Streamlining MLR Review: How DepositPhotos Solved Approval Friction for a Global Pharma Leader
Enterprise teams approach visual sourcing very differently depending on their industry. For some organizations, the main challenge is scaling content production. For others, especially in regulated industries, it’s about compliance, governance, and auditability.
In the healthcare industry, integrating licensed visual content into marketing workflows means that every asset must meet strict regulatory standards, such as the ABPI Code of Practice, pass Medical, Legal, and Regulatory review (MLR review), and remain fully traceable across complex campaigns.
Client Snapshot
A global pharmaceutical company’s UK marketing organization uses DepositPhotos to support omnichannel campaigns targeting healthcare professionals and patients across the UK.
Overview
- Company: Global pharmaceutical company, UK marketing organization
- Industry: Biopharmaceuticals, healthcare
- Company size: Global enterprise (UK commercial organization)
- Geographic presence: UK + global partnerships with R&D and manufacturing
- Teams involved: Digital Team (asset creation and governance), Brand/Franchise Marketing stakeholders
- Key use case: Compliant visual sourcing for healthcare professionals (HCP) and patient-facing content across omnichannel campaigns
DepositPhotos solution used
- License type: Standard Business License
- Content types used: Photos, vectors, editorial/medical imagery, video/motion assets
- Integration type: Platform access with governance workflows (permissions, collections, auditability)
The Challenge: Visual sourcing in a regulated environment
Within the company’s UK marketing organization, visual sourcing sits at the intersection of creative production, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency.
Several challenges shaped the team’s approach:
- Brand consistency across multiple therapy areas and campaigns
- Approval friction during MLR review processes in pharma
- Difficulty finding UK-relevant healthcare imagery reflecting NHS settings
- Inefficient asset workflows across teams and vendors
- Higher production costs due to custom graphics and retouching
In an environment where campaigns run across many channels and asset lifecycles are long, even small inefficiencies can quickly multiply and create rework, delays, and risk.
The Requirements: Governance first, visuals second
When evaluating stock providers, the team prioritized governance and compliance capabilities.
They needed a licensing partner capable of supporting large-scale healthcare communication while meeting strict documentation standards.
Key requirements included:
- Clear commercial licensing with model/property releases
- Transparent asset classification (commercial vs editorial)
- Centralized account management and license tracking
- High-quality assets for web, print, and large-format production
- Strong metadata and search functionality
- UK-relevant and inclusive imagery
- Workflow compatibility with existing creative tools and approval systems
The Solution: Compliant visual sourcing at enterprise scale
DepositPhotos became part of the company’s structured asset workflow.
The Digital Team sources images and vectors through curated collections and advanced search filters, ensuring assets meet both creative and compliance requirements before they enter the approval process.
Typical workflows include:
- Filtering images by release status and context relevance
- Saving campaign assets in shared lightboxes
- Documenting license IDs in asset metadata
- Exporting files for both web and print production
Brand and franchise marketing teams then review and shortlist visuals directly within the platform before submitting assets for MLR compliance approval.
Results & Impact: Faster approvals and stronger governance
DepositPhotos helped the organization improve both operational efficiency and compliance governance.
The measurable outcomes highlight improvements across multiple parts of the content production process.
Key improvements included:
- Cycle time reduced by 30–40%, shortening asset sourcing-to-MLR review submission from about 10 days to roughly 6.
- Visual-related MLR review queries decreased 25–35% due to clearer licensing documentation and metadata.
- Reuse of approved visuals increased 40–60% thanks to curated collections and shared lightboxes.
- Custom photoshoot and retouching costs dropped 15–25% as teams found more relevant stock assets.
Additional operational improvements included:
- Less than 2% print rejections due to higher-quality source files.
- 20–30% more deliverables produced per quarter without increasing team size.
- 50% faster asset shortlisting thanks to advanced search tools and curated collections.
- 100% asset traceability through recorded license IDs and release documentation.
- 50% reduction in audit preparation time due to centralized license records.
Together, these improvements demonstrate how structured visual sourcing can influence both compliance and productivity in highly regulated industries.
Final Thoughts
This pharmaceutical giant’s experience highlights an important trend: visual sourcing is increasingly part of content governance, not just creative production.
When licensing documentation, metadata, and workflow integration are handled properly, teams can move faster without compromising MLR compliance.
For organizations working in regulated environments or managing complex approval processes, the right visual sourcing partner can make a measurable difference.
If your team needs compliance-ready visual sourcing at scale, explore our enterprise licensing solutions or contact us to discuss governance-friendly plans tailored to your workflow.
