AMCP Nexus 2026 to Address Key Shifts in Managed Care Pharmacy

Industry leaders are gathering on the West Coast this week for the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Nexus 2026 meeting, taking place in San Diego, California, from October 26 to 29.

Ahead of the conference, The American Journal of Managed Care^® (AJMC^®) spoke with Susan Cantrell, CEO of AMCP, about what to expect at this year’s meeting. As she marks her 10th year as CEO, she also reflected on how a managed care pharmacist’s role has evolved and how that evolution is reflected in the AMCP Nexus 2026 program.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

AJMC: Overall, what can attendees look forward to at AMCP Nexus 2026?

Cantrell: We have a lot in store for attendees at Nexus 2026. The meeting brings together managed care pharmacy professionals and stakeholders from all across the health care ecosystem, and we'll be talking about issues that really shape the future of managed care pharmacy but also the future of patient care. A few things just to mention: affordability of health care, emerging therapies, evolving policy issues, how we use evidence to improve patient outcomes, of course, artificial intelligence (AI)—that’s such a hot topic right now—and many, many more.

But I think one thing that's particularly exciting about Nexus this year for me is that we want to really delve into practical solutions that our members and attendees might be able to employ to address the many challenges that they and their patients are facing right now. Our goal is really to equip attendees with actionable insights and strategies that they can take back and implement in their organizations right away, but it is also to help shape the vision of what the future of managed care pharmacy and health care looks like.

So, I think all attendees can look forward to all of that, as well as an opportunity to really connect with one another, share their stories, talk about areas of mutual interest, and potential solutions to all of these challenges.

Meetings and conferences like Nexus 2026 are where we all come together. We share best practices, we talk about issues and challenges, but, more importantly, we come up with solutions. We also make connections and build our networks that often facilitate our careers throughout our entire journey. So, I'm really looking forward to what attendees will experience at Nexus in 2026.

Not to mention the fact that it's in beautiful, sunny San Diego. So, I know there'll be a certain amount of enjoyment that is taking place there, but I’m really looking forward to that and how our attendees will benefit from their participation.

AJMC: Two of this year's keynote sessions cover 2 hot topics in managed care: federal drug pricing models and the impact of AI. What do you hope attendees take away from these discussions?

Cantrell: Those are probably the 2 hottest topics at our meeting this year: the impact of AI in health care, as well as, specifically to managed care pharmacy, how we can employ AI to improve patient outcomes, to improve work productivity, and also to help address many of the challenges that our patients face and reduce member friction. We hear a lot about that, and definitely it's a hot topic for our members. So, what are the use cases that will allow us to adopt AI safely and effectively in managed care pharmacy? That is certainly top of mind for everyone. Interestingly, we're going to have a debate about AI where we're going to look at not only the benefits of AI but also some of the potential pitfalls and safety issues with AI and how it might impact us in the future. So, that'll be really exciting.

On the payment policy issue, that certainly is another hot topic that is top of mind for everyone in health care. I think, right now, when we look at the many changes that have been implemented by this administration, of course, this is the first year that we've had the Maximum Fair Prices in Medicare Part D implemented. We're seeing a lot of consequences of that, some intended, many unintended, and so we'll be digging into that a bit but then looking at the other pricing policies that have been implemented, the impact of TrumpRX, the Most Favored Nation Pricing models, and how those might play out. The new Medicare GLP-1 Bridge Program, which was recently launched.

There's really a lot to address here, and I think we're going to cover it from start to finish at Nexus and talk about how we manage this in today's environment and also how we keep up with it, because it is a rapidly changing environment.

AJMC: What other sessions are you excited to attend?

Cantrell: So, one thing I'm really excited about at Nexus is what will happen the day before. On October 26, we have our second AMCP Pharmacy Policy Summit, and we're really going to be building on the success that we had last year with the inaugural event in National Harbor. That will allow our attendees to really delve into some of these evolving policy issues. They'll be hearing from myriad panels of experts on issues like 340B, Medicare Advantage, drug pricing policies, financing for cell and gene therapy, and many other topics.

Kicking off that day, that policy summit day-long event, will be Charlie Cook, who, as many people know, is one of the nation's leading authorities on US elections and political trends. He's nonpartisan, so he won't be taking a position. But what he will be doing is informing our attendees about what they can expect with the upcoming midterm elections and what policy issues might evolve out of that, depending on the outcome. So, Charlie Cook, very well known, certainly inside the Beltway, but he's probably best known for founding back in the 1980s the Cook Political Report, which some have called the Bible of the political community. So, I'm really excited about the policy summit on October 26.

Then, the following day, we have Eric Topol, MD, who will be kicking off our general session as that session's keynote speaker this year. He’s a cardiologist, a leading voice on the intersection of AI, medicine, digital health, and health care innovation and its impact on patient care. He's going to bring a really valuable perspective on how emerging technologies, including AI, are transforming patient care and what these advancements might mean for the future of health care.

I first had him on my radar back in 2015 when he authored a book called "The Patient Will See You Now,” which I thought was very illuminating about the future of health care. Now, 11 years later, a lot of what he predicted back then has certainly come true. But a couple of his other books, I think, are really interesting. In 2019, he published “Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again,” and so he was ahead of the curve on AI and health care. Most recently, last year, his book “Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity” talks about longevity and healthspan and how we can feed into that by disease prevention, so I'm really excited about that.

Those topics will really thread throughout the whole program. We'll be talking much more about policy issues and AI. We'll be talking about precision medicine and real-world evidence. One other thing that I'm excited about is our work in integrating patient experience data into the health care decision-making process. So, there's a lot to look forward to at Nexus.

AJMC: Reflecting on your 10 years as AMCP CEO, how has the role of the managed care pharmacist changed over the past decade, and how do you think that evolution is reflected in this year's program?

Cantrell: Well, these 10 years have certainly been a highlight of my career. I've enjoyed every minute of my time with AMCP and am looking forward to continuing to do so into the future. We have such a committed, dedicated, and enthusiastic community within AMCP. That's why I get so excited about our meetings each year. But in terms of how it's changed, I would say significantly.

Some of the topics that we're talking about now were not even on our radar screens back in 2016, when I joined AMCP. For example, we were just getting out of the starting gate with biosimilars. The first one was approved in 2015, so we were finding our way with how biosimilars would be integrated into medication use, into pharmacy and medical benefits, and how we would leverage biosimilars as a cost-saving measure for the US health care system. Looking back now, 11 years after the release of the first one, we've saved over $84 billion. So, biosimilars are certainly living up to their promise, and we can do much more in the future.

We didn't have gene therapy back then, and that's a pressing issue, certainly in terms of patient access and patient affordability. So, that's a hot topic for us now. A number of policies have been enacted; probably the most pivotal in the last 10 years for our audience is the Medicare negotiation of prices in Part D, and now it is coming up in Part B as well. So, our members have had to kind of retool their thinking on several issues and change their practices to accommodate all of these changes, all of the new innovations that have come to market, and the evolving policy landscape. So, it's been exciting, and I would say all of that change and evolution to me really speaks to the importance of a professional association as it relates to being a place where people can go to get the information, the education, and the networking that they need to implement and to keep up with what's happening in this ever-changing world.

Of course, like in 2016, we have an important election coming up just after our meeting. While it's not a presidential election, the cost of pharmaceuticals is front and center, just as it was in the 2016 presidential election. So, while a lot has changed, some things are staying the same, and that just speaks to the importance of us evolving, changing, but more importantly, developing solutions to these pressing health care challenges. So, a lot is happening.