| Market Access is one of today’s buzzwords in the pharma industry. While everyone talks about it, there seems to be no clear-cut definition in the industry, let alone a well-prepared organization with the right approach to manage it optimally. |
| To fully grasp the need for change, it is important to fully grasp why market access is increasingly important: |
- The increasing cost of providing healthcare and the advances in drug therapy are driving payers and prescribers to control new product endorsement and ensure the most beneficial use.
- Payers are devising new methods to control costs such as risk share, evidence-based pricing, volume limits, etc.
- Patient demand also has to be factored into the equation both in terms of need for effective medication and, in the future, willingness to pay.
- The pharmaceutical industry has woken up to the need to respond to market access and ensure that the value of new products is clearly explained in terms that are relevant to the healthcare stakeholders.
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| These changes mean that market access strategy needs to be built into the launch plans of all new products and needs to be built early into development! |
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| Therefore, a new pharma marketing approach that has quite important organizational implications for pharma companies is required: |
- The importance of Market Access means that internal teams have to develop new techniques and skills to understand the needs and drivers of the different access stakeholders in the country markets.
- Since the market access environment is constantly developing and changing, a focus on inquisitive learning of changes in stakeholders' needs has now become a crucial part of the product management through the product lifecycle.
- Pharmaceutical companies are based on deep understanding of expertise areas, which have sometimes worked in the past in an isolated fashion. Market Access, however, requires a multi-faceted approach.
- Research departments have to think beyond technical clinical performance, they must think about the stakeholders’ willingness to pay in the outside market.
- Marketing departments have to develop a detailed understanding of the cost impact and benefits of new products within country systems.
- Regional offices and local countries affiliates have to work closely together.
- Not only do all parties have to work together but they also have to develop an agreed terminology, approaches and working procedures to ensure a consistent approach to market access.
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| Defining the terminology, agreeing the approach and cross-functional working within a pharmaceutical company is crucial for world class market access strategies! |
| Market Access is not so much about Pricing & Reimbursement and/or Health Economics, where still many narrow it down to, but much more about the processes, techniques and organisation to put in place in order to get the right messages across to the right stakeholders at the right time for all new brands. |
