Written by Joshua Murdock, PharmD, BCBBS

Nnamdi Njoku was named President of Omnicell in July 2026, adding the title to his existing role as chief operating officer (COO). 

In this exclusive interview with RXinsider, Njoku discusses the priorities shaping Omnicell’s roadmap, including the OmniSphere cloud platform and Titan XT automated dispensing system, and how they build on the company’s Autonomous Pharmacy vision. 

He also addresses where automation can have the most immediate impact on pharmacy operations and what health-system leaders should weigh as they plan technology investments over the next several years.

RXinsider: Congratulations on moving into the President role at Omnicell! Tell us more about some of the top priorities you’re focused on and how they build on the work you were already doing as COO.

Njoku: After witnessing firsthand how this leadership team truly cares about and prioritizes its customers to transform healthcare, I’m excited to take on this new role to help shape our next phase of growth. Changes such as labor and drug shortages, tightening budgets, the continued rise of specialty medications, AI, and automation are forcing health systems to pivot and adapt at an unprecedented rate. As a result, this speed of change is intensifying challenges while also revealing new opportunities to improve clinical workflows and medication inventory insights.  

As President and COO, I look forward to shaping Omnicell’s long-term growth strategy and innovation roadmap by continuing to build out our autonomous medication management offerings. As we work to make the industry-led Autonomous Pharmacy vision a reality, we remain thoughtful about how we invest, innovate, and partner for the future, advancing toward an enterprise medication management approach that is intelligent, connected, and increasingly self-directed. 

Our OmniSphere cloud platform and Titan XT automated dispensing system represent significant steps in this journey. OmniSphere serves as the secure cloud platform that unifies Omnicell devices and powers a connected enterprise, while Titan XT brings robust intelligence and guided workflows to the point of care, driving greater efficiency and safety. But these are milestones, not endpoints. 

As we extend this roadmap, our focus remains on delivering greater visibility and predictability into inventory and streamlined workflows that can transform health systems. By limiting medication waste, saving money, and reducing administrative tasks, we’re helping clinical staff to focus on what’s most important: patient care.

RXinsider: Health systems and retail pharmacies are under pressure from labor shortages and margin compression. Where do you see automation and medication-management tech having the greatest near-term impact on pharmacy operations teams?

Njoku: Automating repetitive, high-volume tasks that are prone to human error can result in the fastest, most impactful results, with opportunities available across the full continuum of care. When pharmacy staff are freed from tedious tasks such as counting pills, stocking shelves, and checking inventory, they can spend more time on higher-value work, leading to greater workplace satisfaction.

The same goes for autonomous medication management. AI and automation give healthcare organizations a clear picture of the medication inventory they have on hand, how much of it, where it is, and when it’s about to expire. This kind of visibility not only helps hospitals waste less and avoid stockouts but also enables more predictive decision-making. 

As health systems face tighter margins, these solutions can deliver the outcomes and return on investment that benefit both the system and its staff.

RXinsider: Omnicell has been expanding its platform beyond core dispensing automation. How do you think about balancing investment in new technology areas versus deepening what already works for existing customers?

Njoku: Investing in new technology and deepening what already works for customers doesn’t need to be an “either/or” situation. The processes our customers run today are working. Their pharmacies are dispensing medications safely. Their teams are competent, and the systems they’ve built over the years are doing their jobs. However, just because those systems work doesn’t mean they’re helping teams reach their full potential.

Having an efficient and transparent medication management system in place can serve as a foundation for expansion with new technology. 

When we think about the goals of innovation and platform expansion, our focus is on transforming how healthcare workers spend their time. Right now, skilled pharmacists and other clinical staff spend an enormous amount of energy on inventory reconciliation, manual tracking, and administrative overhead. This is all work that a well-designed system can absorb. 

When we invest in new capabilities, we’re not replacing the workflows that work. We’re lifting the burden off the people running them so they can focus on the tasks that matter: patient care, clinical judgment, ultimately the things only a person can do.

RXinsider: What’s a trend in pharmacy operations right now that you think is getting less attention than it deserves?

Njoku: AI in healthcare is dominating headlines as organizations search for a return on investment. One area getting less attention is the opportunity for AI to transform pharmacy.

Pharmacy is unique. It sits at the intersection of clinical care, operations, patient safety, workforce pressures, reimbursement complexity, and patient experience. These factors can make implementing AI across pharmacy operations increasingly complex and difficult to navigate, especially as AI capabilities develop at breakneck speed and pharmacies nationwide struggle simply to keep up, let alone get ahead. 

Without a clear, deliberate strategy for prioritizing where AI can create the greatest impact, pharmacies risk two opposite pitfalls. One is moving too cautiously and falling further behind competitors. The other is adopting new tools too hastily, introducing fresh safety, compliance, or workflow risks rather than solving the very problems they were meant to address.

RXinsider: For pharmacy directors and health-system leaders reading this, what’s one piece of advice you’d give them as they evaluate their technology roadmap for the next 2 to 3 years?

Njoku: My advice would be to ensure their roadmap fully considers actual healthcare workers and their day-to-day experiences. Too often, technology is layered on top of an existing workflow as an add-on that increases the number of steps rather than being integrated into the system. This results in a learning curve that can disrupt day-to-day operations and add more administrative work to the plates of staff who are already overburdened. When that happens, even a powerful tool can end up creating the very friction it was meant to eliminate.

I’d also encourage leaders to stop treating enterprise-wide medication management as a standard to strive for. For health systems, enterprise-wide medication management should be a baseline operational standard. The next challenge to consider in their technology investment is medication inventory optimization. Health systems need to ensure the right medications are available in the right locations so clinicians can quickly access and deliver them to patients, enabling the highest quality of care. Having technology that optimizes on-hand medication inventory without disrupting nursing or pharmacy workflows is an investment that will not only yield financial savings but also lead to greater staff and clinician satisfaction.