Case study # How a pharmaceutical company runs regulated content across 5 markets from 1 governed platform ![How a pharmaceutical company runs regulated content across 5 markets from 1 governed platform](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa59e5ec05a8cc267016b_cover_5_ff2f8a28.webp) Industry Healthcare Location European and Middle East markets Engagement 1 Year Focus Partnered with a top-20 global pharmaceutical company to build one platform where every page meets pharma compliance before it publishes, and a new country or brand site launches on the same governed base instead of rebuilding it Services Drupal Development Acquia Site Studio Migration tooling Compliance and Integration A top-20 global pharmaceutical company delivers regulated medical information to patients and healthcare professionals across many countries and therapeutic areas. Every page has to meet FDA and Medical-Legal-Regulatory standards before it reaches anyone. The company needed audience separation, compliance controls, multilingual content, and a fast path to launch a new country or brand site, all on one platform, so no market rebuilds from scratch. QED42 built that platform on Drupal and Acquia Site Studio. ![Healthcare website displayed on a tablet screen](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa5475a98dacb5283a17d_image_grid_mockup_01_d09d1653.png) ![Scientists conducting pharmaceutical research in a laboratory](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa555880ee2ee54747a97_image_grid_mockup_02_76e6fa83.png) ![Mobile contact form for a pharmaceutical website](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa55da5ca6bc2f585eb57_image_grid_mockup_03_0578a617.png) ![Veterinarians examining a calf on a livestock farm](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa569de30f970cf7054a5_image_grid_mockup_04_0ce02c69.png) ## Challenges Every page carries required drug disclaimers, safety information, and adverse-event capture, present and correct in every market before anything goes live. A control an editor can forget is a compliance risk, so compliance had to live in how pages are built. The same site serves two audiences who must not see the same thing. Patients and healthcare professionals need different medical content, and professional-only content has to stay behind verified credentials. The platform also had to move off Drupal's core Layout Builder onto Acquia Site Studio, the visual page builder used across the company's global sites. This was the hardest part of the engagement. Layout Builder stored layouts as serialized PHP objects; Site Studio stores them as structured JSON built from component UUIDs, and nothing converts one to the other automatically. Every page had to be rebuilt across 26 component types, and translations had to move as language variants were added to the base content rather than overwriting it. ![Layout Builder stored layouts](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa74ede2120b80faa6cbb_6a4f8beb4cc574abd3336238_Option_202_0cd070c0.png) ## Approach The team treated compliance as the fixed point the platform was built around. In regulated pharma, a page that looks finished but is missing a disclaimer is the real failure, so the controls for compliance, safety messaging, and audience gating were placed where they could not be bypassed, inside the editorial workflow. That set the order of the work. Editors across many markets needed one visual system they could build in safely, which is why moving every page onto Site Studio was worth the cost of custom migration tooling. ![Credential interstitial separating patient and HCP content on one site](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa74dde2120b80faa6c6c_6a4f86a3ca3696c8a9fc9351_6a4f7991f5c6e7bace23a177_Frame_25202147203226_6ccda267.png) ## Solution ### Compliance built into the workflow The required MLR disclaimer codes are placed automatically per page and per site inside the editorial workflow, so a page cannot be published without them. Important Safety Information is configured per site and per therapeutic area. The platform captures adverse events reported through any site in an FDA-compliant way, recording which site, operating unit, and environment each report came from. Compliance and safety reporting are part of the system, not a step an editor has to remember. ![Compliance and safety reporting ](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa74dde2120b80faa6c55_6a4f86a3ca3696c8a9fc932a_6a4f7adbd82c3b3db6fe068c_17_2520_2_e95df6db.webp) ### Two audiences, one site, enforced by credentials Credential interstitials verify a user's professional status before granting access to HCP-only content, so patients and professionals see different content from the same site. Field representatives can still reach professionals directly: a shared link validates the representative's identity through Auth0 and bypasses the interstitial for that professional, which improves portal adoption without weakening the audience wall. ### Layout and content migration onto Site Studio QED42 built custom migration tooling that unserializes the Layout Builder data, recursively traverses nested block content and paragraph references, and re-expresses each page as Site Studio JSON, mapping more than 20 component types to their Site Studio UUIDs. Translations migrated without overwriting base-language content. On that tooling, the platform absorbed a large-scale migration of existing content, articles, pages, events, and media across five markets. ![Custom tooling converting Layout Builder pages to Acquia Site Studio JSON](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa74dde2120b80faa6c4a_6a4f86a3ca3696c8a9fc932e_6a479bb68b7a7d32d41a859d_fd_53ab6ea8.png) ### A shared system that launches new sites A design system of more than 47 reusable components, from accordions and carousels to footnotes, key facts, and timelines, is shared across all country sites, which holds brand consistency and shortens launches. Site spinup and decommission run through a REST API that tracks which sites are active and who owns them, so a new market site is provisioned without manual infrastructure work. ![Editorial workflow placing MLR disclaimers before a page can publish](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa74dde2120b80faa6c43_6a4f86a3ca3696c8a9fc9334_6a479c05c6531270d82e1862_17-1_c3ab5505.png) ### Approved assets from Aprimo Regulated images and PDFs are managed centrally in the company's Aprimo digital asset management system and pulled into the CMS, so teams use approved, versioned assets rather than local uploads. ![Shared library of 47+ components assembling a new market site](/sites/default/files/clone-images/6a4fa74dde2120b80faa6c64_6a4f86a3ca3696c8a9fc9344_6a4f79a7f08824153d87fdc6_Frame_25202147203226-1_8c5c7a00.png) ### Third-party integrations The platform connects the systems each market depends on: Brightcove for video, SearchStax for search, Qualtrics for surveys, SMIT Unify for CRM, Adobe and Google for analytics, OneTrust for privacy and consent, and New Relic for performance monitoring. ## Outcome The company now manages regulated patient and professional content across five markets on a single platform. A page cannot reach the public without its required disclaimers and safety information. A new country or brand site is assembled from the shared library of 47+ components, so a launch reuses the system instead of rebuilding it. Patient and professional audiences stay apart by verified credentials, while field teams reach professionals directly through identity-validated links. ‍ {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://qed42.com/work/how-a-pharmaceutical-company-runs-regulated-content-across-5-markets-from-1-governed-platform#faq","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://qed42.com/work/how-a-pharmaceutical-company-runs-regulated-content-across-5-markets-from-1-governed-platform#webpage"},"mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do pharmaceutical companies keep every market website compliant without relying on editors to remember the rules?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Build compliance into the publishing system, not a checklist. On this platform, MLR disclaimer codes and Important Safety Information are configured per site and per therapeutic area and applied automatically, so a page cannot be published without them, no matter who built it. QED42 built this for a top-20 global pharmaceutical company across five markets, with FDA-compliant adverse-event capture on every site."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How fast can a pharmaceutical company launch a new country or brand website on a shared platform?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Faster, because the new site runs from a shared codebase rather than being built from scratch. QED42 gave a top-20 global pharmaceutical company a governed library of 49 reusable Acquia Site Studio components and a custom Drupal installation profile that configures every new site automatically. New markets are provisioned through Acquia Site Factory from the same codebase, so each site inherits brand, compliance, and content structure without rebuilding them."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Can one website serve both patients and healthcare professionals without mixing the two audiences?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes, when the audience boundary is enforced by verified credentials rather than assumed. QED42 built credential interstitials that confirm professional status before granting access to HCP-only content, so patients and professionals see different content from the same site. Field representatives share identity-validated links that let a verified professional through, so audience separation holds without hurting adoption."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How do you migrate an enterprise pharma website to a new page builder without losing content or translations?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Move the content programmatically and preserve every language. Migrating from Drupal Layout Builder to Acquia Site Studio, QED42 built custom tooling that converts each page from serialized PHP to component-based JSON across 20+ component types, with translations migrated without overwriting base-language content, so multilingual pages arrive intact rather than rebuilt by hand."}}]} ## Frequently asked questions ### How do pharmaceutical companies keep every market website compliant without relying on editors to remember the rules? Build compliance into the publishing system, not a checklist. On this platform, MLR disclaimer codes and Important Safety Information are configured per site and per therapeutic area and applied automatically, so a page cannot be published without them, no matter who built it. QED42 built this for a top-20 global pharmaceutical company across five markets, with FDA-compliant adverse-event capture on every site. ### How fast can a pharmaceutical company launch a new country or brand website on a shared platform? Faster, because the new site runs from a shared codebase rather than being built from scratch. QED42 gave a top-20 global pharmaceutical company a governed library of 49 reusable Acquia Site Studio components and a custom Drupal installation profile that configures every new site automatically. New markets are provisioned through Acquia Site Factory from the same codebase, so each site inherits brand, compliance, and content structure without rebuilding them. ### Can one website serve both patients and healthcare professionals without mixing the two audiences? Yes, when the audience boundary is enforced by verified credentials rather than assumed. QED42 built credential interstitials that confirm professional status before granting access to HCP-only content, so patients and professionals see different content from the same site. Field representatives share identity-validated links that let a verified professional through, so audience separation holds without hurting adoption. ### How do you migrate an enterprise pharma website to a new page builder without losing content or translations? Move the content programmatically and preserve every language. Migrating from Drupal Layout Builder to Acquia Site Studio, QED42 built custom tooling that converts each page from serialized PHP to component-based JSON across 20+ component types, with translations migrated without overwriting base-language content, so multilingual pages arrive intact rather than rebuilt by hand. ## Bring us your challenge We’ll help you get clear on what needs solving, that’s where we begin You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. Name Email Phone number Company name Message Attach brief *Supported formats are PDF, Doc, JPG in 4mb max. Yes, I'd like to hear from QED42 about our work, events, and updates. 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