DHC Disrupt 2026

The era of passive health information is ending as patients increasingly turn to conversational AI for actionable guidance in their health journey. As this shift replaces the traditional engagement model, pharma marketers face a reality where standard media plans no longer guarantee brand visibility. To address this evolution, Fullspan Health will unveil new consumer research on the AI-assisted patient, the risk of trust associated with health AI, and where privacy barriers are still limiting adoption. During this session, industry leaders will demonstrate how brands can rise above the complex AIO landscape and move beyond information delivery to drive high-intent, real-world actions.

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Sometimes, the biggest breakthrough isn’t a new treatment. It’s seeing the disease differently.

New insights in genetics, diagnostics and disease biology are challenging long-held definitions of women’s cancers and changing what we believe is possible before a diagnosis ever happens. From hereditary risk to new understanding of where ovarian cancer begins, this conversation explores how democratizing prediction can transform not only how we detect cancer, but how we define, prevent and ultimately change it.

This session reframes growth through the patient leakage funnel- examining where demand is created, where it breaks down, and where coordinated intervention can most effectively improve outcomes for patients and care teams. Grounded in real customer challenges and powered by high-intent signals, clinical data, and digitally enabled care models, we will move from theory to execution- showing how organizations connect early intent to activation, support initiation, and reinforce continuity. Because growth isn’t driven by more demand- it’s unlocked by converting the demand you already have.

For decades, pharma marketers have been talking about “the right message, the right person, the right time” – so much so that it inspires an eyeroll. Not because the mandate was wrong but because we never had the tools to deliver on it at scale and with accuracy. AI and better data are changing that.

This panel is about how AI and data finally enable us to deliver on the promise of “right time”: the ability to identify, at the individual level, when a physician or patient is ready to receive a marketing message, and act on it. 

Two years ago, privacy compliance in pharma marketing was a constraint to be worked around. Today it’s an architecture — and the brands that built it first are seeing the efficiency gains. De-identified claims data is moving through governed cloud environments into activation. Contextual signal is reaching high-intent patients at scale without touching identity. Tokenized match-back is proving real treatment outcomes rather than clicks. These aren’t competing answers to the same problem; they’re layers of one working stack.

For two years, every conference has told pharma an AI story. What that story tends to skip over is that at most companies, brand, HCP marketing, and the field each work from a different list of the same doctors. Three teams, three audiences, one customer. Follow the money and the pattern is clear. The big holding companies have spent the last two years buying data companies more aggressively than AI startups, because the data that feeds the models is what actually creates the advantage.

This session is about the audience underneath the model. Two pharma commercial leaders join from opposite seats: an activation leader who has lived the integrated “after” at scale, and an oncology P&L owner whose number moves when the data underneath it works. The conversation gets into what it takes to get three teams onto one integrated, compliant audience, where organizations get stuck, and what to do over the next two years so data and AI investments compound instead of collide.

As healthcare marketers face growing pressure to demonstrate business impact, traditional metrics like impressions and reach are giving way to a new measurement playbook built on validation, transparency and outcomes accountability. This session brings together the marketer and media perspectives to explore how audience strategy, independent standards, third-party verification and evolving measurement frameworks are changing how healthcare media is evaluated and investment decisions are made. The conversation will examine what marketers should expect from their partners, how greater rigor and transparency can build confidence in both audiences and performance, and why trusted measurement is becoming increasingly important to demonstrating value and ROI.

Hear directly from the clinicians who are using AI, living with its effects on their work, and deciding whether to trust it. A breast imaging chief from Weill Cornell and an oncology nurse practitioner from Mount Sinai share where AI is earning a place in their practice, what they need to know about a tool before relying on it at the point of care, why their comfort drops when the patient is in the room, and who really decides which tools get adopted. Healio’s new research on oncology clinicians grounds the discussion. Most already use AI; few yet trust it enough for clinical decisions.

For the last 30 years, the video game industry has distilled the neurochemical recipe for engaging billions of people for ridiculous lengths of time – simultaneously rewiring their behavior.

In this talk, we will explore how brands can use this technology and neuroscience to precisely target HCPs and drive tens of thousands of deep, high-quality interactive engagements. Measure engagement time in minutes, not seconds – while captivated prescribers learn to diagnose, treat, and prescribe your brand.

As direct-to-patient programs become a core commercial growth channel, pharma marketers face a critical measurement gap: proving which media investments and sources actually drive patients from ad clicks to filled prescriptions.

Visibility often disappears the moment a patient leaves a branded experience for an online pharmacy or telehealth partner. Without measurement across the full patient journey, marketers struggle to ascertain which investments drive therapy starts, what it truly costs to acquire a patient, and where to allocate budget for growth.

This fireside chat will discuss how leading pharma organizations are rebuilding measurement infrastructure for the DTP era while navigating compliance pressures and organizational complexity.

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