Market Access Consulting

Today, everybody in the industry talks about Market Access, its critical importance and difficult challenges.

But what Market Access really is?

A decade ago, Pashos et al. proposed a simple definition: "The process by which a company gets a drug to market so that it becomes available for patients."

In a nutshell, this is it. But, perhaps we need to expand a little on this.

At PharmExpand, we define Market Access as follows:

Market Access is a multidisciplinary and long-ranging process by which a biopharmaceutical company gets a drug to market so that it becomes truly available for patients.

It does so by demonstrating value, justifying pricing and obtaining reimbursement in a stakeholder-tailored approach.

For us, a few words are really critical

Multidisciplinary: Market Access is not the issue for one function or one department. It's a corporate-wide task.

Long-ranging: Oh yes, it's something that you must plan way ahead of launch and tackle at least from Phase II onward.

True availability to patients: Today, it goes without saying. Gaining a marketing authorization is anything but sufficient to make your innovative product used by patients.

Demonstrating Value: To achieve that, one must understand what value truly means and for whom. Value is something you see when a transaction occurs. Everything else before or after the transacation is just theoritical. For a transaction to happen, the relevant stakeholders must be convinced that the offer is worth more than what they might sacrifice in return for the product or service. 

Stakeholder Tailored-Approach: Because we deal with several stakeholders in our pharma business, namely, regulators, health care professionals, payers and patients, needs and wishes of all of them must be met for a transaction, or sales, to happen. This is why, for a single product, we will need to develop and articulate Value Propositions specific to each critical stakeholder.