Sales Management

For more than 20 years, ZS Associates has helped clients in over 70 countries measurably improve sales and marketing results.They deliver value through their expertise in sales and marketing management and outsourcing.ZS Associates offers tips for market access success, from scenario analysis to risk sharing.Four key factors determine access to pharmaceutical markets today, according ZS Associates are: The first of these is to consider the needs of payers early, especially in terms of phase III clinical data.Access to markets these days can look very gloomy, especially in the US, where reform is on the horizon. There is also a lot of uncertainty in Europe, with regionalization in countries such as Germany, Spain and Italy presenting additional hurdles. Payers everywhere are demanding more evidence of effectiveness, and co-payments are rising in the US. Although ZS Associates is clear that it is not possible to fit all payers into a particular box, they do fall into four main management philosophies. Those driven by health economics—like the UK and Canada, where “cost-effectiveness is everything”—are perhaps the most obvious. ‘Emerging cash’ systems are typified by India and China, where there is less health care coverage and a lot of cash paymentsMarket access considerations are influencing drug development in many ways, but ZS Associates warns against basing a strategy entirely on payer requirements; they might be unrealistic or not commercially viable.