A country-level market access score measures how demanding a country’s pricing and reimbursement system is for drugs in general. A drug-level rating measures how one specific drug, in one indication, stands against that test. One rates the door; the other rates whether this drug opens it.
What country-level scores do
Data providers such as IHS Markit and GlobalData publish country-level market access scores: one figure or band per country, describing how restrictive its pricing, reimbursement and health technology assessment environment is. They are useful for sequencing launches and comparing geographies. By design, they do not distinguish one drug from another.
What a drug-level rating does
A MARA Rating is assigned per drug and indication: a dated letter grade built from the public record of that drug’s own evidence. It does not say whether one country is harder than another in general; it says where this drug’s reimbursement risk is concentrated.
Which one you need
Portfolio and geography questions call for country-level scores. Asset questions — due diligence on a specific drug, a licensing decision, lending against a product’s revenues — call for a drug-level rating. The two are complements, not competitors, and thorough diligence often uses both.