Market access refers to the process of ensuring that treatments (medicines, medical devices etc.) for which marketing authorisation has been obtained from regulatory authorities are available (reimbursed, funded) to all patients who may benefit. A clinician is in practice able to recommend and administer the treatment to a patient. A first step is reimbursement, frequently informed by health technology assessment (HTA). However successful reimbursement this does not mean that all eligible patients will receive the new treatment, nor will they necessarily have ‘access’ to it. Market access addresses this problem by assessing barriers to uptake and proposing and implementing strategies overcome these barriers. These may include collection and communication of evidence relevant to different decision makers, implementing pricing strategies (discounts, payment by results), or provision of tools (apps etc.) or staff to provide expert advice to health system administrators. In pharmaceutical and other life science companies Market Access and Health economics and Outcomes Research professionals will generally work collaboratively to develop and execute plans for generating and communicating evidence of value of new interventions to health care reimbursers and payers.
How to cite: Market Access [online]. (2016). York; York Health Economics Consortium; 2016. https://yhec.co.uk/glossary/market-access/