Student Voices | Madhavi Bagchi (GABELLI‘12), Global Marketing Director at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Gives Students Insight into the Complexity of Pharmaceutical Marketing
Featured Events | May 29, 2025 | Gabelli School of Business
On April 9, Madhavi Bagchi (GABELLI‘12), global marketing director at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, joined graduate and undergraduate students for a virtual session about “The Unique Dynamics of Pharmaceutical Marketing.” The session was part of the Marketing Area’s Industry Speaker Series and was moderated by Timothy Malefyt, Ph.D., clinical professor and program director of the Gabelli School’s Online M.S. in Strategic Marketing Communications.
Bagchi highlighted how pharmaceutical marketing differs from other sectors, particularly in its focus on a complex ecosystem of stakeholders—including healthcare providers, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, insurance companies, and policymakers. She has experience managing marketing sales and cross functional teams and products in various stages of their life cycles, both in the U.S. and globally. “It’s like being the quarterback,” she explained. “You’re working across all these stakeholders, and people are coming to you with questions you’re accountable for—from profit and loss to driving bottom-line growth. It’s a big responsibility, but I think it’s a lot of fun.”
She also noted that the pharmaceutical industry operates under rigorous regulatory frameworks locally and globally. Marketers must balance educating healthcare providers, building brand awareness, enhancing corporate reputation, and continuously generating evidence on product efficacy and safety. We are moving from marketing directly towards healthcare providers to now putting the patient at the center and really personalizing around that patient. “Keeping the patient’s needs—and unmet needs—at the center is critically important,” she said. “It’s also about knowing how to tailor the messaging for products that serve multiple uses and diverse patient populations. And you can see there are many ways that marketing actually contributes to research, clinical studies, health technology assessment, regulatory approvals, product launches and then post commercialization as well.”
In addition to industry insights, Bagchi shared her personal journey into pharmaceutical marketing—one that wasn’t exactly linear.
“What’s interesting is that I’m here today talking about pharma marketing, but I didn’t study pharmaceuticals at all,” she said with a laugh. “God knows my dad tried to encourage me to go into medicine. I could never have imagined that 20 years later I’d be where I am today. But now that I’m here, I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”
Her career began with an internship at Northwestern Mutual, which led to a full-time role in financial services, sales, and insurance. Looking back, Bagchi credits her early sales experience with laying the foundation for her marketing career at Pfizer and now in her role at Ferring, where she is working on infertility advocacy.
“Marketing never gets dull, and it’s wild how much it keeps evolving, we’ve moved from having big data to data mining now to more predictive modeling and use of AI digital,” she reflected. “While pharma marketing tends do evolve a bit more slowly, healthcare marketing keeps me on my toes.”
Among the key pieces of advice she shared with students was the importance of deeply understanding one’s audience—an insight that applies across industries.
“It’s not just about being there to answer questions,” she advised. “It’s about going to industry sessions, staying curious, and understanding what’s happening on the ground and what’s becoming standard practice.”
Looking ahead, Bagchi sees a shift from big data mining to predictive modeling and the use of AI. She encouraged marketers to sharpen their skills in deriving actionable insights while staying true to the core purpose of their brand, their company, and the ‘why’ that drives future opportunities.
Written by: Amanda Lalezarian, M.B.A. ’26
