Case Studies

Increasing traffic and subscription conversions with The Pharma Letter

Byte9 has helped us progressively improve the site, increasing visitor numbers and subscribers


The Pharma Letter provides accurate, unbiased business information on the worldwide pharmaceutical, generic and biotechnology industries.

Coverage includes:

  • Company news (company profiles, financial reports, M&A activity, R&D trends, market analysis...)
  • Product news (drug submissions, approvals, and rejections, clinical trials, product development..)
  • European, USA,and world news (regulatory developments, FDA/EMEA; legislation; conference details and reports...).


The Brief

The scope of the project was to cover the design, build, and implementation of a new content managed, feature-rich, and transactional website for The Pharma Letter. Specific objectives included the following:

  • Implement an easy-to-use content management system to enable the non-technical editorial team to create, edit, and publish timely and accurate content quickly and easily.
  • Import and classify a content archive from 1992, of over 85,000 articles.
  • Simplify the content production and delivery processes to save time and cost.
  • Protect the value of content with configurable trial and subscription management.
  • Help site visitors quickly find the most up-to-date, relevant information available.
  • Enable the delivery of content to subscribers through multiple channels – web; email; rss; social media...
  • Foster an active online community around the website content with article commenting and forums.
  • Increase targeted site traffic, audience engagement, and subscription levels.


The Byte9 Solution 

The Byte9 CMS solution for The Pharma Letter provides core content management functionality as well as a powerful trial and subscription and community management system.

Content delivery

The archive of all articles since 1992 was imported and programmatically classified in order to make the full depth of content available online. The system's powerful 'themes engine' taxonomy and built-in site search enables visitors to quickly find the most recent, relevant information available.

User-centric Design

The website has been designed with usability in mind for optimised content browsing, user attraction, and retention. Centralised administration of site users and detailed user reporting facilitates effective customer relationship management, and the delivery of targeted and personalised content to registered users.


The Result 

The Byte9 publisher solution has provided The Pharma Letter with an affordable and effective content management and marketing system. The flexible iterative approach to development has ensured core functionality has been delivered early. Additional features, testing, and optimisation has then been managed to achieve the best results and ensure an ongoing increasing return on investment. As well as benefiting from operational efficiencies and reduced costs, the Pharma Letter have seen increased site traffic, time-on-site, and repeat visits, and ultimately increased subscriptions revenue.

"Byte9 work with us to provide a top-level service. Blaze gives us a platform that is continually evolving, that performs better than our competitors and is loved by subscribers, sponsors and advertisers"

Barbara Obstoj-Cardwell, Editor, The Pharma Letter