Eyeforpharma, an organization dedicated to the exchange of best practices within the pharmaceutical industry, hosted an Early Access Masterclass Webinar featuring key insights from senior-level pharma executives. The primary objectives were to gain a sounder understanding of the early access landscape, streamline market access processes, and determine how and when market access colleagues should engage with the R&D (research and development) teams within their organizations.
With over 1000 attendees from the pharmaceutical industry, the webinar provided a strong glimpse into what pharma companies are currently doing in the market access space through survey questions, revealing a need for greater governance and formalization in early market access planning.
Stronger Governance in Early Market Access Planning:
Key Takeaways:
- Question 1:
- Plurality of respondents voiced that market access requirements are only partially captured in clinical programs
- A greater percentage (10%) answered that market access requirements are not captured at all than those who answered that they are fully captured in every case (8%)
- Question 2:
- Only 12% of respondents claimed to have strong governance and defined processes in place for the integration of market access/HEOR in early development planning of products
- Substandard results due to lack of coordination between clinical and commercial teams, and organizational silos among market access, HEOR, and R&D teams
- Lack of strong governance based on cultural variation in how companies implement processes (i.e., smaller companies impose less bureaucracy than larger companies that are required to do so)
The Opportunity for Pharma:
- Establish governance that is organizationally supported from the top down to spend less on efficiencies and gain better results
- Train staff to understand the consequences of not formalizing integration of market access/HEOR in early development planning
Shifting the Focus to Phase 2 of Development:
Key Takeaways:
- Minimal integration of market access Pre-Phase 3 of a product’s development
- Due to geographic challenges in bringing all stakeholders together at early stages of development, lack of strong project management, and the need for teams dedicated fully to market access topics and strategies
The Opportunity for Pharma:
- Engagement with Phase 2 programs is pivotal, allowing the opportunity to explore a product’s scales and map out its Phase 3 programs, which ultimately define what will be in the market in the end
- Engagement of R&D colleagues, payers, and leading KOLs to provide constructive feedback Pre-Phase 3
Moving Forward to Maximize Impact:
The Early Access Masterclass concluded with realistic yet optimistic goals for pharma companies to improve their early access strategies. Most pharma companies lack the resources to provide complex input Pre-Phase 2, but even so, it is imperative that an early access team be established to identify targeted questions and key information during the nascent stages of product development. Integrating medical colleagues and payer ad boards into the process facilitates streamlined planning in clinical development that can help anticipate future challenges in local and global markets.