Written by William Hirst • Published on 5th March 2025
Changing the world, one behaviour at a time
What gets you out of bed in the morning? In pharma, the ambiguous answer is ‘drugs’. But perhaps we should be asking: what are the drugs that get patients out of bed in the morning?
Access to medicines—especially vaccines—isn’t just about availability, it's about human behavior. What patients do and the drugs they want to take depend on psychological and social factors that it's pharma’s job to address, no matter where these instincts come from.
This feels like dangerous territory in 2025, with vaccine skepticism on the rise and an administration that seems to lend a sympathetic ear to the skeptics, but if we have nothing to fear, we have nothing to hide: it remains true that the best vaccines are the ones that people actually take, and while it’s our job to work with rather than against the government, if our products are good, we have a duty to tell the world about them. Accepting this forces us to think much more carefully about what it is that we’re offering patients, and tweak our positioning to ensure a sympathetic response.
From the fear of side effects to a preference for the status quo, there are many behavioral traits that understandably impact, either consciously or sub-consciously, whether a patient gets vaccinated or follows a treatment regimen.
Risk perception and fear of side effects often outweigh vaccine benefits, but clear, straightforward safety messages can change minds. Trust issues and misinformation can be major barriers, but building credibility through trusted voices can sway patient decisions. Status quo bias and the habit of delaying treatment can be tackled with simple nudges like reminders or easy access to information. Social influence and the power of peers means that when community leaders endorse vaccines, others are more likely to follow, driving uptake.
Behavior change
Understanding these challenges properly allows us to build out three clear ideals to change patient uptake behavior in a landscape that can feel hostile to science:
By applying behavioral science, pharma can transform the way patients access and use medicines—what’s the point in developing drugs if people don’t want to take them? Only when we understand what motivates people can we start building out solutions on a greater scale.
This is a hot topic at Pharmageddon, where we’ll be scrutinising our approach to these topics, finding new ways to engage with and change behaviour. If you’ve got something to say, you’d better buy a ticket fast.
Email Lucy Osborne at [email protected]
Thanks for being keen to join us in New York.
Our intention is to have one non-affiliated ‘patient’ for each team taking part.
If you are interested in being one of these, please write to Lucy on [email protected].
We also have a limited number of spaces for HCPs, media and others. Please write to Paul on [email protected] if eager to take part.
