Market Access
The commercial function responsible for securing and maintaining a drug's formulary coverage and reimbursement.
Market Access is the commercial function responsible for securing and maintaining a drug's formulary coverage and reimbursement terms with payers, from the initial listing negotiation through ongoing contract renewals. It sits apart from the sales organization, which focuses on HCP engagement, and from medical affairs, which handles non-promotional scientific exchange.
The function's main tools are payer-facing evidence packages, most notably the AMCP Dossier, budget-impact models, and rebates negotiated against a competitor set. Market access work happens mostly out of sight of the HCP-facing side of the business, but its outcomes set the ceiling on what sales can actually achieve. A brand with strong clinical differentiation and poor Formulary Access will still underperform, because the limiting factor was never the sales conversation.