How AI in Sales and Marketing Is Rewriting the Rules of Pharma Engagement 

In pharma marketing, every interaction with an HCP is hard-won. Their time is limited, and their attention is focused on patients. That means brands can’t afford repetitive conversations that bring no value.  

Yet, 65% of pharma communications remain disjointed, according to Veeva Pulse. HCPs often get fragmented messages that don’t build on previous conversations. And in an industry where time is limited, that’s a serious problem.  

On the latest episode of Pharma Talks, host Nataliya Andreychuk speaks with Fredrik Holmboe about how AI for sales and marketing lets life sciences brands connect with busy doctors. 

Fredrik brings an unusual perspective to pharma. With a background in neuroscience, philosophy, and cognitive science, he entered the industry in the late 2010s because he saw a gap: pharma marketing needed to go digital, but there weren’t many good examples. Since then, he’s spent thousands of hours exploring how to use AI for sales and marketing. 

Breaking Silos with the ABC + Content Excellence Framework 

One of pharma’s biggest challenges is silos. Marketing, sales, and medical teams often work in parallel, creating fragmented experiences for HCPs. Fredrik’s team addresses this with their ABC + Content Excellence Framework, a three-workshop program over 4–8 months designed to optimize workflows in life sciences marketing.  

The framework aligns teams on messaging, persona strategy, and actionable next steps. It translates strategy into what Fredrik calls “next best actions” (NBA) for sales and field teams.  

Here’s an example of how this works in practice. Imagine a timeline from 2024 to 2026 for a key opinion leader (KOL) named Patrick. He’s evidence-driven and notoriously difficult to meet. If you can’t provide value, he won’t engage. On the timeline, each interaction is marked with a color: yellow for digital touches, white for attempted interactions that failed, and blue for in-person meetings.

At the end of last year and the beginning of this one, the timeline was mostly white dots. Patrick didn’t engage, which shows us that the value of previous interactions was rather low.

But two months later, he agreed to make a call. With the help of AI and the team’s framework, the sales team analyzed previous campaigns and defined five potential follow-up messages tailored to Patrick. Modular approved content acted as a guiding star for the conversation, helping the rep stay relevant and on message.  

After the call, the sales rep recorded a “brain dump” using a voice app on the way back to the car, answering five simple questions about the meeting. AI transcribed and structured the notes, and, because the rep had agreed to be recorded as an AI avatar, the system generated a script for the avatar. By the time the rep reaches the car, the video is in the KOL’s inbox, helping the rep team guide the next steps and personalize content for Patrick. 

This way, each interaction builds on the last, follow-ups are relevant, and KOLs like Patrick feel that every engagement is purposeful. 

AI Guides Us End to End 

AI is more than a content generator. It also:  

• Provides social listening insights to identify patient and HCP discussion trends. 

• Suggests which personas to prioritize. 

• Bridges commercial and medical databases to create aligned assets.  

Nataliya emphasizes that AI is most effective when the focus is on the persona, not the product:

It’s about having meaningful conversations, not pitching products.

Agentic AI further extends possibilities. With the right architecture, AI agents can access commercial and medical data, suggest content, and guide personalized interactions end-to-end. Brands no longer need to build complex ecosystems from scratch. They can integrate agents to complement their existing workflows and align with their unique organizational visions. 

The Future of Pharma Engagement 

Looking ahead, Fredrik predicts marketers will become orchestrators of AI, reps will rely on AI-driven sales enablement, and medical teams will safeguard accuracy of AI outputs.

AI isn’t automatically a solution, as it can actually make problems worse. HCPs have limited time, and if we’re not careful, AI could churn out a flood of irrelevant content, spamming already overwhelmed doctors.

The future lies in AI-driven personalization in pharma marketing. And to make this work, you need to break down silos between marketing, sales, and medical teams, so the model has complete data to feed on.

Avatars will play a big role in this new landscape. Imagine you have a conversation with an HCP, then generate a realistic AI avatar that recaps the discussion. When the HCP interacts again, the avatar reminds them of what was discussed and provides the exact information they requested, which is pre-approved and fully compliant. This is what the future of sales calls looks like: highly personalized and efficient.

Technology, whether AI avatars or agentic systems, is just a tool. Tech shouldn’t cost millions. It should be democratized, accessible to everyone, and used to accelerate wellbeing.

Agents are already showing their potential, but the value comes from AI and human collaboration. Technology itself isn’t a magic pill. Creative intelligence is. How flexible can you be? How actively can you participate in the end-to-end process? Answering these questions thoughtfully is what lets us stay effective and relevant in the age of AI.

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