Han Meng Is Building a Framework for FDA-Regulated Pharmaceutical Design

A patient trying to understand a medication portal is not thinking about interface theory. A doctor searching for safety information is not admiring a layout. In those moments, design either helps or gets in the way. Han Meng has built her career inside that pressure, where every button, page, claim, and interaction must serve people who may be making decisions under stress.

Meng is a senior product designer specializing in healthcare UX and FDA-regulated digital platforms. Her work spans medication portals, healthcare provider platforms, VR training simulations, AI-assisted workflows, and pharmaceutical brand systems. Across those projects, she has developed a systematic, replicable methodology for pharmaceutical UX design, one shaped by OPDP expectations, 21 CFR Part 202, Fair Balance requirements, and medical-legal-regulatory review.

"Healthcare is where design decisions carry real consequences," Meng says. "If a patient cannot understand treatment information, or if a doctor cannot find what they need, that is not a small usability problem. That affects how people move through care."

That is the reason regulated pharmaceutical design is more specialized than many people outside the field understand. It is not ordinary digital design with medical language added later. Every claim must be supported. Safety information has to be handled with precision. Fair Balance is not a footnote. MLR review can shape hierarchy, content placement, interaction patterns, and even the way users move from one section to another.

Meng's framework grew from working inside those constraints rather than around them. She has applied her approach across eight pharmaceutical brands, including therapies connected to spinal muscular atrophy, Friedreich's ataxia, and follicular lymphoma. Each brand carried its own audience, scientific content, review process, and platform needs, but the design problem often returned to the same tension: how to preserve accuracy and compliance while still giving real users a clear path forward.

Pharmaceutical Design

"People sometimes think pharmaceutical design is about making complex information look nicer," Meng says. "The real work is translation. You have to preserve accuracy, satisfy compliance, and still create something a real person can use."

That translation is where Meng's process becomes consequential. Pharmaceutical teams often rebuild digital systems brand by brand, even when the same underlying problems keep appearing. Patient education, HCP portals, treatment information, safety content, and engagement tools all require a disciplined approach to structure. Meng's work points toward a higher standard of practice for FDA-regulated digital design, showing how a repeatable framework can meet regulatory, clinical, and user needs at scale.

Her process starts with the medical content itself. Before a layout can be effective, the designer has to understand what information matters, what must remain visible, what claims require support, and what the user needs to do next. The interface cannot bury essential information in the name of simplicity. It has to organize the content so that the user can act with confidence.

"Good healthcare design does not simplify by removing what is important," Meng says. "It simplifies by helping users understand what to look at, what to do next, and why it matters."

Her redesign work for SKYCLARYS offers one example of that principle in practice. The platform reached 37,000 sessions and performed 156% over goal for HCP and 266% for DTC in 90 days. In a regulated category, those results matter because they show that compliance does not have to flatten engagement. A healthcare platform can remain accurate, reviewed, and useful while still giving users an experience that works.

"Regulatory requirements do not make the work less creative," Meng says. "They make the decisions more accountable."

That discipline was visible even before Meng's pharmaceutical UX framework work. Her earlier assignments included leading design for Oral-B iO at Publicis Worldwide and originating the ENBREL visual identity at Arnold Worldwide, a system that has continued for more than four years. Those projects taught her that healthcare-adjacent brands need design systems sturdy enough to keep working after launch.

"Longevity is one of the clearest signs that design is working," Meng says. "In this industry, campaigns are revised all the time. If an identity can stay active for years, it means the system had enough clarity to keep serving the brand."

Her work deepened after she joined 21GRAMS in 2021, where she became lead UX/UI for Genentech's portfolio. The agency was ranked the number two healthcare agency at Cannes Lions in 2025, and Meng's work placed her across major healthcare and pharmaceutical brands including Genentech, Novartis, Biogen, and Jazz. Those assignments sharpened her belief that healthcare design requires both creative judgment and operational discipline.

That is where regulated-design expertise becomes scarce. Many designers can build attractive interfaces. Fewer understand how to design under review conditions where medical accuracy, legal requirements, brand goals, user behavior, and patient risk all meet on the same screen. Meng's contribution is not simply individual project execution. It is a method for approaching a difficult category with consistency.

"Constraints are not the enemy of creativity," Meng says. "In healthcare, constraints force you to be more exact. You have to know why every choice is there."

Meng's work has also moved into immersive and emerging healthcare technology. For Novartis, she conceived and delivered one of the first VR training experiences at this scale in pharmaceutical training for radioligand therapy, reaching 43,000 healthcare professionals across eight congresses. The project addressed a real education gap in a specialized treatment area and showed how regulated medical content could be made more accessible without losing seriousness.

In 2026, Meng's LastMinute Healthcare Workforce Co-Pilot won an iF Design Award in the UX Health and Wellness category. The award broadened the recognition of her work beyond pharmaceutical platforms and into healthcare operations and emerging technology.

That recognition followed a larger pattern. Meng was personally invited to serve on the 2026 IDSA Awards jury, a five-member panel. She was selected as a Grand Juror for the A' Design Award across 186 disciplines and accepted as a judge for MIT Reality Hack 2026. Columbia LEAP also recruited her as an Expert Mentor and Evaluator. The design field is not only recognizing her work. It is asking her to evaluate the work of others.

Meng is now focused on healthcare product design, particularly AI-assisted workflows and immersive training that can improve clinical operations and patient outcomes. She also plans to publish a framework for FDA-regulated pharmaceutical UX design, the kind of resource she wishes had existed when she was learning how to navigate the field.

Her work points toward a broader shift in healthcare technology. Patients with serious conditions need digital tools that help them understand treatment options. Healthcare providers need interfaces that make medical information easier to access. Organizations need systems that satisfy regulation without losing sight of the people using them. Meng's framework advances the standard of practice for FDA-regulated digital design by showing that compliance, usability, and trust can be designed together from the beginning.

"Design should make healthcare feel less confusing," Meng says. "If my work can help patients and clinicians move through complex information with more confidence, then it is doing what it is supposed to do."