Market Access in 2025: When Great Science Still Isn’t Enough

There’s an uncomfortable truth in pharma right now. In 2025, you can do everything right.. and still hear “no”.

You can have strong efficacy data, a clean safety profile, a clearly defined unmet need, and respected KOLs genuinely excited about the product. On paper, it looks like a success story waiting to happen.

Yet without payer buy in, that momentum can disappear very quickly. No reimbursement means no real launch. No launch means limited uptake.. and ultimately, patients don’t get access.

That’s why Market Access has quietly become one of the most decisive functions in the industry.

Why Market Access Now Sits at the Centre of Everything

Healthcare systems everywhere are under pressure. Budgets are stretched, treatment costs are rising, and decision makers are being asked to justify every pound, dollar, or euro they spend.

Because of that, payers are no longer just asking whether a drug works.

They’re asking:

• Is it meaningfully better than what’s already available?

• Does it improve outcomes that actually matter to the system?

• Does it reduce costs somewhere else down the line?

• And can the data really support those claims?
  

If the answers aren’t clear, even genuinely innovative therapies can struggle.

This isn’t about payers being difficult - it’s about risk, sustainability, and accountability in modern healthcare.

The Biggest Change: Value Has to Come Earlier

One of the most noticeable shifts over the last few years is when these questions are being asked. Increasingly, payers expect to see a convincing value story much earlier than before - often before Phase III, sometimes even during Phase II development.

That’s a big change.

Historically, access strategy could be refined later. Today, waiting until the end of development can leave very little room to manoeuvre.

Once payer expectations are set, they’re hard to reset. Weak early evidence is difficult to fix later, no matter how good the final clinical data looks. Put simply: value can’t be bolted on at the end anymore - it has to be built in from the start.

Most Products Don’t Fail Because the Science Is Bad

This is an important point, and one that often gets missed.

A lot of products that struggle commercially don’t fail because they lack innovation. They fail because the value story wasn’t developed early or clearly enough.

Common challenges include:

• HEOR and RWE plans lagging behind clinical development

• Endpoints that satisfy regulators but fall short for payers

• Limited alignment between clinical teams and market access strategy

• Access expertise coming in too late to influence decisions

The Human Side: A Growing Capability Gap

This change has also created a very real talent challenge.

We speak with Market Access, HEOR, and RWE professionals every day - people who are now being brought into much earlier, more strategic conversations than they were just a few years ago.

There’s growing demand for individuals who can:

• Translate complex clinical data into something payers actually care about

• Design evidence strategies with HTA expectations in mind

• Think beyond submission and support long term access and adoption
  

At the same time, these profiles are hard to find. Many teams are being asked to do more, earlier, with limited specialist resource.

Looking Ahead to 2026

As we move toward 2026, Market Access is no longer a downstream function or a box ticking exercise.. It's a core part of how products succeed.. or don’t.

The companies that are getting this right are the ones investing early: in access strategy, in evidence planning, and in the people who know how to bring it all together.

At BIOSRCH, we focus exclusively on Market Access, HEOR, and RWE recruitment across pharma and biotech. We spend our time speaking with the people doing this work every day, and seeing first hand how expectations are changing.

If you’re thinking about how to build or strengthen access capability for what comes next, we’re always happy to share what we’re seeing across the market.