Key Factors Affecting Market Access

There are a number of factors that determine market access for pharma companies. Here are some of those factors:

Expiring patents, rising costs

Market access can look gloomy these days, especially in the USA, as reform is upon the horizon here. There is too much uncertainty in Europe, this is pertaining to regionalization in countries like Spain, Italy and Germany which present additional hurdles. Co-payments are surging in the USA, and payers are demanding more and more evidence of access effectiveness.

Drug costs are also rising. 40% of all drugs in the development phase are expensive compounds, like biologics, with many of these drugs in oncology. Payers need to find some way to manage that, and market access solutions can help.

Payer Categories

Payers cannot be put into one particular box; however, payer segmentation is possible where, they can be categorized into a number of management philosophies. There are the health economies such as Canada and the UK, where the cost-effectiveness is top priority. Emerging cash systems, often, are typified by China and India. Here, cash payments are more common with lesser healthcare coverage.

Then there is insurance-based economy like the US. While therapeutic referencing is becoming more popular in Europe, the value of any particular drug here is assesses relating to that of existing competition. Of four of these payer categories, the fastest growing is that of the emerging cash systems. Emerging cash systems are the markets that will dominate the future. Some consider that the health economics driven systems are not really as worth as they make noise.