At Reuters Pharma 2026, held in Barcelona, leaders from across life sciences came together to discuss the future of pharma strategy, patient engagement, digital innovation, and real-world evidence.

mama health joined these conversations to share how real-time patient insights can help commercial and medical teams build a more continuous understanding of patients.

During the conference, our CEO & Founder, Mattia Marco Caruson, presented how pharma teams are starting to move beyond limited patient input toward a more continuous, real-time view of patient needs, while our team engaged with leaders at the mama health stand throughout the event.

Across both the session and conversations at the stand, one theme became clear:

Pharma knows it needs better patient understanding. But most teams are still not set up to do it continuously.

The challenge: limited patient input vs. real-world patient experience

Many commercial strategies in pharma are still built on insights from fewer than 50 patient voices.

At the same time, most treatment decisions happen outside the consultation room, in the remaining 23 hours and 45 minutes that are not captured by traditional data sources such as clinical trials, claims data, or surveys.

This creates a structural gap between:

• what teams can measure
• and what patients actually experience in real life

For commercial and medical teams, this gap results in a lack of real-time visibility into patient needs, behaviors, and decision-making.

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Why pharma struggles to operationalize patient insights

Across the industry, there is strong alignment on the importance of patient-centricity and real-world evidence.

However, execution remains a challenge.

In practice, patient input is often:

• collected through small, predefined samples
• based on retrospective data
• fragmented across surveys, advisory boards, and research projects

While each source provides value, they rarely combine into a continuous, scalable, and actionable view of the patient journey.

As a result, teams are left with a familiar problem:

They know patient understanding matters, but they lack the infrastructure to make it current, consistent, and usable for decision-making.

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The shift: from static data to continuous patient understanding

At Reuters Pharma 2026, mama health presented how this model is beginning to change.

The shift is straightforward:

From static, limited patient input → to continuous patient understanding based on real-time insights

Instead of relying only on delayed or predefined data, teams are starting to understand what patients are experiencing as it happens.

This shift toward real-time patient insights in pharma is already being adopted by a growing number of top 20 pharmaceutical companies.

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Three ways real-time patient insights are changing commercial strategy

Real-time patient insights are not just an additional data source. They are changing how commercial and medical teams operate.

1. Earlier detection of market shifts

Real-time patient conversations reveal emerging needs and behavioral changes 6–12 months before they appear in claims data or traditional research.

2. More relevant HCP engagement

HCP interactions improve when teams bring real patient language and lived experiences into the conversation, rather than relying only on clinical or trial-based evidence.

3. New forms of real-world evidence

Patient insights can be structured into living, publication-ready evidence, enabling new ways to support internal strategy and external communication.

Together, these changes allow teams to move from reactive to more proactive decision-making.

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What real-time patient insights make possible

The conversations at Reuters Pharma 2026 highlighted a clear direction for the industry.

Real-time patient insights allow pharma teams to:

• understand patient needs as they evolve
• capture decisions made outside the clinical setting
• identify signals earlier and act faster

Importantly, these insights are based on what patients choose to share in their own words and on their own terms, creating a more complete and authentic picture of the patient journey.

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What this means for commercial and medical teams

For pharma organizations, continuous patient understanding has direct implications:

• faster and more informed commercial decisions
• more relevant and effective HCP engagement
• stronger alignment with real patient needs

Instead of relying solely on retrospective data, teams can begin to act on insights as they emerge.

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Looking ahead: the future of patient insights in pharma

The discussions at Reuters Pharma 2026 made one thing clear:

The shift toward continuous patient understanding is already happening.

The challenge now is execution.

Many organizations are still working with limited, delayed, or fragmented patient input. But a new model is emerging, one that makes patient understanding continuous, real-time, and actionable.

For pharma teams, the next advantage will not come from collecting more disconnected data. It will come from understanding patients continuously, in the moments where needs change, questions emerge, and decisions are made.

That is where patient experience becomes real-world intelligence, and where commercial and medical teams can begin to act with more clarity, speed, and relevance.