Laura argues that patient self-pay has evolved from a temporary bridge to a core access strategy for new drug launches. She examines how manufacturer-funded self-pay offers can be operational from day one.
Click here to learn more about GoodRx’s access and affordability solutions.
Read on for Laura’s insights.
New Drug Launches in a Self-Pay World: Why Access Strategy Matters as Much as Innovation
By Laura Jensen, Chief Commercial Officer and President, Pharma Solutions at GoodRx
In today’s pharmaceutical market, access execution is just as critical to launch success as clinical innovation. Coverage is fragmented, patient demand moves faster than payer decision-making, and real-world utilization often begins well before formulary placement is finalized. In this environment, manufacturer-funded self-pay offers can no longer be treated as a downstream consideration—they are a primary driver of whether a new therapy reaches patients quickly and at a meaningful scale.
This shift is already visible in launch outcomes. Industry analyses consistently show that early access dynamics are tightly linked to performance. Deloitte research found that more than half of U.S. drug launches that miss expectations do so because of market access constraints rather than clinical limitations, and that early underperformance is difficult to reverse over time. Simply put, delays in access have lasting consequences.
As a result, manufacturers are rethinking how access works on day one. Rather than waiting for coverage to mature, leading companies are designing parallel pathways that allow motivated patients to initiate therapy immediately through a durable direct-to-patient self-pay offer. This is not a short-term bridge or stopgap. It is a deliberate access strategy that acknowledges how patients actually enter the system today, allows payer coverage to evolve, and addresses longer-term gross-to-net implications for pharma.
GoodRx as the Trusted Digital Storefront for Patients
As patient self-pay becomes a core access channel at launch, the limiting factor is no longer pricing strategy; it is infrastructure. Self-pay pricing models only work when they are visible, scalable, and operational from day one.
GoodRx functions as a digital storefront for prescription pricing, purpose-built to operationalize self-pay access at scale. It provides manufacturers with a direct way to translate early patient demand and healthcare provider-driven clinical support into real-world access at the pharmacy counter, even when coverage is uneven or evolving.
For pharma companies, GoodRx’s infrastructure delivers three critical capabilities at launch:
- Immediate consumer visibility into self-pay pricing at the moment of intent
- National distribution, spanning more than 70,000 retail pharmacies across the U.S.
- A trusted, high-intent destination where patients already research and act on treatment decisions
Together, these elements convert self-pay prices into a functioning access channel. Pricing is transparent. Pharmacy availability is verified. The path from discovery to fill is clear.
A Case Study: The Wegovy Pill Launch
The launch of the Wegovy pill illustrates how this approach works in practice.
By partnering with GoodRx, the visibility and reach of the Wegovy pill cash price was extended from the outset. Patients could immediately see what they would pay on a trusted platform and locate participating pharmacies across a national footprint.
This approach did not replace long-term payer engagement. It allowed demand to translate into treatment starts without delay by bringing the manufacturer self-pay price directly to patients from day one. From a launch perspective, this distinction matters: when access works at the moment of interest, utilization follows.
Creating New Pathways to Treatment
In some therapeutic categories, access constraints emerge well before a patient reaches the pharmacy. Weight management is a clear example, as patients increasingly seek modern, digital, and clinically appropriate pathways to providers and FDA-approved obesity treatments.
GoodRx addresses this need through condition-specific telehealth solutions like GoodRx for Weight Loss, which connect patients with licensed healthcare providers who can evaluate and prescribe treatment when clinically appropriate. From a launch standpoint, this capability supports a core access strategy by ensuring that access is supported upstream of the prescription.
When access depends on multiple handoffs across discovery, care delivery, and pharmacy fulfillment, early demand can be lost. Integrating these steps into a single experience helps ensure that interest translates into patients getting the therapies they need, particularly for those navigating self-pay pathways. In categories where patients expect care to be accessible, digital, and clinically sound, reducing upstream friction is critical to sustained launch performance and scale.
The New Launch Imperative
Patient self-pay is no longer a workaround for coverage gaps. It is a core access channel shaped by consumer behavior and structural constraints in the healthcare system.
Manufacturers that treat self-pay as an operational priority—supported by infrastructure that scales—gain earlier traction, clearer demand signals, and fewer access failures at launch. Those that defer execution risk losing momentum precisely when interest is highest.
GoodRx represents the emergence of a true digital storefront for prescription pricing that enables self-pay access to work from day one. For healthcare executives planning new drug introductions, the implication is straightforward: when self-pay is treated as a deliberate access strategy, early execution determines whether clinical innovation converts into real-world use.
Learn more about how GoodRx can help you reach patients quickly and effectively!
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