What to attend at ISPOR 2026: Exploring the conference program with Laura Pizzi

With over 100 sessions spanning policy, methods, and applied research, navigating the ISPOR 2026 program presents both opportunity and challenge for attendees. As the global HEOR community gathers in Philadelphia, where ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research held its first conference in 1996, this year’s meeting reflects a field evolving rapidly in response to advances in data, methodology, and policy.

Under the theme “HEOR at the Forefront of Policy, Access, and Value,” the program reflects current priorities across the HEOR community, from evolving approaches to value assessment to the growing role of real-world evidence (RWE) and AI.

To help readers identify key areas of focus, we speak with Laura Pizzi, Chief Science Officer at ISPOR, who shares her perspective on sessions to watch, emerging themes, and how attendees can make the most of the program.

Laura, thank you for speaking with us ahead of ISPOR 2026. To start, if you had to highlight one or two “sessions to watch” at ISPOR 2026, which would you choose and why?

In general, any of the sessions with use cases that employ AI to conduct HEOR – or skill-building workshops on AI – are sessions I’m watching. While use of AI in systematic literature reviews is not new, there are a growing number of applications. It’s important that we learn to work with AI but not without solid understanding of the methods that underly its application. I’m particularly interested in Monday’s workshop on agentic AI to build economic models, which includes a case study on autoimmune disease. I’m also interested in the session on AI to conduct behavioral phenotyping for medication adherence interventions. If we can unlock the power of AI to understand the complexity of human behaviors, we can use it to improve those behaviors.

What should attendees hope to take away from these sessions?

ISPOR not only plays an important role in advancing new measures and methods, but also in using existing ones better. That’s where AI comes in. I’m hoping attendees leave the conference with new ideas, and the inspiration, to apply AI to their work. I’m of the opinion that doing so with “human at the helm” AI approaches are critical though, to maintain scientific integrity and quality.

“We can’t wait for “the right day to come” for us to use AI in our work because that day is already here and if HEOR scientists don’t seize the opportunity to use it to strengthen biomedical evidence generation, then other disciplines will.”

Beyond your selected sessions, are there any topics or areas of the program you would encourage attendees to explore?

Yes! Sessions related to expanding the measurement and use of value continue to garner strong interest from ISPOR members, with this topic coming in at #7 on our 2026–2027 Top Ten Trends list and also relating to ISPOR’s Strategic Plan 2030 “whole health” theme. I’ll speak a bit about whole health in my plenary remarks on day 3 of the conference, but there are several strong sessions lined up that relate to the methods of expanded value assessments.

“I’m passionate about this scientific frontier because it necessitates including outcomes that matter to patients and their families but also understanding what factors outside of the healthcare sector influence health and how health ultimately contributes to a well-being society.”

There are two sessions on macroeconomic modeling I’m paying attention to: one on social value models and one on incorporating labor-market effects into HTA. From a health economics perspective though, the topic of expanded value measures is not without controversy, since if one measures expanded health benefits then they should also measure opportunity costs. There will be a provocative session on this topic, focusing on the Health Economics Methods Advisory (HEMA) group’s recently released recommendations proposing updated approaches to defining and measuring benefits in economic evaluation.

On the RWE front, we have several really strong RWE sessions in the program on target trial emulation as well as one with leading medical journal editors (JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Arthritis and Rheumatology) to discuss their opportunities and challenges with publishing RWE.

We’re also hosting a “state of the science” session to uncover what’s happening with HEOR in US federal agencies – CDC, NIH, and FDA – and a ISPOR Task Forces showcase featuring synopses of our recently published Good Practice Reports on a range of topics: designing and implementing real-world patient-reported outcomes (RW-PROs), applying HEOR methods in value-based healthcare, evaluating surrogate endpoints for HTA decision-making, and valuing child and adolescent health states for utility estimation in economic evaluation.

For those attending ISPOR for the first time, how would you recommend approaching the program?

Use the app! It is easily searchable by keyword to find the sessions that most interest you and help you build a personalized schedule for the conference. And while the networking at ISPOR 2026 is “next level,” take advantage of the opportunity to learn by attending the sessions, and consider taking a pre-conference short course.

“Our field is changing fast and, given the busy schedules many HEOR professionals have, attending a strong conference like ours is one of the few “real” opportunities to strengthen our knowledge and skills.”

Interviewee

Laura T Pizzi, PharmD, MPH
Chief Science Officer, ISPOR

Dr Laura Pizzi is the Chief Science Officer for ISPOR, the leading global professional society for health economics and outcomes research (HEOR). In this role, she provides strategic scientific leadership, overseeing the organization’s major initiatives, including the development of ISPOR’s science strategy, content priorities, and global initiatives such as Special Interest Groups, the Patient Council, regional Patient Representative Roundtables, and the organization’s Digital Health Strategy. Dr Pizzi co-leads the development of the ISPOR Health Economics and Outcomes Research Competency Framework, which outlines the core knowledge and skills essential to the HEOR profession.

Dr Pizzi brings more than 20 years of academic and research expertise to ISPOR. She has led interdisciplinary teams of methodologists, statisticians, and clinicians in designing and conducting cost and outcomes analyses for both pharmacologic therapies and non-pharmacologic interventions. Much of her work has focused on improving the quality of care for older adults through the US translation and implementation of cost-effective interventions. Her achievements include leading health economic analyses for numerous multicenter clinical trials, testifying before the US House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means on Medicare overspending, authoring a textbook on economic evaluation, and publishing more than 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 120 research presentations.

In addition to her leadership role at ISPOR, Dr Pizzi serves as Research Professor at Rutgers University, holding faculty appointments at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy and Rutgers School of Public Health. Her academic career has centered on advancing the science of health economics, influencing healthcare policy, and training the next generation of HEOR professionals.