Hub West 2026: What Pharma Wants From Hub Technology
Written by
Priyanka Gupta
Sales Engineer
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After a few days on the ground at Hub West 2026, one thing came through clearly: pharmaceutical manufacturers (pharma) are taking a closer look at the technology behind patient support.
The hub market is changing, and manufacturers are reconsidering how much of their patient support programs to manage in-house, what to outsource to hub services partners, and where a hybrid approach makes sense. At the same time, expectations are rising for what the technology supporting those programs should deliver.
Here are the four biggest hub technology priorities we heard at the conference and what they could signal for where pharma and hub services organizations go next.
1. Pharma wants data it can use
Manufacturers are not looking for another status report. They want a clearer view of what is happening across the patient journey.
- How quickly did a patient receive therapy?
- Where did the process slow down?
- Did the patient receive the medication?
- Are they staying on therapy as prescribed?
Those questions, among others, came up repeatedly in our conversations at Hub West. Answering them depends on clean, structured real-world data that can be captured, validated, and shared in a consistent way.
The challenge is that information often lives across disconnected systems or requires teams to manually piece reporting together. That makes it harder for hub services organizations to give manufacturer partners the visibility they expect.
The shift is from simply reporting activity to making program data useful enough to understand access, adherence, and performance.
2. Prior authorization keeps exposing the gaps between systems
Prior authorization (PA) is hardly a new challenge, but it remains one of the most persistent barriers to getting patients on therapy.
A single access journey can involve providers, payers, hubs, pharmacies, and manufacturers. Each organization may have its own technology and processes trying to reach the same information or the one source of truth. When those systems don’t exchange information easily, teams end up bridging the gaps manually, losing time in the process.
And those gaps have consequences. A delay in getting the right information to the right place can become a delay for the patient.
The industry continues to move toward greater electronic exchange, including efforts to advance electronic prior authorization for drugs. But the bigger takeaway for pharma and hub leaders goes beyond PA.
Patient access depends on what happens between systems, not just within them. That puts interoperability and access to needed data at the center of the hub technology conversation.
3. Program flexibility is becoming harder to ignore
Hub programs have to evolve as new products launch, manufacturer requirements change, and new workflows or data needs emerge. The technology supporting them needs to keep pace.
At Hub West, we heard about solutions that can be slow to accommodate those changes when they require additional development or outside resources. For organizations supporting multiple manufacturers, even relatively small adjustments can quickly turn into larger implementation efforts.
That’s why configurability matters.
The ability to adapt workflows and data collection as program needs change can give teams more control over how quickly they respond, without treating every update as a new technology project.
The real test of flexibility isn’t just what the system supports today. It’s how easily it can support what changes tomorrow.
4. AI is accelerating the need to get the basics right
AI was impossible to miss at Hub West. What’s less straightforward is how to put it to work.
Pharma, hub organizations, and technology vendors are exploring where AI and automation can make a meaningful difference. But that raises a more fundamental question. Is the technology foundation ready to support it?
AI doesn’t make fragmented infrastructure disappear. If anything, growing interest in automation makes the fundamentals more important. Data needs to be structured and accessible. Systems need to exchange information. Workflows need to be ready for automation, with human oversight where it matters.
AI may be moving fast, but the strength of the foundation will determine how far it can go.
How hub technology can keep pace with pharma
One clear takeaway from Hub West is that pharma’s expectations for hub technology are rising. Manufacturers want more useful data, better connectivity across the patient journey, greater flexibility as programs evolve, and a stronger foundation for automation.
That’s where Inovalon’s ScriptMed® can help. By connecting patient access workflows and supporting configurable programs, ScriptMed helps hub organizations reduce manual handoffs, adapt as needs change, and gain greater visibility across operations.
See what a more connected hub could mean for you
If your organization is rethinking its hub technology, the next step is understanding what a more connected, configurable approach could look like for your programs.
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