Speed to market starts before the prescription
For years, “speed to market” in pharma has been treated as a downstream problem. Faster media activation. Faster message refresh. Faster optimization against performance signals. Faster bid optimization. But the uncomfortable truth is this: by the time most pharma promotional campaigns are activated, the most important decision a HCP will make has already been made.
Diagnostic lab tests ordered. Test results received. The diagnosis is confirmed. The treatment pathway is chosen. At this point, a reimbursement claim is submitted for an office visit however, it is not guaranteed it will show up in targeting data in 6 months' time.
Lab results never show up on a claims list. The office visit may or may not show up.
In a marketing paradigm defined by being at the intersection of the HCP/Patient dialogue -, pharma marketing is operating on a serious time delay.
The real customer problem: relevance comes too late
Most life sciences brands still rely heavily on claims-based data to identify and reach prescribing physicians. Claims data is valuable, but it is fundamentally a lagging indicator at best in identifying real-time treatment decision windows.
When a claim appears:
- The diagnosis is no longer in question
- The physician’s decision is no longer forming
- The patient has started on a prescribed therapy
At that point, marketing influence shifts from influencing a clinical choice to reinforcing one that’s already been made.
For pharma marketers under pressure to drive early adoption, improve launch performance, and differentiate in crowded therapeutic classes, this lag isn’t just inconvenient - it’s costly. It costs relevance. It costs efficiency. And most critically, it costs patients time and access to the right therapy affecting health outcomes.
Speed to market doesn’t start at prescription. It starts upstream, at the moment clinical intent begins to form.
Why claims data alone can’t keep up with modern medicine
Medicine is moving faster than ever. How we approach targeting hasn’t moved at all.
Precision medicine, biomarker-driven therapies, and complex diagnostic pathways now define large parts of the pharmaceutical landscape especially in oncology, rare disease, and chronic conditions.
Yet most audience targeting strategies are still built on the fundamental premise of an ICD code, past prescribing behavior and specialty - data points that only surface after treatment decisions play out.
This creates three systemic blind spots:
- Missed decision windows
Claims tell you who submitted for reimbursement 6 months ago, not who is actively managing patients. By the time a brand engages, the opportunity to influence is in the rear-view mirror. - Invisible physicians
Many clinicians involved earlier in the diagnostic journey, testing, referral, work-up, never appear in commercial claims but heavily influence downstream treatment. - Static segmentation in a dynamic journey
Claims-based audiences assume linear patient flows. Real-world journeys are anything but linear.
In a healthcare landscape defined by nuance and timing, lagging data indicators are no longer “good enough.”
Diaceutics: moving engagement upstream
Diaceutics was never built to reflect the past.
For over two decades, Diaceutics has specialized in diagnostic and genomic intelligence leveraging real-world lab, testing, and biomarker data to illuminate what is happening now across the patient journey. That perspective fundamentally flips the claims-first mindset that dominates pharma marketing.
Instead of asking, Who prescribed last quarter? Last year?
Diaceutics asks, Who is testing today? Who is about to decide? Who is actively managing patients?
This shift reframes audience targeting strategy from lagging indicators to diagnostic leading indicators.
It allows brands to:
- Identify HCPs at the point of diagnostic action
- Understand where patients are in real-time clinical workflows
- Engage earlier - when brands can influence clinician behaviors
That diagnostic intelligence becomes directly actionable through Diaceutics' partnership with DeepIntent.
From diagnostic intelligence to activation: where DeepIntent comes in
Real-time clinical insight only creates value when it can be activated.
Until now, diagnostic intelligence and media activation have lived in separate ecosystems. Pharma teams had access to claims-based audiences in their DSPs, but not the diagnostic signals that matter earlier in the patient journey.
By integrating Diaceutics' diagnostically driven audiences into DeepIntent's healthcare Advertising Platform, that gap closes. Pharma teams can now plan, activate, and optimize campaigns using live clinical signals, not outdated claims.
The partnership brings together:
- Diaceutics: real-world diagnostic clinical intelligence
- DeepIntent: purpose-built healthcare media activation with privacy safe, omnichannel reach
Together, they empower marketers to move from reactive engagement to intentional influence.
Acting on clinical intent - not historical behavior
Through the integration, marketers gain access to over 100 pre-built Diaceutics audience segments across general medicine, biomarker-driven oncology, and select rare diseases all available directly within DeepIntent’s Audience Marketplace.
What makes these audiences different isn’t scale for scale’s sake, it’s timing and clinical context.
Brands can now:
- Engage physicians as patients enter diagnostic pathways
- Activate media based on diagnostic clinical intelligence data, not the lagging indicators inherent in claims
- Reach “hidden treaters” who are actively managing patients but never surface in claims data
In practical terms, that means a campaign for a targeted EGFR+ therapy doesn’t wait until after treatment starts. It engages when EGFR testing is happening. Moving the brand upstream and into the HCP/Patient treatment dialogue.
That’s not just faster. It’s smarter.
Speed to market becomes a competitive advantage
When marketers can align media activation with diagnostic reality, speed to market stops being a constraint and becomes leverage.
- Marketing programs align with clinical intent HCP Engagement occurs during genuine decision-making moments
- Budgets work smarter by prioritizing clinicians who are clinically active now
The takeaway: the future belongs to brands that move earlier
Pharma marketing has spent years refining how it communicates. The next transformation is when it communicates.
The partnership between Diaceutics and DeepIntent gives marketers a new operating model one grounded in real-time diagnostic intelligence and activated where it matters most. Because in a world where treatment decisions begin long before the prescription is written, relevance depends on being early, not loud.
And speed to market starts before the claim ever appears.
Talk to one of our data experts today to learn more about our Diaceutics Audiences
