McKesson ideaShare 2026: How AI and Automation Are Building the Supply Chain of the Future

In an interview with Pharmacy Times, Chris Van Norman, senior vice president of supply chain operations at McKesson, discussed at McKesson ideaShare 2026 how the company maintains a resilient, around-the-clock supply chain that delivers one-third of the nation's drug supply across all settings of care. He emphasized the human commitment behind every delivery, sharing an example of McKesson rushing a scarce cancer treatment to a child within 24 hours. Van Norman also detailed how McKesson is investing in automation, robotics, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to build a smarter, more connected supply chain for manufacturers, pharmacies, and patients alike. He further explained how McKesson’s Automated Prescription Solutions Group, including Central Fill as a Service, helps pharmacies offload high-volume dispensing so pharmacists can dedicate more time to direct patient care.

Pharmacy Times: Can you please introduce yourself?

Chris Van Norman: I'm Chris Van Norman. I'm the senior vice president of our supply chain operations team here at McKesson.

Pharmacy Times: McKesson's supply chain serves pharmacies, providers, and patients across the country, operating around the clock with contingency plans built for disruption. What does it take to maintain that level of reliability when challenges arise?

Van Norman: Absolutely, well, we deliver 1/3 of the nation's drug supply, and that's across all settings of care. Tens of thousands of drugs that we ship on a daily basis are over millions of products we ship each night. It's an incredible array of our teams, our technology, our transportation, and general logistics that we have to make sure that essentially we can get those products out to our patients that need them, whether it's a normal Tuesday or there is a situation where there's a hurricane or throughout our times dealing with COVID, both within Project Warp Speed and keeping the supply chain running during that time. Our teams always step up, and we always make sure that we're leveraging technology, our assets, and our people to ensure that we essentially keep the supply chain running and make sure our patients get the drugs that they need, and we like to think we're the most resilient bunch in the industry.

Pharmacy Times: Supply chain is often thought of as logistics and technology, but there are frontline teams working around the clock to make sure medications reach communities. How do you want pharmacies and patients to understand the human commitment behind every delivery?

Van Norman: Behind each delivery we make, and we make 10s of 1000s of them a day, there are dedicated teams really working 24/7 to make sure those products get to the right place at the right time and that the products are in stock when our patients need them. We're delivering critical supplies, and these are patients in hospital settings or people going to pick up their prescriptions. And so there's a really big human factor on our team. It meets our sense of purpose to make sure we're taking care of the patients that need what we deliver to those customers, so there's logistics, of course; there's transportation, or distribution; there's technology, but it's our people that truly make the difference.

And I could just share a recent story. We have a child that was receiving cancer treatment at a cancer clinic, and that child needed a treatment that is in very short supply and across our wide network was only in stock in a few distribution centers. Well, within minutes of receiving a call like that, we are putting things into motion to make sure that—how do we get this product that's in two different places in the country, that's in a different place away from our patient that needs it, and how do we logistically get it to them as soon as possible? And so, in a very short period of time, in this case, we had two drivers driving hundreds of miles to get to that clinic and essentially getting that product there within 24 hours. So that's just ties back to our purpose. And above every warehouse door that we have, it says our banter, which is, “It’s not just a package; it's a patient, and our team across McKesson lives that each and every day. And so it's not just picking a product; it's making sure a customer can get something to actually treat a patient, and that patient could be somebody we know and love.

Pharmacy Times: McKesson continues to invest in technology, automation, and AI to build a smarter, more resilient supply chain. What does the supply chain of the future look like, and how will those investments better serve pharmacies and patients?

Van Norman: McKesson is a technology-first organization. Every role at McKesson has some layer of technology embedded into it, whether you're taking customer orders, working at the distribution centers, or delivering great customer service, but technology is true across everything that we do, and in many ways the supply chain of the future is already starting to take shape, and in some cases, already here. We've had automation in our warehouses for well over 30 years, but now we have the latest and greatest automation at McKesson. In the new designs that we do, whether retrofitting an existing building or building a new building, it's highly automated with just automated automation within the four walls of the distribution center but also technology that's embedded within the automation and even advanced robotics in our distribution centers today. So we're already on the forefront of those pieces.

There's other technology that connects to our transportation routing as well. With anything that you may purchase as a consumer, you want to see the different layers of the transportation segments be communicated to you and want to know where your order is, and so we have advanced analytics, and we're able to share with our customers what the timeliness of the delivery is and when they should expect to, you know, see the products that they ordered. So, along the delivery front, we have a lot of technology space as well.

If you look at the growing needs within our cold chain capabilities, there's a lot that has to be monitored and viewed and verified within temperature control, and that goes throughout the entire storage and shipment processes across McKesson. And so, in that particular situation, there's also new technology that we leverage as well. And then, across all of it, there's AI and advanced analytics and data that are connecting things greater than ever before, not just within the four walls of McKesson but between manufacturers and McKesson as well as the customers and patients that we serve. There's a better connection than ever before. So it's not only about just efficiency, but it's about visibility; it's about communications, about creating a better outcome for our customers and patients, and technologies are what’s making that possible.

Pharmacy Times: McKesson's expanded Central Fill offerings are designed to take dispensing work off community pharmacy plates. How does Central Fill free up pharmacists to spend more time on direct patient care?

Van Norman: Great question. And what's commonly known as Central Fill, we call our McKesson Automated Prescription Solutions Group. This is a group of a number of different teams that all report into one organization that look at all the different pieces to automate prescription fulfillment, and there are a number of different ways to do that, and there are a number of different pieces within the organization that help us and help customers. So if you have a large scale of prescriptions to fill, you're maybe even a big box retailer; we can build a central fill for you, we can design it, we can operate it, we can bring the hardware and software pieces together, and we could help with the maintenance of that equipment, and so we have a wide range of capabilities within our MAPS organization that helps us essentially bring that automation and that high-volume filling of prescriptions to life.

And there are two versions. The version I talked to you about already is essentially the piece that we can build one, we can design one, maybe one customer for one large site, but we also have Central Fill as a Service, CFAS, we call it, and that is a separate piece where you can share your prescriptions into an agnostic central fill. And so only a portion of, or could be all of, your business, or some of your business, but it's only a portion of that particular site getting the prescriptions through it. And so that allows customers to be flexible with what they send through central fill. McKesson runs it and operates it on your behalf, and we send those prescriptions out to your store or even direct a patient. So we have a number of different ways that we can slice and dice the way that our central fill works with our customers, but it's all about making sure that we're meeting our customers where they're at within central fill.

Pharmacists are strained more than ever before. We have a number of regulations that you have to comply with. Workflows are not easy within the pharmacy, and to automate some of that gives those pharmacists and techs time back where they can spend really value-added time, time with patients, time giving vaccines, and other value-added services that they may not have time for today. So, it helps McKesson partner with our independent pharmacies and other retailers to make sure that they can be as effective as possible and take care of their communities.