The 2024 Asembia Meeting is Underway

More than 7,000 people are expected to attend the 2024 Asembia specialty pharmacy meeting in Las Vegas that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

The meeting offcially started yesterday with continuing education sessions but begins in earnest this afternoon with education sessions on the specialty drug pipeline, a “rookie camp” for people new to the meeting and the “prescriber intent.”

Held in the Wynn and Encore Las Vegas hotel on Las Vegas’ famous Strip, the Asembia meeting is not connected to any professional group or medical subspecialty. No research is presented, and many of the attendees focus on networking and meeting with business partners, past, present and future. A series of 40-minute education sessions \cover business and other topics related to specialty pharmacy. This year there are sessions on tried-and-true topics such as biosimilars, value-based care and understanding the patient perspective. There are also sessions on newsy subjects, such as implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2024 elections, the application and implications of artificial intelligence and, of course, the GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. The meeting’s app lists about 200 exhibitors and sponsors, including MJH Life Sciences, the company that owns Managed Healthcare Executive.

William McRaven

The scheduled keynote speaker at the general session tomorrow morning is William McRaven, a retired four-star U.S. Navy admiral and former chancellor of the University of Texas system. McRaven had a decorated military career that included leadership roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is credited with overseeing the raid that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011. He also gained some measure of fame for his “Make Your Bed” speech about accomplishing small tasks to reach larger goals, delivered as the 2014 commencement address at University of Texas, Austin. The speech has been viewed millions of times and is used for motivational and leadership training purposes. McRaven also became well known for speaking out against former President Donald Trump. In December 2019, he wrote an strongly worded opinion piece published by The New York Times that accused Trump of undercutting American values.

The other scheduled speakers at the general session are Nick Webb, a best-selling author of books on leadership and healthcare; Doug Long, MBA, vice president, industry relations, IQVIA, whose rapid-fire slide deck presentations about healthcare and pharmacy trends are a staple of this and other pharmacy-related meetings; and Pat Lupo, MBA, group vice president, trade & specialty, at Walgreens.

Asembia, headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey, supplies specialty pharmacies with a variety of services related to patients, contracting and technology.

The full name of the meeting is the Asembia's AXS24 Summit, but the meeting has become well-known in pharmacy circles and is referred to mainly as the Asembia meeting.