need information that reflects their scope, clinical realities and time pressures.
- Adopt a truly omnichannel approach. Face-to-face engagement is important, but digital platforms are where pharmacists increasingly learn, share and make clinical decisions.
Pharma marketing for pharmacists
Community pharmacies are stepping into the spotlight as accessible, trusted and clinically capable care providers. They are increasingly the first – and sometimes only – healthcare professionals a patient interacts with. For pharmaceutical companies, this is both a challenge and an opportunity.
The brands that will thrive in the next decade will be those that:
- Recognise pharmacists as key clinical partners, not just distribution channels
- Invest in understanding pharmacists’ evolving roles and pressures
- Deliver marketing strategies that speak directly to their influence in patient care.
The pharmacy counter is no longer the end of the healthcare journey. In many cases, it’s where it begins and pharma marketing needs to start there too.
Tim Russell is Executive Vice President at M3, where he is responsible for leading the business’ strategic direction. Tim is passionate about maximising his clients’ results and leads his team to deliver the best possible service. He specialises in delivering compelling solutions to meet pharmaceutical commercial objectives and offers clear and tangible value. Prior to joining M3, Tim worked as both a pharmaceutical representative and a pharmaceutical marketer, contributing to his 20+ years in the pharmaceutical industry.
This article featured in: September 2025 – The Pharmafile Brief
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