As 2025 begins to wind down, there’s little remaining doubt about the role of corporate and brand reputation. No longer a nice-to-have, reputation is a ‘hard’ metric – a measurable driver of performance and market evaluation. Reputation permeates nearly every facet of a company’s ability to be successful, including market access, an essential strategic capability in many industries and particularly in the healthcare space where I work.
Market access success influences better pricing, broader reimbursement and faster uptake. It attracts investment. Further, and top-of-the-list for me when supporting a new medicine for which there are limited options, a brand’s successful market access strategy helps get the product into the hands of those who need it most.
Although market access is unquestionably data-heavy, I was lucky enough to talk with Adam Guthrie-James, founder of Value Republic, my former client and a story expert with deep market access experience about how health economics data without context, ‘story’ and trust are just numbers.
“Data must be understood to have real meaning and impact,” explains Adam, ‘and that’s where the combination of a compelling narrative that brings the information to life and a well-regarded reputation of the sponsor company make all the difference.”
The process begins with listening and collecting the information that enable companies to ‘walk in the shoes’ of access decision-makers. To use the pharma example, market access decision-makers are payers who determine the ‘value’ of the product and negotiate the terms for insurance coverage which, in turn, determine whether patients will be able to afford it. Senior payers, for example, often skim just 10-20% of market access submissions and, while they comprehend the numbers, sometimes the meaning gets lost. Payers also consider submissions through different definitions of ‘value,’ such as budget, societal impact and degree of innovation. A deep understanding of payers and their perspective is critical and drives the way into real connection.
Next, the data need to come to life within a value-narrative that resonates.
“It’s the ‘story’ that transforms data into impact,’ said Adam. “When crafting the narrative, it is critical to always remember that the decision-makers have a job to do. The data is an attempt to find objectivity. It’s binary. So, it’s the job of the narrative to provide a well-rounded case and bring the value proposition to life.”
As we were talking, Adam recalled an example from his own work. For a new drug to treat a common chronic skin condition, he and his team began their creative process with strong empathy for the payer and a shared understanding of the hard choices this role requires in determining affordability and access of one drug over another. The ‘story’ they developed positioned the company behind the medicine as there to help rather than ‘sell.’ By demonstrating that they had targeted very specific high need patients and had not made a grab for the entire population, they, and the story, showed the right intention and helped build reputation through words and actions.
Which leads to the next step: the role and recognition of reputation as an invaluable asset. The decision-making of market access is complicated—more emotional, less organisational, not black and white. The integrity of the data foundational to the case being made must be matched by the integrity of the brand and the company behind it.
“Again,” said Adam, “remember the uncertainty and risk the decision-makers face in evaluating products and services. Trust in the company and the information they’re given is empowering and makes the complex feel clearer. We never forget we’re building a relationship.”
Lastly, companies with strong reputations always have the bigger picture in line of sight throughout the market access process. You could call this ‘purpose,’ or what I often refer to this as the ‘why.’ In the case of a new medicine, the ‘why’ is the significant difference it will make in the life of a patient who needs to be able to get and afford it. The work of reputation in market access strategy and communications should always include the ‘why.’
Whether building reputation, the relationship and the narrative that brings data to life, it is often the human intangibles that drive the strategy and determine success: emotional engagement, trust in the message and the company, reduced uncertainty, the sense that you’ve made their job easier.
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