Behind the Scenes of Bladder Cancer Treatment Access

October 5, 2026

Transcript

Voice over:

This is Bladder Cancer Matters, the podcast for bladder cancer patients, caregivers, advocates, and medical and research professionals. It’s brought to you by the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, otherwise known as BCAN. BCAN works to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advances bladder cancer research, and provides educational and support services for bladder cancer patients and their loved ones. To learn more, please visit bcan.org.

Rick Bangs:

Hi, I’m Rick Bangs, the host of Bladder Cancer Matters, a podcast for, by, and about the bladder cancer community. Today is the second in a series of podcasts that we’ll be doing in 2026 where we highlight the commitment of BCAN’s pharmaceutical company partners to creating better todays and more tomorrows for bladder cancer patients and families. We’re featuring Ferring Pharmaceuticals as the February 2026 partner in progress. Ferring is a privately owned biopharma company focusing on developing life-changing innovations that help people live better lives. Grounded in a 70-year commitment to science and research, Ferring pursues therapies that help people build families, stay healthy, and fight disease. They develop life-changing therapies to address the unmet medical needs of patients diagnosed with bladder and other urologic cancers. Our guest today is Todd Davey. Welcome to the podcast, Todd.

Todd Davey:

Thanks, Rick, I’m happy to be here.

Rick Bangs:

I’m happy to have you, and it’s going to be very interesting for our listeners. So they’re going to learn something today about something I don’t think they’ve heard about before, which is market access. What does market access mean in a pharmaceutical context like at Ferring?

Todd Davey:

That’s a really good question. I think when people think of pharmaceutical companies, they think of drug manufacturing, they think of products coming into the likes of Walgreens and to pharmacy and picking up prescriptions. Market access is a key component in the healthcare space, helping connect patients to drugs and allowing them to find an affordable way to get those drugs. It’s also, from a manufacturer’s point of view, a place where we look at the price of drugs, the cost of healthcare, and finding ways to ensure, as we bring innovation to market, that both the healthcare system and the patients in particular can afford the medicines and can obtain the medicines without incurring any major out-of-pocket costs that would put a burden on them and their families.

Rick Bangs:

Okay, so we’re going to go into more detail later, but I’d like to hear some of the things you personally do in this kind of role?

Todd Davey:

The thing that I do first is look at the assets that we bring to market. We have a bladder cancer product right now. I look at the clinical of the product and I say, “Okay, what value does that clinical product have for the disease state, particularly in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer? What can it do for patients that maybe previously was not done in treating their bladder cancer?” And then I take those, I’ll say, insights and those inputs off of the clinical that the product offers and I start to put value behind them. Okay, what does it mean that we can possibly take a patient and improve their therapy or their current therapies or their prior therapies in treatment for bladder cancer? What does it mean to a patient that maybe doesn’t undergo a cystectomy and the subsequent adverse events that go along with that? What does it mean to a family that has a bladder cancer sufferer within their family, that they can keep them from progressing into a more severe type of cancer?

And all of that has value around it. And I look at what that means both clinically and economically. And then I put a value equation together to ultimately come up with a price. And then I also take that into those who would be responsible for paying for the product, insurance companies for one, and I get their feedback on what they think of that value as well to make sure that we’re zeroing in on the right value equation.

Rick Bangs:

And is this role unique to Ferring?

Todd Davey:

Oh, no, absolutely not. I think it’s a key component of every single manufacturer, pharmaceutical company, and biotechnology company. As you know, as with any company, when you have a product, you’re going to price that product and put it out in the marketplace. Pricing that right is important. Making sure that your audience, or in this case patients, can afford it is important. So all companies have a market access component that deal with insurance companies and the government to make sure that the product that is being presented by that organization or that company can be adequately accessed by patients and healthcare providers.

Rick Bangs:

What you’ve said so far just reminds me of this, just a lot that goes into launching a new pharmaceutical product that patients don’t even realize, isn’t that true?

Todd Davey:

Yeah, it’s absolutely true. And we could even go back. It’s not just launching a pharmaceutical product. We can go back into research. When we research a drug, we look at patients that are literally getting therapy in a clinical trial setting and we say, “Well, how are they doing?” And if they’re doing well, that’s a good sign for the medicine. And then we say, “Okay, if they’re doing well, how many patients are going to do well with this particular product?” and we kind of define that. And then, as we enter into further phased trials or clinical trials as it comes closer to coming to market, we say, “What are all those value components that I just talked about that we’re seeing with that clinical outcome?” So we get involved in market access or that insurance space or pricing space probably about two years before a drug even is approved by the FDA, looking at endpoints or looking at the clinical outcome, and then defining what that means from a clinical standpoint and an economic standpoint.

Rick Bangs:

So I want to get into the deeper dive that I promised and I want to talk about the components of market access and how each might impact patients. And, along the way, if you want to throw in some examples that you or Ferring took for Adstiladrin, that would be wonderful. All right, so I want to start with something called strategy development. What’s that about?

Todd Davey:

It’s kind of what I just described. It’s an important part. And strategy in my mind really starts with listening. It’s listening to your customers. And then you got to define the customers. In the world that I deal in, who are my customers? My customers are the insurance company. My customers are Medicare, Medicaid, maybe Veterans Administration, Department of Defense, the government payers and those who actually pay the bill for medicines that come to market through those various programs. Those are my customers, and I have to listen to them to understand from their viewpoint what they think about the products that we’re developing and having clinical trials before they come to market. So that’s where it starts, and then when I get their inputs I kind of have to evaluate exactly how they apply into what I am studying, what products we’re studying, and then how I can monetize or wrap an actual cost around each one of those insights that I hear from those customers.

And then we ultimately, and this is the end zone here, when you bring a drug to market you have to think about the patient as the common denominator, and with all of those complexities and all of the things that I just talked about, can the patient afford the medicine? Can the physician provide it to the patient in a reasonable way that makes it kind of an easy process? And I want to make sure, at least within my strategy, as I’m developing the strategy, that the outcome of a patient getting the product of a provider, being able to obtain that product in a very smooth way, and then the patient not having any of that burden of cost, which is complex, I’m not going to go deeply into it, but making sure they don’t have the burden of cost, their family doesn’t have the burden of cost, is the outcome of a good, well-orchestrated strategy?

Rick Bangs:

And then there’s something called value demonstration, so what does that involve?

Todd Davey:

Value demonstration is really proving your point. In other words, I could say my product is worth, it’s worth 10 bucks. What you have to say to those paying the bill, and that’s either the government or private insurance companies like your Aetnas, United Healthcare, you have to say to them, “I’m going to show you that this is worth it and this is why.” So I go back and I look at the actual clinical presentations of the products, in this case, our product Adstiladrin for bladder cancer. And I think through, can I demonstrate that this product for the disease state of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer is worth it? And we use health economists to help model out that worth that value, and then we bring that to those parties that are actually paying for the medicine, the insurance companies and the government, and we demonstrate that value to them.

And then we have to really come to common ground when there’s an understanding to say, “Hey, yeah, you know what? You guys thought through this pretty well. This does bring value to our patients and, if it’s a private insurance company, our employers. We believe what you’re saying and thank you for doing the work on that.” And then at that point, they make the decision based on that value demonstration to what we call cover the drug. And that means insure it so the patient pays whatever, as little as possible through deductible or a small amount on a copay.

Rick Bangs:

All right, and what about launch excellence?

Todd Davey:

Yeah, launch excellence is kind of a term that I see as execution. So when you’ve gone through the strategic process and you’re in a space where you’re about to launch a product, it may be right after the drug is approved, you have kind of one chance to ensure that your customers, whether they be healthcare providers, whether they be patients, whether they be payers or other administrators, you get one chance to really introduce your product to those stakeholders so they can get a clear understanding of your clinical presentation of the product, and they can also get a clear understanding of the value that your product brings. And then they also need that clear understanding of where they’re going to use the product and on what type of patient or in what setting. All of that needs to be buttoned up from a manufacturer that’s bringing a product into market.

And that launch excellence involves multiple areas within a manufacturer. I could say regular in-line marketing. I could say our sales folks who educate on the product to providers. And it’s also how we present our product to the patient through our websites, our education platforms. So all of that, we package together, we bring that at one point in time when we’re ready to introduce the product to our customer base, and that is the components that I think lead up to a really good launch excellence. And then, like I said earlier, at the end of that launch excellence, execution. What I want to hear from our customers and patients, that’s our providers, our healthcare providers, our uro-oncologists, I want to hear it from our insurance company, they’ll say, “Hey guys, thanks a lot for putting this together in such a very succinct way. We understand the value of what you’re bringing, we understand the clinical, and thank you for being so forthcoming with that education across all the areas that we have to understand.”

Rick Bangs:

As a former brand manager, I can tell you that relaunches are really painful, so this is really critical, this launch excellence piece that you’ve just walked through. Tell me a little bit about Ferring uro-oncology? What’s most important to them?

Todd Davey:

It’s the patients. I do what I do because I understand that patients are the recipients of our products. In particular cancer patients, they have a lot going on. And I have family members who have suffered with bladder cancer. I have many family members who unfortunately have passed with cancer. And it’s not just the diagnosis that kind of rattles, it’s what happens after with the family, what happens after with the lifestyle, what happens after with costs. There’s a lot that goes into a patient being diagnosed with cancer, and I think what motivates me, and I think this also motivates my peers here at Ferring, is we’re in a excellent position to be able to bring something to a market space, particularly a bladder cancer treatment that helps all stakeholders, most importantly the patient, with their disease. And that’s kind of our purpose, and that’s what motivates us on a regular basis to do the best we can in all the areas that we work.

Rick Bangs:

Excellent, excellent. Any final thoughts?

Todd Davey:

Yeah, I think the final thought is this, there’s a lot of, I’ll say, perceptions that swirl around pharmaceutical manufacturers, around the healthcare system. I’ll be frank, it’s not an easy, quote/unquote, business to understand, but at the end of the day I think it’s important for all parties, including the patients who receive our products, to understand it. We have scientists that spend and dedicate their entire life to finding therapies that are going to help patients and families. They don’t think about the business, they think about that. And then what they want to see is those products actually being delivered into a space where patients get them, and they work their entire lives maybe in one disease area, maybe sometimes on one or two products to make that happen.

Where we come in on the business side is we’re kind of the in-between. We help connect the scientists and their thoughts and the innovation that they come up with to the healthcare system and, ultimately, down to the patient where they receive care. And when we do that we have to take things into consideration. We have to take costs into consideration, obviously. We have to take the patient life into consideration. We have to take that journey of what we need to go through and we have to have the right expertise in a organization like Ferring to make sure we make that happen. But the fulfilling part is, at the end of the day, and I’ve been doing this for quite some time, at the end of the day, if you do this right, what you see is an improvement in healthcare, an improvement in the disease states that you’re focused on over time, and an improvement in innovation of medicine which will ultimately benefit really all Americans and it will benefit the healthcare system.

We’re going to continue on that path. That path is going to be full of challenges. It’s going to be full of maybe different kind of turns that we need to make, but I think we’re going to continue doing that and the people that I work with, including myself, are going to do it with purpose.

Rick Bangs:

Excellent, excellent. Improvement in benefits, that’s what it’s all about.

Todd Davey:

Yeah, exactly.

Rick Bangs:

Todd, I want to thank you for explaining the ins and outs of market access at Ferring and how it impacts patients, and also for creating better todays and more tomorrows for bladder cancer patients and families as one of BCAN’s partners in progress.

Todd Davey:

All right, thank you, Rick.

Rick Bangs:

If you’d more information on bladder cancer, please visit the BCAN website, www.bcan.org. Just a reminder, if you’d like more information about bladder cancer, you can contact the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network at 1-888-901-2226. That’s all the time we have today. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe to this podcast so that we have your feedback. Thank you for listening, and we’ll be back soon with another interesting episode of Bladder Cancer Matters. Thanks again, Todd.

Todd Davey:

Thank you, Rick.

Intro/Outro Speaker:

Thank you for listening to Bladder Cancer Matters, a podcast by the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, or BCAN. BCAN works to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advance bladder cancer research, and provide educational and support services for bladder cancer patients. For more information about this podcast and additional information about bladder cancer, please visit bcan.org.