Peter Rutherford
Vice President – Integrated Market Access, Europe and Emerging Markets

Quintiles
500 Brook Drive, Green Park, Reading, Berkshire, RG2 6UU, United Kingdom

Abstract

In Europe, biopharmaceutical companies are facing a rapidly evolving and increasingly complex healthcare landscape, bringing with it new challenges in market access. These include fragmentation of the payer landscape, intensification of on-going assessment of products’ outcomes and value, and an increased focus on patient experience and outcomes. Not all biopharmaceutical companies are equipped with extensive market access teams to develop strategies tailored to the specifics of each market access criteria and healthcare system, not to mention the multiple audiences and decision-makers. Strategic outsourcing can help; with relevant industry expertise and ready-established networks, processes and clients across the industry and region, the right partner can provide customers with the consulting and commercial support they need to enhance international market entry.

New challenges in market access

Biopharmaceutical companies are facing a rapidly evolving and increasingly complex healthcare landscape across Europe, bringing with it new challenges in market access. In order for a drug to be clinically and commercially successful in each region, manufacturers must be able to demonstrate how it delivers value at many different levels of each healthcare ecosystem. To this end, biopharmaceutical companies are facing an intensification of the ongoing assessment of their products’ outcomes and values, which means they need to supplement clinical evidence with real-world, large-scale demographic and pharmacoepidemiological data that measures and accurately reflects local situations. This fragmentation of the payer landscape is a Europe-wide trend with pharmaceutical market access teams needing to meet the differing needs of multiple local, regional and national decision-makers (1-2).

The impact of local variation in healthcare systems is further compounded by the rapid growth of health technology assessment (HTA) processes across Europe. HTA agencies continue to grow with now more than 100 operating worldwide. ...