Quick one this week — I'm presenting at ISPOR 2026, and I want you in on the argument before I make it.
The where and when
Tuesday, May 19 · Philadelphia. The panel: Rare Hope for Even Rarer Diseases: Innovation, Evidence & Regulatory Perspectives. I'm sharing the stage with Chunhua Weng (Columbia University) and Qi Liu (FDA).
My piece sits at the intersection I keep coming back to: AI, rare disease, and market access.
The argument, in three moves
Here's what I'm walking in to say.
One — AI isn't future-state. It's already compressing discovery, trial design, and evidence generation. The question isn't whether it transforms rare disease R&D. It's whether the humans guiding it are ready to lead.
Two — the bottleneck moved. For rare therapies, the hard part isn't approval anymore. It's coverage. Payers grant access, then restrict it. AI-generated real-world evidence is the tool that closes that gap — and most teams aren't using it that way yet.
Three — HEOR doesn't shrink in this story. It sharpens. Three roles get more important, not less: architect the evidence questions AI answers, validate the model logic and catch the bias, and translate AI-generated evidence into something a payer actually trusts. No AI does that last part. That's the job.
Why I care about this beyond the podium
I lead Global Value & HEOR work at Jazz Pharmaceuticals across neuroscience and neuro-oncology. And the thing I've learned over a career in this field is that almost none of what makes you good at the job is written down anywhere. The unwritten rules — how access decisions actually get made, how to be strategic before anyone gives you the title — never made it into a syllabus.
That's the whole reason Sidebar with Sanket exists. Free, monthly, live HEOR office hours for grad students and early-career professionals who don't have someone to ask. No pitch, no paywall — just the conversation I wish I'd had access to.
If you're going to be in Philadelphia
Come find me. And if ISPOR isn't on your calendar this year but the work is — the next Sidebar session is open for registration below.
See you in Philly.
— Sanket
Sidebar with Sanket — free monthly HEOR office hours: https://calendly.com/d/cxzg-338-yn7
#HEOR #MarketAccess #PharmaCareers #RealWorldEvidence #RareDisease
— Sanket
P.S. Hit reply with the question you've never been able to ask anywhere else. I read every one.