Chrissy highlights key themes in the future of patient access. She argues that policy changes, complex benefit designs, and affordability challenges require patient support services to be faster, more connected, and better aligned with real-world patient and provider needs.
Join CoverMyMeds’ April 23 AXS26 Innovation Roundtable.
Read on for Chrissy’s insights.
Building What’s Next: Join Industry Leaders to Shape Access and Affordability Trends Ahead of Asembia AXS26
By Chrissy Hand, Chief Product and Commercial Officer, CoverMyMeds
Every spring, Asembia’s AXS brings the specialty pharmacy and biopharma communities together to reflect on where access and affordability are headed. This year’s conversation feels more urgent. Change is coming from multiple directions, and the systems supporting patients are being asked to move faster than ever before.
After years of working with biopharma, providers, and policymakers, one thing is clear: patient support programs are under more pressure than they’ve been in the past decade. Coverage rules are evolving, therapy pipelines are expanding, and pricing and cost expectations are intensifying under the IRA. Meanwhile, care teams and patients expect quicker, clearer answers, putting today’s access models under increasing strain. The gap between how access works today and what’s required next continues to widen.
That’s why, ahead of AXS26, we’re hosting an Innovation Roundtable on April 23 with leaders from across the industry, including Miranda Delatore, Fauzea Hussain and Megan Wetzel from CoverMyMeds and McKesson and Ashwin Singhania from EY‑Parthenon. The goal is straightforward: to examine what’s changing, and how the industry will evolve with it. Here are the themes shaping the conversation.
Policy uncertainty is now a constant
Policy will be a central topic at AXS26, as it should be. Prior authorization requirements continue to evolve, pricing conversations are intensifying, and the impact of policies like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Most-Favored Nation (MFN) are still playing out across both commercial and government channels.
For access and affordability leaders, the challenge isn’t just compliance. It’s building programs and infrastructure that can adjust as requirements change, without slowing therapy starts or adding friction for providers and patients.
Specialty and oncology need more than scale
The specialty and oncology pipelines are expanding, but more therapies alone don’t improve access. Provider pathways are increasingly complex, benefit designs vary widely, and coordination across stakeholders remains inconsistent.
Supporting patients in this environment requires access operations that reduce handoffs, limit manual work, and provide visibility across the process, not more disconnected tools layered on top.
AI needs to be practical, not theoretical
AI is no longer about pilots. Its value will depend on how well it integrates into everyday access workflows, supporting tasks like information routing and decision support while maintaining human oversight.
The real question is how to use AI to improve transparency, consistency and speed without losing the trust and judgment that patients and providers rely on. That balance matters.
GLP‑1s are forcing new access decisions
GLP‑1 therapies continue to test existing access and affordability models. Demand remains high, coverage remains complex, and emerging direct‑to‑patient approaches are adding complexity rather than replacing traditional channels.
These dynamics are pushing organizations to evaluate how access strategies scale, and where affordability support fits across multiple points of entry.
Affordability still determines follow‑through
Even when access pathways improve, out‑of‑pocket costs remain a deciding factor for patients. Abandonment and non‑adherence continue when affordability gaps aren’t addressed early.
What’s changing is how those gaps are identified and managed, using timely benefit insights, clearer eligibility signals, and affordability logic built into the access process itself. Affordability is no longer a downstream consideration; it’s central to initiation and continuation of therapy.
Join the discussion
These issues will shape Asembia’s AXS26, and they will shape the year ahead for organizations responsible for patient access. Our April 23 Innovation Roundtable is designed to move past surface‑level trends and focus on what these shifts mean for how access and affordability actually function. If you’re thinking critically about what comes next, we hope you’ll join the conversation.
Register here: AXS26 Innovation Roundtable
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