Three Key Considerations for Commercial and Market Access Teams
Silos. We’ve all heard of this term in the pharmaceutical industry however, do most of us truly understand how negatively silos affect internal and external collaboration? Long-term, consistent, and inefficient collaboration can seriously impact an organization’s bottom line. Especially when it comes to the commercialization process, collaboration is a necessity. Whether a product is going through the launch cycle or it has been on the market for quite some time, it is important that market access teams and commercial teams are consistently collaborating.
The continuous conversation between the two functions is a part of a greater cross-functional strategy that needs to be maintained. In addition, it is important that the two teams work together to realign strategies according to value perceived based on the stakeholder or customer they are targeting. Ultimately, collaboration within pharmaceutical organizations will prove very beneficial in the long run, positively affecting an organization’s overall performance.
The Power of Three
In the ever-changing landscape of the pharmaceutical industry, we see three key considerations that will be powerful in helping senior leaders understand the importance of market access influence in commercial launch strategies. The three considerations are as follows:
1. Cross-functional strategy as a necessity
No ifs, ands, or buts, cross-functional strategy is a necessity. A challenge that pharma companies tend to face is developing a product that has both FDA approval as well as having it covered by payers. Unfortunately, if collaboration occurs too late, it could have negative consequences in formulating the value proposition around the product. In addition, a second challenge facing the commercialization process is increasing market access restrictions.
These challenges result in a need for market access insights to be incorporated into the commercialization process and shared with the field team. The market data needed for collaboration between commercial and market access teams oftentimes is not shared or used for optimizing the product launch strategy. For instance, pre-launch activities need to be focused on preparing for conversations and deciding what engagement mechanisms are needed to target key customers. Therefore, commercial teams need to have ongoing conversations with market access teams to receive the necessary insights.
2. Value from a different perspective
The second of the powerful three is understanding value from a different perspective. With the increased trend towards value-based healthcare, market access teams that are heavily collaborating with commercial teams will give a new perspective and influence on the commercial strategy. Through increasing visibility into market data with enhanced business intelligence capabilities, market access teams can gauge what will be perceived as most valuable, which will make for stronger engagement strategies for the field.
Their higher-level perspective will help commercial teams align their messaging and targeting strategies accordingly. Driving these types of conversations is imperative to get ahead of the competition. Especially, engaging with stakeholders and payers early on will help pharma companies bypass access barriers through collaborating on the different value propositions that arise from real-world data (RWD).
3. Collaboration as a strategic advantage
Last but certainly not least, pharma companies need to view collaboration as a strategic advantage. There is a need to understand the interdependencies and the value that could come out of collaborating more effectively especially with the use of digital technologies to support these efforts. Collaboration should be viewed as a strategic advantage especially in the face of COVID-19 where remote work might hinder collaborative efforts that were once in-person.
TikaMarketAccess helps better prepare teams for collaboration within one application. Paired with our commercial modules within the overall platform TikaCRM, teams are prepared to access geographic mapping capabilities as well as advanced business intelligence capabilities. Commercial and market access teams are better equipped to collaborate and have ongoing conversations about market insights and trends to make more informed business decisions.
Citations
https://www.pharmavoice.com/article/2017-4-commercialization/
https://pharmaphorum.com/webinars/powering-pharmas-commercial-teams/
https://www.pharmexec.com/view/launch-strategies-what-you-need-know-2020