27 GHP Q2 2026 Brand Medicine International was founded on Julia’s belief that understanding how people learn about healthcare online would empower healthcare communication specialists to better understand their customers. Her team taps into big search query data, a “living” dataset that evolves in real time, offering a reflection of the collective consciousness with representative insights for even the rarest diseases. This allows the team to harvest insights from what people are asking, the language they use, the emotions driving their searches, and more – including the information they are exposed to that shapes their behaviour. Belief in the untapped power of this data drove Julia to establish Brand Medicine International in 2020, creating a truly focused consulting and market research company capable of mining this invaluable resource to uncover powerful insights about healthcare stakeholders. Brand Medicine International is one of the first companies in healthcare to truly understand the digital information experience from the end user’s perspective, collecting powerful insights that inform strategy, messaging, and tactical investment. Since its launch, Brand Medicine International has developed global capabilities, now offering both quantitative and qualitative analysis across many markets and in most languages. Its team is capable of extracting and validating universal insights that are relevant across markets, as well as country-focused insights that demonstrate how the patient journey and treatment experience are influenced by local factors. One of the team’s most significant breakthroughs along this journey, however, has been answering one of Julia’s key questions concerning online healthcare dynamics: “How can we identify exactly which websites are most influential?” These are the publishers shaping the narrative, driving collective understanding of a topic, and therefore influencing behaviour within that category. This led to the development of proprietary software to quantitatively map the digital landscape, which the team refers to as a Share of SERPs analysis. Brand Medicine International then applied this software to research the most influential websites shaping decisions about the leading products subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) in Australia. In doing so, it demonstrated to regulators the scale of health-related questions being asked online and – in a market where regulation limits the pharmaceutical industry’s patient-facing voice – identified exactly which third-party sites are informing both patients and healthcare professionals. This What really happens when patients and healthcare professionals exchange questions for health advice online? Until Brand Medicine International developed its unique methodologies, this influential dynamic largely remained a blind spot, preventing the healthcare industry from truly understanding customer influences. Brand Medicine International is a specialist Search Listening agency dedicated to studying aggregated, anonymised search query data to generate healthcare insights. We spoke with Founder Julia Walsh to learn more and to celebrate the company’s recognition in the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Awards 2026. Leading Innovators in Healthcare Digital Analytics 2026 surfaced issues relating to misinformation that shape people’s relationship with their medications and have a profound influence on public health. After significant investment in this research, Brand Medicine International was able, for the first time, to identify the key websites influencing the use of complex prescription medicines in Australia. Once the volume of questions being asked was taken into account, it became clear just how influential these prominent websites were, with next to no representation from the locally based companies responsible for supporting the quality use of those medicines among their customers. Reflecting on these research insights, Julia concluded: “While our work to inspire regulatory reform is far from over – and is proving to be a multi-year effort requiring alignment across government, industry bodies, and healthcare representative organisations – this kind of research has been key to fostering an informed debate and making strides towards genuine, patient-centric reform that will improve public health outcomes through the better use of medicines.” “We want to make a difference. At the highest level, we want to ‘clean up the internet for patients’. On a day-to-day level, we are committed to helping people who are concerned about their health connect with the information they need to navigate the patient journey more effectively.” Looking to the future, Brand Medicine International is excited about what lies ahead. Following additional significant breakthroughs in predicting the websites that AI is most likely to cite in Answer Engine responses, the team now feels ready to integrate into a larger organisation, where it can offer its exceptional services on a broader scale. This strategic direction will build upon Brand Medicine International’s status as a Leading Innovator in Healthcare Digital Analytics 2026. “We know our methodologies are transferable,” Julia shared. “We’ve run successful internships to test this, as well as industry collaborations with universities. Commercially, we’re now ready to take our proven model, supported by this award and our growing client network, into a larger organisation where our unique services can complement an established offering.” Contact: Julia Walsh Company: Brand Medicine International Web Address: www.brandmedicine.com.au
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