When Access Trails Innovation: A New Calculus for Global Oncology Launches

Oncology's science has never moved faster — and its medicines have never been less certain to arrive on time, in order, or on the terms companies planned for. In the year since Most-Favored-Nation pricing took effect, drug launches across Europe have fallen 35% and withdrawals have risen 43%.

On October 1 — three weeks before this audience convenes in Madrid at ESMO — CMS's GLOBE model takes effect, tying U.S. prices for clinic-administered medicines to 19 reference countries, with oncology squarely in its path. Layer in Project Orbis accelerating approvals across continents and the EU's joint HTA transition pushing reimbursement further out, and the result isn't just a policy shift — it's a structural inversion of how launches have to be planned. 

Approval no longer predicts access. Sequencing no longer follows the old map. And the commercial teams who win are the ones rewriting their playbook before the gap forces their hand.

This session moves past the mechanics of why the environment changed and into what launch teams are actually doing about it — how sequencing, positioning, and engagement strategy are being rebuilt in real time to keep assets moving even where the traditional path to reimbursement has slowed or closed.

Attendees will gain insights into:

• What a delayed, narrowed, or withdrawn launch actually means at the point of care — for the HCPs prescribing around it and the patients waiting on it — and what that demands of launch communications and engagement
• How leading oncology teams are re-sequencing launch order and adapting brand narrative to markets outside the traditional reference baskets, rather than defaulting to the old US/EU5-first playbook
• Where commercial teams still have real leverage when regulatory and pricing levers move slower than launch timelines — evidence generation, stakeholder engagement, and value narrative chief among them
• Practical approaches for keeping a launch on track — and keeping HCPs and patients informed and engaged — when the gap between approval and access is the new baseline, not the exception