ASCO® 2026: Why a connected approach is key to congress success

The ASCO® Annual Meeting 2026 showcased breakthrough science and increasingly sophisticated congress experiences. But behind the exhibition floor, many commercial teams were asking a different question: how do you prove that all of this investment delivers measurable impact? Lynsey Holbrook, Global Client Development Director at Inizio Engage, explains why today’s congresses need a connected approach to succeed.

Why pharmaceutical congresses are becoming more complex

One of the key takeaways from ASCO® 2026 was the sheer pace of scientific innovation. But as exciting as some of that science was, we know it’s also incredibly challenging for the commercial teams to take it from potential to patient.

Turning scientific innovation into clinical and commercial success requires coordination across multiple teams, competing priorities, and significant investment – all while operating in an increasingly complex competitive environment.

Congresses like ASCO® play a critical role in that commercialization process, but they’re also one of the most difficult aspects to get right. A successful congress requires coordination across diverse stakeholder groups – not to mention substantial investment.

Even then, with all the time, money, and effort invested, teams aren’t always confident that what they’ve created is adding value or having the desired impact.

Where pharmaceutical congress planning breaks down

We surveyed a cross-section of pharma stakeholders involved in congresses and while 75% recognized they needed to better collate and analyze metrics, only 7% said they felt equipped to measure congress impact.

Perhaps that’s not surprising when almost everyone we asked (88%) said they felt ‘up against it’ at congress, citing lack of strategic investment, with more than half (56%) describing their planning process as decentralized and chaotic.

The message from clients is consistent: congresses are strategically important, but many organizations lack confidence that they’re maximizing their investment.

The challenge isn’t a lack of ambition. It’s that strategy, execution, and measurement often sit across different teams, agencies, and systems, making it difficult to connect activity with outcomes.

How to maximize pharmaceutical congress impact

Drawing on Inizio’s commercialization expertise, we developed an approach to help clients deliver measurable congress impact.

Solving these challenges requires more than better logistics. It requires a connected way of planning, delivering, and measuring congress activity.

That’s why we developed Intelligent Congress – a connected approach that helps commercial teams maximize congress opportunities and gain greater confidence in their investment.

It’s designed as an end-to-end, connected process, taking teams from initial strategy through to execution. But it’s also effective in a more modular way, if a client feels they only need help in specific areas, like creative or metrics.

What does Intelligent Congress actually deliver?

By working in a connected, holistic way, Intelligent Congress allows clients to:

1. Focus investment on the highest-value opportunities

Matching your investment to priority audiences, moments, and objectives.

2. Align cross-functional teams around a shared strategy

A clear strategic north star to coordinate cross-functional teams and their agency partners.

3. Create seamless delegate experiences

An orchestrated congress journey – from symposia to booth and beyond – with active and passive touchpoints.

4. Measure what matters

Connect engagement metrics directly to business objectives and commercial outcomes.

Combining these elements to create meaningful scientific and commercial impact

When you combine all of these elements, you also unlock compelling, bottom-line benefits.  After auditing a large pharma company’s congress spend, we identified opportunities to save over $2m by removing strategically redundant events in just a single therapy area.

Likewise, for one of our mid-sized clients, we analyzed delegate registration behaviors and identified opportunities to reduce congress spend by 20% across their 12-month congress program – worth about half a million dollars to that organization.

Savings like these allow teams to reinvest in smarter, more impactful congress experiences that drive higher-value scientific exchange.

As we’ve seen at ASCO® year on year, companies are investing ever-greater sums to compete for delegates’ attention. As congresses continue to grow in scale and complexity, success won’t be defined by the size of the investment alone, but by how effectively strategy, execution, and measurement work together to create meaningful scientific and commercial impact.

Want to explore these ideas in more depth?

Watch our on-demand webinar, Smarter science, sharper strategy: Expert perspectives from ASCO® 2026, where our experts discuss the key scientific highlights, attendee perspectives, and strategic lessons from this year’s congress. Discover how a connected approach to strategy, experience, and measurement can help maximize the impact of your congress investment and create more meaningful scientific engagement.