2026 COA Conference Recap: Putting Therapies to Work

The 2026 Community Oncology Alliance (COA) Community Oncology Conference, held in Orlando, Florida, made one message clear: The era of data gathering is giving way to the era of doing. Across sessions covering lymphoma, prostate cancer, chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T, the recurring question wasn’t, What works? It was, How do we actually deliver it here and now in the community?

Bispecifics in Lymphoma: From Trials to Playbooks

Bringing bispecifics and CAR T therapies into community settings was a central focus of COA 2026, with a push to move these therapies beyond academic centers and into practices closer to patients at a lower cost. In the context of lymphoma specifically, pharmacists shared how their institutions approached formulary evaluation, outpatient workflows, and financial considerations, revealing the growing confidence and creativity of pharmacists leading bispecific adoption across diverse care settings. The message from the floor was direct: Start with 1 drug and 1 patient, build the protocol, and own the process. Waiting for perfect infrastructure is no longer acceptable when patients need access today.

CAR T: Science Has Outpaced Access

CAR T-cell therapy was a thread running through multiple sessions, and the tension between clinical promise and real-world delivery was palpable. CAR T has traditionally been confined to bone marrow transplant units at academic hospitals, but that is changing as experience grows and logistics improve, with the manufacturing process now taking roughly half the time it once did. Yet payers, staffing gaps, and hospital partnerships continue to shape the feasibility of timely community access. The conference framed this not as a reason to pause, but as an operational challenge demanding structured solutions—credentialing pathways, artificial intelligence–enabled symptom monitoring for cytokine release syndrome and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome, and clearer reimbursement models.

Prostate Cancer: Coordination as a Clinical Strategy

At the COA meeting, pharmacists discussed the prostate cancer landscape, emphasizing structured communication among oncologists and other specialists to ensure guideline-driven, coordinated care. With treatment algorithms expanding to include androgen receptor pathway inhibitors, PARP inhibitors, and radioligand therapies such as lutetium-177, the pharmacist’s role in sequencing, educating patients about adverse effects, and aligning with the care team was front and center—not as a support function, but as a driver of outcomes.

CML: The Persistence Problem

COA 2026 sessions on CML examined available tyrosine kinase inhibitors and how to successfully administer these therapies, with in-house specialty pharmacy models emerging as a key strategy for routing oral oncolytic prescriptions and keeping patients engaged. Treatment-free remission is increasingly achievable, but only when adherence infrastructure matches clinical ambition.

The 2026 COA conference left attendees with a clear mandate: The therapies exist, and the evidence is there—now build the systems to deliver them.