OBJECTIVES: To determine how the pharmaceutical industry is investing in market access training capabilities in order to address the needs of today’s complex market access landscape.
METHODS: A survey was sent to market access executives across a range of top 25 global pharma companies, as well as several smaller companies. The survey focused on four main topics: how market access was defined by their company; what market access training is currently provided; to what extent do different teams receive market access training; and what are the priority market access training needs for their company. Feedback from 32 responses were analysed.
RESULTS: 19% of respondents stated that their organisation has no official definition of market access, or they are unsure what it is. The majority of respondents confirmed that their organisation would benefit from additional market access training, in particular in areas of pricing and reimbursement; managed entry agreements; health economics; health technology assessments and real-world evidence. Additionally, 41% of respondents indicated that their Medical Affairs teams currently receive market access training, when considering Clinical Development teams, this figure was 9%. 59% and 47% of respondents felt that their Medical Affairs and Clinical Development teams would benefit from market access training, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: This survey highlighted that market access is not consistently defined across the industry nor within companies, which can lead to a lack of clarity regarding the aims of Market Access teams and development of a market access strategy. A variety of specific market access training, such as managed entry agreements, real world evidence, needs to be offered to deal with today’s complex marketplace. Additionally, market access training should not only be provided to Market Access teams but also to other teams such as Medical Affairs and Clinical Development to upskill their knowledge and expertise to navigate a dynamic and challenging payer marketplace.