How a beer brand strengthened its position in a key African market
See how an established beer brand sharpened pricing and distribution decisions to drive double-digit growth in an African market.
“For market access teams, clinical data alone is not always sufficient to secure reimbursement or willingness to pay. HTA bodies are increasingly open to recognizing additional evidence of a product’s added value, such as patient preference which may directly impact compliance or adoption. Discrete choice experiments are a powerful tool to gather insights into patient preference and strengthen HTA submissions.”
– Elise Kocks, Director | SKIM
The challenge: Clinical evidence alone is not enough
In the context of maternal infectious disease prevention, the reimbursement challenge extended beyond demonstrating clinical efficacy and safety. For HTA submissions, the critical question is often how clinical value will translate into real-world adoption, acceptability, and population-level impact.
This is particularly relevant when alternative interventions address the same public health need and appear broadly comparable on key clinical outcomes. In such cases, decision-makers may need additional evidence to understand which option is most likely to be accepted by patients, caregivers, and healthcare systems in practice.
For this specific case, this meant moving beyond a conventional comparison of available options to generate robust evidence on parental preferences, expected uptake, and the potential implications for immunization coverage. These insights helped position preference evidence as a meaningful complement to the clinical and economic evidence typically required in HTA and reimbursement discussions.
Our solution: Understanding patient preference
To demonstrate patient preference in a way that is relevant for HTA and reimbursement decision-making, SKIM designed a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in the context of infectious disease prevention. A DCE is particularly well suited to HTA submissions because it quantifies how patients or caregivers make trade-offs between meaningful product, service, and access attributes, generating evidence that goes beyond stated preference to reflect likely real-world decision-making.
“A well-designed DCE does more than simply asking patients what they prefer. It reveals the relative importance of different attributes and shows how those preferences may translate into acceptance, uptake, and adherence in practice. That makes it a valuable evidence component for HTA authorities assessing the broader value of a healthcare intervention.”
– Elise Kocks, Director | SKIM
For DCE evidence to be credible and impactful in an HTA context, the study had to be designed in line with established best-practice guidance. This includes defining attributes that are clinically meaningful, relevant to patients, and actionable for decision-makers, rather than focusing only on features that are convenient to measure.
In practice, this means collaborating with clinical institutions or patient associations and healthcare professionals to ensure the right attributes are considered, conducting pre-tests to confirm that the exercises are relevant and clearly understood, and applying robust screening criteria and quota distributions to reach the appropriate respondent population. When executed rigorously, a DCE can produce quantitative, defensible preference evidence that helps HTA bodies understand how patient choice may influence real-world adoption and the overall value of an intervention.
The outcome: Preference evidence to support HTA decision-making
Patient preference insights can strengthen HTA submissions by translating choice into evidence on adoption, access, and population-level impact. The same insights can also inform marketing strategy by clarifying which attributes matter most to patients and caregivers.
Identifying the attributes that drive patient choice
By quantifying attribute importance, the research showed which factors influence acceptance and uptake. In the case study example, the timing and recipient of administration emerged as a key preference driver.
Estimating how access conditions may affect real-world uptake
The study also demonstrated how preference insights can be used to simulate uptake under different access scenarios. In the case study, including both maternal vaccination and infant immunization options in a national program was associated with higher predicted uptake.
The study was published open access in Infectious Diseases and Therapy (Springer Healthcare, 2025*), co-authored by SKIM’s Elise Kocks and clinical researchers from Spaarne Gasthuis Hospital, adding peer-reviewed credibility to the evidence base.
Overall, the case study shows how robust preference evidence can support HTA decisions while also informing patient-centered positioning and communication.
What this means for Pharma market access
Three lessons for your next market access strategy:
- Patient preference research belongs in your HTA strategy, not just your marketing plan: When two options are clinically comparable, patient preference can be a deciding factor as it may translate into overall treatment adoption and compliance.
- Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs) are a powerful tool to quantify patient preferences for healthcare solutions: when designed in line with best practice standards, they simulate how patients make trade-offs between treatment options.
- Peer-reviewed publication strengthens your evidence package: A published DCE gives your submission an independently validated foundation and builds credibility with payers and health authorities
Work with SKIM on your HTA evidence strategy
If you’re preparing a market access or HTA submission, SKIM can help generate the evidence needed to support reimbursement, market access, and adoption decisions.
By combining behavioural insight with rigorous analytics and deep healthcare expertise, we help organisations demonstrate value beyond clinical outcomes alone.
Get in touch to discuss how patient preference evidence can strengthen your next HTA submission.
*Published reference: Langedijk AC et al. Preferences of Dutch Parents and Expectant Parents for Respiratory Syncytial Virus Prevention Strategies: A Discrete Choice Experiment. Infect Dis Ther. 2025. doi: 10.1007/s40121-025-01214-2
