The future of pharmacy: What the MHE 2026 Pharmacy Survey signals for the year ahead

As the role of pharmaceuticals continues to expand across the healthcare ecosystem, stakeholders are navigating a landscape increasingly shaped by rising specialty drug costs, evolving policy pressures and ongoing scrutiny of pricing and reimbursement models. To better understand these dynamics, Managed Healthcare Executive conducted its annual Pharmacy survey, capturing perspectives from payers, pharmacy leaders, health systems, academic institutions, government and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). To help contextualize what these changes mean for the future of care delivery and cost management, we invited three experts to share their thoughts.

The findings offer a snapshot of the forces driving pharmacy today — from cost and utilization trends to policy and market shifts.

Here are the commentators on our survey.

Four takeaways

• Pharmacy stakeholders are balancing increasing cost pressures with the need to maintain patient access and quality of care.
• The glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) drugs present cost challenges and policy uncertainty across settings.
• The Trump administration’s most-favored-nation drug pricing policies get mixed reviews
• Chief concerns about the future of pharmaceutical sector include the cost and price of drug and the U.S. losing its competitive advantage

MHE 2026 Pharmacy Survey results