Themes shaping ISPOR 2026: Policy, pricing, and affordability pressures reshaping access
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.
The ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research 2026 conference will bring together almost 5000 members of the global health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) community in Philadelphia to share new research and examine how evolving evidence standards, pricing pressures, and access challenges are shaping healthcare decision-making. With just days to go until the event at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, attendees are finalizing their schedules, arranging meetings, and identifying the sessions most relevant to their work.
Held under the theme “HEOR at the Forefront of Policy, Access, and Value,” this year’s program reflects a period of change across healthcare systems. Evolving evidence requirements, increasing reliance on real-world evidence (RWE), and a renewed focus on pharmaceutical pricing and affordability are shaping both the content of the conference and the broader role of HEOR in decision-making.
With more than 100 sessions spanning plenaries, issue panels, workshops, and poster presentations, navigating the program presents both opportunity and challenge. For many attendees, the question is not what is available, but where to focus time and attention.
To help our readers attending the conference, we have developed the “Themes shaping ISPOR 2026” series. Across five articles, we highlight key themes emerging from the program and identify sessions likely to shape discussion during the meeting. The aim is to help attendees prioritize the content most relevant to their work and identify where deeper engagement, whether through discussion, collaboration, or follow-up, may be most valuable.
Readers can also gain further insight into this year’s program from Laura Pizzi, ISPOR’s Chief Science Officer, in our latest interview, where she shares her own guide to the sessions and themes shaping the meeting.
Last year’s ISPOR meeting in Montreal highlighted that drug pricing policy is not solely an economic issue, but sits at the intersection of access, innovation, and evidence generation. While pricing reforms aim to improve affordability, they also introduce new complexities for researchers, payers, and providers.
At ISPOR 2026, policy and pricing remain central to the discussion, reflecting a year of significant developments across global markets. Across the program, sessions will also examine whether value-based pricing and affordability thresholds can be applied in a consistent and transparent way, particularly in the context of budget impact and payer decision-making. Other discussions will explore implications for innovation, including how pricing reforms and trade dynamics may influence launch strategies, evidence requirements, and long-term investment decisions. In addition, speakers from across academia, industry, government, and consulting and advisory organizations will address the practical consequences of these policies, including cancer costs, prior authorization, and differential pricing, for patient access and health system sustainability.
What can attendees expect to learn from these sessions?
The opening plenary of ISPOR 2026 will frame a series of sessions exploring how recent US policy developments, including Most-Favored-Nation pricing and Medicare negotiation under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), are interacting with established pricing frameworks such as average sales price (ASP), the 340B Drug Pricing Program, and the Medicaid drug rebate program (MDRP). Each framework plays a distinct role in shaping how medicines are priced, reimbursed, and accessed, and discussions will consider how these interactions may influence both domestic and global markets.
The diversity of perspectives across speakers will also be valuable, offering attendees the opportunity to hear how these changes are being interpreted across academia, industry, and policy settings. This may help attendees better understand the implications for their own work and identify where to focus their attention across the program.
Selected sessions
Plenary: US pharmaceutical policy: leading or following?
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 8:30am – 9:45am
Moderator: Dana Goldman (USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service)
Speakers: Courtney Piron (Novartis), Liz Fowler (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and Inmaculada Hernandez (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS])
Value-based pricing for CMS drug price negotiation: mission impossible?
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 10:30am – 11:30am
Moderator: Peter Neumann (Tufts Medical Center)
Speakers: Feng Xie (McMaster University), Sean D Sullivan (University of Washington) and Joshua Cohen (Tufts Medical Center)
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 12:45pm – 1:15pm
Moderator: Cristina Masseria (Aesara)
Speakers: Gergana Zlateva (Pfizer, Inc.), Neal Masia (EntityRisk, Inc.) and Diane Munch (Pfizer, Inc.)
MFN meets IRP: how US pricing reform reshapes global market interdependencies
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 3:15pm – 4:15pm
Moderator: Casper Paardekooper (Cencora)
Speakers: David Ringger (Cencora), Jon D Campbell (National Pharmaceutical Council), Scott Greig (Sanofi) & Indranil Bagchi (GSK US)
The alphabet soup of drug pricing: Understanding interactions of ASP, MFP, MFN, 340B, and MDRP
Date and time: Monday May 18, 2026, 4:45pm – 5:45pm
Moderator: Sujith Ramachandran (University of Mississippi)
Speakers: Kristi Martin (Camber Collective) and John M Coster (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
The true cost of cancer: aligning innovation, access, and affordability
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 8:30am – 9:45am
Moderator: Scott Ramsey (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center)
Speakers: Dawn Hershman (Columbia University Medical Center), Stacie Dusetzina (Vanderbilt University Medical Center) and Bobby Green (ThymeCare)
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 10:30am – 11:30am
Moderator: William V Padula (University of Southern California)
Speakers: Jon D Campbell (National Pharmaceutical Council), Laura Pizzi (ISPOR) and Andrew York (Maryland Prescription Drug Affordability Board)
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Lotte Steuten (Office of Health Economics)
Speakers: Scott Ramsey (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) , Jeffrey T Hamilton (GSK) and Marina Richardson (Institute for Clinical and Economic Review [ICER])
Date and time: Tuesday May 19, 2026, 4:45pm – 5:45pm
Moderator: Mikkel Oestergaard (Merck Sharp & Dohme International Service BV)
Speakers: Richard Xie (RA Capital Management), Kalipso Chalkidou (The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria) and Prashant Yadav (Council on Foreign Relations)
From debate to dialogue: Building consensus on prior authorization reform
Date and time: Wednesday 20, May 19, 2026, 10:00am – 11:00am
Moderator: Kimberly Westrich (National Pharmaceutical Council)
Speakers: John Watkins (University of Washington), James Chambers (Tufts Medical Center) and Anna Hyde (Arthritis Foundation)
Date and time: Wednesday May 20, 2026, 11:30am – 11:00pm
Moderator: Indranil Bagchi (GSK US)
Speakers: Lotte Steuten (Office of Health Economics [OHE]), Darius Lakdawalla (University of Southern California) and Jens Grueger (Boston Consulting Group)
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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