How Pharmacy Innovation Is Changing Healthcare Delivery

A product receives market authorisation. It is clinically validated, commercially ready, and genuinely needed. Then it waits for a guideline review, cost evaluation, formulary decisions and three years later, it reaches an NHS patient. For pharma executives who have spent a decade developing that product, the timeline is not a surprise. But it is increasingly a choice, not an inevitability.Judit Mora, CEO and co-founder of Nuumad, joined Trisha Pillay on Digital Pulse to make the case that the route through the NHS is not the only route and that the channel most pharma companies have systematically ignored is precisely where the opportunity sits.The Blindspot That Is Costing Market AccessMora opens with a structural diagnosis that should concern any commercial or market access leader. When products are developed, the thinking defaults to two audiences: the patient and the clinician. Pharmacy which dispenses the product most of the time is an afterthought. This is due to innovation funding following the same logic as product development thinking; the gap compounds."Because this blind spot exists for big pharma, innovation funding doesn't even flow there," Mora says. "It's a self-perpetuating cycle, a lot of tech innovation comes out from incubators run by big pharma, and it's all linked to expectations on their product pipelines."The second failure point is equally familiar to those who have watched digital health initiatives stall: patient-facing innovation built without clinical pathways behind it. Mora's example is Babylon Health, a platform that positioned itself as AI-driven, relied on large volumes of healthcare professionals doing manual work behind the interface, and ultimately couldn't scale because real clinical triage doesn't follow a simple decision tree. "When companies launch 'this is a great patient app', what happens when you actually need clinical intervention? It's always an afterthought."Why the NHS Timeline Is a Strategic Problem, Not Just a Regulatory OneMora is measured about public healthcare systems. They are not broken. They are stretched, and the consequences of that stretch land directly on patient access timelines. The evaluation process the NHS runs is thorough by design: guideline fit is assessed first, cost is scrutinised after, with multiple steps between authorisation and formulary inclusion. For blockbuster products, the biologics in immunology that represent genuine step-changes in patient outcomes, even those remain second-line treatments not because the clinical evidence is weak, but because they are too expensive to deploy at a population scale. "A new product might take three years to get into the NHS and get in front of patients. If you're ill and there's a product that will change your quality of life, that's a significant burden."The private route Nuumad operates within doesn't displace the NHS pathway. It runs alongside it. Get an independent medical evaluation, make the product available through pharmacies or private clinics, and let patients who want earlier access make that choice. "It's a much quicker market access, and it opens up the possibility." The equity question is real, and Mora acknowledges it. But availability is a precondition for access of any kind.The Mechanism: A Prescription Without a PrescriptionThe model Nuumad has built centres on a Patient Group Direction, the same legal framework that enables NHS flu and COVID vaccination services to be delivered by pharmacy technicians and nurses without individual prescriptions. A PGD defines inclusion and exclusion criteria; a clinician who works through those criteria can dispense the product directly. No GP referral. No prescriber in the chain.What Nuumad adds is the clinical user experience layer that turns that legal document into a functional digital platform, one that guides a pharmacist or pharmacy technician through a gold-standard consultation, building clinical confidence as it does. "What we want to do is instil process thinking, even for non-prescribing clinicians who may have never run these types of services." The design goal is explicit: the platform should reduce anxiety, not create it. A clinician using it for the first time should feel guided, not exposed.On AI: Why Nuumad Is Deliberately Not Going ThereMora's position on AI in clinical workflows is a useful corrective to the current market noise. Nuumad uses AI for operational purposes only. Clinical decision support runs on deterministic, rule-based algorithms, and the reasoning is worth understanding. AI outputs vary when models are retrained or updated. In a clinical decision context, that inconsistency is not acceptable. European healthcare data models differ materially from the US datasets most large AI systems are trained on. And critically, AI tools in clinical settings still require human validation, which undermines the efficiency case entirely. "If you outsource your own healthcare thinking to a tool that may not give you the right answer, and in the process is not sustainable, why are you using it?" The accountability point is the one most operators haven't fully absorbed: when an AI tool contributes to a clinical error, the liability sits with the clinician who used it, not the manufacturer. "Very often when I ask pharmacists about this, they say: I didn't know that."The Commercial Opportunity Pharma Keeps OverlookingMora's closing argument is aimed directly at commercial strategy. Pharmacy is an underserved, high-frequency patient touchpoint. The regulatory infrastructure to use it as a market access channel exists. Patient demand is there. What has been missing is the organisational willingness, particularly in larger businesses, to pursue a route that doesn't have the NHS as the primary buyer. "Pharmacy is a big opportunity for businesses that want to innovate and are forward-thinking. Not to ignore pharmacy because it has its struggles, it is definitely ripe for new things." For pharma executives looking at three-year NHS timelines and asking if there is a faster way: there is. For more information on what was spoken about, visit Nuumad or connect with Judit Mora on LinkedIn.TakeawaysMarket access and new models for therapies.The untapped potential of pharmacy in healthcare.The role of user experience and product design in healthcare.Impact of public healthcare systems on innovation.Use of AI and digital tools in healthcare.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Market Access in Pharma03:53 Judith Mora's Journey in Pharma07:53 Gaps in Pharmaceutical Innovation and Patient Access11:53 Public Health Systems and Innovation Barriers16:07 Innovative Models for Non-Prescribing Healthcare Professionals19:58 User Experience and Product Design in Pharmacy24:10 AI in Healthcare: Opportunities and Cautions30:04 Closing Thoughts on Pharmacy Innovation