How a global pharmaceutical company is scaling privacy to match its direct-to-consumer transformation

As part of a major shift to direct-to-consumer healthcare, one of the world’s most prominent pharmaceutical companies partnered with Transcend to modernize its privacy infrastructure—automating high-volume workflows, reducing legal exposure, and laying the compliance foundation for personalized, patient-first experiences.

At a glance

• The customer: A global pharmaceutical leader with over 48,000 employees, $50B+ in manufacturing investments, and a fast-scaling direct-to-consumer platform, and known for category-defining treatments, this company is reshaping patient access through digital innovation and personalized healthcare experiences.
• The challenge: Legacy, manual privacy workflows couldn't keep pace with the company’s exponential data growth—driven by a direct-to-consumer pivot, real-world data collection, and digital touchpoints across mobile, web, and telehealth. Regulatory exposure, operational drag, and reputational risk loomed large.
• Why they chose Transcend: Transcend offered a modern compliance backbone to meet the moment—automating high-volume DSRs, integrating into 1,000+ systems, and supporting privacy as a board-level, brand-critical function in a new consumer-first operating model.

The challenge: legacy privacy systems were blocking a new digital era

In 2024, the company launched its direct-to-consumer platform aimed at transforming how patients access medications. With this shift came explosive digital growth: over 12 million new website interactions, a 190% increase in traffic, and new digital tools like the app to support patient journeys.

But this momentum came with mounting pressure.

Legacy privacy tooling, built on manual workflows and managed by overextended teams, was buckling under the weight of:

• Surging data volume: The shift to DTC created exponential growth in sensitive data from telehealth sessions, mobile app logs, pharmacy fulfillment, and behavioral analytics.
• Manual DSR workflows: Nearly 1,000 DSRs per year were processed manually. With new digital channels came new risks—delays, errors, and gaps in auditability.
• Siloed systems: No automated integration existed across core data systems like AWS, Workday, and Salesforce. Internal stakeholders lacked a real-time, accurate view of personal data use.
• Scaling risk & compliance: As a healthcare leader under intense regulatory scrutiny, the company needed to operationalize privacy at the speed and scale of its DTC growth, without growing headcount linearly.

The new DTC experience is well positioned to be the company’s growth engine… but it risked stalling without a privacy platform built to support at scale.

The need: a modern compliance backbone to support data-driven growth

This wasn’t just a privacy project—it was the foundation of a consumer-first transformation strategy. The company’s commercial, legal, and digital teams recognized that scaling a direct-to-consumer business meant scaling its privacy posture. With board-level oversight, a new customer data platform (CDP), and real-world data collection all underway, a modern, automated privacy infrastructure was essential.

The team needed a platform that could:

• Automate intake and fulfillment of a growing volume of DSRs
• Connect with over 1,000 internal and third-party systems, including AWS, Salesforce, and Adobe
• Serve as a system of record for data mapping, classification, and audit readiness
• Mitigate operational and reputational risk across new digital channels
• Support a crawl-walk-run roadmap with preflight validation, prompt-a-person, and ultimately full data classification

Critically, this was a cross-functional initiative spanning privacy, engineering, legal, compliance, and digital governance. Dozens of internal stakeholders were involved, reflecting the strategic weight of the program and the complexity of the enterprise architecture.

Why Transcend: real-time orchestration, operational efficiency, and scalable maturity

Transcend was selected for its ability to power a modern privacy architecture—one capable of supporting the company’s ambitious direct-to-consumer strategy while driving long-term operational excellence.

What stood out:

• Support for phased maturity: The company needed a solution that could scale in complexity without overloading internal teams. Transcend’s flexible approach, starting with preflight checks and automated prompting, and expanding into full data classification and real-time enforcement, offered the right foundation to grow privacy capabilities in parallel with digital product expansion.
• Operational efficiency at scale: Legacy DSR workflows involved manual handoffs across multiple teams, creating friction, risk, and lag. Transcend replaces that with fully automated fulfillment pipelines, SLA-based workflows, and centralized oversight, reducing internal burden and freeing up resources for higher-value work.
• Real-time orchestration of data rights: Transcend’s ability to connect into 1,000+ backend systems, orchestrate personal data across cloud, SaaS, and internal tools, and enforce user rights dynamically was a critical unlock. It enabled them to embed compliance directly into its infrastructure, laying the groundwork for safer personalization, trusted digital experiences, and compliant CDP activation.

Ultimately, this enterprise chose Transcend because it was not a bolt-on compliance tool—it was core infrastructure, purpose-built to meet the demands of a global, data-driven healthcare leader.

The path forward: building privacy infrastructure for the next era of healthcare

The company’s investment in Transcend reflects more than a need for automation—it’s a commitment to delivering trusted, compliant, and modern patient experiences at global scale.

By transforming privacy operations, they’re preparing to:

• Reduce manual fulfillment effort across teams and eliminate compliance gaps
• Gain full visibility and auditability of DSR workflows across 1,000+ systems
• Enable faster launches of their CDP and digital engagement tools
• Reinforce consumer trust across mobile, web, and telehealth journeys
• Scale their privacy infrastructure in lockstep with revenue and regulatory complexity

With Transcend, this pharmaceutical leader is transforming privacy into a strategic lever, enabling personalized, compliant healthcare experiences in a world that demands both.