Katherine Chan: Market Access: The Bridge Between Innovation and Impact
August 6, 2025
Katherine Chan
Market Access: The Bridge Between Innovation and Impact
Imagine hearing about a promising new therapy that dramatically improves outcomes for patients with a rare condition. The clinical results were impressive, the regulatory approval process was smooth, and early feedback from providers was enthusiastic. Yet within months of launch, adoption stalled. Patients couldn’t access the drug because they struggled with their insurance, and providers weren’t able to find locations for their patients to have the drug infused. The product itself wasn’t the problem, it was the lack of a well-planned and executed market access strategy.
Innovation is only the beginning. A breakthrough therapy or device can transform care, but only if patients and providers can access it. Too often, companies focus only on regulatory approval, overlooking the commercial strategies that turn a great idea into a viable treatment option.
Market access isn’t a box to check; it’s the framework that ensures your innovation can succeed in the real world. It requires early, coordinated planning across multiple fronts: building a strong payer value story, mapping the patient journey, aligning stakeholder economics, and ensuring the right teams are ready to deliver. If you’re in the early phases of product development, now is the time to start laying the groundwork in these areas.
Start with Payers in Mind
No launch can succeed without someone willing to pay for the product, and for most therapies, that means insurers. A payer value story does more than summarize clinical results; it demonstrates why your product is worth covering. The companies that do this well don’t wait until regulatory approval to start building the narrative. They think about payer priorities from the moment a clinical development plan is sketched out.
In the early stages, companies can gather payer insights to shape their trial designs. Knowing which outcomes and data points matter most to insurers can save significant time and resources later. For example, quality-of-life improvements and reductions in overall healthcare costs often weigh heavily in coverage decisions. Observational studies, cost-effectiveness data, and benchmarking against similar therapies can strengthen your case. A clear payer story ensures you are not scrambling post-approval to prove value or negotiate favorable formulary placement. Instead, you’re walking into those conversations with the data that matters most already in hand.
Understand and Design for the Patient Journey
Healthcare is inherently complex, and a new therapy often introduces additional steps; specialized testing, prior authorizations, or unfamiliar logistics. Without careful planning, these friction points can lead to delays or, worse, patients abandoning treatment altogether. Mapping the patient journey early can help avoid these pitfalls and increase patient starts and adherence.
This work involves following the patient experience from diagnosis to prescription to ongoing therapy and identifying where barriers might arise. A patient may face confusion during the authorization process or struggle to afford the therapy, even with insurance coverage. Others may lack clear guidance on where to access the product or how to manage side effects. By engaging patients, caregivers, and advocacy groups early, companies can uncover these challenges and design support programs that address them head-on. Financial assistance, patient education, and proactive outreach are often the difference between a patient filling their first prescription and staying on therapy long enough to see meaningful results.
When companies invest time in understanding the patient journey and all of the stakeholders involved from the outset, they can create systems that make therapy easier to access, easier to follow, and ultimately more effective.
Align Economics Across Stakeholders
Healthcare decisions are driven by economics as much as by science. Providers are under constant pressure to balance time, cost, and care. A new therapy, no matter how effective, will struggle to gain traction if it creates extra work or cost without adequate reimbursement.
This is why companies must pay attention to economic alignment. Early on, it’s critical to understand how your product fits into existing reimbursement structures or whether new codes or payment models may need to be developed. Providers and advanced practitioners often ask a simple question before adopting new treatments: “Does it make sense for my time, my team, and my resources?” If the answer isn’t clear, adoption will lag.
The companies that succeed approach this with foresight. They work to reduce administrative burdens by offering provider support services, simplifying access pathways, or creating educational tools that save time. They analyze the broader healthcare ecosystem, pharmacists, distributors, care teams, to ensure that each stakeholder sees value in their role supporting the therapy. When incentives are aligned, behavior follows. Without this alignment, even the most innovative therapy can stall.
Turn Strategy into Action
The best strategy will remain theoretical unless you have the right people to execute it. Field teams, market access specialists, sales representatives, patient navigators are often the difference between a product that launches and a product that thrives. These teams act as educators, advocates, and troubleshooters. They ensure providers understand how to access the therapy, guide patients through complex reimbursement processes, and serve as the human connection that builds trust.
In the early phases of planning, companies should think carefully about who they will need in the field and what expertise those people must have. It’s not enough to simply hire a sales team; they need to be equipped with a deep understanding of the patient journey, payer expectations, and provider challenges.
When field teams are well designed and aligned with the company’s strategy, they bring the payer story and patient support plans to life. They bridge the gap between high-level planning and everyday realities, making your strategy tangible and actionable.
The Takeaway: Plan Early, Execute Thoughtfully
Market access is not a last-minute task to address after regulatory milestones are achieved. It is the foundation of a successful launch and should be treated as a core discipline from the beginning. Companies that succeed build payer insights into their clinical programs, design patient support initiatives well before approval, and think critically about economic alignment across every stakeholder.
The most important question isn’t just “What does our product do?” but “How do we ensure it works for patients, providers, and payers?” Answering that question early sets the stage for adoption, trust, and long-term impact. With the right planning and execution, innovation doesn’t just stay in the lab, it finds its way into the lives of the people who need it most.
About Katherine Chan | Co-Founder & Partner at SageTree Collective
Katherine is a strategic healthcare executive with a strong record of driving growth, innovation, and transformation across biopharma, medical devices, and digital health. She brings deep cross-functional leadership experience and excels at aligning clinical, commercial, and operational strategies to deliver business impact and improved patient outcomes.
She has held senior leadership roles at global companies including Genentech, Medtronic, and Varian Medical, where she led commercialization of both medical and pharmacy benefit drugs, launched first-in-class digital health technologies, and managed multi-billion-dollar product portfolios. Katherine has built and led high-performing field teams across the U.S., driven complex payer and provider negotiations, and developed strategies that expanded health system access and advanced health equity.
As co-founder of SageTree Collective, a women-owned healthcare consultancy, Katherine partners with clients to unlock market access and support improved patient care. She is especially skilled at guiding organizations through commercial, operational, and cultural transformations, bringing a systems-level perspective to innovation in healthcare delivery.
Katherine holds an MBA from the Carlson School of Management and a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota. She has co-authored peer-reviewed publications on access and population health and is passionate about advancing more equitable and sustainable models of care.
