Medical cost are climbing at their fastest rate in 15 years. Pharmacy spending has surged by $50 billion (£36,538,746,145) in a single year. The average drug development cost now exceeds $2 billion (£1,461,549,845).
Paradoxically, life sciences industry reports show their strongest growth expectations in years, with Mergers & Acquisitions activity surging forward. This contradiction reveals the industry’s defining challenge for 2026: organisations must simultaneously navigate crushing cost pressures whilst investing heavily in innovation and transformation.
The resolution lies in three interconnected imperatives reshaping executive priorities worldwide:
- precision in targeting therapeutic intervention
- prevention as an economic necessity
- performance optimisation through digital transformation.
For boards and executive search committees, the critical question is whether leaders possess the rare combination of skills to excel at both growth and cost control across increasingly diverse global markets.
Precision Medicine Drives Innovation and Investment
Trends in life sciences reveal unprecedented therapeutic innovation, with 394 novel active substances launched globally since the year 2000. However, this progress masks significant regional disparities. The United States leads with 273 launches, representing a 22% increase compared to the previous period. The four largest EU member countries plus the UK achieved only 209 launches – 64 fewer than the US – despite a 39% year-on-year increase in 2024.
China – medical dynamism in action
Chinese per capita medicine use is projected to grow at 1.8% annually through 2029 – the highest globally – reflecting China’s evolving role from volume-driven growth market to innovation exporter.
North America is shifting towards more expensive, higher-value therapies with large molecules, cell and gene therapies, and antibody-drug conjugates expected to power revenue growth, counterbalanced by the latest Food Pyramid with an RFK Jr led focus on diet as a preventer of chronic disease. This geographic fragmentation, and political focus, demands leaders with genuine cross-border experience, political nous, and deep understanding of regulatory environments and reimbursement models – which vary dramatically between markets.
With the average cost of bringing a new drug to market soaring, organisations are retooling development models whilst pursuing strategic M&A. 45% of surveyed biopharma leaders and 51% of med-tech leaders identify M&A as a priority, with aggregate deal value in 2025’s first three quarters reaching $91.9 billion, surpassing 2024’s total.[1] 2026 looks ready to break records too.
Recent pharmaceutical mergers increasingly target precision capabilities rather than scale, demanding corporate development executives who can evaluate scientific merit alongside commercial potential and integrate complex R&D operations. Private equity activity is expected to become more consistent in 2026, concentrating on interventional, minimally invasive, and intelligence-driven solutions in cardiology, neurotechnology, surgical robotics, and med-tech biologics. Successful platforms require operating partners and portfolio company CEOs who can drive operational excellence whilst maintaining agility.
Prevention Emerges as Economic Necessity
Life sciences industry trends are challenging – and this is nowhere more evident than in relentless healthcare economic pressure. Medical cost trends hover at rates reminiscent of 15 years ago, with commercial payers facing an 8.5% trend for the group market and 7.5% for the individual market in 2026. Behavioural health services claims rose 45% between January 2023 and December 2024.[2]
These escalating costs force reorientation towards prevention, though this emerges differently across regions. The healthcare life sciences industry of North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, India, Latin America, and Africa and the Middle East shows spending growth above 30%, driven by population growth and shifts towards more expensive therapies. China’s more modest 15% spending increase over five years reflects deliberate policy emphasis on expanding access whilst controlling expenditure.[3]
With 75% of surveyed health plans ranking total cost of care as a top three deflator, organisations seeking chief medical officers, health economics leads, or ‘value-based’ care executives face a dramatically shifted talent pool.[4] Competitive candidates must demonstrate expertise in both clinical outcomes and economic modelling, often with hands-on experience of implementing prevention programmes at scale.
AI, prevention and health management in the USA
Health plans are embedding AI into care management and pre-payment audits whilst cutting underperforming programmes in favour of digital-first interventions. Tighter oversight of GLP-1 medications for weight-loss and diabetes management through enhanced prior authorisation and value-based contracts demonstrates how preventive approaches manage both cost and outcomes, especially in the USA where this is a political as well as an economic imperative This creates opportunities in diagnostics, remote monitoring, and early intervention technologies, with AI-driven diagnostics a top development priority for 49% of surveyed med-tech executives.
Optimisation Through Digital Transformation
Artificial intelligence has evolved from a productivity tool into a growth catalyst across the healthcare life sciences industry. Nearly 80% of surveyed executives recognise that future competitiveness depends on how effectively organisations harness AI to reimagine how they work and deliver value, with 53% of med-tech executives identifying AI-enabled platforms as a key growth driver for 2026.[5]
Chief information officers and chief digital officers increasingly require backgrounds blending technical depth with commercial acumen and change management expertise. The most sought-after candidates have moved beyond implementing AI pilots to fundamentally redesigning business processes.
In revenue cycle management, AI-driven automated acquisitions focus on backend tools including prior authorisation, coding, and denials management. In pharmaceutical services, technology trends in life sciences reveal that AI-supported study design and bio-analytics are reducing development timelines and lowering headcount requirements. Cold-chain and logistics vendors serving advanced biologics benefit from rising demand as regulatory expectations tighten.
AI – a resource/scarcity reducer
Duke-NUS Medical School researchers adapted a brain-recovery prediction model originally built in Japan using data from 46,918 Vietnamese out-of-hospital cardiac-arrest patients. Tested on 243 Vietnamese patients, the adapted model correctly distinguished high-risk from low-risk patients approximately 80% of the time, compared with 46% accuracy when the original Japanese model was applied directly. This model supports Vietnam’s resource-limited hospitals and shows how a transfer learning approach allows AI to bring advanced diagnostics to health systems with limited resources whilst dramatically reducing development costs.[6]
However, performance gains are not universal – there are huge challenges in life sciences industry more generally. Pharmaceutical commercialisation underperformed expectations in 2025 as AI-driven targeting raised competitive standards.[7] The critical question for investors and operators is not who uses AI, but whose business model becomes more effective when AI is embedded at scale.
Strategic Implications for Executive Leadership
The convergence of precision, prevention, and performance creates distinct imperatives for organisations navigating 2026. Success requires balancing organic pipeline expansion with strategic M&A, scaling AI implementation beyond pilots, and aligning investments with defensible sources of value amidst pricing pressures and regulatory uncertainty.
Commercial leaders must demonstrate capability in value-based contracting alongside traditional sales excellence. R&D executives require deep scientific credentials and pragmatic understanding of development economics. Geographic experience has become particularly crucial. Executives who have navigated China’s National Reimbursement Drug List negotiations bring different but equally valuable capabilities compared to those who have built specialty pharmacy networks across fragmented US payer landscapes. The most competitive candidates possess both, having led businesses across regions whilst maintaining global standards.
Agility and resilience matter, but only to the extent they unite discovery with patient care. This is the essential challenge: leveraging precision, prevention, and performance not as isolated initiatives but as an integrated approach to creating value for all stakeholders in an increasingly complex environment.
Asia-Pacific Spotlight: Growth Outpacing Leadership Capacity
Across Southeast Asia, healthcare demand continues to accelerate, driven by ageing populations, private sector expansion, and rising chronic disease. Yet growth across the region is increasingly constrained not by capital or opportunity, but by leadership readiness.
Vietnam: Rapid Expansion, Acute Capability Gaps
Vietnam remains one of the region’s fastest-growing healthcare markets. However, expansion is outpacing leadership development. Organisations increasingly lack managers, senior managers, and directors with the operational maturity to scale teams, manage P&L and distributor ecosystems, embed governance, and convert global strategy into effective local execution.
This capability deficit is driving intense competition for a limited talent pool, increasing compensation pressure, and elevating execution risk. For many regional and multinational healthcare organisations, Vietnam now represents a market where succession planning and proactive talent pipelining directly influence growth velocity.
Thailand: Economic Pressure Meets Structural Healthcare Demand
Thailand continues to function as a regional healthcare hub, supported by private hospitals and medical tourism. Softer economic conditions are sharpening focus on executives who can deliver both cost discipline and revenue growth. Hiring decisions are becoming more selective, with greater emphasis on leaders capable of portfolio optimisation, operational efficiency, and organisational stabilisation.
Retention has emerged as a strategic risk. Experienced leaders are increasingly mobile, creating continuity challenges at a time when execution consistency is critical.
Indonesia and Philippines: Scale Markets with Structural Talent Constraints
Indonesia and the Philippines offer substantial long-term opportunity, driven by population scale and expanding private healthcare provision. Both markets face shortages of leaders able to manage multi-site operations, navigate fragmented regulatory environments, and balance affordability with quality at scale.
In Indonesia, leadership depth drops sharply beyond major urban centres. In the Philippines, international mobility continues to reduce the availability of senior talent. In both markets, organisations increasingly compete for executives with proven nationwide operating experience, a profile that remains consistently scarce.
Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar: Frontier Markets, Limited Leadership Depth
These emerging healthcare systems remain heavily reliant on distributor-led models and regional oversight. Local senior talent pools are limited, forcing organisations to depend on leadership based in neighbouring markets. This reinforces the importance of regional operating structures and early investment in leadership capability.
New Capability Layers Are Emerging
Alongside traditional commercial and clinical leadership, healthcare organisations across Southeast Asia are building capability in five critical areas:
- Market Access and Health Economics, supporting value-based pricing and reimbursement engagement
- Digital Health, Data, and AI Transformation, bridging technology, clinical operations, and commercial execution
- Operations Excellence and Service Integration, driving multi-site performance, quality frameworks, and patient journey optimisation
- Commercial Excellence and Portfolio Strategy, strengthening pricing architecture, distributor effectiveness, and SKU rationalisation in fragmented markets
- Leadership Development and Workforce Strategy, reflecting recognition that manager and director capability cannot be developed externally at sufficient speed or scale
These hybrid profiles, combining operational discipline, commercial insight, and digital fluency, remain scarce across the region.
Talent Strategy as a Commercial Imperative
Across Southeast Asia, the primary constraint is no longer market opportunity. It is leadership capacity. Reactive recruitment models are proving insufficient in high-growth environments with structurally shallow talent pools.
Healthcare organisations are increasingly shifting toward structured leadership pipelines, early identification of high-potential talent, targeted internal development, and proactive mapping across adjacent industries. In emerging markets especially, sustainable expansion depends on building leadership capability ahead of demand.
Talent readiness is now directly influencing execution speed, organisational resilience, and regional growth outcomes. For many healthcare organisations operating in Southeast Asia, leadership capability is becoming a defining competitive differentiator.
Sources
[1] https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/health-care/life-sciences-and-health-care-industry-outlooks/2026-life-sciences-executive-outlook.html
[2] https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/health-industries/library/behind-the-numbers.html
[3] https://www.iqvia.com/insights/the-iqvia-institute/reports-and-publications/reports/the-global-use-of-medicines-outlook-through-2029
[4] https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/health-industries/library/behind-the-numbers.html
[5] https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/health-care/life-sciences-and-health-care-industry-outlooks/2026-life-sciences-executive-outlook.html
[6] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/ai-tools-improve-diagnostics-and-patient-outcome-prediction-in-resource-limited-health-care-settings/ar-AA1V1wER
[7] https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/health-industries/library/2026-healthcare-investment-themes.html
