Shrinking Budgets and Rising Targets Pile Pressure on Pharma Marketers: Survey Highlights 2025 Challenges

A 2025 industry survey reveals that pharma marketers are facing increasing pressure due to shrinking budgets while being tasked with achieving higher targets12.

Physician and patient marketing spend has notably decreased, with physician budgets dropping to 36.9% from 47.5% and patient budgets to 21.3% from 25.3% over the previous year2.

Most pharma, biotech, and device marketers anticipate 2025 budgets to remain flat or only slightly up, averaging around $7.4 million, indicating a prolonged period of disciplined investment rather than significant growth2.

The top-ranked challenge among respondents is managing smaller launch budgets, with 60.7% rating it as a major concern, followed by economic pressures and issues in clinical development2.

Despite the financial squeeze, 70.1% of marketers see 'doing more with less'—through greater innovation, use of data, and digital content—as the leading opportunity2.

Pharma marketers are increasingly expected to justify return on investment (ROI) for each marketing channel, using data-driven approaches and real-time analytics to optimize impact5.

Sources:

1. https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/shrinking-budgets-and-rising-targets-pile-pressure-pharma-marketers-survey

2. https://www.mmm-online.com/features/healthcare-marketers-trend-report-2025-into-the-wind/

5. https://emulent.com/blog/state-of-marketing-report-for-the-pharmaceutical-industry/