Abstract The article aims to understand the institutionalisation process of markets for innovative products. To pursue this study of market formation, we analysed the introduction of innovative personalised medicines products: Herceptin® (trastuzumab) for breast cancer and Tarceva® (erlotinib) for lung cancer, which were introduced successively in the Netherlands between 2000 and 2012. We apply the technological innovation system (TIS) approach to understand the development, implementation and diffusion of new markets, including new roles for users and producers, new forms of regulation and novel user practices regarding innovative health technologies. We show that market access became institutionalised as part of the technological innovation system of the first-mover personalised medicine, i.e. the market was formed, paving the way for the later personalised medicine products.