Handling Presentation Design Challenges: 4 Essential Trends in Pharma and HealthTech

Handling Presentation Design Challenges: 4 Essential Trends in Pharma and HealthTech

Whether you come from one of the big Pharma companies or one of the new HealthTech startups, you need to handle a specific set of challenges to create a compelling presentation.

From our experience, there are few key ones:

  • First, it’s the complexity of medical and scientific data—we need to simplify it without losing its essence, ensuring it is digestible and engaging for the audience. 
  • Second, we need to showcase how the company follows regulations and compliance standards—any misstep here can undermine credibility. 
  • Finally, it’s critical to know the audience—whether they are doctors, medical representatives, patients, researchers, or investors—so we can adjust the messaging to make it clear and relatable for them.

To make the presentation design process easier, we’ve gathered a couple of trends and approaches that address these challenges and can help you succeed without reinventing the wheel. 

Challenges in Presentations for Health Industries

HealthTech presentations need to do more than just inform—they should be engaging, clarifying, and trustworthy across diverse audiences. Let’s start by getting more familiar with challenges that can impede success—be it a presentation, a pitch deck, or a one-pager. 

Presenting Complex Data

A common challenge among companies in the Pharma and HealthTech industries is the amount and complexity of information. 

To name a few:

  • Health statistics, disease rates, or treatment outcomes are all important types of data you may use to set the stage for why your work matters. But we should be careful with the amount and the format of numbers and figures since they can turn the audience’s attention away if not presented well.
  • Trial data is another type of critical information we need in order to communicate the key ideas and build trust. Yet, it often includes multiple phases and outcomes. We should provide quantitative data along with descriptions of intentions, work processes, and result interpretations without overwhelming the audience. 
  • From drug development to therapeutic treatments, companies in Pharma and HealthTech often deal with multi-step processes of how physical and chemical elements interact. Descriptions could be complex, including quantitative and qualitative pieces. 

To communicate all of this effectively in a presentation, pitch deck, or report, we often need to prioritize the key information first. After that, we decide on the style and presentation design tools we’ll use, including fonts and colors, data visualizations, imagery.

Building Trust

Companies in the Pharma and HealthTech industries often hold quite a responsibility. First and foremost, it’s for people’s health and even lives, then for substantial resources they need to get a new product to the market. Therefore, earning stakeholders’ trust may not be easy. 

We should factor this in while working on the presentations, pitch decks, and one-pagers by highlighting information that increases credibility. For the high-risk industries, this will be about norms and regulations in the first place: 

  • Data privacy

Managing personal information is a big responsibility for any company. With every issue, there’re big risks for those who provided data and the company's future. For instance, there’re HIPAA in the U.S. and GDPR in the EU that regulate data handling.

  • Testing accuracy

Companies in Health and Pharma are often very focused on accurate testing since unreliable results risk patient outcomes and damage reputations. Standards like cGMP in the U.S. and GMP in the EU provide guidelines for testing medical products.

  • Regulatory approvals:

Companies need to meet strict safety and efficacy standards before bringing products to market. It could be complex and costly but it creates an important layer of trust for the audience to rely on. The FDA in the U.S. and the EMA in the EU regulate whether the medical product is safe and useful.

Where there are high stakes, there is also an explicit need to show that the company can respect and follow the rules. This can be demonstrated in different ways. Some are effective and help the audience retain the information, while others are less impactful.

Speaking To Diverse Audiences

In Pharma and HealthTech, audiences come from all backgrounds—doctors, medical reps, researchers, patients, investors—each with different ways of processing information. 

Doctors and researchers might find oversimplified slides unprofessional, while patients can feel overwhelmed by technical terms. Investors, meanwhile, want clear outcomes, not just raw data, and may tune out if it’s too detailed or they don’t see what they need.

We need to adjust the company presentation or the pitch deck to fit each audience’s level of understanding and interests. Without that, there’s a risk of leaving the audience confused and disengaged.

Trends That Help Overcome Challenges

1. Data Visualization

For Pharma companies, as well as other HealthTech ventures, effective data visualization is essential to make complex information clear and engaging. Custom data visualizations are highly useful in cases of mixed multilayer data, while infographics, various maps, and charts work great for specific tasks:

  • Custom data visualization:

Custom data visualization is best where no single approach—like a chart or heat map—can tell the full story due to the data complexity. In these cases, we start by understanding the data structure and the purpose it serves. Then, we create a blend of visual formats to display information in the most relevant way to the current presentation purposes.

Examples:

  • Clinical trials

Mapping out trial phases, patient demographics, and key outcomes in a single view.

  • Patient journeys

Tracking the phases of patient care from diagnosis to treatment outcomes.

  • Disease surveillance

Layering maps and trend lines to show disease spread and risk areas.

  • Drug performance

Plotting safety, efficacy, and patient response metrics for new drugs.

  • Financial analysis

Breaking down healthcare costs to showcase spending patterns.

  • Risk models

Mapping health risks to highlight high-priority areas for intervention.

  • Charts

Charts are ideal for side-by-side comparisons and trend analysis. They can be used in presentations, decks, and one-pagers to show treatment outcomes, demographics, and cost distribution in ways that make it easy to spot differences and trends.

Examples:

  • Bar charts

Comparing drug performance across different age groups or types of treatment.

  • Line graphs

Showing trends over time, like changes in patient recovery rates.

  • Pie charts

Breaking down patient demographics or the distribution of treatment types.

  • Infographics:

Infographics work well for turning complex processes and layered information into straightforward and rather simplistic visuals that guide viewers through each point. They’re effective for summarizing research and giving step-by-step overviews and can be used across different materials, such as product presentation, investment deck, stakeholder report, or company one-pager.

Examples:

  • Step-by-step processes: 

Illustrating clinical procedures or treatment plans, like a cancer treatment roadmap from diagnosis to follow-up.

  • Study summaries

Condensing key data from clinical trials, with visuals for age groups, response rates, and side effects.

  • Risk-benefit analysis

Contrasting pros and cons of a drug or treatment, useful for patients and investors alike.

  • Heat maps and interactive graphics are useful for visualizing patterns across locations or categories. They can show the spread of diseases, track patient engagement with digital platforms, or highlight resource distribution across healthcare facilities. 

2. Storytelling

Whether you’re preparing a healthcare pitch deck for investors or a product presentation for one of the health conferences, or even a quarterly report for your stakeholders, storytelling will be your friend. It brings data to life, helping audiences connect with the material on a deeper level. 

Our brains process stories better than isolated facts. By wrapping data into a story, we make it easier for your audience to grasp the main idea and stay interested. Plus, by using storytelling, we can build an emotional connection, which makes the company’s brand memorizable and more trustworthy.

When patient stories aren’t possible due to privacy or any other concerns, we consider using a brand mascot or hypothetical case studies to build a narrative.

Below are some data visualization examples that use storytelling:

  • Case studies: 

Present a patient journey or trial participant story supported by key metrics.

  • Before-and-after scenarios: 

Use visual comparisons to highlight the effectiveness of treatments.

  • Impact metrics: 

Frame data around questions like, “What does this mean for patients, doctors, or investors?”

3. Minimalistic Design

  • Keeping design simple in data-heavy presentations

For presentations packed with data, we always make sure to avoid complex design. Overly detailed visuals will distract from the core message and make it harder for the audience to focus on what matters. By using minimalistic design with sufficient white space we can make a better emphasis on the data itself.

  • Sticking to branding

One of the key rules we follow in presentation design is consistency. Everything we create needs to be in line with all previous assets so the audience recognizes and trusts us. Although you may shift a bit the tone and style depending on the purpose and medium, you still need to stick to the fundamental brand guidelines, including tone of voice, colors, fonts, and visuals.

  • Focusing on relatability and clarity

Another fundamental thing we consider is industry standards. The audience may not be very understanding if we present a new medical device as if it was for entertainment purposes. And so, while keeping basic industry rules in mind, we should make clarity the first and foremost target. With clear layouts and simple language, we can make complex information easier to follow. 

4. Personalization

Adjusting presentations to a particular audience is the premise of clarity and further impact. While designing a presentation, we should consider that each group needs a separate approach:

  • Patients 

Want simple terms, with minimal medical jargon.

  • Medical professionals

More comfortable with specialized language—to them, it reflects professionalism yet only when used sparingly.

  • Investors 

Looking for information related to the economic side, such as roadmaps, competitive advantages, and market potential.

Finally, we should consider cultural, demographic, and gender differences. Therefore, we always suggest proofreading texts and imagery to avoid biases and ensure that every detail is inclusive and appropriate.

In Summary

Presenting about Pharma and HealthTech subjects always comes with a few levels of complexity, including hard-to-interpret data, challenges of building trust, and audiences with diverse priorities. 

However, if you have clear goals, understand your audience, and stick to priorities, you can effectively address the above with the relevant combinations of texts and visuals.

Then, if you need any assistance with presentation design, reach out to us and share your current challenges. We’ll get back in up to 48 hours with suggestions on whether we can be helpful for you.

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