Themes shaping ISPOR 2026: How AI is rewriting HEOR methods, workflows, and credibility
As the global HEOR community prepares for ISPOR 2026, this series explores the key themes emerging across the program and what they signal for evidence generation, decision-making, and the future of the field.
AI now ranks as the top trend in the 2026–2027 Top 10 HEOR Trends report from ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, with ISPOR’s CEO Rob Abbott, noting: “AI is now embedded across the evidence lifecycle, from literature review and data structuring to predictive modeling and communication of insights.”
With AI increasingly integrated across HEOR workflows, expectations around credibility, transparency, and validation are intensifying, making it a dominant theme across the conference. At ISPOR 2026, sessions will build on this momentum, moving beyond the potential of AI to a more critical question: can AI-enabled evidence be trusted to inform real decisions?
What can attendees expect to learn from these sessions?
These sessions will explore how AI is being applied across evidence generation, including the use of large language models, natural language processing, and multi-agent systems to support systematic reviews, modeling, and submissions. Speakers from industry, academia, and data science will examine the shift from automation to more complex AI-enabled workflows, alongside the implications for scale, consistency, and efficiency, including where AI adds value beyond human performance.
A key focus will be transparency, reproducibility, and validity. Sessions will consider how AI-enabled outputs can be assessed for credibility, including approaches to validation, governance frameworks, and documentation of AI inputs and outputs. Discussions will also address the need for appropriate guardrails, what constitutes effective human-in-the-loop oversight, and how uncertainty introduced by AI should be managed.
As AI becomes even more embedded in HEOR, these sessions provide insight into how decision-makers, regulators, and HTA bodies are assessing the acceptability of AI-generated evidence.
Selected sessions
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 10:30am – 11:30am
Moderator: Nicholaas Honig (Highlander Health)
Speakers: Jolyon Fairburn-Beech (GSK), Nate Nussbaum (Target RWE) and Dan Riskin (Verantos, Inc.)
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 10:30am – 11:30am
Moderator: C Daniel Mullins (University of Maryland School of Medicine)
Speakers: Lizheng Shi (Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine), Yiduo Zhang (AstraZeneca) and Mei Yang (NouStarX)
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 12:15pm – 1:15pm
Moderator: Lisa Weiss (Stieber Health Consulting, LLC)
Speakers: Abimbola Williams (Boston Scientific), Jimmy Royer (Analysis Group) and Daniel Caños (US Food and Drug Administration)
Transforming HEOR with artificial intelligence and real-world data
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 12:15pm – 1:15pm
Moderator: Mark Yates (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Speakers: Ashwin Kumar Rai (Thermo Fisher Scientific), Melissa M Ross (Thermo Fisher Scientific) and Apoorva Ambavane (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Living HTA in the age of AI innovation: Supporting HTA decisions at the speed of evolving evidence
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 12:15pm – 1:15pm
Moderator: Grammati Sarri (Cytel)
Speakers: Seye Abogunrin (Roche), Dalia Dawoud (Cytel) and Hector E Castro Jaramillo (Health-R LLC)
Use of agentic AI to create health economic models in both R and excel
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: J Jaime Caro (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Speakers: Brian Reddy (Pfizer), Baris Deniz (AIde Solutions) and Apoorva Ambavane (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Minutes, not months: AI-enabled insights to drive evidence strategy
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 3:15pm – 3:45pm
Speaker: Michael Simonov (Truveta)
Agentic AI in evidence submissions: Rigor, Trust, traceability, & compliance
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 4:45pm – 5:45pm
Moderator: Xiaoyan Wang (Tulane University)
Speakers: Ipek Ozer Stillman (Takeda), Jinghai Stephen Huo (Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Johnson and Johnson) and Gabriel Innes (US Food and Drug Administration)
Live, interactive workshop of generative AI for real-world market access challenges
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 4:45pm – 5:45pm
Moderator: Jag Chhatwal (Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital)
Speakers: Narin Yasar (Merck & Co., Inc.) and Turgay Ayer (Value Analytics Labs)
Beyond the bots: How AI-enabled literature reviews are maturing, and what HEOR needs next
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 10:30am – 11:30am
Moderator: Ramiro E Gilardino (R-Impact)
Speakers: Angeline B Dhas (MadeAi), Ranita M Tarchand (Nested Knowledge) and Mark Priatel (DistillerSR)
Driving the next era of evidence-based medicine through AI, diverse data, and collaboration
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 12:15pm - 1:15pm
Moderator: Eric Wu (Analysis Group)
Speakers: Jimmy Royer (Analysis Group) and Liming Liang (Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health)
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 1:45pm - 2:45pm
Moderator: Katelyn Keyloun (Arysana)
Speakers: Bill Byrom (Signant Health), Catherine Foley (AbbVie) and Justyna Amelio (AbbVie)
Communicating value in the age of AI—skills, tools, and confidence for HEOR careers
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 3:15pm - 4:15pm
Moderator: Irwin Tran (NextLeader Coaching)
Speakers: Chintan Dave (Rutgers University), Juan-David Rueda (AstraZeneca) and Sonya Snedecor (Science Clarity)
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 4:45pm - 5:45pm
Moderator: Zachary Marcum (Medicus Economics)
Speakers: Weihsuan J Lo-Ciganic (University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine), Marc Y Tian (Teva Pharmaceuticals) and Cheng Peng (University of Florida, Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics)
Productivity gains from generative AI across the HEOR workflow: Successful case studies
Date and time: Wednesday May 20, 2026, 8:00am – 9:00am
Moderator: Uwe Siebert (UMIT TIROL – University for Health Sciences and Technology; Harvard Chan School of Public Health)
Speakers: Jag Chhatwal (Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital), Ipek Ozer Stillman (Takeda) and Turgay Ayer (Value Analytics Labs)
Date and time: Wednesday May 20, 2026, 10:00am – 11:00am
Moderator: Beth Devine (University of Washington)
Speakers: Bill Malcolm (Bristol Myers Squibb), Tim Reason (Estima Scientific) and Lockwood Taylor (Flatiron Health)
Amplifying patient voice: AI-driven narrative analysis in clinical trials
Date and time: Wednesday May 20, 2026, 10:00am – 11:00am
Moderator: Denise Globe (Gilead Sciences)
Speakers: Saeid Shahraz (Gilead Sciences), Yuelin Li (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) and Bill Byrom (Signant Health)
Date and time: Wednesday May 20, 2026, 10:00am – 11:00am
Moderator: Meng Li (Tufts Medical Center; Stifel)
Speakers: Xiaoyan Wang (Tulane University), Haidong Feng (Merck) and Abigail Wright (Institute for Clinical and Economic Review)
Coverage of ISPOR 2026 by The Evidence Base
Our editorial team will be attending some of these key sessions, where we’ll be sharing key insights in our daily round-ups published at the end of each day of the conference. Follow The Evidence Base on LinkedIn for live updates throughout the meeting. And for exclusive post-event analysis and session round-ups, register on our site to receive regular updates.
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