Rewriting the Access Playbook: Insights from Asembia AXS2025
Asembia’s AXS25 Summit brought together leaders from across the pharmaceutical landscape, united by a shared priority: redefining patient access in an era of shifting policy, digital transformation, and specialty care convergence. For those of us building the future of engagement, it’s not just about helping patients start therapy—it’s about supporting them throughout the journey with systems designed for speed, clarity, and empathy.
Direct from Asembia’s AXS2025 Summit, these key patient access takeaways offer strategic direction for brands navigating today’s evolving healthcare landscape.
1. Patient-centric models are moving from buzzword to blueprint
For years, “patient-centricity” has been used liberally across brand decks. But the AXS25 conversations made it clear: this is no longer about intent—it’s about execution.
Patients today face multiple friction points: from opaque benefit structures to limited visibility into what they'll actually pay at the pharmacy. Summit sessions spotlighted emerging solutions aimed at reducing these friction points—such as streamlining or even eliminating enrollment steps in patient support programs to accelerate benefit verification and access and deploying proactive tools that engage patients before issues arise.
Affordability programs are also evolving. There’s growing recognition that support must be customized—not commoditized—since affordability means different things to different patients. The future lies in platforms that deliver tailored experiences, aligned to each patient’s financial, emotional, and clinical needs.
Strategic implication: Patient access programs are becoming a differentiator at parity—brands that master transparency, speed, and support will own the trust narrative.
2. Policy is the new access lever
Policy isn’t just an operational constraint anymore; it’s a strategic force reshaping access in real time.
The summit underscored growing concerns around the Inflation Reduction Act’s Maximum Fair Price model—not just its pricing implications, but the downstream effects on manufacturer-pharmacy relationships, duplicate discount risks, and patient coverage volatility. Meanwhile, looming trade tensions and the potential return of pharma tariffs could dramatically impact global drug supply and affordability, with patients bearing the cost.
Panelists stressed that policy literacy must now be baked into market access planning. Reactive responses to regulatory changes are no longer sufficient. Companies need to model multiple policy scenarios and proactively communicate impacts across internal and external stakeholders.
Strategic implication: Access teams must now include policy and economic experts to stay agile and aligned with rapidly shifting reimbursement landscapes.
3. Pharmacists are becoming access architects
The pharmacist’s role is undergoing a transformation—from transactional to transformational.
At AXS25, discussions revealed how pharmacists are stepping into roles as clinical guides, coverage educators, and even mental health touchpoints, particularly in underserved and high-volume specialty areas. With PCPs overwhelmed and specialists scarce, pharmacists are uniquely positioned to close care gaps.
But they need help. Most current systems aren’t designed to support the pharmacist as a central care node. Better digital tools, payer coordination, and manufacturer-led training can empower these professionals to deliver meaningful, high-touch access support.
Strategic implication: Future brand planning should treat pharmacy not as a channel, but as a care ecosystem—integrated, enabled, and essential.
4. AI: a new ally in the access equation
The rise of AI is redefining patient access operations—and fast.
At AXS25, speakers emphasized how AI is already automating complex, high-friction workflows like prior authorizations, benefit verifications, and call center triage. These tools reduce wait times and free up human teams to focus on empathetic, patient-facing tasks.
Importantly, AI is also helping with predictive personalization—identifying when a patient may drop off therapy or when coverage barriers are likely to arise. Rather than reacting to problems, brands can now preempt them.
That said, successful AI adoption requires training and trust. HCPs and office staff need to understand how to use AI tools confidently, and patients must believe in their value.
Strategic implication: AI is no longer a tech add-on—it’s an operational imperative that enables both access scalability and patient intimacy.
5. Specialty medications are mainstreaming—is your access strategy ready?
Perhaps one of the biggest paradigm shifts discussed at AXS25: specialty is no longer “special.”
With 80% of drug approvals now falling into the specialty category, primary care and general medicine providers are being asked to prescribe and manage treatments previously confined to specialists. This new reality introduces significant access challenges: complex benefit designs, prior authorization bottlenecks, and affordability hurdles that PCPs are often unprepared to manage.
Telemedicine and digital tools offer some relief, but they require seamless integration into already strained systems. Meanwhile, the rise of AI agents and cross-functional care teams (including field reimbursement managers) is helping to remove access blind spots in these less-specialized environments.
Strategic implication: Specialty-caliber access support must now be designed for generalist workflows—scalable, intuitive, and embedded.
Final thought: access is the story now.
From pricing reform to AI acceleration, from pharmacist empowerment to specialty diffusion—the future of patient access is fast moving and foundational. The brands that succeed will be those that recognize that access isn’t an operational afterthought—it’s the new front door to healthcare experience.
At Spherico, we don’t just solve access challenges—we design strategic solutions that connect patients to therapy faster and more meaningfully. As a partner in both market and patient access, we align brand ambition with system reality to create smarter, more human experiences that drive results.