The Access Group 2015

The Access Group

400 Connell Drive, 2nd Floor Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922

Telephone: 908-508-6700 E-mail: [email protected] Website: theaccessgp.com

 

The Access Group is a premier professional services agency specializing in health care communications and strategy consulting for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries. Dedicated to complete product life cycle management through a network of distinct – yet interconnected – companies, the Access Group creates strategic brand solutions that drive demand across multiple stakeholder channels, its leaders say.

The Access Group employs more than 95 health care marketing specialists, consultants, and senior leaders with experience in managed markets, management consulting, medical education, marketing communications, training, and brand promotion. The company has offices in New Jersey, New York City, California, and Chicago.

The year’s accomplishments

2014 was a groundbreaking year for the Access Group, according to executives. The company launched two new full-service entities – FronTier Managed Markets and Bioeclipse – that continue to expand and complement the company’s capabilities. “With the addition of our two new entities, FronTier Managed Markets and Bioeclipse, the Access Group is primed to build upon continued success by effectively navigating our clients through today’s complexities within the areas of managed markets and specialty pharmaceuticals and oncology,” says Eric Bishea, managing partner at the Access Group.

Access Group leaders point to the significant market shifts within the current health care landscape as policies and customers are continually evolving, with emerging models of care leading this transformation. FronTier Managed Markets lends substantial experience combined with a thorough understanding of the stakeholders who are altering this landscape, from health plan medical directors to integrated networks to large physician groups.

Seth Gordon, the company lead for FronTier Managed Markets and a managing partner at the Access Group, notes that, “You can’t fake it with managed markets, especially now. In order to truly help clients navigate everything from coinsurance to the nuances in restrictions and benefit designs, you need a strong experiential set in this space, coupled with best-in-class clinical, policy, copy, and creative ideation. We are able to provide that with FronTier Managed Markets and better prepare our clients for what lies ahead in the US reimbursement space.”

The biopharma and oncology treatments reaching the market today are new and novel agents that fill vast unmet needs with tremendous promise for all stakeholders involved in a patient’s care. Manufacturers of these products require expertise to prepare for market launch so that they can optimize access and reimbursement. Executives say Bioeclipse offers a deep and complete understanding of the complex needs and evolving issues in the specialty, biologic, and oncologic marketplaces to deliver result-driven solutions in all of the payer customer channels.

“With more than 600 new molecular compounds already in or entering into phase III studies in the oncology development area, coupled with the fact that soon more than 60 percent of a health plan’s budget will be allotted to pay for specialty and oncologic agents in the next few years, it is an exciting time to launch a new entity devoted to this unique space,” says Mike Webster, the company lead for Bioeclipse and a managing partner at the Access Group. “Issues such as clinical pathways, restrictions to specific patient populations, specialty pharmacy distribution, and benefit-to-cost analyses will soon be the ‘new norm’ for pharma. Having a company like Bioeclipse allows the Access Group to remain on the cutting edge of reimbursement initiatives and the payer marketing world of tomorrow.”

According to Access Group leaders, Promidian, the company’s management consulting division, continued its growth by leaps and bounds in 2014. In addition to hosting offices in New York City and San Francisco, Promidian opened an office in Los Angeles to serve the needs of biopharma clients in southern California.

“We’ve continued to rapidly scale up our team to keep pace with the demand from our expanding client base,” said Kevin Barnett, company lead for Promidian and partner. “We have the fortune of working with leading biopharma companies on some of their most pressing business challenges – including launching products, maximizing value of in-line brands, improving internal operations to align with requirements of a rapidly evolving marketplace, and developing companion diagnostic strategy to support commercialization of personalized medicines. These are truly exciting times at Promidian.”

The Access Group continues to be recognized and acknowledged within the industry as a top innovator, executives say. For the second year in a row, the Access Group was recognized by a major national industry publication with an appearance on the publication’s top 100 agencies list. In addition, the company won several regional awards for its creative and artistic design work.

The network has added talent across its entities to keep pace with growing assignments. Recent new leadership additions include Jeff Gruenglas, senior VP, business development for Bioeclipse, and Jim Cimino, VP of technology for the Access Group.

Structure and services

Since the inception of the Access Group in 2010, the network has provided more than 100 new product and service offerings. The network’s strategy for success is to continuously evolve a diversified portfolio of training, management consulting, trade initiatives, digital media applications, and payer and purchaser programs, in addition to branded and unbranded marketing communications.

Future plans

Future growth for the Access Group will continue to emphasize service alignment and cross-company offerings to further demonstrate the value of a network that supports “all-in-one” brand strategy and management consulting, marketing, selling solutions, medical communication, and professional promotion services. This integration across complementary business entities to provide holistic brand support is what differentiates the Access Group from traditional network agencies, executives say.

The Access Group’s Government│Policy│Systems (GPS) division will launch new offerings to help clients navigate long-term care and the organized customer, as well as to help clients get ahead of today’s trends. “Providers are increasingly being placed at risk (@RiskProvider—the new ‘who’),” says Chief Medical Officer Richard G Stefanacci. “As a result, they are focusing on population health management (the new ‘what’). This represents a significant shift from the past, where private physicians were paid a fee for their services, so they focused on volume of patients seen, prescribing medications based on clinical benefit, and ability to see more patients. The new focus on population health management requires a knowing guide to lead to success.”

On the digital front, the Access Group will continue to advance its clients’ technology functionality, focusing on mobile-centric applications that increase customer engagement by translating customized tablet solutions, websites, and content management systems to the mobile environment.

Philanthropy/citizenship

The Access Group continues to work with the Go4theGoal Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps children affected by cancer reach their goals and funds cutting-edge research to find a cure. The company also proudly supports the Cancer Hope Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of patients who are undergoing treatment for cancer and their family members. In addition, through numerous corporate team-building initiatives throughout the year, the Access Group has become an active contributor to a local New Jersey-based food bank and St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center, an animal adoption and shelter network in New Jersey.