Why early engagement is better

Cathy Wright, Managing Director of OPEN Access Consulting, recently attended the Pharma Pricing and Market Access conference in London and the Real-world Evidence and Access conference in Berlin. With a number of key themes discussed, read her summary here:

I’ve recently been lucky enough to attend the recent Pharma Pricing and Market Access conference in London and the Real-world Evidence and Access conference in Berlin. Both meetings were well attended by representatives from the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industries along with various agencies, all keen to hear the very latest news and views around market access and real-world evidence.

There were a number of key themes that came from both meetings including the need for future innovative pricing models (especially for disease areas such as Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases where any potential benefit won’t be seen for many years and the savings may be realised in social rather healthcare budgets), the significance of involving patients (do we really understand what’s important to them?) and the increasing place and importance of generating real-world evidence. This latter topic promoted the question ‘are real-word evidence and market access becoming one?’ In a world where we now have potential cures in some disease areas, a combined approach is surely critical to ensuring reimbursement.

Another key theme was early engagement, both within companies and externally with payers. There were many discussions. Should there be an access and evidence review within research and development? Do we need to bring the generation of real-world evidence much earlier in the research and development process? Should the review of evidence, data gaps and generation of the value proposition be conducted much earlier? With the aim for marketing authorisation and reimbursement timelines coming closer together and medicines increasingly being approved on phase II data, the answers can only be yes, yes and yes.

Just as important is an early understanding of the environment and engagement with regulatory and reimbursement agencies and payers. If we can truly understand and listen to all stakeholder needs early and then work collaboratively we can work towards the right patients getting access to the right innovative medicines they need at the right time. Isn’t that what we are all aiming to do?

OPEN Access Consulting is a market access consultancy and part of the OPEN Health Group. For more information on how OPEN Access can help you engage early, please contact Cathy Wright, Managing Director, OPEN Access Consulting at cathywright@openaccessconsulting.com.