For brand leaders, the challenge of a launch isn’t to create more content. It is creating the right message in the right format before asking healthcare professionals to make sense of a new therapy. In competitive categories, where differentiation can be narrow and stakeholder expectations are high, more assets create more noise, not clarity.

Launch performance has become more challenging, with most launches underperforming historical benchmarks since 2020. Average first-year launch sales fell from approximately $125M (2013-2019) to $77M (2020-2024) expectations. Among the common reasons for underperformance were poor differentiation and inadequate understanding of market and customer needs.¹ Additionally, recent data indicates a 25% increase in healthcare providers (HCP) adopting a therapy when a key opinion leader (KOL) adopts it. Importantly, without sustained therapy adoption, achieving revenue commitments post-year one is now more challenging. IQVIA data show that there was a 40% decrease in average first year sales during 2020-24 versus 2013-19².

Message effectiveness starts with a sharper question: What must HCPs understand, believe, or be ready to evaluate at launch?

Segmentation data determines which HCP to target (prelaunch), propensity to adopt, early HCP adopter attributes, and promotional sensitivity. This means moving beyond awareness to clinical context, and building readiness through credible disease education, evidence context, and patient insights.

The strongest HCP messaging is credible, relevant, timely, specific, behavior-aware, built for the moment that matters, omnichannel-ready, and measurable.

• Credible means grounded in evidence and compliant with the stage of development, highlighting scientific and clinical differentiation.
• Relevant means tailored to the HCP’s specialty, patient mix, and workflow.
• Specific means making the appropriate patient and clinical scenario easier to recognize.
• Behavior-aware matters because physicians make complex decisions under uncertainty and time pressure.

HCPs are already exposed to heavy engagement volume, and effective messaging must reduce uncertainty, fit clinical workflow, and make the right patient context easier to recognize. A PLOS ONE systematic literature review screened 6,439 studies and included 17 studies involving at least 9,834 physicians, finding that default settings (one option is pre-selected but the user is free to select another) and comparison with peers were consistently effective in changing behavior.³

Timing also impacts the message. In the 12- to 24-month prelaunch window, the launch team needs to focus on disease understanding, unmet need, KOL insight, patient journey barriers, and evidence gaps. In the six- to 12-month window prior to launch, the work should become more launch-specific but still be unbranded: evidence interpretation, patient identification, workflow considerations, objection mapping, and the formats and places HCPs routinely seek information and consume content; this can now be done more precisely using IQVIA data and insights.

For broad, highly competitive therapeutic areas, new therapy launches require disciplined differentiation: What is meaningfully different, for which patient, in what clinical context, and with what access or workflow friction? Rare disease launches require an earlier shift upstream. Small populations and limited natural history can make clinical trials difficult.⁴ In rare disease, HCP messaging often must clarify recognition, referral, diagnostic triggers, and evidence uncertainty before it can support treatment readiness.

The operating model, however, remains simple:

• Belief identifies what HCPs understand today and what needs to change.
• Behavior indicates what we want them to do differently.
• Message clarifies the belief shift.
• Moment determines when the message is useful.
• Format makes it usable.
• Metrics show whether readiness is improving.

Launch readiness should not be measured by content volume alone. It should be measured by whether HCPs are better prepared to understand the evidence, recognize the appropriate patient, and navigate the real-world decision context at launch. That is the new standard for message effectiveness.

As a brand leader, launching a new therapy encompasses balancing numerous, often competing priorities, and IQVIA Health Communications Group is here to serve as your strategic partner. IHCG represents a family of specialized communication agencies that are dedicated to help brand leaders turn data into belief-changing, behavior-aware HCP messaging — connecting evidence, patient context, behavioral insight, and omnichannel sequencing so launch communications are more clinically useful, not merely more frequent.

This blog is the second in a series exploring how to build launch readiness across four critical audiences: HCPs, KOLs, payers, and patients, and how an expert communications partner can make launch communications seamless.

Ultimately, launch success is measured by how effectively you prepare stakeholders to understand the unmet need, recognize the value of your therapy, and make confident decisions when launch day arrives.

References:

1. IQVIA, “Modern Launch: The New Playbook for Brand Commercialization in Pharma,” Oct 20, 2025.
2. IQVIA, “Identifying Healthcare's Hidden Peer-to-Peer Learning Communities,” Oct 07, 2021.
3. Wang SY and Groene O, “The effectiveness of behavioral economics-informed interventions on physician behavioral change,” PLOS ONE, June 4, 2020.
4. FDA, “Rare Diseases at FDA.” FDA defines rare disease as affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the United States and estimates 10,000-plus rare diseases affect more than 30 million people in the U.S.; FDA also notes small patient populations can make trials difficult and many rare diseases lack approved treatments.