Big pharma affiliates
Industries we work in

Big pharma
affiliates

Locally credible, inside a global framework you do not control.

Affiliates of large pharmaceutical groups operate under a global brand and compliance framework while still needing to be locally relevant and competitive, a genuine tension we build for rather than pretend away.

The sector
What is included

What working with big
pharma affiliates involves

What makes it different

An affiliate is pulled in two directions at once: global wants consistency across every market, the local market wants something that genuinely competes there. Sites built entirely outside the global framework create risk; sites built as rigid copies of the global template underserve the local audience.

See the state of pharma websites in Europe for how affiliate sites compare to the rest of the market.

What we deliver

Work that respects what is globally fixed while genuinely serving what is locally needed, technical structures that keep the affiliate site from competing with global or with other affiliates in search, and a working relationship with the global team where useful.

Aligned with global from day one

We work inside the brand strategy and governance your global team sets, and when a rule is ambiguous for the local market, we help bring that question to global directly rather than guessing.

case studies

Clients we've worked with

Real projects for industrial and pharmaceutical companies.
Affiliate track record
Track record

What our work with big pharma affiliates
has covered

The scope our work with big pharma affiliates has operated within.

+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
What we build for affiliates
What we build

What big pharma affiliates
actually need built

The build priorities for an affiliate differ from a standalone company. Here is what big pharma affiliates most often need.

How we work with affiliates
Four stages

How we approach a big
pharma affiliate engagement

Four stages, built around the specific tension of a global-local relationship.

BOUNDARY CLARIFICATION
01
01

What is fixed globally, what is locally adaptable

We clarify with both local and global stakeholders what is genuinely fixed and what can be adapted, since ambiguity here causes the most friction later.

What we clarify

We sit down with global brand and governance teams to establish precisely which elements — visual identity, core claims, approved template structure — cannot move, and which sections of content, functionality or messaging can genuinely be adapted for this market. That distinction gets documented, not assumed.

Result

Both the local and global teams sign off on the same written boundary before a single page is built. That removes the recurring back-and-forth where a local edit gets flagged as an infringement six months after launch, because everyone already agreed what was in bounds.

LOCAL RELEVANCE
02
02

What genuinely needs to be local

We identify what content and functionality actually needs to reflect the local market, distinct from what can responsibly be inherited from global.

What we plan

We identify what genuinely differs for this market — local reimbursement pathways, prescribing patterns, competitor landscape, regulatory disclosure requirements — versus what the global framework already covers adequately. Only the first group gets built fresh; the rest is inherited as-is to save time and keep consistency.

Result

Visitors from this market see content that actually speaks to their situation, not a direct translation of messaging built for a different healthcare system. That relevance is what makes the affiliate site useful rather than a compliance formality.

TECHNICAL COORDINATION
03
03

Not competing with global or other markets

We implement the targeting and structure that keeps the affiliate reinforcing rather than competing with global and sibling affiliates.

What we build

We set hreflang, region targeting and canonical tags so search engines route visitors to the right affiliate for their market, and so this site is not competing with global or sibling affiliates for the same search terms. Technical SEO here is a group-level exercise, not a single-site one.

Result

Search visibility accumulates across the group rather than diluting between overlapping affiliate pages. A person searching from this market lands on this site; someone searching from another lands on theirs, without the two cannibalising each other's rankings.

ONGOING RELATIONSHIP
04
04

A working relationship with global

We support an ongoing relationship with the global team rather than a one-time handoff, since the boundary needs revisiting as the market and brand evolve.

What we support

We set up a clear channel for the local team to raise a question when something falls in a grey area, plus a scheduled review — typically annual — where the boundary agreement itself gets revisited against how the brand and market have actually moved.

Result

As the brand evolves globally and the market shifts locally, the working agreement adjusts with it instead of becoming an outdated document nobody consults. That keeps the affiliate relationship functional years after the original build.

SEO and website design for Big Pharma Affiliates

How this work is approached specifically for Big Pharma Affiliates.

Big pharma affiliate questions

What comes up when working as an affiliate inside a global group.

Do you work directly with our global team?

Yes, where that is useful to the project, since clarifying the boundary between what global requires and what can flex locally usually moves faster with both sides in the same conversation from the start. We are used to working across that structure and can join global calls directly rather than routing every question back through the local team as an intermediary.

Can we deviate from the global template at all?

Within an agreed boundary, yes — most global templates leave room for local market data, regulatory disclaimers, and campaign-specific pages even where the core structure and brand system stay fixed. We map that boundary explicitly at the start of the project so local relevance does not quietly erode what global needs to keep consistent across every affiliate market.

Will this cause conflict with our global digital team?

It should not, provided the boundary between fixed and adaptable elements is agreed before build starts, since most friction in affiliate projects comes from ambiguity rather than an actual disagreement over direction. We typically resolve open questions in an early alignment call with both local and global stakeholders present, which is cheaper to run once than to unwind after launch.

Can this scale to a full multi-affiliate rollout?

Yes — the same governance model extends across many markets at once rather than being rebuilt per country, which is the specific problem a multi-affiliate rollout needs solved. See global website rollout for how we structure a shared core template with local layers, so each new affiliate market can launch faster than the one before it.

Other sectors we work in

Other pharmaceutical industries we work in

Related sectors worth reviewing alongside big pharma affiliates.

Big pharma affiliates

Talk to us about your
affiliate project

A local market that needs more than the global template offers. Tell us your situation and we will tell you how we would approach it for a big pharma affiliate.

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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