The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most lucrative globally, with the critical responsibility of ensuring fast and frictionless access to essential medical products. However, it also faces major challenges such as fraud and payment rejections, which can disrupt the experience across both B2B and B2C segments. Discover the key solutions that can drive growth and efficiency within this sector.
The pharmaceutical industry has experienced exponential growth since the pandemic, expanding from $1.3 trillion in 2020 (according to Statista) to $1.6 trillion last year, with projections to reach $3 trillion by 2027 (Towards Healthcare).
However, payment processing remains a critical challenge in a highly globalized sector, with high transaction volumes and strong demand across key segments such as wholesalers, pharmaceutical distributors, pharmacies, and end consumers.
This complex ecosystem creates a wide range of payment preferences that vary by region and market segment. Integrating the right payment options is both essential and complex in the pharmaceutical industry, as it requires extensive coding and additional efforts from technology teams.
Another major challenge is payment acceptance. The need to integrate multiple PSPs to support global payment collection scenarios adds significant technical and operational complexity. Furthermore, the lack of flexibility to route payments—enabling the right provider based on market or transaction type—often results in higher processing costs and lower approvals.
Fraud is a major challenge in an industry with global exposure, as evolving tactics vary across different markets. A smart, region-specific fraud mitigation approach combined with risk-based authentication is crucial for scaling operations securely—minimizing risk without adding unnecessary friction for legitimate customers.
These challenges often force pharmaceutical companies to rely on multiple providers and fragmented systems, complicating the process of generating real-time, unified reports and tracking the full transaction flow across various parts of the global supply chain.
Additionally, the global nature of the pharmaceutical industry—with multiple currencies, different taxation systems, and diverse regulatory requirements across countries—complicates reconciliation processes. This increases the risk of financial discrepancies, especially when managing cross-border transactions subject to complex regulations.
Payment orchestration platforms (POPs) deliver flexible, adaptable solutions tailored to the specific demands of the pharmaceutical industry, aimed at maximizing approval rates, reducing risks, and optimizing resources.
Simplifies the integration and orchestration of key providers through a unified ecosystem, dynamically configuring parameters to enhance performance and reduce processing fees.
With these capabilities, pharmaceutical companies can set specific rules by country or transaction type (such as amount, card type, and other factors), ensuring that each payment is processed through the provider that maximizes approval rates, improves costs, and minimizes fraud risk.
A unified infrastructure that enables quick integration of various payment methods, from digital wallets—widely popular in the B2C segment—to major card networks or other alternative payment options.
This flexibility allows pharmaceutical companies to meet diverse regional preferences and market needs, ensuring smooth transactions across the supply chain while reducing friction for both customers and partners.
Streamlines the integration of advanced fraud detection engines that identify suspicious patterns, mitigate risks in real-time, and adapt defense mechanisms to region-specific fraud tactics.
Additionally, adding risk-based authentication layers (e.g., 3D Secure) ensures minimal friction for legitimate customers while protecting against fraud. This approach also shifts chargeback liability to the card issuer, reducing financial risks for pharmaceutical companies.
A POP also centralizes transactional data from multiple providers and systems, harmonizing formats and ensuring end-to-end traceability for every payment.
For pharmaceutical companies, this means having real-time visibility into key metrics like GMV, revenue by country or sector, top-selling products, peak transaction times, or recurring payment methods—enabling data-driven decisions to optimize operations and mitigate risks in a complex, highly-competitive landscape.
All of these capabilities, available through DEUNA’s platform, not only enable sustainable and profitable growth for this industry but also strengthen the strategic value across departments, freeing up time from technical and operational tasks to focus on business core initiatives.
On these challenges and solutions, Matías Rodríguez, VP of Sales & General Manager at DEUNA, emphasizes:
"By seamlessly integrating payment solutions that address industry-specific challenges, DEUNA empowers pharmaceutical companies to scale globally with confidence, ensuring not only operational efficiency but also the ability to innovate and lead in a rapidly evolving market."
DEUNA provides a centralized solution that seamlessly adapts to the evolving demands of the pharmaceutical industry, offering the flexibility required to innovate and stay competitive.
If you are ready to embrace digital transformation in the pharmaceutical business, learn more at deuna.com or schedule a meeting here with one of our experts.
