2021 Projections

Putting aside COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, what do you think will be the most significant development in the industry in 2021?

Virtual BD and Marketing

How are you growing your business development activities in the absence of conventional trade shows and other traditional business development/marketing activities?

Lessons from the Pandemic

What do you think is the greatest lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and what lasting impacts do you foresee over the next 5–10 years?

Dealing with a Crisis

How has your organization worked to become “crisis proof?”

Post-COVID-19 Supply Chain

How are you rethinking your supply chain and operational fitness in light of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Roundtable Topics

2021 Projections

Virtual BD and Marketing

Lessons from the Pandemic

Dealing with a Crisis

Post-COVID-19 Supply Chain

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I believe that the focus on the microbiome will significantly increase in 2021 and beyond. The pandemic hardly disrupted microbiome research, and 2020 saw an increasing level of investment and partnering in this area.

Isabelle de Cremoux
CEO and Managing Partner, Seventure Partners

I believe we will see an emphasis on precision medicine this year, as the industry focuses on a diagnostic and therapeutic approach that not only helps put each patient in the center of their medical care, but also helps physicians and payers make informed decisions in this unprecedented time.

Sidonie Golombowski-Daffner, Ph.D.
Chairperson and President, Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), a Novartis company

There’s no denying that the world has changed in the past 12 months. We’ve witnessed the almost miraculous development of new vaccines in timelines previously thought unattainable.

Phil Vanek
CTO, Gamma Biosciences

First, 2021 will see greater controls and regulation being brought in for the pharmaceutical supply chain due to the fragility that has been made evident in 2020.

Marrie Groeneveld
CCO, SkyCell

2021 will be unlike any other year in one clear way: digitalization. I believe the utilization of AI and machine learning will make big advances in 2021, particularly with respect to shortening development times for drug products

Alen Guy
Technical Director, the Pharmaceutical Business Group of IMCD

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While PCI must earn the right to serve, our customers are in need of services, and pharmaceutical companies need the value that integrated supply chain companies bring.

Tim Roberts
Vice President, Global Sales, Clinical Services | PCI Pharma Services

As the pandemic struck last year, Vectura was embarking on a path to change its business strategy and evolve from a development company into an inhalation-focused CDMO.

Mark Bridgewater
Chief Commercial Officer, Vectura

This year has brought many new challenges and opportunities across the healthcarelandscape. At Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), a Novartis company, data anddigital are some of our key strategic pillars.

Sidonie Golombowski-Daffner, Ph.D.,
Chairperson and President, Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA)

Gamma Biosciences was intentionally built from the ground up to move quickly and purposefully to address the shortcomings in advanced therapy manufacturing.

Phil Vanek
Chief Technical Officer, Gamma Biosciences

As an established VC with a primary focus on the healthcare and life sciences sectors, we didn’t experience significant interruption in our business development activities.

Isabelle de Cremoux
CEO and Managing Partner, Seventure Partners

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Over the past three decades, the pharmaceutical supply chain has grown more complex and international to meet policies focused on aggressively decreasing drug prices.

Andrew Badrot
CEO, C² PHARMA

The greatest lesson we have learned is that cumulative ability, expertise, and knowledge offer the best path forward in developing new drugs and therapies.

Anthony Fitzpatrick
Executive Vice President Operations, Vectura

Preparedness for risks such as anthrax and smallpox are important because the threat remains high, but we never expected that the first significant pandemic since the flu pandemic was going to be an extreme version of the common cold.

Sean Kirk
EVP, Manufacturing & Technical Operations, Emergent BioSolutions

To me, the greatest lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is resilience: the CDMO industry has proven to be capable of outstanding resilience over the past months.

Jean Bléhaut
President of the Synthesis Solutions Business Unit, Novasep

First, the importance of our industry: both the ability of biopharmaceutical companies to directly address the challenges of COVID-19 and the fact that our sector has remained so strong in such turbulent times.

Ben Zeskind, Ph.D.
CEO, Immuneering

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Because we’re a leading supplier for end-to-end bioprocessing products, our sector has been greatly impacted by COVID-19.

Amélie Boulais
Marketing Manager within the Vaccine Segment, Sartorius

Like every global organization, Catalent has crisis management plans in place for various scenarios. Surveillance and communication are key and help identify threats quickly to enable timely response.

Kay Schmidt
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations, Catalent

Obviously, the safety and well-being of trial participants and staff remains the top priority of any organization conducting clinical studies, but it is absolutely imperative that the quality and integrity of data from trials remains of the highest standard.

Nariné Baririan
PharmD, Clinical Pharmacology Expert, SGS

While the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a tumultuous period across industries, we demonstrated operational resilience and established ourselves as a “crisis-proof” organization.

Radek Špíšek, Ph.D.
Global CEO, Sotio

The key to overcoming any crisis is robust planning, eliminating single points of failure, adapting quickly, and building a culture of creative problem solving.

Dietrich Stephan, Ph.D.
CEO, Neubase Therapeutics

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Alcami’s simplified, entirely U.S.-based supply chain is one of our core strengths. At every phase of the product life cycle, risks are inevitable; this is especially true as supply chain complexities increase due to COVID-19.

Yadira Salamander
Director of Engineering Services, Alcami

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical role that procurement plays in managing the supply of goods and services, especially in times of crisis. Business continuity planning has been used to great effect and has reinforced the need to keep plans live and...

David Duff
VP Procurement, Vectura

At BASF Nutrition and Health, global, regional, country, and site crisis-management teams are meeting regularly to further monitor the outbreak of COVID-19 and recommend the necessary mitigation measures.

David Freidinger
Vice President of Pharma Solutions Business Management, BASF

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided many lessons and inspiration for improvement related to areas from people to processes and systems.

Brian Albright
Global Manufacturing and Supply Chain Leader, Pharma Solutions, DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences

The continuous optimization of operational fitness has always been an integral part of Rentschler Biopharma’s strategy. We have been closely monitoring and improving our processes, business continuity, and digital maturity, even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 ...

Wolfram Schulze
Vice President Information Systems, Organization, & Digital Transformation and Head of Infection Prevention Task Force, Rentschler Biopharma

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