Why Modular Content Is the Missing Infrastructure in Pharma Content Operations

In pharma, broken processes have a long shelf life. Content workflows are no exception — teams notice the inefficiencies, the duplicated effort, the review cycles that drag on for too long, but the perceived risk of changing anything keeps them from acting on it. The result is a kind of institutional inertia: everyone sees the problem, tries to deal with the symptoms by introducing AI tools or changing certain processes, but the conditions that would allow them to fix it never quite materialize.

Modular content in pharma has been discussed numerous times already. The frameworks exist. The case studies have been published. The platform vendors have made their pitch. And yet most teams are still producing content the same way they were five years ago — at higher volume, higher velocity, but diminishing HCP engagement.

Modular Content in Pharma: The Gap Between Theory and Reality 

A Deloitte global survey of over 190 HCPs and 50 pharmaceutical executives from the top 25 pharma firms found that 82% of life sciences executives are satisfied with their current customer engagement strategies — yet only 28% of HCPs feel those strategies meet their needs effectively. Leadership believes the strategy is working. The people it’s designed to reach disagree. The gap between theory and reality in pharma content is real, and it’s time to close it. 

The uncomfortable truth is that most pharma teams already know what good content looks like, but it’s the organizational conditions that make it nearly impossible to act on it. Until that changes, modular content stays on the roadmap instead of being fully integrated into the pharma content workflow. This prevents many organizations from realizing the benefits that early adopters are already experiencing. 

What Pharma Still Gets Wrong About Modular Content 

Even though modular content has been widely adopted across the pharma industry, most teams have only scratched the surface — held back by superficial implementation and a lack of attention to the foundations that make it work. Here are the most common mistakes pharma companies make. 

Mistake #1: Treating modular content as a content format 

Even though modular content marketing has been a trend for quite a while, many still view it as just a fancy name for templates. In reality, modular content is much more than another format: it is a different approach to content creation, which allows companies to create a system of pre-approved content blocks that can be reused across different channels.  

80% of pharma executives expect high cost pressure in the years to come. This includes content expenses, and with rising demand for high-quality content, creating high-value materials is becoming even more expensive. Introducing a modular approach is one of the main steps for any business seeking to reduce costs and increase ROI. 

Mistake #2: Separating content from compliance 

On average, it takes three weeks for pharma companies to get their content out. Two of those weeks, teams spend hours prepping for the MLR approval and waiting to obtain it. Compliance and pharma content are inseparable, and ignoring it is not an option. 

Content should be created with future reviews in mind to minimize time spent on revisions, editing, and rework. Instead of leaving all compliance checks to a separate team, content creators should consider current requirements from the start, making the process more efficient. 

Mistake #3: Designing for channels, not reuse 

Around 77% of content is created but never reused, signaling the need for a bigger, more structural change. While demand for content is growing, this does not automatically mean that the best next step is to produce more of it. 

Audiences across different channels consume different types of content, which often leads creators to produce separate pieces for each channel rather than repurposing existing assets. This approach results in significantly higher costs and reduced efficiency. Content must be designed for modular content reuse across different channels, which can help teams save money and time. 

Mistake #4: Expecting AI to fix unstructured content 

AI can save time in content creation, but it won’t be able to fix the lack of structure. AI tools are only as good as the environment they are put in. Feed them unstructured, untagged, inconsistently approved content, and they will provide exactly the same thing. Future AI MLR tools will prioritize centralized reference repositories, structured content blocks, and DAM systems containing pre-approved materials.  

Mistake #5: Treating it as a tool, not an operating model 

This is the mistake that underlies all the others. Teams adopt a modular content pharma platform, configure it for one brand, run a pilot, and declare the initiative complete. But the platform was never the point. Modular content is a way of working — and a way of working requires changes to how teams are structured, how briefs are written, how MLR is engaged, how agencies are briefed, and how performance is measured. 

This is precisely the problem that eWizard was built to solve. Rather than offering another content tool to layer onto an already fragmented stack, eWizard functions as an end-to-end content operations platform, one that connects modular content creation, MLR workflow, and omnichannel pharma marketing in a single environment. 

What High-Maturity Pharma Teams Do Differently 

Teams that make a modular approach a part of their HCP engagement strategy do a couple of things differently. Here is how they work.

Build around reusable, approved modules 

What differentiates a high-maturity team is treating the claims library as its primary content asset, which can serve as the backbone of a modular approach. The structured module library, a repository of reusable claims, visuals, disclaimers, and blocks of text, is where efficiency becomes tangible. High-performance teams start small and let the library grow organically by harvesting modules from existing content. 

Remember that governance also matters just as much as the library itself. You should not just modularize — you should decide what can and can’t be modularized. Focus on the content that drives the most reuse, and tie every step of progress to measurable outcomes. 

Align content, data, and channels 

High-maturity teams don’t build content and then figure out distribution. The planning for content delivery starts at the same time as content design. The best approach to content creation nowadays revolves around understanding what data tells you and how you can use that knowledge to understand in what way HCPs want to be engaged.  

Recent research shows that physicians are actively using over 10 in-person and digital channels to find relevant information for themselves. At the same time, HCPs won’t wait for you to catch up: if you can’t deliver personalized, relevant content, they’ll disengage from your brand entirely. HCPs are time-poor, and the smartest move is to align content, data, and channels before publishing anything — so that when HCPs do engage, what they find is actually worth their time. 

Embed compliance into the content structure 

Everybody in the industry understands the importance of compliance, but not every team builds pharma content operations around it. The most significant operational shift in high-maturity pharma teams is moving compliance from a bottleneck at the end of the process to a structural property of the content itself. As compliance issues arise or regulations change, automated systems can identify poor-quality content and route it into improvement workflows — keeping the entire library up to date without relying on manual audits, making compliance a part of the content structure. 

What “Thinking in Modules” Actually Looks Like in Practice 

Some creative teams think in assets. It can be an email, a detail aid, or a banner. Thinking in modules means working one level up: before any asset is built, you identify the claims, visuals, safety statements, and calls to action that will travel across all of them.  

The brief looks different 

Instead of briefing an agency on a campaign, high-maturity teams brief on a module set. What are the core claims? What evidence supports each one? What combinations are permissible? The brief defines the building blocks, and the creative work is an assembly, not an origination. 

The review process moves upstream 

The MLR team doesn’t check a full content piece; instead, they approve standalone content modules that can be later assembled into a fully compliant combination without the need to review again. You can cut MLR cycles significantly by changing just one thing: the type of content submitted for MLR review. Instead of sending huge articles or even complete campaigns every time, which could take a few weeks to approve at least, you can send components for future materials instead. Modular content strategy doesn’t eliminate long-form or bespoke pieces — it reserves them for where they’re actually needed. 

Local markets don’t need to start from scratch 

Global teams produce the core module library; local affiliates select, adapt, and translate from an already-approved set rather than rebuilding from scratch. What used to mean weeks of creation, rounds of global sign-off, and repeated revision cycles now becomes a question of assembly — and the time savings at scale are significant. 

How to Fix It Without Rebuilding Everything 

We have seen it ourselves: according to our estimations, pharma spends billions on content every year, but most of the content created doesn’t reach the main target audience: healthcare content professionals. 

Harvest before you build 

Start by mining existing brand assets for reusable content elements — slide decks, emails, sales materials, and web copy — to identify frequently used messages, claims, and visuals. This step is not only efficient but also helps ease stakeholders into the modular approach by showing how existing content can be repurposed rather than reinvented. 

Build the claims library 

Before touching technology or process, first work on creating the claims library. Build libraries of core claims, which are pre-approved statements about products substantiated by references, as the foundational layer of the modular system. Ensure that each claim has a linked reference and has been approved by the MLR team. 

Measure reuse rate 

One of the main KPIs for most content teams is the output volume. And while it is definitely a valuable performance indicator, on its own, it won’t tell much, especially when you switch to modular. Instead, track the reuse rate by brand, channel, and market, which will help you determine early if the modular system is working and if it’s not, where it’s breaking down. 

Co-create with local markets from the start 

Don’t leave your affiliates hanging, forcing them to wait weeks for approved batches of content. Shift away from this model by involving local teams in creating modules right from the beginning. This means identifying “must-win” markets early — the larger affiliates that operate with the most autonomy — and bringing them into the pilot rather than presenting them with a finished system to adopt.  

Use AI beyond content generation 

AI has many capabilities, and content creation is just one of them. Instead of only using GenAI to optimize your content workflows, use it to extract and index claims from existing content or create modular blocks from approved assets. Pharma content automation, even partial, can help reduce manual content tagging and minimize errors. Your approved content does not need to sit in a DAM for years waiting to be reused. With AI, you can quickly retrieve and modularize content for faster reuse. 

Know when not to modularize 

Not every content problem is a modular content problem. One-time content, which could be a product launch press release, a congress symposium deck built around a specific data readout, or a crisis communication, doesn’t belong in a reusable library and will clutter it if forced in. Modular content management is about focusing on the 40–60% of content that brings the most reuse and not trying to modularize all at once. 

Bottom Line: Modular Content Is Not Optional Anymore 

The teams that have built a modular content creation workflow properly are compounding their advantage with every campaign cycle. They review faster, produce more relevant content, adapt to channel shifts without starting from scratch, and are positioned to get real value from AI when their competitors are still arguing about taxonomy.