DTC at a crossroads: The rise of direct-to-patient strategies to address care gaps and mobilize patients

Archit Gupta and Nikhil Mittal coauthored this article.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing in pharma is at a crossroads. Despite heavy investment in awareness, major brand launches from 2008-2025 underperformed forecasts by an average of $530 million in their first three years, revealing a hard truth: awareness alone doesn’t move patients to action. At the same time, traditional DTC faces mounting pressure from tighter regulations, shrinking launch budgets and increasingly complex patient journeys, especially for advanced therapies. As care pathways grow more fragmented, the limits of awareness-driven engagement are becoming impossible to ignore.

Pharma leaders can evolve beyond traditional DTC by embracing direct-to-patient (DTP) strategies that address real points of friction in the patient journey, from delayed diagnosis and clinical inertia to access and fulfillment hurdles. This white paper draws on ZS research and real-world case studies, outlining why many DTP efforts fall short and what separates high-performing programs from the rest. It offers a practical blueprint for designing patient-centric, clinically credible and data-driven DTP models that translate engagement into measurable impact.

Download the paper to learn how pharma can redefine patient activation and lead the next era of DTC.