How Direct-to-Patient Changes the Game

What you’ll learn:

What’s the strategy behind strategy?

Strategy is more fluid than ever across a landscape where market signals are more prolific and immediate. Traditional approaches that served us well in a linear, campaign-centric environment are no longer optimal.

Curated by Brian Kaiser, EVP, Head of Strategy, Klick has launched the Difference-Making Strategy series, explorations that reveal what happens when you dissect your craft… and then rewire it.

These conversations reveal how Klick is adapting its approach to strategy to lead the way in a rapidly evolving marketplace. From gaming to AI and storytelling to experiences, our expectations of strategy are growing to include more than ever before.

The Rise of Direct-to-Patient Expectations

From political pressure to shifting consumer expectations to the rise of agentic AI, the relationship between pharma brands and patients is undergoing its most significant transformation in decades. Brian Kaiser sat down with Chris Millsom, SVP Strategy, to discuss what’s really happening—and what it means for the future of healthcare commercialization.

Chris Millsom, SVP, Strategy

Brian Kaiser [BK]: The timing of our conversation feels spot on. Every headline right now touches on disruption: pricing, access, patient expectations. What do you see as the biggest force reshaping the landscape?

Chris Millsom [CM]: There’s a clear shift toward direct-to-patient (DTP) access. Patients are bringing expectations from retail to the space, including one-click convenience, social shopping, and frictionless discovery. While healthcare can’t replicate those behaviors exactly, the expectation remains: “If I want something, I should be able to get it easily.”: There’s a clear shift toward direct-to-patient (DTP) access. Patients are bringing expectations from retail to the space, including one-click convenience, social shopping, and frictionless discovery. While healthcare can’t replicate those behaviors exactly, the expectation remains: “If I want something, I should be able to get it easily.”

Political moves are accelerating this shift too, with price offerings in support of Trump’s Most-Favored Nation bill; manufacturer-led programs like AstraZeneca’s Patients Direct; TrumpRx launching in January [2026]; and even brands leveraging Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs. Strategically, this changes how brands launch drugs and engage patients.

BK: There is a distinction between a brand and the manufacturer. Consumers rarely engage with the latter. As companies like Pfizer and Lilly step forward in DTP, what changes [will occur]?

CM: It elevates the relationship. You’re no longer engaging strictly with “Brand X for Condition Y,” but with Pfizer or Lilly as a trusted health partner. Information, access, and advocacy are all now in one place. Manufacturer-led portals have the opportunity to strengthen trust, simplify experiences, and remove tension from the doctor-patient-brand triangle.

BK: Does this mean loyalty is shifting as well?

CM: Experiences tend to drive loyalty more than products. If a patient managing multiple conditions has to navigate three portals, two telehealth workflows, and multiple pharmacies, it’s more likely they’ll abandon the brand. But if one manufacturer can aggregate everything, much like an Amazon-style experience for medications, that simplicity becomes incredibly sticky.

From the Front Door to the Patient Ecosystem

BK: Speaking of Amazon-style experiences, where do you see the “front door” to this new ecosystem emerging?

CM: Right now, manufacturers are working to stitch together disparate systems, including telehealth, fulfillment, and support, into one central point of entry. It’s not seamless yet because the back end remains fragmented. However, agentic AI could foreseeably change that. Adding a layer with an AI agent over a messy infrastructure could potentially still deliver a unified and intuitive experience from the patient’s perspective.

BK: Let’s dig deeper into how AI factors in. Do you see it shifting the patient experience?

CM: Absolutely. First, it influences how brands are discovered, as a majority of consumers initiate their research with AI tools like ChatGPT. The emergence of zero-click search behavior is having a disruptive effect on the traditional digital funnel.

But it goes further than that. Natural-language agents will eventually help patients navigate the entire journey, from diagnosis through to telehealth, fulfillment, and adherence, across a range of solutions invisibly.

Strategy in an AI-Driven Reality

BK: When you advise clients today as they contemplate how DTP fits into their plans, where do you tell them to prioritize?

CM: Rethink your go-to-market strategies from the ground up. Smaller biotechs can move faster because they aren’t anchored by legacy systems or processes. They can architect unified access models from the start, while big pharma is having to retrofit.

But success requires deep alignment across marketing, sales, and market access. These aren’t campaigns or digital assets, they’re complete operational shifts.

BK: And what should an agency partner be doing differently?

CM: Integrate more purposefully. Strategy, technology, experience design, media, and managed markets must be aligned from the outset. The ability to prototype and pressure-test DTP ecosystems, not just creative, will define the leaders. A fully integrated model, like the one we have at Klick, gives us an advantage, especially with in-house data and AI resources that enable us to experiment quickly.

BK: What about strategists themselves? What skills are becoming essential?

CM: Three things are key.

First, harness a connector mindset. Bring all the right stakeholders together at the right time.

Second, embrace a relentless curiosity. The landscape is moving at a much faster pace and throwing off signals that demand your constant attention. Your understanding of what’s happening with your customers can get outdated in days.

And third, get comfortable with ambiguity. We’re doing things pharma wouldn’t have imagined even a year ago. What’s novel today will rapidly become table stakes.

BK: There’s been a lot of news happening around this topic recently. What has surprised you?

CM: The degree to which political and financial dynamics factor into the equation. The discounting models you see in the headlines often apply to small populations. They sound transformative, but don’t necessarily move revenue.

Another major shift is the FDA’s evolving priority review system. It could dramatically accelerate competition from legacy players, forcing smaller manufacturers to change their commercialization plans almost overnight.

BK: What excites you most about this moment?

CM: The ways that strategy itself is being reinvented. The game is changing in real time.

Everything ladders into the patient. By using data and AI in different ways, we are redefining what “getting your meds” feels like. It’s that rare moment when the industry gets an opportunity to reshape expectations rather than chase them.

Follow us for more Difference-Making Strategy conversations. To find out more about this topic or how Klick can help you redefine your strategies, contact Brian and his team today.

Klick Health is the world’s largest independent commercialization partner for life sciences and a leading full-service pharma marketing partner, serving as agency of record for leading pharma, biotech, and healthcare brands. Klick’s specialized offerings are rooted in deep medical and scientific understanding, including market insights, award-winning creative, and proprietary AI and data models to craft impactful brand narratives and seamless customer journeys. Backed by nearly 250 medical experts and advanced healthcare analytics, Klick delivers integrated marketing strategy and communications, from new product launch strategy to MLR review with real-world evidence, helping brands thrive in today’s complex healthcare landscape. Learn more at Klick.com.