Pharmaceutical website accessibility
EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 AA

Pharmaceutical website
accessibility

Accessibility decided at design stage, not patched after launch.

We build to the pharmaceutical website accessibility requirements your compliance team defines, against EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 AA, and we take the technical decisions that affect them while they are still cheap to change.

Scope
What is included

What accessibility work
on a pharma site involves

What it involves

Most accessibility failures on pharmaceutical websites are structural and inherited: brand colours that fail contrast, PDFs that were never tagged, carousels that trap keyboard focus, and forms whose errors are not conveyed to screen-reader users. Fixing them after launch costs several times what deciding them at design stage would have.

What we deliver

Accessible components with real focus states, keyboard-operable journeys, contrast that holds across the brand palette, form error handling that is announced properly, and documentation of the decisions taken.

Built to your compliance team's requirement

We build to the standard your compliance team defines, so the accessibility work lines up with the legal requirement they own rather than a separate opinion of our own.

case studies

Clients we've worked with

Real projects for industrial and pharmaceutical companies.
Accessibility in practice
Track record

Accessibility across
a real estate

The surface that pharmaceutical website accessibility work has had to cover in our projects.

+10
years building for regulated industries
+200
organisations have trusted Code
+1.500
documents migrated with their access permissions intact
+160
scientific papers in a single managed repository
Accessibility by segment
Who needs it

Where accessibility
actually bites

The obligation is broad, but the difficult parts differ. Pharmaceutical website accessibility work starts from which content type is the problem.

Accessibility process
Four stages

How we handle accessibility
on a pharmaceutical project

Four stages. In website accessibility the cheapest decisions are the earliest ones.

REQUIREMENT
01
01

Your compliance team sets the target

We start by establishing what standard applies to your organisation and what level of conformance is being asked for. That is a decision for your compliance and legal functions; our job is to build to it, not to interpret the regulation on your behalf.

What we establish

We confirm which standard and conformance level actually applies to your organisation, which properties and content types fall inside that scope, and who internally is responsible for signing it off. We also ask what documentation your team needs from us, because a compliance statement built on undocumented decisions is not something legal can stand behind later.

Result

You get a written target agreed before development starts, so conformance is something the build is measured against throughout, not assessed for the first time at the end.

DESIGN DECISIONS
02
02

Contrast, focus and structure before the build

Most accessibility outcomes are decided in the design, not in the code. Palette contrast, heading structure, focus visibility and component behaviour are resolved while they can still be addressed efficiently.

What we decide

We check contrast across the entire brand palette, including hover, active and disabled states that get overlooked when only the primary colours are tested. Heading hierarchy is set per template rather than left to whoever writes the page, every interactive element gets a visible focus state, and component patterns, menus, accordions, filters, are designed to be keyboard-operable from the outset instead of retrofitted.

Result

Because these decisions are made at design stage, the build does not need a second pass to fix contrast or focus issues that should never have reached development.

IMPLEMENTATION
03
03

Semantic markup and real keyboard journeys

The build uses semantic structure rather than styled divs, and every journey is exercised by keyboard as it is developed rather than at the end.

What we implement

We build with semantic landmarks and a real heading structure instead of styled divs standing in for them. Forms get properly labelled fields, announced state changes and error handling a screen-reader user can actually act on, and navigation, accordions and carousels are made keyboard-operable as they are built rather than patched afterwards. Media is given the alternatives appropriate to its type, alt text, captions, transcripts, as a build requirement, not an afterthought.

Result

We exercise the critical journeys by keyboard as development proceeds, because that single test, can you complete this without a mouse, is where most pharmaceutical sites we review fail immediately.

VERIFICATION AND DOCUMENTATION
04
04

Evidence, not assurances

We test the build and document what was decided and what was found, so your compliance team has something concrete rather than a claim.

What we check

We run automated checks across every template to catch the mechanical issues quickly, then verify keyboard operation of every journey by hand, since automated tools miss most real interaction problems. Contrast is re-verified against the built site rather than the design file, and screen-reader behaviour is tested on the critical paths, search, forms, restricted content, where a failure actually stops someone.

Result

You receive a dated record of what was tested, what was found and what was fixed, which is the evidence your compliance team needs to make its own accessibility statement rather than take ours on faith.

Pharmaceutical website accessibility questions

What regulated companies ask about accessibility obligations.

Does the European Accessibility Act apply to us?

That is a question for your legal and compliance team, not for an agency. Broadly, the EAA has applied since 28 June 2025 to companies above certain size and turnover thresholds that serve consumers in the EU, with EN 301 549 as the reference standard. Whether your specific properties fall in scope is a determination we would not make for you.

What standard do you build to?

We build to EN 301 549, the European standard referenced by the Accessibility Act, which in turn points to WCAG 2.1 level AA as the practical benchmark. If your compliance team specifies a different target, such as WCAG 2.2 or a higher conformance level, we build to that instead. Either way, we document exactly what was implemented against the standard so your team has a record to show if it is ever questioned.

What about our PDFs?

They are usually the largest gap. A site can pass automated checks while its patient leaflets and safety documents remain unusable with a screen reader. Remediating a large PDF library is a separate workstream, and it is worth scoping properly rather than assuming the website project covers it.

Can you fix accessibility on our existing site?

Often, and it is worth checking before assuming a rebuild. Contrast, focus, heading structure and form handling can frequently be corrected in place. What rarely survives is a site built entirely on a page builder with inaccessible third-party widgets, where the honest answer is that rebuilding costs less than patching.

Related pharmaceutical web development services

Other pharmaceutical
web development services

Accessibility work usually arrives with a redesign or a replatform, because that is when the decisions are cheapest. These are the services it sits with.

Website accessibility

Start your pharmaceutical
accessibility work

A new build that has to meet a standard, or an existing site your compliance team has flagged. Tell us the requirement and we will tell you how we would approach the pharmaceutical website accessibility work.

contact us
Contact Form

Tell us
about your project

Tell us about your organization’s context and the planned scope of the project.
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