Company Spotlight

Highmark Health is Building the Future of Health Care—From Pittsburgh

Highmark Health is leading a bold transformation of health care — using Pittsburgh as a proving ground for technology, care delivery, and payer-provider innovation.

Highmark Health is a Pittsburgh, PA-based organization dedicated to improving community health and rooted in its mission to deliver a remarkable health experience, freeing people to be their best. Employing more than 44,000 people who serve millions of Americans across the country, Highmark Health is the parent company of Highmark, Allegheny Health Network, and enGen. Through its Living Health strategy, Highmark Health is setting a new standard for health care by providing better, more accessible experiences that lead to improved health outcomes and lower costs of care.

Highmark serves nearly 8 million members across Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia New York and Missouri, along with commercial clients nationwide. AHN, created by Highmark Health in 2013, provides care at 14 hospitals and over 275 clinical locations. Ongoing access investments include expansions in emergency medicine and cancer care, and more than $150 million in newly opened imaging facilities. The organization recorded more than 4 million physician visits in 2025 and offers deep strength in oncology, cardiology, neurosciences, women’s health and translational research.

But Highmark Health’s real differentiator is how closely the payer and provider sides work together to test and implement new ideas — at speed and at scale.

“We’re not waiting for innovation to come to us — we’re building it into the core of how we deliver and pay for care,” says David Holmberg, president and CEO, Highmark Health.

Take Free Market Health, a startup backed by Highmark in 2022. Its platform optimizes how patients receive specialty medications by matching them with the most appropriate in-network pharmacy. Highmark’s specialty drug management program, powered by Free Market Health, has improved specialty medication access rates for first-time users of a specialty drug by more than 50 percent compared to members not managed in the program. First-time users of a specialty medication managed in Highmark’s program also received their first fill of medication quicker, on average two to four days faster than members with no management or a traditional exclusive specialty pharmacy program.  

Highmark targets investments that are designed to fuel change inside the system, backing health tech companies focusing on chronic disease management, care coordination, behavioral health, and more. These solutions are stress-tested in a real-world environment with real patients.

Beyond its own system, AHN is helping to advance the Pittsburgh region’s health tech economy through AlphaLab Health, an accelerator co-managed with Innovation Works at AHN’s new innovation campus outside of Pittsburgh. The accelerator supports early-stage life sciences startups with initial funding, lab space, clinical mentorship, and access to AHN facilities to validate and refine products. Since launch, AlphaLab Health has helped 29 companies raise more than $65 million in follow-on funding.  

“We’re creating an environment where the best new ideas in health care can get real traction — not just in labs or pitch decks, but in hospitals and exam rooms,” says Jeff Cohen, MD, chief physician executive, community health and innovation, AHN.

Highmark Health and AHN aren’t just adapting to change — they’re driving it. By aligning financial incentives, clinical delivery, and innovation strategy under one roof, they’re delivering faster, more personalized, and more cost-effective care. And in doing so, they’re positioning Pittsburgh not just as a player in health care innovation — but as a blueprint for what integrated, value-based care can look like.