Perry Genova, SVP, CTO at Omnicell – Interview Series

Perry Genova, Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer at Omnicell, leads the company’s vision to transform medication and supply management through advanced technology and innovation. He brings decades of leadership across medical technology and pharmaceuticals, including senior roles at EndoQuest Robotics, Titan Medical USA, and GlaxoSmithKline, as well as CEO positions at Centauri Robotic Surgical Systems and Oncoscope. An accomplished inventor with 58 U.S. patents, Dr. Genova is recognized for driving growth, innovation, and strategic collaboration across the healthcare sector.

Omnicell is a healthcare technology company that offers automation systems, smart devices, software, and services to optimize medication and supply management across inpatient and outpatient care settings. Their platform supports the vision of the “autonomous pharmacy,” aiming to enhance efficiency, reduce waste, and improve patient safety for hospitals, retail pharmacies, and specialty clinics.

Your career has spanned pharma, robotics, diagnostics, and now medication management. What is one professional experience that most shaped how you think about innovation and leadership today?

It’s been quite a journey over the years. I’ve had the privilege of working in many different industries and the one constant I’ve seen is that innovation only matters if it truly makes life better for people. During my early days in diagnostics, I saw firsthand how even small improvements in accuracy or speed could have a huge impact on patient outcomes. That experience taught me that technology is less about bells and whistles and more about solving real problems in a way that fits naturally into how people work. As a leader, I’ve tried to bring this thought process into every role: “empower your teams to experiment; don’t lose focus on the patient at the end of the chain”.

You joined Omnicell in March 2025 to help realize the vision of the Autonomous Pharmacy. What are the top technology pillars you see as critical to making that vision a reality?

The Autonomous Pharmacy is an industry-defined vision that seeks to replace manual, error-prone activities with automated processes that are safer and more efficient. In order to help our customers move closer to achieving this vision, we must create a solid foundation based on three main building blocks:

• Leveraging automation and robotics to relieve pharmacists and clinicians from time-consuming admin tasks so they can practice at the top of their license and focus on patient care.
• Uncovering data and analytics insights, which give health systems the visibility they need to better manage and optimize inventory, predict patient needs, and reduce medication waste.
• Connecting care settings through interoperability; we have to make it easier for these systems to actually talk to each other across the entire ecosystem. It’s when you connect those building blocks that you move from the traditional manual, siloed processes to a safer, more connected, and more predictable way of managing medications.

Healthcare faces drug shortages, staffing challenges, and rising costs. How is Omnicell adapting its technology strategy to address these systemic pressures?

Health systems and their entity-owned pharmacies are dealing with a lot right now. Over 80% of pharmacy directors report pharmacy technician shortages, drug expenses have risen by 10%, and the nation’s top health systems have incurred millions in costs related to medication procurement and inventory management in this year alone. We’re focused on developing technology-driven solutions to address these critical challenges. RFID and automation give teams real-time visibility and smarter inventory management to optimize medication management. They also cut down on repetitive tasks, so clinicians get more time back with patients. At the end of the day, it’s about creating scalable, connected solutions that reduce waste, prevent errors, and help health systems stay strong financially while improving care.

How do you see data and AI transforming medication safety and supply management, and what are the risks in leaning heavily on predictive analytics?

Data and AI have the potential to move us from reacting to problems to anticipating them. Predictive analytics can flag when a shortage is likely, or when usage patterns suggest a shift is needed. That’s a huge step forward. But there are risks in over-relying on any algorithm. Healthcare is complex, and there’s not one model that captures every variable. That’s why AI should never replace the clinical judgment of a pharmacist or nurse — it should support them, make their jobs easier, and help create a safer system overall.

As health systems continue to evolve and expand, unifying medication inventory management and AI-powered insights can help optimize hospital costs and support safe and effective medication management across the enterprise. Think about Home Depot – if you need a snow shovel, you can go on their website, select your closest store, and see exactly where in that store they keep said shovel. In November, they know to stock more snow shovels because this resource will be in demand. Shouldn’t health systems have the same visibility to ensure the right medication is delivered to the right patient at the right time? Centralizing pharmacy operations and leveraging automation and analytics can help bring this closer to reality, significantly reducing the manual workload on in-house pharmacy and clinical teams.

RFID (radio-frequency identification) has become central to Omnicell’s product line. What are the biggest technical and operational hurdles in deploying RFID medication tracking at scale?

RFID is great for real-time visibility, but scaling it comes with challenges. On the technical side, you need accurate scans across different drug types and packaging. On the operational side, it has naturally to fit into existing workflows without slowing staff down. We’ve spent a lot of time making it reliable and easy to use because if it doesn’t fit into daily practice, it won’t deliver. When it works well, though, the benefits are huge — less waste, fewer shortages, and safer care for patients.

Automation and robotics are critical to Omnicell’s solutions. How do you ensure reliability, safety, and compliance when deploying these technologies in critical care environments?

In healthcare, reliability and safety are non-negotiable. That means continuous testing, monitoring, and building in redundancies where it counts. Compliance is built in too — whether that’s FDA standards, Joint Commission requirements, or internal policies. And we make sure to involve pharmacy leaders and clinicians in the development process early and often. Technology has to work in the real world, not just in a lab, and their input is key to delivering the most impactful solutions.

When scaling large automation systems across multiple facilities, how do you strike a balance between standardization and local workflow needs?

It’s always a balancing act. Standardization is important for consistency and safety because you don’t want every site doing things completely different. But each facility has its own workflows and challenges. What’s worked best is starting with a strong, consistent foundation and then giving local teams room to customize to their needs.

Having led both large corporate divisions and startups, what leadership lessons are you applying now at Omnicell?

One lesson is agility. Startups teach you to move quickly and be resourceful; larger organizations teach you to build for scale. At Omnicell, I try to bring both mindsets by encouraging innovation while making sure we can deliver reliably at enterprise scale. Another lesson is transparency. People do their best work when they understand not just what we’re building, but why it matters for patients and providers.

As care continues shifting toward outpatient and home settings, how does Omnicell’s technology roadmap evolve to extend the Autonomous Pharmacy beyond the hospital?

We know care is moving beyond the four walls of the hospital so we continuously focus on how we can provide a seamless medication management experience across the care continuum. Our MedVision solution, for instance, helps outpatient clinics streamline medication management workflows, while central pharmacy maintains control over inventory optimization – again helping to reduce cost and redundancy to enhance patient care. We continue to expand our portfolio of automation and analytics solutions to ensure patients get safe, efficient care wherever they are – from hospital to home.

Looking ahead, what emerging technologies or “moonshots” do you think could most disrupt pharmacy automation and healthcare delivery in the next decade?
Advanced robotics will continue to evolve, not just to store and dispense medications but continue to  help optimize and streamline workflows. AI will get smarter, supporting more personalized decision-making for both clinicians and patients. And as the industry has envisioned –  a fully connected ecosystem — where every part of the medication journey, from manufacturing to bedside to home, is digitally visible and traceable. If we can achieve that, it could transform not just medication management but the entire healthcare delivery system.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit Omnicell.