Disrupting Pharma Data: AI That Heals Overload Into Insight, With Jeffrey Freedman
Pharma has spent decades accumulating data, only to remain rich in information and poor in clarity. With key connections between doctors, patients, and medical education buried beneath fragmented systems and outdated workflows, Jeffrey Freedman, Executive Vice President at Evolution Health Group, argues that AI is finally making it possible to turn that overload into insight.
TAMPA BAY, Fla., April 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Pharma is drowning in data but still starving for insight. On this episode of Disruption Interruption podcast, Jeffrey Freedman, Executive Vice President at Evolution Health Group, joins host Karla Jo Helms (KJ) to unpack why the industry still struggles to connect doctors, patients, and meaningful medical education, while AI begins to cut through the noise with more diagnostic precision.
As Freedman puts it, "Pharma and medical industry itself is data rich, but insights poor." His view is that the real shift is not the amount of information available, but the industry's growing ability to extract usable insight and turn it into faster, more informed action.
Why the Industry Still Struggles to Connect the Dots
Massive streams of interaction data, research signals, physician engagement, patient behavior, and market feedback have existed for years, but without the appropriate tools, extracting useful meaning from them has been painfully slow. The data kept growing; the insight did not.
A major part of the problem is fragmentation. Freedman notes that pharmaceutical companies have historically operated across disconnected spreadsheets, regions, teams, and data sets, creating information loss and making global coordination difficult. He diagnoses it bluntly: when employees work off separate spreadsheets and siloed data, "stuff gets lost, right? Stuff isn't integrated. You don't know what is happening on the other side of the world."
Freedman also pushes on a more controversial practice in pharma: the industry's reliance on direct-to-consumer marketing. He argues that too much money still goes toward patient-facing advertising and not enough toward educating physicians. "I personally believe that a lot more budgets need to be spent on educating physicians," he says. "We don't want patients all the time coming to a doctor and saying, 'I need a GLP-1.' I want the doctor saying to a patient, 'You have these issues, let's talk about how to make you better.'" The bigger issue is not visibility alone, but whether the right medical education is reaching the right people in time to improve patient outcomes.
A Remedy for Pharma's Insight Deficit
Freedman's prescription is not more data, but better systems for converting data into action. "You have to know how to ask the right questions," he says, arguing that AI becomes useful when it helps teams identify the proper physicians, key opinion leaders, institutions, and signals, before turning those findings into the next best action.
That same logic shapes how he sees the future of care. Freedman argues that better insight and faster communication can help move products from bench to bedside more quickly and more affordably, including therapies for rare diseases that were once too expensive to pursue. "We want the cost of medicine to go down," he says. For him, better technology should reduce noise, accelerate learning, and help doctors make more informed decisions for the patients in front of them.
At Evolution Health Group, that vision shows up in the platforms his team is building. Freedman describes the company as an "insight generation company," with tools designed to identify key opinion leaders, aggregate scattered brand and field data into a single source of truth and monitor digital conversations to help pharma understand what matters and who matters.
Through platforms like 360 Connects, 360 KOL, AIM, and its social-listening tools, the company is working to close the communication gap between brands, physicians, and patients. And, in Freedman's view, that work starts with correcting a bigger misconception about the industry itself: "Pharma is not this big scary monster that's put out there in the media. It's a bunch of people that really care."
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Disrupting Pharma Data: AI That Delivers Insight, Not Overload with Jeffrey Freedman
Disruption Interruption is the podcast where you will hear from today's biggest Industry Disruptors. Learn what motivated them to bring about innovation and how they overcame opposition to adoption.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfreedman/
Company Website: https://evolutionhealthgroup.com/
About Disruption Interruption™
Disruption is happening on an unprecedented scale, impacting all manner of industries— MedTech, Finance, IT, eCommerce, shipping, logistics, and more—and COVID has moved their timelines up a full decade or more. But WHO are these disruptors and when did they say, "THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT!"? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo "KJ" Helms, veteran communications disruptor. KJ interviews badasses who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have become antiquated with an establishment resistant to progress. She delves into uncovering secrets from industry rebels and quiet revolutionaries that uncover common traits—and not-so-common—that are changing our economic markets… and lives. Visit the world's key pioneers that persist to success, despite arrows in their backs at www.disruption-interruption.com.
About Jeffrey Freedman
Jeffrey Freedman is an operational leader, digital strategist, and healthcare communications executive whose work sits at the intersection of healthcare, technology, data, and innovation. He currently leads blulava and Maestro360, two core divisions of Evolution Health Group, where he oversees digital strategy, technology development, innovation initiatives, and creative programming across the organization. With more than 15 years of leadership experience spanning marketing, analytics, strategy, and digital transformation, he helps pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare brands turn complex information into actionable insight.
Freedman has more recently focused on integrating AI into the medical communications ecosystem, including the development of custom AI-powered platforms, internal tools, and governance frameworks that support responsible, scalable adoption. He began his career on Wall Street covering the pharmaceutical and technology sectors, later earned his MBA from NYU Stern, founded a digital marketing agency, and built his career around one consistent goal: improving communication, accelerating innovation, and helping healthcare deliver better outcomes for patients.
About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.
References
- DiStefano, M. J., Markell, J. M., Doherty, C. C., Alexander, G. C., & Anderson, G. F. (2023). Association between drug characteristics and manufacturer spending on direct-to-consumer advertising. JAMA, 329(5), 386–392. doi.org/10.1001/jama.2022.23968
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (n.d.). From the manufacturers' mouth to your ears: Direct to consumer advertising. fda.gov/drugs/special-features/manufacturers-mouth-your-ears-direct-consumer-advertising
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727-777-4629
SOURCE Disruption Interruption
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