Teva Pharmaceuticals’ Dipesh Patel on Building Digital Capabilities in a Trust-First Category

Summary

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BRAVE COMMERCE Podcast Summary

Episode: Teva Pharmaceuticals’ Dipesh Patel on Building Digital Capabilities in a Trust-First Category
Date: March 10, 2026
Hosts: Rachel Tipograph (MikMak), Sarah Hofstetter (Profitero)
Guest: Dipesh Patel, Senior Director of Transformation & E-Commerce for Global OTC, Teva Pharmaceuticals

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Episode Overview

This episode of BRAVE COMMERCE features Dipesh Patel, who recently transitioned from Unilever to Teva Pharmaceuticals, sharing insights on building digital and eCommerce capabilities within the over-the-counter (OTC) healthcare space. The discussion explores the impact of a mathematics background on business problem-solving, challenges unique to regulated pharma categories, the integration of AI, and the soul of transformation in a trust-first industry.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Dipesh’s Background & Early Influences

• Roots in Retail & Mathematics

  • Grew up above his parents’ newsagent shop, working in retail from the age of 6 or 7 ([06:30]).
  • Developed skills and values in hard work, entrepreneurship, and customer service early on.
  • Chose to study mathematics for its problem-solving structure and applicability to business challenges ([06:30–08:40]).

• The Power of Math in Problem-Solving

  • “It really allows my brain to train me to break down big problems into small, solvable chunks, which…is kind of what digital transformation is.” – Dipesh Patel, [07:03]
  • Mathematics helps Dipesh manage ambiguity, assess data, and optimize performance models in eCommerce.

• Curiosities & Academic Regrets

  • Admits he was always drawn to history but pursued math for practical reasons, calling history important for pattern recognition ([14:21]).

2. Transition from Unilever to Teva

• Similarities & Differences

  • Both companies are large, mission-driven, and consumer-focused, but motivations and cultures differ.
  • Teva’s German business is a market leader in eCommerce, but there’s more room for digital development elsewhere ([10:15–11:22]).

• Unique Challenges in Pharma

  • Unlike fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), “currency” in healthcare is trust and accuracy, not just speed and innovation ([15:22]).
  • At Teva, Dipesh is focused on building digital competencies largely from scratch rather than evolving an established system—a different kind of leadership and transformation ([15:22–16:49]).

3. The Role of Trust in OTC Pharmaceuticals

• Importance of HCPs
  • Health Care Professionals (HCPs) remain the primary source of trust for OTC product recommendations, even as consumer education diversifies ([17:47]).
  • The OTC category is seeing more “consumer brand” marketing but must balance innovation with regulatory rigor and consumer trust ([16:55]).

4. Harnessing AI in Marketing & Pharma

• AI’s Role in Pharma Marketing

  • AI dramatically increases productivity in content creation—briefing, copywriting, translation, etc.—but the “ultimate judge of quality is the human” ([19:07]; core quote repeated from [02:26]).

  • Regulatory guardrails and external checks remain crucial: “In pharma development, if AI can help speed up the process whilst having the same level of rigor—amazing” ([19:36]).

  • Notable Quote:

    “We need humans in this process because who can really judge the quality of content? Humans. But when AI has been really useful, kind of break down the content development process has been how do you brief faster?... But the ultimate judge of quality is going to be the human driving that process.”
    — Dipesh Patel, [02:26] & [19:43]

• Building AI-enabled Content Engines

  • “We can 10x the quantity of content that we produce...but if you don’t deliver content that’s really fit for platform, you will fail” ([22:23]).
  • Dipesh is piloting systems where claims hierarchies and messaging catalogs approved by regulatory are baked into AI systems—combining speed, control, and compliance ([23:07–24:19]).

• Risks & Opportunities

  • AI is already shaping consumer education and influencer engagement; internal teams must proactively guide AI content to ensure accuracy and compliance ([24:19]).

5. Industry Transformation & Mindset Shifts

• Transformation Approach

  • “At Unilever, it’s building on the Rolls Royce; at Teva, it’s building from scratch,” capturing the difference between optimizing and founding digital capabilities ([15:51]).

• Consumer Trust vs. Velocity

  • Dipesh highlights the tension between the need for rigorous, trust-led processes and the industry’s push to go digital quickly.

6. The Human Side: Bravery in Career Moves

• Personal Bravery
  • “Leaving behind…a high-comfort, high-profile role in Unilever and deliberately put myself into a context where…I’ve had to start again…I'm in the process of being brave, let’s put it like that.”
    — Dipesh Patel on career transformation, [25:56]
  • Addresses the courage required to shift industries and reset as a leader.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Mathematical Thinking:

  “Math is all about defining variables, isolate constraints, test scenarios and optimize…and then obviously massive data and what E-commerce and even the new forms of digital marketing, that isn’t data. Right?”
  — Dipesh Patel, [08:00]

• On AI & Content Creation:

  “Content is 70% of the ROI of all of advertising, if not more.”
  — Dipesh Patel, [22:47]

• On Industry Differences:

  “Trust and accuracy are the currency in healthcare…In CPG, speed is the currency.”
  — Dipesh Patel, [15:22]

• On Academic Regrets:

  “The subject I was most interested in and actually wanted to do at university was history…But I remember a conversation I had with my dad—he said, ‘son, you are my pension. Think again. What else are you good at?’”
  — Dipesh Patel, [14:21]

• On Leadership Transitions:

  “I’ve had to start again. I’m learning a new industry and a completely different set of contexts….I think it’s going to be one of my biggest growth accelerators, but I’m in the process of being brave.”
  — Dipesh Patel, [25:56]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Origins & Math Education: [06:30–09:57]
• Unilever vs. Teva - Mission, Scale, E-Commerce: [10:15–11:22], [15:22]
• Trust, HCPs, and Consumer Influence: [16:55–18:39]
• AI in Pharma Marketing: [19:07–21:20], [22:23–24:19]
• Influencer/Content Regulation: [24:19–25:45]
• Personal Bravery & Leadership: [25:56–27:05]

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Episode Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Dipesh’s story about working in retail from age six, developing a love for numbers and entrepreneurship ([06:30]).
• The candid admission that he’d have rather studied history but was pressured by parental expectations ([14:21]).
• The nuanced description of the difference between building digital muscle at an established CPG (Unilever) vs. starting afresh in regulated pharma ([15:22], [16:49]).
• Practical insights on integrating AI in marketing without losing human judgment or regulatory compliance ([19:43], [22:23]).
• Dipesh’s reflection on bravery—not through flashy acts, but by leaving comfort for professional growth ([25:56]).

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Takeaways

• Transformation in trust-based industries requires balancing innovation with regulatory rigor.
• AI can offer exponential gains in productivity, but human oversight is irreplaceable, especially in pharma.
• Building eCommerce and digital marketing capabilities in OTC pharma is as much about organizational mindset as it is about technology.
• Pattern recognition from both math and history aids in adapting to new categories and leading change.
• Personal bravery includes taking risks to reinvent yourself professionally, not just bold acts outside work.

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For Further Listening

• Past episode with Ryu, Chief Digital Officer of Unilever, for more Unilever alumni perspectives ([27:21]).

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Transcript

[Chelsea Bakken]

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[Sarah Hofstetter]

Acast powers the World's Best Podcasts Here's

[Dipesh Patel]

a show that we recommend

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[Dipesh Patel]

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[Dipesh Patel]

We need humans in this process because who can really judge the quality of content? Humans. But when AI has been really useful, kind of break down the content development process has been how do you brief faster? Can you produce more things at scale? Can you do voiceover and copywriting and transcreation and all of these things and get more for the same price, more for less in a much faster time? But the ultimate judge of quality is going to be the human driving that process. Do I think at some point in the future you get more agentic models doing more of the work? I think yes.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

Welcome to today's episode of Free of Commerce. I'm Sarah Hofstetter.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And I'm Rachel Tippograph. And this is a show that talks about what's relevant in commerce for the world's biggest brands. Sarah, let's set the stage. It's the 1980s in Queens.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

Where are you? Depends. Which part of the 80s? Well, in the fall of 88, I started high school in Queens and I had a very, very, I think, below the poverty line allowance. Like, I mean, not like the general poverty line, but among other 13 year old girls. My parents did not give me enough money, like for, you know, lunch, transportation, whatever. I did a decent amount of babysitting. I sold barrettes. I designed and sold barrettes.

[Rachel Tippograph]

So for people who don't know things. Clips in your hair.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

Oh, hair clips, right. Like, I'm sorry, I put myself in the 80s and I used the 80s lingo. What was Rachel like in the 90s in Jersey?

[Rachel Tippograph]

Also trying to make money, like literally selling anything in sight, whether it was baked goods, creepy crawlers, my services, which was essentially at that time teaching people how to rollerblade. That was the thing I could do really well.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

I love that, really.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Just hawking my time and figuring out how to make a dollar.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

I think it says a lot. One of the many in the rotation of interview questions I have is, you know, what was your first job? But like your cash job, when you hear the stories of people who didn't just do the standard, you kind of understand what they've got going on. And it doesn't matter what kind of background they come from. It's whether or not you've got either that hustle or drive or creativity or something. And what's interesting about Depeche is that he said he started his retail experience at the age of six. Now, you know, I don't know much about child labor. That does sound a little early.

[Rachel Tippograph]

But his parents were his employers.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

His parents were his employers. I don't know that that sounds entirely better, but it certainly sounds slightly better. But when you've got the bug, you've got the bug, you know, Absolutely.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, dipesh who Sarah and I knew from his Unilever days, is now going to talk to us about moving over into more of the OTC pharma category and how his young self has shaped his future self. So on that note, let's bring him onto the show.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

Today we are happy to have Dipesh Patel, senior director of transformation and E Commerce for Global otc, say that five times fast at Teva Pharmaceuticals, Depeche. Thank you so much for joining us. I know we've been waiting for a while to have this conversation.

[Dipesh Patel]

No, really excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

I'm really excited that we got connected, and I'm excited to get under the hood on this. But I want to start a little bit, like, just talking about your background, like your OG background, which is in mathematics, which we don't have a lot of on the show. So how have you applied that educational background to your roles over your career? And bonus question, what classes in uni did you wish you had taken for the job you have today?

[Dipesh Patel]

Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. That's going to say a lot about me. So I grew up in retail. My parents owned a newsagent. We used to live above the store. And so I kind of been working in retail since I was 6 or 7, having to go into the store or do the newspapers fill up the shelves? And so that kind of really rooted me in one numbers, and I kind of really enjoyed that. But also my values in hard work, entrepreneurship, customer service. And so then you kind of take that forward and you figure, oh, what are you really good at? Oh, I'm really good at numbers. So do math. At uni, that's the best way to utilize your skills. And honestly, everyone can say it's kind of a boring subject or it could be if you're not very good at it. But I think it gives you. Has given me four fundamental things I think really helped me in my career. So the first is really constructive thinking. It really allows my brain to train me to break down big problems into small, solvable chunks, which, if you think about it, it's kind of what digital transformation is. It's a roadblock of lots of different things as you go through a maturity curve and over a roadmap of. It's also shaped my approach to, say, ambiguity. You know, when you're working in E commerce, and both of you guys would know this for sure, this is just one problem after another problem of what was the root cause of the solution and how do you make things better? So when you're Working in frameworks or performance models or operating models, trying to weigh up options. Math is all about defining variables, isolate constraints, test scenarios and optimize. And I think that's probably just naturally into the kind of way I work. It's suited me really well. And then obviously massive data and what E commerce and even the new forms of digital marketing, that isn't data. Right. So it's a constant balance. It offers me really good signals between what is like real truth and then what is noise and what's in between. So I'd say, you know, it's given me a lot, but ultimately it fuels my curiosity. You asked me the question about your class I would have taken. My curiosity sometimes takes the better of me. I do remember I studied University College London and in the first year there was kind of selectives you could take and there was one course on offer called the Theory of Traffic Flow. And it sounds way.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Say more.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

I want to hear all about this. Yeah, I would have signed up for that. I never would have signed up for that now, but I would take it as a continuing ed class.

[Dipesh Patel]

You're kind of sitting there going, sit in this car. The signal on top of the road goes to 40 miles an hour. How does all this traffic kind of ramp up behind you and then speed up? And why is there so many traffic when there's no accident? I thought I'd love to learn about that. And so the theory of that got in my brain over this is this would be a great course to take. I even convinced three or four of my friends who I'd only known for, I'd say the best part of three months. Let's go take this course. Unfortunately, yeah, I think the curiosity was way more than the actual reality of the course. Yeah, I lasted, I think, two or three sessions and I was like, no, no, no, this is not for me.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

Oh, that's really unfortunate because I actually

[Rachel Tippograph]

want to learn that Sarah and I met you not in uni, but we met you when you were at Unilever and now you have this new gig at Teva. Curious what is similar and what is different now that you're what, a few months in?

[Dipesh Patel]

Yeah, it's been three months now. You know what I really, really loved about Unilever and I found really exciting and happy that I'm here in Teva is they're both really large and they're both very mission driven. Global organizations also have kind of deep heritage. So I really like that. The other things I would say are consumers really matter in both organizations. I think understanding consumer is really impossible also slightly different because the motivations differ in the different companies. And so those are. I say the two big culture is really profoundly important people at the heart of the business. I'd say more kind of functionally this is on a different scale to Unilever. But wherever you look the kind of pockets of this excellent business, excellent growth that kind of continue need to be harnessed consistently for global scale. And you know when I look at my first three months in Tepo, I've seen that in our Germany business which you know has nearly a third of its business in E commerce. And I look at the rest of the business and it's got a long way to be able to reach that. And so it's more for me kind of almost similar how you find these pockets really get rooted into what's working really well and try and scale that.

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[Chelsea Bakken]

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[Sarah Hofstetter]

I want to go back for a minute. I realize you didn't answer the bonus question. You told me the class you took that you didn't love taking, but you didn't tell me the class that you wish you had taken.

[Dipesh Patel]

Oh, good. Yeah.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

And I'm not a slave to the questions, but, like, your answer was so good. I really liked where you were going with it. And, like, there was so much that you said. Like, I love the whole thing about, like, math is about, like, big things and you break them into small chunks. Like, that's something that I've always done, but I am a math moron. And so when I listen to everything that you were saying, I'm like, wow, it sounds like, you know, you've really applied a lot of big things, so. And I love the fact that you started in retail at 6. Like, that's big, that headline. But what is something that you wish you had learned in uni that maybe now you're. You might be, like, almost overcompensating or trying to learn as you go?

[Dipesh Patel]

Yeah. I'd say it's a completely left field answer because the subject I was most interested in and actually wanted to do at university was history. And I'm still obsessed by history. But I remember a conversation I had with my dad, who was in a pub at Root Beer when I was planning to go to university. And I said, dad, I really want to go into history university. And he said, son, you are my pension. Think again. What else are you good at? And so I think I wish I'd done history.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

That is an acceptable answer.

[Dipesh Patel]

Is it acceptable?

[Sarah Hofstetter]

It's good because there are certain things about history that I think are really kind of important. Just the whole idea of pattern recognition, which is actually very similar to math, if you think about it. And so it kind of dovetails into Rachel's question about, like, the pivot from Unilever to Teva. What are the patterns that you are recognizing now that you're three months into that role of Teva?

[Dipesh Patel]

Indeed. Yeah. And like, everything, there are things that are similar and things that are, I'm learning now is going to vary different. Right. So obviously, having spent a fair chunk of the last three or four years in ptm, well, being part of Unilever, you know, speed is currency. Innovation is really, really important to kind of drive business growth. Whereas in healthcare, what I need to kind of learn, which I'm really excited about, is the things which are currency is kind of trust and accuracy. So I kind of need to learn, you know, where these kind of different things come from. But also I really like is that the maturity of the capabilities in both marketing, digital E commerce, it's really high, right? So what we're often trying to do when we're unilever is where are we right now relative to competition? How can we be leading edge? What's the thing that hasn't been invented yet? Where are the consumers going and can we lead consumers there? Can we build categories? I would say that maybe doing transformation, you're kind of building on the Rolls Royce rather than building the Rolls Royce. And I think here, if you think that kind of my problem solving brain has had to shift into how do you not have to break things apart to build, but actually build from scratch and use that as a way to leapfrog competition, Which I think is a different challenge. I would say easier challenge is a different challenge.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Is the lack of maturity category wide or just within the organization that you're working at?

[Dipesh Patel]

A bit of both, I think. Teva is broadly been a generics company, but actually is now kind of innovative biopharma company. If you look at the percentage of the business. But if you think of how the brain says kind of wired, it's a bit more in that frame of mind, which is a different type of marketing. And when you've seen a lot of the consumer health businesses, traditional pharma, the kind of moved separately or kind of listed separately or demerged from there, it's mainly because of the mindset being different rather than the category being different. So, you know, for us, one of our biggest brands is Pseudocram, which if you've ever lived in the uk, this is a hardcore household brand for, you know, new families. It's in the market theater in the Nappy Rat and one of the Naturally Rush cream. And it's number one brands globally in that category. If you think of how we talk to consumers, it's very consumer goods, right? So I would say that's very similar, not too different. But I'd say the category is opening and moving in kind of this direction. You see more creators being in this space. Obviously Derma Cosmetics kind of started that trend. The number one reason, every kind of research I've looked at since I've been here for the first three months is the number one reason consumers choose products and brands in the OTC category remains HCPs. Right? So the demand for trust and accuracy is still really, really important. And I'm sure that will shift, right? You see lots of transformation Elements. I'm sure we'll talk about AI.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yeah, you know, I'm curious. Every analyst is projecting that the next big disruption with AI is, is in drug development and that very quickly over the next 18 months, like the majority of drugs that are going to come to market are not developed by humans but rather by AI. And so how do you think humans are going to respond to the fact that their drugs are essentially being created by machines?

[Dipesh Patel]

I mean, that's very interesting. I mean, I'm not sure I'm the most qualified to answer that question. What I would say is AI has been really important across the board to drive productivity. Right. And everywhere where we have seen, and I can talk about marketing and E commerce, but if you break down the problem, generally the humans part of the process always really going to be needed. Right. There's a human quality to it. The things which computers do and AI can do is really speed up the process. Process. There's a lot of, let's say screening and testing and you know, that needs to get done. That takes a long time in pharma development. And if AI can help speed up that process whilst having the same level of rigor. Amazing, right? We had the same competition for the last three or four years on content development in marketing. Right. Which is we need humans in this process because who can really judge the quality of content? Humans. But you know, when AI has been really useful, if you kind of break down the content development process has been how do you breathe faster? Can you produce more things at scale? Can you do voiceover and copywriting and transcreation and all of these things and get more for the same price and more for less in a much faster time. But the ultimate judge of quality is going to be a human driving that process. I think that's there to say do I think at some point in the future you get more agentic models doing more of the work? I think yes. What I see in the pharma industry, which may be slower than maybe consumer goods, is the regulatory process is far more stringent. Right. And that will take probably longer to catch up. And also the people we partner with to deliver these products to consumers are extremely expert in their field. Right. So HCPs and pharmacologists and doctors, they want trust first and they need explicit proof that efficacy of the product works. And we want to make sure we continue to deliver that.

[Sarah Hofstetter]

I hear you and obviously that makes a ton of sense. And if we're going to go back to that point about the history classes you didn't take and pattern recognition. I remember working with a number of OTC companies back in 2010, 2011 that were reticent to get involved in social media because adverse reaction. If somebody said, you know, I tried this particular OTC product and my headache wasn't resolved, then you got to go report it to the fda, at least in the States. Trust obviously being super credible as well. But you've also raised instances where AI can help with workflow. AI can help with content creation. Obviously there's a human component on all of it, so maybe less on AR revolutionizing how a product comes to life. But my question for you is, as you've come to Tevan, you have a little bit of a blank canvas. Are there things that you've already started thinking about or doing that has AI helping the work work faster?

[Dipesh Patel]

Yes, it's one of those things where my brain works in kind of two speeds. Build your vision and your strategy and that might take time and you're going to learn, learn the business and learn some of the challenges and listen to people, really. But things I came in saying, look, we can 10x the quantity of content that we produce and I think the teams had already started to shift media mix towards digital and I'd say that's somewhat behind cpt, so it's kind of easy to think that way. But we know there's a lot of data and proof that if you don't deliver content that's really fit for platform, you will fail all of your results and ROIs will show that it doesn't work. And we know that content is 70% of the ROI of all of advertising, if not more. Right. So I'd say content was one of the first areas I really looked at. And how can Gen AI really help us scale that up whilst having control? Right. So the added control layer in OTC is, as you say, once the kind of messaging you can put out. But also here in digital at least, you know, there's a lot of external regulatory checking that needs to get done before a consumer can actually see some social asset or something like that. It hasn't reached my desk yet in terms of like blocker hasn't hit me in the face. I'm kind of in blissful ignorance around it right now, but I see where having a systemic thought behind it can really help. Right. So if you can clear with external bodies, kind of a claims hierarchy or claims catalog, if you can set a messaging catalog where you can really think through holistically, here's the things we're going to say here's things we're absolutely not going to say. And then within that, plug that into your gen AI system. So that is actually hard rules embedded into what we deliver. I think that can really speed us up and give us trust externally to try and operate with more volume, more variety and give us more velocity. The thing which I think is going to be really interesting to see is how we deal with creators and influencers, because I think increasingly in AI and Geo, because outside of HCPs, consumers are picking up all of their education from so many different sources now, and you almost have to be there, otherwise, you know, there's potential of picking up incorrect information or potentially, you know, nuisance information, which could be bad for you. So I think the period of time, as you're saying, where there was a risk aversion internally, we may have kind of passed that hurdle. Now, as part of my job, really, to kind of continue to educate the teams internally, whether it's in your pharmalogical team or the medical affairs team, to say, look, how do we address it? How do we get ahead of this problem? Because AI isn't really going to wait for us, right? Someone is going to go into ChatGPT and say, how do we. What's the best use of this product? And if it's out in the marketplace, they will find an answer. So it's better that that answer comes

[Rachel Tippograph]

from, well, there's an incredible amount of change that is certain. And we have to ask you our famous last question, which is, what's the bravest thing you've ever done?

[Dipesh Patel]

I was looking forward to this question. I think the. I was listening to the last podcast from you guys and I know one of my colleagues, Ken McFarland, was on maybe a year, year and a half ago, and he talked about doing skydiving, and then a couple of others talked about becoming a parent. And I'd say that's probably one of the things anyone can do because it really changes the way you behave and you kind of have something to look after that's bigger than yourself. So I won't do those. Even though I'd say those are probably the two bravest things I've done. Maybe for this one, I'd say, look, leaving behind, I'm gonna call it high comfort, but a high comfort, high profile role in Unilever and deliberately put myself into a context where, you know, I've had to start again. I'm learning a new industry and learn a completely different set of contexts, probably smaller brands with more aggressive growth and I'm having to reinvent myself, you know, as an established leader. It's early doors, but I think, you know, I said it's harder than it sounds, but I'm really excited about it. I think it's going to be one of my biggest growth accelerators, but I'm in the process of being brave, let's put it like that.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, it was so nice to get to know you on a totally different level after all these years. And we're going to be following what's going on in the OTT and pharma category via your eyes. And thanks for sharing.

[Dipesh Patel]

Brilliant. Thank you for having me both.

[Rachel Tippograph]

If you like what you heard and you want to go check out other Unilever alumni, go check out an episode we did with Ryu, who is the Chief Digital Officer of Unilever. And if you like what you heard, tell a friend. Write a review. Thanks for listening.

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[Jackie Cooper]

Hi, I'm Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As a result, I've met some of the most familiar, fascinating and inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth, we're coming center stage and sharing the mic to experience stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.