Roughly 40% of U.S. prescriptions, about a billion scripts a year, are now written by nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) rather than doctors, per IQVIA and Harvard Medical School research. This is a structural shift, not a temporary anomaly.

Why this matters
Pharma HCP marketing has largely focused on the physician. NPs and PAs may sit on the same NPI target list, but they’re rarely mapped to the physicians they work with. That leaves brands targeting and quantifying HCP campaign impact in isolation and often missing the care teams that write nearly half of all scripts.

Steps to take
Listing NPs and PAs by NPI isn’t enough. Map them to the physicians they support so targeting, creative, and measurement reflect how prescribing decisions are actually made, not just who’s on the list.

How we can help
Mapping which PAs and NPs support which doctors is far harder than finding physicians, since the underlying data is messier. IQM has built and activated this expanded prescriber map so brands can reach the people actually writing the script. Fill out the form below to see how IQM can map the other 40% of your prescriber universe.