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MTI Viewpoint

Insights shared by industry relative to healthcare and the advancement of medical technology.

Across industry, the Market Access (MA) function has evolved well beyond its traditional role in reimbursement and technical focus. Today, Market Access operates as a strategic force, a value compass for the enterprise, and is uniquely positioned to align internal ambitions with external market realities.

Joan Hinrichs is a Global Market Access & Value Strategy leader who helps MedTech companies translate innovation into real world patient impact. She has led access, evidence, and value initiatives across W.L Gore & Associates, Boston Scientific, and Optum, building frameworks that accelerate adoption and strengthen reimbursement. She partners with senior executives to shape access strategy, align evidence, and value priorities, and guide coordinated execution across the full product-lifecycle ecosystem.

Introduction

Market Access is the function that ensures innovation reaches patients and generates durable returns for the organization.

While MA organizations vary by maturity, size, and stage, the throughline across every model today and in the future is that the global access environments will have increased price pressure, technology value assessment scrutiny, and an ever-evolving global landscape.

MA has visibility across the full system, clinical, economic, regulatory, policy, and operation and can successfully translate this complexity into a clear path to product adoption.

When the function operates at the speed of business, its impact is transformative. It becomes an engine of competitive advantage for the organization determining how fast products enter markets, how quickly they gain adoption, how effectively the organization protects Average Selling Price (ASP), how well it articulates product value and how long it can sustain market leadership.

Access is a design choice and companies that embed Market Access early in innovation are the ones best positioned to navigate the changing global landscape.

An Industry-Validated Imperative: What Market Access Needs to Succeed

According to the article Access in the new world. Winning in the 20s: How access needs to evolve 2021, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) roundtable concludes that Market Access (MA) functions should move towards joint ownership of key access outcomes and continue experimenting with new organizational designs.

This shift is essential given the rapidly evolving dynamics both within organizations and across the external environment. These dual forces are reshaping the role of MA today and in the future.

Internally, the function is recognized as a strategic leader, influencing decisions and priorities across all areas that affect access. As a result, some organizations have expanded beyond a technical focus to establish a dedicated Access Strategy Leader who operates as close advisors to the CEO, with some being appointment as Chief Access Officers. This evolution underscores the critical role MA plays in commercial decision-making.

The roundtable concluded that, to succeed in the 2020s, the Market Access function will need these key capabilities:

• Experts who deliver on core Market Access plans and functional excellence.
• Stewards who represent access both internally and externally, acting as thought leaders, raising awareness, guiding the organization towards realizing its access ambitions, contributing perspectives to cross-functional teams, and outlining trade-offs in access-related decisions.
• Integrators who drive strategic trade-off to ensure alignment with company objectives.

These roles are not mutually exclusive, and organizations can experiment with different role design.

Ultimately, the roundtable emphasized that the most future-ready Market Access role is one that combines core functional expertise with a strong ability to coordinate, influence and drive trade-off decisions across the organization.

A 2022 article, A Cross-Functional Formular: Operationalizing the Broader Role of Access, recapped discussion among senior Market Access leaders emphasizing the expanding role of Market Access from a reimbursement function to broader patient access with functional objectives moving towards shared, cross-functional outcomes. In it, the roundtable proposed an approach to successfully operationalize the integration of Market access at the enterprise leadership level. This included having MA at the executive table, having a clear access point-of-contact to represent the company’s perspective and drive thought leadership within industry association, a corporate access report- articulating access objectives and used to facilitate communication within and beyond the organization and finally, having “access enterprise leadership” formalized as a core capability for key functions contributing to patient access.

In conclusion, the roundtable reinforced the value and unique contributions that Market Access brings to the business. As MA’s role continues to evolve, they stressed the importance of regularly reassessing shared cross-functional objectives and progress towards them. This will be crucial in enabling the organization to deliver sustainable value.

Market Access as an Enterprise Strategic Force

The future and success of patient access to advanced medical technology relies on the MA function’s ability to operate as an enterprise strategic decision maker. As a proactive measure, MedTech Companies should elevate the Market Access function into a true enterprise strategic partner. This means that MA has a seat at the executive table where access related decisions are made thus becoming a required enterprise approver for decisions that shape value, access, financial performance including pricing corridors, ASP (Average Selling Price), market entry sequencing and launch readiness.

In addition, MedTech companies should.

• Formally integrated MA into annual business and portfolio strategy: MA co-authors the enterprise strategy with cross-functional teams and revises access assumptions as markets evolve. BCG’s 2022 benchmark shows MA must be embedded in enterprise-wide business strategy with shared priorities and accountability across functions.
• Give MA full ownership of global market access strategy: With ownership of access strategy, MA leads global entry sequencing, access readiness scoring and new market feasibility. This is where MA matches the speed of the business by aligning access requirements with global launch timelines. IQVIA’s Medtech Market Access navigator emphasizes the importance of structured end to end access planning across global markets.
• Assign MA leadership of launch governance: As the leader, MA chairs the cross-functional governance integrating evidence, policy, pricing, and commercial objectives. MedTech organizations recognize the value of strong product launch governance and agree that MA sits at the optimal vantage point and has strategic influence to lead it. More than 400 MA colleagues across the globe emphasize that MA must coordinate across function to ensure launch success and enterprise alignment.
• Formalize MA Co-Ownership of Financial levers: In this case, pricing logic, reimbursement feasibility, and access pathways are jointly owned by MA and Commercial. Senior MA leaders on BCG roundtable note that the function has evolved into a business-critical objective on organization’s senior management agendas and is directly tied to financial outcomes.
• Make MA a required approver of enterprise decisions: As a required approver MA can sign off on pricing corridors, ASP targets, market entry planning and launch milestones. Deloitte’s insights on delivering on the promise of therapeutic innovation, they emphasize that MA’s strategy is the primary determinant of launch success, requiring early involvement.
• Embed MA into forecasting and financial planning: Through MA’s involvement, financial forecasting and planning remain optimistic and grounded in access realities. In Rethinking Market Access: delivering on the promise of therapeutic innovation, Deloitte notes that access feasibility and evidence requirements materially impact revenue forecast and launch performance.
• Anchor innovation strategy in access feasibility: As an anchor, MA shapes which innovations, indications, and markets the company pursues by ensuring they are systems-aligned, economically viable, and adoption ready. IQVIA’s MedTech framework shows that access feasibility guides innovation and market entry decisions.
• Position MA as the Enterprise’s risk and opportunity identifier: MA can lead a cross-functional identification of policy shifts, coding changes, HTA trends, and system level pressure. Industry insights from Vamstar note that global complexity and budget pressures require a proactive MA-led risk scanning.

A Case for Chief Market Access Officer 

With Market Access having a seat at the executive table, it is increasingly clear that the function would need a representative at the C-Suite level. A Chief Market Access Officer (CMAO) or Chief Value Officer is therefore essential to enterprise success. In the C-Suite, the CMAO serves as the organization’s leading advocate for access and value, ensuring the function has the authority, visibility, and integration required to deliver on enterprise goals.

The CMAO / CVO plays a critical role in shaping enterprise strategy. They bring the influence needed to align executive leaders around access priorities and the strategic clarity to ensure decisions are made with access and value at the core.

The MedTech companies that elevate the Market Access function to the C-Suite will scale globally with fewer barriers, protect long-term revenues, and deliver value to patients and health systems.

Companies should look to the leaders who understand the function end to end, know the enterprise strategy and culture, have built cross-functional credibility, and can align teams around a cohesive value narrative. This ensures the C-Suite champion is not only representing Market Access, but actively steering the organization forward.

Conclusion

Market Access is the function that ensures innovation reaches patients and generates returns. It is no longer a support function. It is a strategic engine that touches nearly every function that influences how a medical device is developed, valued, priced, paid for, adopted, and ultimately used in patient care.

When MA moves at the speed of business, it becomes the architect of the product value story, the guard of ASP, the accelerator of adoption, the translator between clinical, and commercial worlds and the function that shapes markets.

MedTech companies, if they haven’t yet, should begin elevating the Market Access function as a competitive strategy for successful market entry and sustained growth. The global landscape is changing with an aging population, intensified cost-containment measures across health systems, ESG emerging as a meaningful dimension of product value, and an ever-evolving set of market needs. Success requires a multipronged approach, one that places Market Access at the center of strategic decision-making and equips the organization to navigate these complexities with clarity and confidence.

The companies that will lead in the next decade are investing in Market Access now. They are doing so early because it is how they will secure value, shape markets, and stay ahead of global market forces that erode their bottom line.

The post Beyond Reimbursement: Why Market Access is MedTech’s Strategic North Star appeared first on MedTech Intelligence.