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Access and Affordability Programmes: Reducing inequalities in access to medicines

How to reduce unequal access to medicines – the full report.

Today, the role of Access and Affordability Programmes (AAPs) is changing. The emerging trends of patient centricity, value-based health care and 'big data' are contributing to their evolution. Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, big questions are being raised around trust, resilient health care systems, and equality of access to medicines and treatment from pharma backed AAP initiatives.

Regardless of a country's wealth, access to and affordability of appropriate healthcare for everyone is largely inadequate. However, as our report demonstrates, there's much more to successful AAPs than simply focusing on the financial reasons.
 

The three categories of AAPs

AAPs often need to overcome several barriers, these are wide-ranging covering social, financial, and local health care system factors. The reality is that each can affect patients' ability to receive proper medical care in different and varying degrees. The result is that medicines can be unaffordable, unavailable or inaccessible, for more than two billion people worldwide.

These issues are highly complex, but through our AAP categorisation and mapping, we can see three distinct areas each AAP is predominantly designed to target:

  1. Affordability – programmes focused on price.
  2. Awareness – programmes that support the patient holistically.
  3.  Accessibility – programmes focused on improving health care systems.

Knowing the interplay between these areas gives pharma companies the opportunity to better design AAPs specific to their intended market and the unique challenges patients face. Helping edge them towards achieving their goal, improving patient health and gaining universal access.
 

AAPs progress and transformation

Organisations need to adopt a holistic and considered approach to lower barriers and widen patient access successfully. This means cross-stakeholder input from the beginning, individual market evaluation, and a better understanding of populations.

The good news is that disruptive forces working across health care and the life sciences mean this transformation is becoming a reality. New players are creating more opportunity, fresh partnerships are increasing scope, technology is advancing practices, and data analytics is improving efficiencies. Together, they're driving the industry towards value-based health care models and digitally-enabled strategies.


AAP the hybrid road ahead

Based on our experience in supporting pharma companies, and the insights gained from our Deloitte Access and Affordability Database (containing over 400 AAPs), we've curated perspectives on the programmes of today and in the future.

The report details the need for AAPs to adopt a hybrid model when addressing complex and multi-faceted barriers. It's also clear innovation in their design will be essential over the coming five to ten years, so pharma companies can keep pace with the rest of the health care ecosystem.


Stay ahead of the AAP curve

As the shift toward health equality and sustainable access gathers and more therapies come to market, pharma companies will need to respond accordingly. Staying relevant and maintaining trust within underserved communities will be high on the agenda for sure.

So, equip yourself with the insights required to design and deliver the AAPs of tomorrow by downloading our comprehensive Access and Affordability Programmes report.

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