AI & innovation, Content Strategy 19.11.25

‘Trust first, sell second: How to win HCP attention in 2025’ at Next Pharma CX

Stop pushing products and start answering the questions HCPs are really asking

At their NEXT Pharma Summit keynote, Varn Health CEO Tom Vaughton and Brandcast Health‘s Dan Buckland shared a critical message to a packed audience of healthcare and pharma decision makers, that simply having product information is no longer enough and we need to radically shift how we think about engaging with healthcare professionals (HCPs).

In their talk ‘Trust First, Sell Second: How to Win HCP Attention in 2025’, Tom and Dan made a compelling case for this change and their central argument was that trust must be earned, before a product message can be heard.

Tom and Dan argued that HCPs aren’t searching for your pharma brand; and they are not even asking sales reps their questions…instead they are searching on line and with new AI search tools, for answers to complex clinical challenges. They are turning to Google, ChatGPT, and other AI-powered tools looking for expert-backed, trustworthy information, and this is on their terms, not ours.

Brands need to listen and build trust first, not just try to sell

Tom and Dan stressed that brands earn that trust by demonstrating:

Understanding and empathy: Knowing the specific, contextual problems an HCP is trying to solve and the questions they are actually asking.
Domain expertise: Providing high-quality, evidence-based content.
Discoverability: Making that authoritative content easy to find.

The keynote acknowledged that the days of shouting louder are over, as winning attention now requires listening carefully. With the rapid rise of AI-driven search, pharma brands face a critical challenge in that they can’t afford to be invisible or unstructured. Tom highlighted that if your content isn’t authoritative and genuinely useful, AI systems, which are increasingly surfacing direct answers, simply won’t find or cite your content and your brand will become irrelevant at the very moment of clinical decision-making.

A practical roadmap to move from product push to a trusted partner

The session at NEXT Pharma Summit closed with a wealth of practical advice from Dan and Tom, offering pharma marketers helpful resources to navigate these changes. Some helpful pointers included:

Listen first: Use SEO and search analytics not just for keywords, but to uncover the real questions HCPs are asking about clinical guidelines, trial data, and patient management.
Respond with relevance: Serve high-quality, authoritative content that directly answers those questions, creating value before pushing product messaging.
Build strategic processes: Develop efficient, long-term content strategies that leverage digital channels and new AI search platforms, to nurture genuine relationships based on reliability and trust.

Building trust through discoverable, relevant content is the most direct way to drive meaningful engagement and recover commercial opportunity.

Exclusive insights and resources

As part of the keynote, Tom shared new research from Varn Health and Beacon AI on AI search usage among HCPs. The data offers fascinating, concrete insights into how healthcare professionals are adopting and applying AI, voice, and image search for professional support, fundamentally changing the patient-care journey and decision-making process.

If you weren’t at the NEXT Pharma Summit, don’t worry. We’ve compiled the research plus all the key takeaways, data, and practical strategies into a comprehensive resource kit to help your team make the necessary shift to trust-based marketing today.

By signing up, you will receive:

Our exclusive HCP research: The findings from Varn Health and Beacon AI on how HCPs are using new ways to search (including AI, voice, and image search).
Essential new AI search guide: The complete guide to the strategic and practical impact of AI search on pharma and healthcare brands.
Implementation guide + checklist: Practical steps to put the principles of trust-based marketing into immediate action.
Keynote recording: The full ‘Trust First, Sell Second’ keynote from Tom and Dan, available as soon as it’s ready.

This is your opportunity to stop being invisible and start becoming the trusted, authoritative source your audience is searching for.

Sign up to start building trusted relationships