OBJECTIVES:  A common goal among biopharmaceutical product development teams is incorporating market access considerations, e.g., clinical trial and outcomes data, health technology assessment (HTA) organization requirements, and pricing scenarios earlier in commercial planning in order to properly align product value with payer motivations. This research investigates the utility of a framework for commercial teams to assess therapeutic category and product access opportunities; and to do so simultaneously in heterogeneous market access environments. The resulting graphical framework can be used by pharmaceutical firms to evaluate product positioning relative to various market access scenarios in order to inform product development and resource investment decisions. METHODS:  A simplified payer value equation [(efficacy + safety + burden of disease)/(product price – cost offsets)], is used to develop a graph to assess therapeutic areas and products relative to market access thresholds. Products are plotted using product value (y-axis) and a combination of disease burden and unmet medical need (x-axis). Market access thresholds are plotted as curves which represent the level of product innovation required to achieve various levels of market access. Movement across thresholds depicts significant change in that product’s market access (e.g., non-reimbursed versus reimbursed). The position of market access thresholds can be estimated by defining market access to existing products within individual payer systems. Analyzing product positioning simultaneously in multiple markets can be achieved by overlaying such graphs and aligning them along similar market access thresholds. RESULTS:  This framework can be used to illuminate the level of product innovation required to meet the increasingly stringent requirements for market access and inform firms’ investment decisions. CONCLUSIONS:  Market access environments are complex and dynamic.  Assessing therapeutic category and the attributes of new medicines relative to market access thresholds can inform pharmaceutical firms’ strategies to generate evidence of product value that are aligned with payer priorities.