When pharmacy leaders look 20, 30 or even 50 years ahead, they don’t see a future shaped by a single breakthrough. Instead, they describe a profession undergoing structural transformation — driven by automation, data integration, and an expanding clinical and enterprise role for pharmacists.
“I believe the pharmacy landscape of the future will be fundamentally transformed,” said Nishaminy Kasbekar, PharmD, vice president and chief pharmacy officer at Philadelphia-based University of Pennsylvania Health System. “It will be highly automated and deeply personalized, with pharmacists serving as advanced clinicians rather than traditional dispensers.”
Kasbekar envisions automation managing nearly all routine dispensing, while medications are increasingly customized using genetics and real-time patient data. In that model, pharmacies become “small clinical hubs embedded in continuous digital care,” supported by rapid delivery systems and proactive disease-prevention approaches.
But leaders emphasized that the industry is still in the early stages of building toward that future. Yahya Ahmed, associate pharmacy director at Lexington-based University of Kentucky, cautioned against viewing AI and automation as immediate solutions rather than long-term infrastructure projects.
“Pharmacy AI and automation are often dismissed as buzzwords, yet in this context, they warrant serious attention,” Mr. Ahmed said. “The profession is still in the early stages of laying the foundational infrastructure required for future-state pharmacy operations.”
Most health systems, he noted, have not yet implemented centralized fulfillment centers or fully integrated, AI-driven workflows at scale — and for now, that may be appropriate.
“Recognizing the moment we are in is critical,” he said. “The focus should not be solely on adopting available technologies, but on deliberately building the systems, data structures and operational models that will support them.”
Others described a future in which pharmacy’s role extends far beyond a clinical department and into the core operations of the health system. Bickkie Solomon, director of pharmacy at Gainesville-based HCA Florida North Florida Hospital, said health system pharmacy will evolve “from a service line into an enterprise function.”
“Over the next several decades, health system pharmacy will operate as a data-driven, safety-critical clinical production system,” Ms. Solomon said. As oncology and specialty therapies advance, she expects genetic prediction to be increasingly paired with specialty drugs, while patients become “more informed, curious and active participants in care decisions.”
That evolution, she added, will reshape professional expectations. “As the baseline for entry into practice rises beyond a PharmD and residency, specialization and board certification will expand,” she said, effectively requiring pharmacists to choose a specialty to remain competitive.
The leadership role will shift as well. Pharmacy executives, she said, will need to act “simultaneously as technology stewards, specialty strategists, enterprise-risk owners and revenue-cycle partners,” often within regulatory frameworks that have yet to be defined.
At the same time, rising healthcare costs and changing patient expectations are accelerating pressure on pharmacy operations today. Maheen Khan, PharmD, director of pharmacy services at Pearland, Texas-based Memorial Hermann Pearland Hospital, said patients are increasingly favoring preventative, proactive care versus traditional reactive treatment models.
“Rising and unsustainable healthcare costs continue to drive the need for innovation, including AI-enabled technologies and digitally integrated experiences across the patient health journey,” Dr. Khan said. To keep pace, she added, pharmacy leaders must “rethink outdated operating models and embrace digital integration to improve efficiency and continuity of care across the healthcare continuum.”
Nonetheless, leaders agreed that preparation — not prediction — will determine whether pharmacy can fully realize its future role. Modernizing education, redesigning training pathways, strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration, and investing in data and digital competencies now, they said, will shape how effectively pharmacists can operate as clinicians, strategists and enterprise leaders in the decades ahead.
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