As upfront season kicks off, media buyers across industries are recalibrating their video strategies, determining both how much to spend and where to spend it. For pharmaceutical marketers, that charge increasingly leads to connected TV (CTV).

At AdLab 2025, marketing leaders took the stage to share how CTV is reshaping their media plans. Jeff Collins, President of Advertising Sales, Marketing, and Brand Partnerships at Fox Corporation, moderated the panel, “The State of CTV Within Pharma Advertising,” which featured Alice Harmon, Director of Omnichannel Analytics and Strategy at Lundbeck; Kevin Kammeyer, Director of U.S. Media Operations at Gilead; and Erin Nocito, Executive Director and Head of Global Media at Amgen. 

Whether you’re finalizing upfront commitments or exploring ways to diversify video investments, their conversation offered valuable insights into how CTV is delivering ROI, enabling agility, and opening new creative frontiers. Here are five standout takeaways.

Fox’s Jeff Collins framed the conversation by pointing out that there’s been “an explosion in new inventory, new supply into the marketplace and new scale that really gives a lot more capabilities to pharmaceutical advertisers.” Brands are recognizing this and the extraordinary potential of CTV, which isn’t just a line item in the media mix anymore. It’s becoming the main event. 

While many brands are experimenting with the right balance between linear and connected platforms, others have already gone all in. “We have [a] brand that’s 100% CTV now, that has moved away from the linear TV space,” shared Lundbeck’s Alice Harmon. “As we move forward, CTV is going to become more and more important… We have no choice but to move in that direction.”

This shift reflects broader media consumption trends. As audiences increasingly migrate to digital platforms, pharma advertisers are following suit. They’re finding that they’re glad they did: “We’re seeing the engagement, we’re seeing great ROI,” said Kevin Kammeyer of Gilead. “It’s an exciting time for us.” 

One of the most transformative promises of CTV lies in its ability to bring video advertising to niche and rare disease audiences. Amgen’s Erin Nocito noted that this capability has profoundly impacted her portfolio. “We have brands that are very small—we’re talking 1,000, 2,000 patients—and in the past video just wasn’t a way to effectively and efficiently get to them. That has changed.”

Kammeyer agreed, adding that the cost-efficiency of CTV is a key factor. “It’s a way for us to be able to now target through a video platform that we just couldn’t [before], and maybe smaller brands didn’t have the budget to be able to,” he said. CTV makes video campaigns viable even for precision audiences, allowing marketers to reach the right patients in the right context, with relevance and at scale. 

In many cases, CTV is surpassing linear TV when it comes to reach and awareness. With the precision targeting capabilities of connected platforms, many marketers are seeing stronger engagement and better returns. “We’re very ROI-driven, so we use a lot of modeling to understand how each of the different channels drives the outcome that we want,” said Harmon. “As of right now, CTV wins that battle.”

Nocito added that CTV’s performance metrics are prompting a shift in how video is evaluated more generally. “It has enabled more of an agile mindset when it comes to video, which has been powerful,” she said. 

Even as CTV opens new doors, looming regulatory changes in the U.S. have marketers preparing for a more complex future. Kammeyer shared that Gilead has an upcoming launch that has already been impacted by new legislation. “We don’t know what’s next,” he said. “We just have to be nimble.”

Nocito noted, “It’s required another level of internal connectivity on our side,” adding that she now has regular conversations around scenario planning with Amgen’s team in Washington, D.C. “I think there’s an opportunity here to continue to push maybe a little bit faster around what do our patients really want to hear and see from us… I’m hoping this moment of unknown moves that conversation forward and we see benefit at the end of the day, not just as scenario plans.”

CTV does more than just change where ads are shown. It changes how they’re made. Panelists spoke enthusiastically about the growing role of AI and dynamic creative optimization (DCO) in crafting personalized, relevant campaigns. DCO allows marketers to vary creative elements, like images, copy, or cultural cues, based on audience data in real time.

“We’ve been dabbling in DCO…it’s an added layer to our personalization,” said Kammeyer. “Certain ads are getting no clicks, others a huge uptake. That personalization is something our audience wants.”

There’s also a growing appetite for interactive creative formats. Harmon shared that her team is experimenting with interactive ads. “Those formats, whether it be a QR code or some other call to action, gives people a way to connect or respond to the ad in a quicker way.” Nocito discussed how the evolution of AI in creative will require collaboration with regulatory teams, but it holds enormous promise. “That to me is now the next level,” she said. “Content that feels relevant, at scale and with speed.”

As pharma marketers weigh their options this upfront season, the message from AdLab’s CTV panel was clear: the future of video is targeted, agile, and deeply connected to audience needs, while staying compliant. CTV is a critical part of the conversation, offering tools and flexibility that traditional media can’t always match. Brands that embrace this shift will be best positioned to lead in our rapidly changing healthcare and media landscape.

AdLab 2025 covered the most important topics in healthcare, marketing, and ad tech. For more key takeaways, click here.