Pharmaceutical companies understand the science of disease better than almost anyone. They also invest millions each year in patient education, awareness campaigns, and support tools designed to help people manage their health. Yet despite that investment and expertise, many in pharma still feel like uninvited guests in the digital health space, unsure whether patients truly want them playing a larger role in their care.
New research suggests the industry may be underestimating its welcome.
Just before the New Year, Fullspan Health surveyed nearly 1,500 patients across major disease states and common conditions to better understand how patients view pharma’s role in digital health.
One result stood out immediately: Eighty-one percent of patients said they are open to pharmaceutical companies providing digital resources to help them access care and medicine.
For years, the prevailing assumption has been that patients inherently distrust pharma. That perception is rooted in real historical data. However, our research suggests the trust gap narrows significantly when pharma-provided digital tools are doctor-informed, medically vetted, privacy-protected, and HIPAA compliant.
When consumers are assured that tools meet these credibility standards, trust rises to 78%. That’s extremely close to the gold standard: tools recommended directly by doctors, which earn 81% trust. In other words, when digital tools are built with the right clinical oversight and safeguards, the trust gap between pharma and doctors largely disappears.
This finding suggests the barrier may not be pharma’s involvement in digital health. It may simply be whether the tools are credible enough to earn patients’ confidence.
Our research highlighted three opportunities for pharma to play a meaningful role in the patient journey.
The Diagnosis Desert
The first opportunity appears before care even begins.
According to our survey, 55% of patients wait more than 1 year to receive a diagnosis, and nearly 30% wait more than 3 years. We call this gap the “diagnosis desert,” the long stretch when patients experience symptoms but don’t yet know what’s causing them. And for more than half the respondents, navigating this period of uncertainty was the single biggest challenge in their healthcare journey.
While pharma companies often hesitate to engage in the pre-diagnosis phase out of concern about overstepping regulatory boundaries, patients are already searching for answers wherever they can find them.
Increasingly, that means turning to AI and Dr. ChatGPT.
Disease awareness campaigns still matter. But awareness alone doesn’t help patients move through the uncertainty of unexplained symptoms. What patients need is guidance. Clinically sound symptom checkers, targeted digital pathways that guide patients toward appropriate specialists, and tools that help people schedule appointments can make a meaningful difference during this phase.
At Fullspan Health, we think of this as bridging the symptom-to-script gap—the distance between noticing symptoms and receiving treatment.
Today, many patients are wandering through the diagnosis desert. This is the year we bridge that gap. We can help patients find credible tools and explore care options before diagnosis and treatment, all while staying within regulatory boundaries.
The Reputation Hack
The second opportunity appears once patients begin navigating care.
The reality is that pharma does show up in digital health, but often in silos and places that are difficult for patients to find. The industry’s instinct has long been to provide information rather than utility. Millions are spent on brand-building ads, yet our research suggests that pharma shouldn’t stop there. Among those aware but not yet using tools from pharma, 77% would start if the tools offered the right utility for their needs.
In addition to brand awareness campaigns, patients also need system navigators—tools that help them manage the logistics of care, such as booking appointments, navigating prescriptions, managing refills, and getting real-time answers to questions whenever they need it, not just during call center hours.
This is where reputation is actually built.
When pharma combines information with genuine utility, the industry begins to look less like a marketer and more like a partner in care.
The Authority Advantage
The third opportunity addresses a deeper question: who do patients trust to guide them?
More than half of the patients in our survey believe that drug manufacturers should provide digital tools for managing their condition.
At the same time, patient behavior is evolving quickly. Our research found that 24% of patients already use AI monthly for health-related purposes, such as learning about treatment options or explaining lab results and symptoms in plain language.
As more patients turn to tech to interpret their health, the question becomes who they should trust to provide that guidance.
Tech companies are rapidly expanding into health tools, bringing massive consumer reach. But while Big Tech excels at consumer tech, like counting steps or tracking sleep, it cannot offer decades of physician-approved, evidence-based rigor.
Pharma can.
Pharma has the clinical expertise, depth of information, and treatment knowledge that Big Tech simply does not have. And that distinction matters to patients. From our survey, we know the strongest driver of patient trust in pharma tools is being physician-approved and evidence-based.
That is the authority advantage.
The opportunity now is to combine emerging tech like AI with pharma’s clinical expertise to provide specific, verified guidance on treatment options, side effects, and disease management.
But these tools cannot feel cold or purely clinical. Success will greatly depend on keeping these tools human-centered. That means building experiences that include coaching services, patient communities, or simple text threads where patients can ask questions; delivering content as bite-sized, AI-curated content playlists or infographics for learning; and reinforcing that these tools are designed to support—not replace—in-person physician care.
Patients aren’t simply searching for information. They’re looking for someone they can trust—and the organizations with the deepest clinical expertise are best positioned to provide it.
Four Thought Starters for Pharma
1. Patients are more open than pharma often assumes.
Eighty-one percent of survey respondents said they are open to pharmaceutical companies providing digital resources to help them access care and medicine.
2. Utility builds trust.
Patients are open to, and already using, digital health tools. If we meet the moment with awareness campaigns and utility offerings, we may improve outcomes and strengthen our relationship with them.
3. Patients need support across the journey.
In addition to the warmth and empathy we think of when it comes to supporting patients, pre-diagnosis and logistical support are also very meaningful.
4. Pharma’s advantage is expertise.
In a digital landscape crowded with Big Tech, pharma’s physician-approved, evidence-based rigor is its secret ingredient.
What Happens Next
Taken together, these insights point to several practical shifts for the industry.
First, organizations may need to reorient the role of marketing. Awareness campaigns will continue to matter, but a meaningful share of marketing and content investment should shift toward building the infrastructure that helps patients move forward in their care.
Instead of standalone websites that feel like information libraries, the next generation of patient engagement should focus on system navigators.
This shift also requires a different perspective on compliance.
Historically, legal and regulatory constraints have often been treated as brakes on innovation, encouraging companies to wait for “safe” versions of tech that end up resembling a more cautious version of Big Tech. In reality, compliance may be pharma’s greatest strategic advantage. The same regulatory rigor that slows experimentation also enables the development of physician-approved, evidence-based tools that patients trust.
The final shift involves how success is measured.
Engagement metrics are easy to track, but they rarely capture the real goal. When organizations focus their incentives on removing friction from the patient journey, they do more than improve their reputation, they increase the likelihood that patients start and remain on the therapies designed to help them.
Looking ahead, 2026 may prove to be one of the most consequential years yet for patient care. For too long, parts of the industry have operated with a quiet case of imposter syndrome, debating behind closed doors whether patients would truly welcome pharma’s involvement in their health journeys. Meanwhile, patients have been searching for guidance that only pharma can provide.
Patients don’t want more polished advertisements. They want brand awareness combined with the logistical bridges that help them find care, stay on treatment, and manage their health.
The invitation is already there. It’s time to accept it and become an essential part of the patient journey.
