Perry Genova, Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Omnicell

Perry Genova, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Omnicell, sat down with Invest: to discuss how he has reorganized R&D to accelerate the Autonomous Pharmacy, an industry-defined vision to eliminate manual processes in medication management and allow clinicians to focus on top of license care. Using robotics, automation, intelligent software, and AI-driven workflows to close gaps in the medication management use process, reduce nurse and clinician burden, prevent diversion, cut costs, and improve patient safety. “Patient safety is paramount in everything I have done in my career. Here, we have an opportunity to enhance patient safety by minimizing medication errors,” Genova said.

Since taking on the role of CTO in 2025, what have been your immediate priorities to drive Omnicell’s vision to automate care? 

The first thing I focused on was organizing the vast R&D team around our most important product platforms. We are spread globally, with 550 people in R&D covering two newly defined main product platforms. Pittsburgh, in particular, is focused on our robotics and automation platform which involves the team in our St. Petersburg facility as well. In Pittsburgh, we produce several robotic products for medication management for central pharmacy and IV preparation. On the West Coast, we have our cabinets and peripherals R&D. Our core business has been medication management automated dispensing cabinets and systems, driven by intelligent software workflows. That work is primarily done in our Bay area facility while Pittsburgh is the center of excellence for robotics and automation. 

For those less familiar with the concept of the Autonomous Pharmacy, how would you explain what it is and why it matters for Omnicell’s strategy?

Patient safety is paramount in everything I have done in my career. Here, we have an opportunity to enhance patient safety by minimizing medication errors and supporting medical practitioners. Since our inception, Omnicell has been focused on ensuring that the right medication was delivered to the right patient at the right time. Our vast footprint and ecosystem is tailored specifically to doing just that – from the time medications arrive at the hospital or healthcare facility to the point that they are delivered to a patient, Omnicell is managing that transportation and delivery. From an Autonomous Pharmacy perspective, it is an aggregation of devices and software that essentially closes the loop in terms of medication management and delivery. It eases the cognitive workload of nurses and other practitioners so that we can support accurate medication delivery and, with automation, facilitate the movement of these medications throughout the healthcare environment. 

What are some of the most pressing issues within medication and supply management in the care industry?

Nurses are the frontline workers in healthcare and they are overly burdened, with lots to do and very little time to do it. In other words, their physical and cognitive bandwidths are limited and often at full capacity.  Automating some of the work for the nurse and the pharmacy by connecting those dots without actually having to physically or virtually communicate with one another is the foundation of the autonomous pharmacy vision. We are working to close the loop on medication management. We have significant investments in software and connected devices that facilitate the management and movement of medication throughout the healthcare environment. Our hardware and software automation solutions have a profound impact on easing the physical and cognitive burdens on nurses and pharmacy staff.

How can automation help pharmacies and hospitals with cutting costs, improving labor efficiency, and establishing new revenue streams? 

Medication is the largest investment and spend category for any healthcare system. The volume of medications that flow through a healthcare institution is staggering. I believe that it would not be possible to manage the complexity of medication delivery to patients accurately, precisely, and cost effectively without solutions like those provided by Omnicell. There are quite a few categories where Omnicell adds value to the healthcare community. First and foremost, when medications come into a healthcare facility, some of the larger health systems have a centralized pharmacy where they bring in medications. These medications are dispersed with our robotics solutions and delivered to each individual hospital or facility within that health system. From there, they are managed through our automated dispensing cabinets and software for delivering to the patient bedside. Other areas of automation include IV compounding, systems that produce IV doses for patients with robotics solutions. If you consider the volume of these medicines our healthcare system requires, you realize that automation is the best way to support this need. Our robotics solutions ultimately help to free up healthcare workers to deliver more value in other areas that support clinical and business outcomes. 

What ethical considerations come with pushing the boundaries of healthcare innovation?

Everyone should be mindful of ethics and safety when discussing innovation, particularly in the case of artificial intelligence solutions. Ai can be extremely powerful and enabling but must be safely harnessed to ensure our customers and patients experience benefits without risk. Omnicell is a well-managed company with high levels of governance around our innovation initiatives. Governance, oversight, and numerous checks and balances are part of our culture because we are forever mindful of ensuring patient safety. This is central to our mission. 

What emerging breakthroughs in pharmacy and nursing care are you most excited about, and how close are we to seeing them in clinical use?

The emergence of new technologies for disease therapies is ongoing. The ability to track individual medications is something that I am keenly interested in. A significant amount of money is wasted on medicines that have expired or are diverted in a healthcare institution. It is not only important to ensure medications are accessible, but to track their usage to better plan and optimize purchasing as well. Being able to track on an individual dose basis is very important. 

I recently visited a hospital that had a series of locked, limited access cabinets containing  $40 million worth of medicine. Being able to track individual doses in that cabinet, ensuring that they are used before they expire, and that they don’t leave the building to be sold on a street corner is extremely important to healthcare systems. Diversion is an important area that we are working on solutions for leveraging a number of tools including AI.  Omnicell is out in front in terms of leveraging these technologies to empower institutions with critical insight to medication usage analytics. I am excited to be leading these efforts and they will have a large financial impact on healthcare overall.  

Looking five to 10 years ahead, what impact do you hope Omnicell will have had, scientifically, socially, and economically?

Goal No. 1 is to continue to deliver medications with 100% perfection, meaning no errors. Even the best technology can be unintentionally misused. People are often simply in a hurry trying to get through their day efficiently and can make mistakes. From my standpoint, I like to listen to those stories and propose enabling solutions that don’t get in a clinician’s way, but, instead, enable them to refocus on higher value tasks.

Omnicell will continue its leadership position and our market share will grow because of the innovation and passion we have for doing things the right way. However, none of this matters if the healthcare systems don’t thrive and serve the needs of their workers and patients. We will continue to fine-tune the technologies that we roll out and deliver financial value to our customers. AI and moving to the cloud are two key areas that will provide significant efficiencies back to our customers. 

Five years from now, we want a perfect record of medication management. The vision of an autonomous pharmacy is to liberate and support our burdened healthcare workers to do what they do well, while saving money and enhancing operational efficiency – this is our guiding light.