“HCP” is a useful abbreviation. It becomes considerably less useful when we ask it to double as an audience strategy.

Put every healthcare professional into one bucket, and your media plan may look wonderfully efficient. Whether it reflects the people making treatment decisions is another question. A tidy spreadsheet has never treated a patient.

For pharma brand marketers planning for 2027, nurse practitioners and physician associates, NPs and PAs, often grouped as advanced practice providers, or APPs, deserve a closer look. My view is that APP engagement needs its own place in brand planning, its own therapeutic-area intelligence, and a seat at the launch table from the beginning.

Three sets of IQVIA findings explain why. The numbers describe what has already happened. The planning implications are where I believe brands need to go next.

1. APP engagement becomes a core brand planning priority

According to IQVIA’s April 2026 analysis, NP/PA share of total prescription volume increased from approximately 21% in 2018 to 32% in 2024. That is an 11-percentage-point gain. IQVIA also reports roughly 7% compound annual growth in NP prescription volume and 6% for PAs over the preceding five years.

These figures capture only prescriptions attributed directly to APPs and likely understate their broader influence on prescribing. APPs often prepare prescriptions for physicians to review and sign, meaning that activity is reflected in physician totals. As a primary point of contact for many patients, APPs also help shape treatment decisions, extending their influence well beyond the prescriptions they write themselves.

My 2027 perspective: APPs should have explicit investment, content, and measurement in the brand plan. Their inclusion should survive the moment someone asks which line items can be trimmed.

That does not mean a 32% prescribing share automatically calls for 32% of your budget. National averages cannot tell you your brand’s optimal allocation. Therapeutic opportunity, existing coverage, engagement costs, and incremental impact should shape that decision.

Start by auditing how many relevant APPs your current plan actually reaches. Then assess whether those clinicians receive content built around their responsibilities. Adding NP and PA records to an existing physician campaign expands a list. It does not, by itself, establish relevance.

Give APP engagement its own performance view: qualified reach, meaningful interaction with clinical and access resources, and, where measurable, incremental prescribing impact. A blended HCP dashboard can conceal the very audience gap you need to fix.

2. Specialty intelligence becomes more valuable than a broad APP label

IQVIA reports that between 2018 and 2024, NP/PA prescribing share rose from approximately 15% to 25% in oncology, 20% to 31% in diabetes, and 19% to 28% in heart failure.

Those are three different care environments. A single “APP campaign” is unlikely to do all three justice.

My 2027 perspective: the useful unit of planning will be the APP’s role in a particular patient journey. Professional credentials are the beginning of that inquiry. We still need to understand patient mix, practice setting, prescribing behavior, and responsibility for specific treatment decisions.

Consider two hypothetical clinicians: an oncology NP supporting patients through treatment-related concerns and a PA managing diabetes follow-up. Both may value strong clinical evidence. The questions that bring them to your content, the resources they need next, and the peers they want to hear from may differ substantially.

Ask those questions before buying the media. Test whether a segment needs a deeper evidence discussion, a practical patient conversation guide, or a clearer route to access information. Validate channel and format preferences rather than assuming every APP wants the same short video. Even an excellent video can be an impressively expensive answer to the wrong question.

At LiveWorld, our strategic starting point is to connect audience understanding to creative, reach, and engagement decisions. That means using practitioner input to shape what gets built, then learning from how the intended audience responds. It gives marketers a disciplined way to direct limited budgets toward relevant experiences.

3. APP engagement starts before launch day

In its May 2026 analysis, IQVIA reports that NPs and PAs write 33% of prescriptions for newly launched products in their first year. For new prescriptions associated with launches in specific therapeutic areas, the reported shares are 38% in immunology, 47% in dermatology, and 53% in mental health.

Waiting until the next planning cycle to engage these clinicians is a curious way to pursue early momentum.

My 2027 perspective: APPs belong in launch preparation from the outset. Their input can help brands identify unanswered questions before those questions become expensive gaps in execution.

Include relevant APPs in prelaunch audience research and disease education. Explore what they need to understand the evidence, identify appropriate patients, and navigate the practical steps around treatment initiation. Use those findings to inform launch content, peer programming, and access resources, with branded communications introduced following approval.

Then test the experience. Can the intended clinician find the resource? Does it answer the question they actually have? Is the next step clear? These are modest questions with potentially significant budget consequences.

Turn APP understanding into a working brand capability

For 2027, I would put one question on every HCP brand-planning agenda: what decisions would we make differently if we understood the APPs in our therapeutic area better?

That question connects research to action. It can change an audience definition, a message, a channel choice, or the timing of an investment. The value comes from applying what you learn and measuring whether it improves the work.

Explore the future of HCP marketing

Download The APP Imperative eBook to learn more about the future of HCP and APP marketing and how to build engagement strategies that reflect the growing importance of NPs and PAs.

Put APP intelligence to work for your brand

Take the next step with LiveWorld’s APP Research Council of practicing NPs and PAs. Learn how to engage council members in your therapeutic area through a turnkey research-to-results engagement that turns practicing clinicians into your brand’s built-in APP intelligence engine. Explore how their perspectives can inform audience priorities, test messages, and shape tailored engagement strategies and tactics.

Learn more about LiveWorld’s APP Research Council!