August 14, 2026
The State Of Digital Experience In The Global Pharmaceutical Industry, 2025: Websites And Social Media
by Hannah Price with Erika Krajčovičová and Kumar Abhijeet
Executive Summary
Most HCP interactions now take place in digital channels; about 30% of interactions on pharma websites and social media are now self-serve. In 2025, satisfaction with these channels rose for the first time, reflecting the impact of targeted digital investments. Our Global Digital Landscape Benchmark shows that website performance rose across the board—content strategy, channel experience, and unification—while social media performance declined slightly overall, reflecting weaker content strategy despite continued gains in channel experience. As AI-driven search and answer engines reshape information discovery, content depth, scientific rigor, and ecosystem connectivity are becoming prerequisites for visibility, use, and trust. What was a differentiator is fast becoming the baseline, making the transformation of pharma’s web and social ecosystems an immediate strategic imperative.
The State of Digital Experience in Pharma in 2025
The Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) evaluates the maturity of digital assets and their ability to fulfill customer needs. Our proprietary methodology offers a consistent, customer-centric framework for assessing websites and social media channels across markets, brands, and pharmaceutical firms, enabling us to identify best practices and opportunities to improve content and channel experiences. DT Consulting’s research, conducted from March to September 2025, analyzed 534 web and social media assets with content for healthcare professionals (HCPs) owned by 15 leading global pharmaceutical firms in eight countries and four specialty areas (see Figure 1). Our digital experience (DX) research revealed key shifts in web and social media strategies:
- Digital is closing the gap. Digital experiences delivered by pharma websites and social media are closing the gap with traditional face-to-face channels such as sales rep visits, medical rep visits, and in‑person events. Even as HCPs’ experience with traditional channels stagnated or declined, website and social media Customer Experience Quotient® (CXQ®) scores improved in 2025.
- Web transformation is bearing fruit. Industry websites and social media used to deliver content that wasn’t consistently relevant, trustworthy, or consumable. But in 2025, web transformation efforts—based on a clear role and strategy for the web within a larger omnichannel ecosystem—drove a step change in performance, with the overall GDLB DX score rising from 49 to 58 (see Figure 2). HCPs applaud these improvements: DT’s 2025 CXQ® research shows a two‑point increase in web and social CXQ® scores—among the few channels to improve.
- Web and social media channel experiences are on the rise. The improvements in these channels are driven by the broader use of intuitive navigation; interactive, easy-to-consume formats; and clearer pathways to explore and engage with content across touchpoints. Website experiences are further strengthened by more structured and personalized content navigation, including intuitive filtering and session-based content recommendations. Together, these changes are making digital interactions more seamless and accessible for HCPs.
Figure 1: The scope of DT Consulting’s 2025 Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) research
Figure 2: Web and social GLDB digital experience performance and CXQ® in 2025
Companies Are Mobilizing, But With Unequal Impact
The improvement in industry performance masks a more complex picture at the company level. No firm has differentiated digital experiences across its entire website and social media portfolio (see Figure 3). The DX provided by most companies’ global portfolios of web and social media assets diverge widely (see Figure 4). This is a common pattern: while standalone product websites can deliver strong, localized experiences in the short term, they are often difficult to integrate into a broader connected ecosystem over time—showing that isolated asset level excellence is not enough. Meeting rising customer expectations requires a more integrated, portfolio wide approach. Our research shows that Novo Nordisk, Roche, and Boehringer Ingelheim led the industry in DX in 2025 with the strongest overall performance across content strategy, channel experience, and unification. They achieved this via:
- Superior website content. As a cohort, these three firms distinguish themselves with richer, more relevant website content spanning disease information, disease management, patient stories, expert views, medical news, literature, CME, and consultation support. They support this with a faster publishing cadence of one to three months. Their strategies are also more trust-led, with extensive co-creation across HCPs, patients, and external partners.
- Advanced personalization. In terms of channel experience, the top three deliver more advanced personalization (including user-driven filtering and behavior-led recommendations), better accessibility, and a broader mix of easy-to-consume formats including bite-sized articles, videos, infographics, reports, and audio content. They also lead on unification, with stronger two-way routing across corporate and therapeutic assets, enabling more seamless cross-channel journeys.
- Consistent, relevant, engaging content. This leadership extends to social media, where they outperform peers by publishing on a consistent one- to 14 day cadence, providing more relevant content like disease information, patient materials, and industry and company news, and leveraging stronger engagement enablers such as user comments, active responses, and direct contact mechanisms like email and phone. These three firms also co-create content more frequently with credible stakeholders, reinforcing trust and use formats that prioritize simple access and consumption as well as tighter integration with owned assets.
Figure 3: Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) 2025 company rankings
Figure 4: Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) 2025 company score ranges
Winning Asset Strategies
The strongest assets in our GDLB research do not owe their excellence to isolated features; rather, they combine the three GDLB pillars in ways that make HCP experiences more coherent, useful, and trustworthy. In addition to improving human experiences, these practices establish a dense, credible content graph that increases the likelihood that AI-based search and answer engines will surface, cite, and reuse. In our 2025 GLDB research, examples of best-in-class digital execution include:
- Lilly Medical for US-based physicians stands out. With a score of 90, this HCP portal is the only asset to achieve differentiated DX. Its medically led content ecosystem is exceptionally broad and deep. Its content strategy spans HCP information needs, structured by therapy area and anchored in scientific rigor. Its non-promotional, evidence-based independent medical education offering was developed by third-party providers in line with ACCME standards. Lilly Medical’s comprehensive suite of practical services cements its role as a scientific partner, guaranteeing HCPs timely written responses to a variety of medical information queries. Support for clinical engagement is good, with dedicated pathways to find active trials and ask about becoming a clinical investigator. Multimodal support services ensure that HCPs can engage on their own terms at every point of need. Channel experience is elevated by the Lilly Passport personalization layer, which enables HCPs to tailor their homepage by specialty; for those not yet registered, an NPI-based entry point is a lower-friction alternative. The portal is on Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn under the @LillyMedical handle, ensuring that consistent scientific and medical engagement extend well beyond the website.
- Sanofi’s Dupixent website is the best-performing branded HCP website. This site’s DX score of 75 rests on comprehensive content such as detailed mechanism-of-action explanations, dosage and administration guidance, safety information, and clinical trial design data. It provides clear criteria for identifying appropriate patient types, supported by profiles based on patient complaints and diagnostic and clinical findings. On top of its superior content strategy, the website offers practical services that enhance usability and trust, such as easily accessed forms in English and Spanish to enroll in the Dupixent myWay patient support program, an online formulary look-up tool enabling HCPs to check coverage status by ZIP code, and a “contact a field representative” form for HCPs seeking product-related answers.
- Boehringer Ingelheim’s US Facebook page excels on content. This page got a high DX score for its varied, easy-to-consume content such as bite-sized articles, animations, infographics, brochures, visual explainers, and checklists. Content co-created with HCPs, patients, and medical associations adds depth and credibility, supporting clear, trustworthy communication. The page’s comprehensive mix of disease information, lifestyle guidance, expert views, patient stories, and medical news enables users to find practical support and up-to-date clinical perspectives. Online chat, call center access, and open comments enable two-way interaction and immediate connectivity.
- GlaxoSmithKline Spain’s X account shows how social media can deliver. This account shows how social media can amplify awareness about a pharma firm’s activities, turning X into a robust showcase of all of the company’s collaborations, co-created content, and patient-centric activities, updating the information weekly and using engaging, easy-to-consume formats to elevate its presentation.
HCP Portals Advance Toward Intelligent, User-centric Design
Pharma companies have clearly been focusing on their website experiences, improving across the board in content strategy, channel experience, and experience unification; DX quality shows similar rises across regions (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) 2025: websites
Portals Are Becoming Valued Destinations That Improve HCP Experiences
High-performing HCP portals are evolving from static content repositories into dynamic, service‑oriented destinations designed around how clinicians want to engage: quickly, credibly, and on their own terms. This has a tangible positive impact on HCP experiences; our 2025 research shows a clear shift toward relevance and timeliness (see Figure 6). Portals now publish more often, giving HCPs confidence that information is current, useful, and worth revisiting. This improves on channel experiences with more sporadic publishing cadences; HCPs who don’t expect fresh content frequently don’t engage regularly. We see:
- Opaque repositories giving way to open environments. Many portals offered little information prior to login, forcing HCPs to authenticate without knowing what lay behind the gate. This friction is easing: over half of portals now provide substantial non-promotional, unbranded content up front, enabling meaningful engagement before access restrictions apply. This transparency respects HCPs’ time and helps establish trust earlier in the digital journey. More portals now offer open access to disease education, clinical trial updates, patient resources, and expert perspectives and emphasize credibility. Many firms co‑create content with HCPs, patients, and other stakeholders, reinforcing relevance and trust and positioning portals as practical partners rather than promotional hubs.
- Expanding service functionality. This is further enhancing the overall experience. More portals integrate call center access, inquiry forms, resource libraries, and interactive tools, giving HCPs the flexibility to connect by phone, email, or self-service. This approach reduces friction and supports engagement, enabling HCPs to traverse the omnichannel ecosystem quickly and conveniently.
- Maturing experience design. Portals emphasize simplicity, interactivity, and ease of consumption, using visual and multimodal formats like charts, infographics, animations, and video to help HCPs absorb information quickly. This evolution is increasingly informed by voice-of-the-customer (VoC) inputs: 37% of portals now capture HCP feedback in polls or surveys, embedding CX measurement directly into the DX. This signals a growing shift toward continuous, experience-led improvement grounded in real HCP needs and perceptions.
- More purposeful engagement mechanisms. Clear calls to action help HCPs explore content and register for relevant events by geography or interest. Content personalization is also advancing: the proportion of portals now recommending content based on user behavior has doubled to 33%. This helps HCPs find what matters faster.
- Accessibility gaining overdue attention. While portals used to offer limited support for users with accessibility needs, over one-third now include at least one accessibility feature, driven in part by increased regulatory focus in the EU. This marks an important step toward more inclusive DX. While overall interactivity is gaining ground, the digital information sharing is still nascent: less than 20% of sites enable users to forward content via email or social media and messaging channels.
- Portals evolving from tools into platforms. HCP portals are evolving from company‑centric publishing tools into experience‑led, AI‑ready platforms. As healthcare information discovery shifts to AI‑driven search, answer engines, and digital assistants and as HCPs expect more from digital, web‑based content and services are becoming a critical touchpoint. Content quality, structure, and credibility directly shape a firm’s information authority and visibility within the broader AI‑powered web ecosystem. By reducing friction, increasing transparency and access to relevant content, and investing in service, trust, and inclusiveness, pharma can create digital environments that better support HCP needs and increase their trust, satisfaction, and engagement.
Figure 6: Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) 2025: HCP web portals
One Channel, Many Strategies: Social Media at a Crossroads
Overall social media digital performance continues to advance, but progress remains uneven across the key performance pillars (see Figure 7). While channel experiences have broadly improved in line with websites, content strategy performance diverges markedly by platform and region, indicating that experience gains are not yet supported by consistently defined or scalable strategies. We see that:
- Social experiences are improving across platforms. Pharma firms are making social experiences more enjoyable and easier to consume, primarily due to the increased use of visual formats. Video animations and illustrations dominate public platforms, while LinkedIn relies more on infographics and structured visuals. The growing presence of charts and diagrams signals a maturing intent to translate evidence‑based and educational content into the social environment—moving beyond awareness toward practical value delivery.
- Social channels are prioritizing news. Pharma social channels continue to prioritize industry, science, and corporate news alongside disease information, disease management guidance, patient stories, and expert viewpoints from KOLs and digital opinion leaders (DOLs). These content types have expanded unevenly across platforms. Public channels like Facebook and Instagram tend to emphasize patient stories, DOL voices, and disease management, whereas LinkedIn has shifted to greater KOL participation and expert‑led dialogue. YouTube has evolved into a structured resource library rather than a high‑frequency engagement channel.
- The social publishing landscape has become more constrained. Pharma firms aren’t publishing as frequently on most platforms, including less co-created content and programs, initiatives, and collaborations with external partners like patients and HCPs. This is especially pronounced in the US: whereas nearly all social channels featured collaborative content in 2024, that fell to less than half of social media channels by 2025.
- European social media assets show a more balanced recalibration. While collaborative content volume and publishing frequency also declined in Europe, this was partially offset by greater perceived trustworthiness (see Figure 8). The rise in trust was accompanied by a greater proportion of co‑created content and better mechanisms for direct user engagement, suggesting a shift from volume‑driven strategies to relationship‑focused social presences.
- Fragmentation reflects external influences. The fragmentation in publishing patterns across regions and platforms underscores how sensitive pharma social media strategies are to external forces—particularly regulatory, pricing, and platform‑level dynamics. Realizing the full potential of social media will require clearer, more consolidated content strategies that are scalable, regulation-proof, and tailored to the evolving capabilities and norms of each platform rather than driven by short‑term constraints or platform‑specific experimentation.
Figure 7: Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) 2025: social media
Figure 8: Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) 2025: social media by geography
Digital is Becoming HCP’s Front Door — Is Pharma Ready?
Pharma websites hit an inflection point in 2025; tangible gains in satisfaction, trustworthiness, and overall experience narrowed the gap with traditionally strong field-based channels. As more HCP interactions are in digital channels and AI-enabled search and answer engines mediate information discovery, pharma must reposition websites, particularly HCP portals, as front doors for engagement rather than supplemental content repositories (see Figure 9). This requires moving beyond periodic content refreshes toward a more deliberate, AI-ready operating model, as AI-era expectations will only continue to raise the bar. Pharma firms should:
- Make their websites an inviting front door. Leading firms audit how AI systems surface brands, diseases, and therapy areas; rationalize and structure content to be retrievable, interpretable, and citable; and embed technical discoverability foundations like structured data, consistent metadata, and canonical pathways. They complement this by using open, non-promotional content to provide upfront value; tightening publishing cadences to signal freshness and completeness; and integrating practical services that reduce friction for HCPs. These steps transform websites into authoritative, continuously optimized destinations designed for usability, visibility, credibility, and reuse in the AI-driven information ecosystem to ensure that they remain current, useful, and worth revisiting.
- Anchor web and social content strategies in scientific authority and transparency. DX quality improvements are closely associated with stronger perceptions of credibility and trustworthiness, driven by a shift toward transparent, evidence‑based communication. High-performing assets increasingly exhibit the signals that both HCPs and AI‑driven search and response aids rely on to assess authority: scientific depth, transparent evidence, and validation by credible external sources. To sustain and scale these gains, pharma should align medical, regulatory, and communications teams to a shared content strategy that prioritizes scientific integrity over promotional volume.
- Make personalization, accessibility, and findability baseline digital capabilities. Broader digital experiences increasingly shape HCP expectations; personalization and accessibility have advanced, but industry adoption remains uneven. Leading firms reduce complexity and accelerate access to relevant information via modular content design; improved accessibility; and AI-driven behavior-based content recommendations, intuitive filtering, in-site search facilitation, and in-site natural-language-based, ML-proofed information retrieval. Firms should treat AI‑enabled findability—both within websites and externally—as a baseline capability to meet rising expectations for speed, relevance, and inclusiveness.
- Redefine social media’s role around trust, dialogue, and relationship value. While social media channel experiences keep improving, strategic fragmentation and declining publishing frequency highlight the need for clearer intent. Rather than optimizing for scale, pharma should define the role of each platform around trust‑building, meaningful dialogue, and long‑term relationship value. This includes greater emphasis on co‑created patient and expert perspectives, platform‑appropriate visual storytelling, and purposeful two‑way engagement that supports credibility over volume.
- Orchestrate web and social as a unified digital experience ecosystem. Isolated asset‑level improvements aren’t enough to meet rising expectations. Leading firms adopt a unified ecosystem approach, ensuring consistent navigation, messaging, and service pathways across web and social channels. Seamless movement between channels, improved shareability, and embedded feedback mechanisms reduce friction and reinforce trust, positioning pharma as a coherent digital partner rather than a collection of disconnected assets.
Figure 9: Five imperatives to make the HCP website the digital front door
Unlock The GDLB Advantage By Turning Insight Into Action
While the GDLB framework defines what drives great digital experiences, many firms still struggle to put its principles into practice. To make DX truly operational, pharma must embed content strategy, channel experience, and unification into content creation, channel design, and team collaboration throughout the HCP journey.
- Content strategy: Build relevance and credibility via structure and scientific authority. High-performing digital assets deliver content that is relevant to HCP needs, scientifically rigorous, and structured for clarity, trust, and reuse. Strong content strategies are anchored in comprehensive disease and product information, transparent evidence, clear scientific referencing, and meaningful external validation such as guidelines, trials, and associations. Leading firms are moving beyond brand-led silos to adopt a more holistic perspective that crosses therapy areas, connecting disease, treatment pathways, and services across brands to reflect how HCPs think and practice. Others still prioritize promotional volume over depth, coherence, and alignment across therapy areas, limiting HCP value and digital performance. Top performers align medical, regulatory, and communications teams to ensure that content is accurate, current, well-structured, and consistently expressed across assets and brands. Content strategy excellence is driven by completeness, credibility, consistency, and cadence—not quantity.
- Channel experience: Make information easy to find, consume, and act on. A strong channel experience enables HCPs to access relevant information quickly and easily via intuitive navigation, a clear information architecture, and formats designed for time-pressured clinical settings. High-performing assets prioritize simplicity, logical pathways, and easy-to-consume formats over feature overload while embedding personalization (e.g., behavior-based content recommendations) and accessibility features to meet diverse HCP needs. However, many sites still use complex navigation, dense layouts, inconsistent design, or limited inclusivity that cause friction. As information discovery shifts to AI-driven search and answer engines, firms must design channel experiences not only for human usability but also for AI mediation; this requires content, navigation, and services that are structured, accessible, and responsive. Leading companies focus on usability, clarity, inclusiveness, and interaction quality, ensuring that content isn’t just available but is discoverable, genuinely usable, and future-ready.
- Unification: Connect assets into a coherent digital ecosystem. Unification reflects how well digital assets work together as part of a connected, consistent experience rather than isolated destinations. Strong unification is driven by consistent navigation, aligned messaging, shared services, and seamless movement across websites and social platforms. However, many companies still operate fragmented asset portfolios, creating disjointed journeys for HCPs. Top performers design for cross-asset continuity, reducing duplication and friction while reinforcing trust through a unified digital presence.
Methodology
DT Consulting’s 2025 Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) study is an independent, unsponsored research program evaluating the maturity and performance of pharmaceutical company-owned websites and social media channels designed for HCP audiences. Conducted from March to September 2025, the study evaluated 534 digital assets from 15 leading global pharmaceutical companies in eight countries and four specialty areas, focusing on assets with HCP-relevant content and excluding clinical-trial-only properties. As the analysis of HCP web portals focused on ungated, prelogin experiences, company rankings and comparisons reflect the “open digital front door” experience: the content, functionality, and signals most consistently available to HCPs prior to authentication. We applied DT Consulting’s proprietary, customer-centric GDLB framework to evaluate each asset on content strategy, channel experience, and unification to identify best practices, performance gaps, and the key drivers shaping effective, trusted digital experiences for HCPs.
Related Research
- The State Of Customer Experience In The Global Pharmaceutical Industry, 2025: HCP Interactions
- The State Of Customer Experience In The Global Pharmaceutical Industry, 2024: HCP Interactions
- The State Of Customer Experience In The Global Pharmaceutical Industry, 2022: HCP Interactions
- The State Of Customer Experience In The European Pharmaceutical Industry, 2022: HCP Interactions
- The State Of Customer Experience In The US Pharmaceutical Industry, 2022: HCP Interactions
- The State Of Customer Experience In The Pharmaceutical Industry, 2021: HCP Interactions
Companies Researched In This Report
AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, J&J Innovative Medicine, Merck & Co / MSD, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi
About the Authors
Hannah Price
Senior Principal (New York)
Erika Krajčovičová
Associate Principal (Madrid)
Kumar Abhijeet
Manager (Bengaluru)
Purchasing GDLB Data
DT Consulting’s full global GDLB data set is available for purchase. It provides a deeper, more detailed exploration of the themes covered in The State Of Digital Experience In The Global Pharmaceutical Industry, 2025: Websites And Social Media report, offering rich, granular insight into the performance drivers, gaps, and nuances shaping web and social media digital experiences across the pharmaceutical industry.
It will offer:
- Company benchmarks by content strategy, channel experience, and unification
- GDLB digital experience scores for websites and social media
- Regional performance insights to identify best practices
- And much more…
For more information on the new GDLB report, email: enquiry@dt-consulting.com
About DT Consulting
We help life sciences companies lead their large-scale digital transformation efforts for continued customer experience success.
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DT Consulting’s Solutions: The Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB)
Our solutions leverage assessments and benchmarking data to provide tailored insights into critical aspects of your organization’s digital transformation efforts.
For heads of customer insights, digital, omnichannel, brand marketing, competitive intelligence, and HCP portal product owners.
The Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) is DT Consulting’s proprietary framework for evaluating the maturity and performance of pharmaceutical company-owned websites and social media channels. It enables organizations to understand how effectively their web and social media assets deliver against HCP needs – and where gaps in content, experience, and ecosystem integration are limiting impact.
DT’s Global Digital Landscape Benchmark (GDLB) helps pharma companies:
- Understand the quality and maturity of their digital experience across websites and social media
- Benchmark digital performance against leading pharmaceutical peers across markets, brands, and therapy areas.
- Identify strengths and gaps across the three core performance pillars: content strategy, channel experience, and unification.
- Track digital experience improvement over time using consistent, comparable metrics.
- Pinpoint clear, actionable opportunities to improve HCP relevance, trustworthiness, and ease of use.
- Assess how well digital assets are structured for discoverability, credibility, and reuse in an AI-mediated information environment.
- Translate benchmarking insights into prioritized actions across content, experience design, and ecosystem integration.
See the GDLB in action and better understand how it will help you improve your digital experience. If you would to understand how the GDLB will help you improve your digital experience via a free demonstration, please contact us at enquiry@dt-consulting.com.
