New program introduces AI-enabled capabilities to personalize support, streamline prescription processing, and help patients start and stay on therapy with greater ease and confidence
BLOOMFIELD, Conn., July 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- As specialty care becomes more complex, patients need faster, more connected, and personalized support. To help meet that need, Evernorth, the health services division of The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI), today unveiled Pharmacy Forward, a new AI-powered program designed to improve how patients access and experience specialty care. Launching first with Accredo Specialty Pharmacy - which serves patients with chronic and complex specialty conditions through condition-specific Therapeutic Resource Centers (TRCs) - the program is supported by a $100 million investment through 2028. This investment enables care teams to focus more on clinical care and patient outcomes while reducing prescription processing timelines and improving service responsiveness.
"Patients navigating complex health conditions need comprehensive, expert support, often during some of the most difficult moments in their lives," said Matt Perlberg, President of the Evernorth Health Services pharmacy and care delivery businesses, including Accredo, and Executive Vice President of Customer Innovation for The Cigna Group. "Pharmacy Forward reflects our commitment to meet patients where they are -delivering an even faster, more seamless experience while ensuring they receive the personalized support and clinical care they deserve."
A Smarter, Faster, More Personalized Specialty Pharmacy Experience
Pharmacy Forward applies AI across four core areas: clinical care, prescription intake, administration, and medication fulfillment:
- Care Enablement - Supporting More Coordinated, Insight-Driven Care: Pharmacy Forward is expected to improve medication adherence beyond the industry standard of 80%, helping patients stay on therapy and achieve optimal health outcomes. By integrating clinical data and insights, AI-generated summaries, and predictive analytics, care teams can deliver more connected, informed support. This enables clinicians to proactively identify patients at risk of falling off therapy or experiencing adverse events, empowering earlier intervention, stronger coordination, and an improved patient experience. The program uses AI to free up more time for clinicians to focus on patient care and is expected to reduce clinician documentation time by up to 50%.
- Experience Accelerators - Improving the Patient Journey in Real Time: Pharmacy Forward uses AI-enabled tools to reach patients earlier in their care journey and deliver more proactive, personalized support. For example, Accredo has implemented AI-enabled scheduling so outreach occurs during patients' preferred call windows. Additionally, Accredo anticipates a 25% increase in use of personalized patient digital pathways, enabling more patients to complete routine steps on their own terms - getting answers faster, starting prescriptions through the app or website, and scheduling therapy more easily.
- Rx Readiness - Accelerating Time to Therapy: Pharmacy Forward is cutting the time it takes for patients to receive their medication after Accredo receives a prescription in half - helping patients start treatment sooner. By using AI to improve the completeness of prior authorization submissions, identify copay assistance eligibility, and ensure prescriptions are ready earlier in the process, the program is designed to streamline the time it takes to process a prescription and reduce delays in care.
- One Fulfillment Network - Delivering Medications Faster and More Reliably: Pharmacy Forward will enhance Accredo's ability to ship complex specialty medications from sites as close to a patient's home as possible, ensuring that 90% of patients are within a 1-day or same day ground shipping radius. To enable this, Accredo is expanding capacity, staffing, and capabilities at many of its nearly 40 care facilities to reduce the need for longer ground or air shipments, which are more susceptible to delays from adverse events such as weather. The enhancements will be supported by AI technology, for example, to continuously analyze factors such as patient location, delivery timing, and medication handling requirements to determine the most effective dispensing location.
Together, these capabilities represent the next evolution of specialty pharmacy - combining AI, clinical expertise, and operational scale to create a more connected and responsive care experience. The program is expected to generate approximately $400 million in value by the end of 2028, helping make care more coordinated and personalized for the more than one million patients Accredo serves each year. Evernorth expects to extend many of these capabilities to its other pharmacies' operations in the coming years.
"AI is enabling us to fundamentally reimagine how we support each patient's journey," said Katya Andresen, Chief Data, Digital and AI Officer, The Cigna Group. "By responsibly combining real-time data, advanced analytics and deep clinical expertise, we can deliver more personalized, proactive support - helping people access the care they need faster and achieve better health outcomes."
About Evernorth Health Services
Evernorth Health Services is the pharmacy, care, and benefits solutions division of The Cigna Group (NYSE: CI). We create and deliver innovative, flexible, and people-first solutions that solve the most complex health care challenges. Evernorth is home to pioneering brands including Express Scripts, Express Scripts Pharmacy, Accredo, eviCore, and MD Live. We have more than 40,000 employees who work to make health care more affordable, predictable, and simple for the 190 million people we serve. Learn more at evernorth.com.
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