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Nicole Crane is a Senior Principal with Accenture’s Labs group. She is a thought leader within Accenture’s Research and Labs practices and steers lab innovations, including those driven by agentic AI. She has 15+ years of work experience in the Life Sciences, specializing in R&D processes and technologies. She gained her experience working with various industries, including Pharma, Healthcare, Government, and academia. In her time before Accenture, Nicole spent more than a decade as an R&D Scientist, with both deep and broad experience in benchtop, analytical, pre-clinical, and clinical research.
Mark Fish is the Vice President & General Manager of Digital Lab Solutions at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Mark’s role focuses on the innovation and execution of Thermo Fisher’s Automated Digital Lab Solutions portfolio, as we enable our customers to reimagine their laboratory processes with leading-edge digital, laboratory and automation capabilities. With over 20 years of laboratory informatics experience, Mark has focused on building long-term, trusting customer relationships, and delivering valuable, strategic solutions to address industry challenges. Throughout his career, Mark has held significant positions at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Accenture, Brooks Life Sciences, and Brooks Automation. With his extensive experience, Mark has developed a deep understanding in the laboratory informatics and laboratory automation spaces.
This talk will examine how data is generated today and how it is expected to evolve in the near and far future. It will highlight what is currently working, outline key challenges, and explain why in silico-only experimentation is not yet mature due to data gaps, as well as discuss approaches to address and refine these gaps.
Marc is a Lead Product Manager for Process Development at IDBS. Prior to that role, he was a Director of Strategic Solutions, developing the enterprise-level IDBS Polar BioPharma Lifecycle Management solutions. With over 15 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical sector implementing and leading digital solutions and strategies, Marc is an expert in laboratory and operational technology, laboratory informatics and system integration and leads a team of technological and domain experts committed to the development of Polar Solutions. Before joining IDBS in 2021, he worked at Lonza Biologics and Angel Biotechnology, and holds a BSc (Hons) in Pharmacology from the University of Sunderland.
Dr. Petrina Kamya is a computational chemist specializing in computer-aided molecular design with a career spanning academic research and industry leadership roles. She earned her Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from Concordia University, where she researched RNA structure interactions and small molecule design. Transitioning to industry, Dr. Kamya joined Chemical Computing Group (CCG) in Montreal where she played a pivotal role in sales and business development, focusing on molecular modeling software tailored for pharmaceutical and biotech companies and academic institutions. At Certara, she consulted for pharmaceutical companies, offering strategic insights on market access and drug commercialization.
This talk provides a brief overview of how AI is being applied across pharmaceutical R&D and where the field stands today. It highlights how AstraZeneca is using frontier AI, including foundation models and agentic frameworks, to support end-to-end clinical development from drug discovery to patient delivery, and closes with a realistic view on what AI can achieve in the near term.
Mohit Goel is a visionary technology leader transforming biopharma, life sciences, and laboratory automation through AI, robotics, and intelligent systems. With deep expertise in systems engineering, software architecture, and autonomous technologies, he is shaping the Lab of the Future, where AI-driven automation accelerates scientific discovery and biomanufacturing at scale.
As the Head of Systems Integration at Moderna, Mohit leads enterprise-wide technology innovation, building next-generation automation platforms that seamlessly integrate AI, robotics, and digital ecosystems to optimize laboratory and manufacturing operations worldwide.
A key driver of global biotech innovation, Mohit serves on the Executive Committee for multiple SLAS tracks, influencing automation, AI, and robotics adoption across life sciences. He is also a Senior Member of ISA and an active member of IEEE, IEEE RAS, IEEE EMBS, and ISPE, shaping the future of biotech at the intersection of AI and advanced automation. Passionate about bridging technology and science, Mohit is building the intelligent, connected, and scalable laboratory ecosystems that will define the next era of biotech innovation.
Dr. Vlysidis obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, studying and modeling the stochasticity of biochemical reaction networks. With over 6 years of experience in the industry, he has made significant contributions to the fields of scientific software development and engineering. Currently serving as a team leader at AbbVie, Dr. Vlysidis’ primary focus is on supporting the biologics organization in capturing and analyzing experimental data. He possesses a deep understanding of protein properties and leverages innovative protein language models to further enhance research in this area. Prior to joining AbbVie, he worked at Intel, where his expertise was instrumental in supporting R&D research on semiconductors and cutting-edge technology. With a strong academic background and industry experience, Dr. Vlysidis is dedicated to driving advancements at the intersection of chemical engineering, software development, and AI/ML models.
In this presentation I will run through the journey that GSK DMPK has taken to move into an automated lab environment. This will include the steps we took to semi-automate our lab based equipment and processes. How we built an end to end data workflow for the seamless support of our projects DMTA cycles. Then finally highlight the on going plans to build a fully automated DMPK platform to align with GSK Research’s plans for ‘lab-in-a-loop’.
Albert Wang is Executive Director of Research IT Emerging Methods & Technologies at Bristol Myers Squibb. In this role, he is responsible for accelerating biomedical research through the exploration and adoption of foundational machine learning approaches and related technologies. He has 20+ years of experience in designing and building information systems for accelerating all phases of drug research & development, from early target identification to biomarker discovery to post-launch medical research. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and a Masters degree in Bioinformatics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Wan-Chih Su, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist at Genentech, where she focuses on developing innovative high-throughput analytical platforms to support small molecules and new drug modalities, including oligonucleotide and peptide drug product development. Her research focuses on high-throughput chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, and spectroscopic methods for impurity profiling and characterization of complex formulations, including mRNA-lipid nanoparticle systems. Before joining Genentech, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and has since contributed to advancing analytical strategies that bridge fundamental biophysical and separation sciences to biopharmaceutical applications. Her recent work highlights the development of high-throughput analytical methods for quantifying mRNA-LNP formulations.
Vimaldev Devaraja is a seasoned Technical Product Leader with over 20 years of experience delivering lab execution, data management, and automation solutions in the pharmaceutical R&D space. He currently serves as a Principal Platform Engineer at Johnson & Johnson, where he leads multi-million-dollar Lab Automation initiatives and the development of a next-generation GxP-compliant LIMS platform to support clinical studies, including advanced virology and qPCR workflows. Vimaldev specializes in architecting Lab Workflows that unite LIMS, ELN, reagent management, and analytical systems, enabling end-to-end digital continuity and improved scientific outcomes. His work includes strategic roadmaps integrating various BioAnalytical assays, migration from Biovia to LV ELN, and implementation of LabVantage analytics and automated barcode systems—all aligned to GxP and data integrity standards.
Prior to J&J, Vimaldev served as Program Manager at Merck, where he led global teams across the U.S., India, Prague, and Canada, modernized lab infrastructures, introduced DevOps culture, and improved critical GxP system reliability through observability and automation. Across his career, he has managed more than $10M in portfolios, overseen 250+ GxP applications, and driven modernization, cloud adoption, and AI-assisted workflows across global lab environments.With deep expertise in scientific informatics, automation architecture, and regulated lab
ecosystems, Vimaldev brings a pragmatic and future-focused perspective to transforming laboratory operations through intelligent, autonomous, and compliant digital systems.
Justin is a senior director of LIMS strategy at Veeva Systems, focused on the optimization of quality through the modernization of quality control. As a laboratory informatics professional, he brings nearly 20 years of experience partnering with manufacturing and quality organizations to optimize efficiency, accessibility, quality, and compliance through digital transformation.
-Key levers where data can be used to increase pipeline throughput and reduce cost
-How we capture business processes to improve efficiency
-Near-real-time multi-modal data integration for early-phase clinical trials to improve decision making
I am passionate about leveraging data and cutting-edge technologies to improve cancer drug development and advance personalized medicine—matching the right patients with the right treatments. Throughout my career, I’ve collaborated with clinical teams to champion data-driven decision-making. My personal experiences with cancer drive my commitment to developing knowledge systems that integrate clinical, imaging, and biomarker data. These systems provide real-time access to high-quality information, enhancing our ability to make timely, informed decisions. I believe that by harnessing comprehensive cancer data, we can deepen our understanding of cancer biology and drug mechanisms while minimizing potential side effects. Ultimately, curing cancer is a team effort requiring diverse expertise and leadership founded not just on vision, but on empathy that recognizes the human behind each patient.
Next-gen research agents are “context hungry.” As agents take on more complex scientific questions and multi-step tasks, they require richer, more structured metadata to stay accurate, explainable, and useful. Early agent optimization experimentation is giving us early signals on what types of metadata are needed.
As the demand for metadata increases from next-gen agents, there is now more impetus to evolve from our traditional manual methods of metadata capture within ELN/LIMs/Request forms to automated workflows enabled by the lab of the future. Automation of our labs isn’t only for people but their future digital assistants as well!
Steven Winig is the Executive Director of Technology and User Services (TUS) at Novartis Biomedical Research. The TUS organization enables 5,300 researchers across multiple international campuses. Before joining Novartis, Steven held senior IT leadership roles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served as a Principal at American Management Systems, Inc., and was a Director at Computer-Ed, Inc. He holds a BS in Computer Science from The Johns Hopkins University and lives by the mantra that relationships matter. Known as the resource of last resort, Steve is often called upon to tackle the most nuanced challenges. Interestingly, his college advisor stating that AI will be the future has proven to be prophetic, albeit a few decades early.
Gene leads the Discovery Technology Strategy service line within the Discovery practice at ZS, where he works with many top pharmaceutical companies on multi-year research digital transformation programs. He has extensive experience leading large cross-functional teams to modernize discovery workflows and platforms and is passionate about applying innovations in data and technology to propel the future of drug discovery.
● Modern R&D generates scientific data at a scale and complexity we’ve never seen—from high-throughput screens and multi-omics to structural biology, biophysics, analytical characterization, and developability studies. Only a unified solution spanning discovery through development and commercialization can preserve the scientific context behind this work and support fast, confident decision-making.
● Fragmentation has a scientific cost: disconnected ELNs, LIMS, point solutions, and analytics tools erode the meaning behind data—breaking continuity across discovery, translational research, and development, and slowing the scientific iteration needed to move promising molecules forward.
● AI in life sciences needs scientific meaning, not just more data. The breakthrough comes from a science-first Lab of the Future—where AI is powered by experimental context, biological insight, and the decision history captured across the R&D lifecycle.
● A new level of R&D velocity: When experimental, analytical, and computational science come together in a single solution, organizations can accelerate hypothesis generation, speed assay iteration, improve predictability with AI, and move seamlessly from early research through CMC and scale-up.
Leah O’Brien is a wholehearted tech leader with passion, agility and 20 years experience in the Pharma industry. She was a Senior Director in R&D Tech at GlaxoSmithKline. As the Senior Product Director for Development Lab Systems, she had tech accountability for all GxP laboratory systems used across CMC development, as well as general lab instrument support across R&D. Leah lead a product-centric DevOps organisation, spanning development LIMS and ELN systems, CMC production data collection and analysis and Lab Engineering.
Michael Swartz is Chief Strategy Officer responsible for driving Dotmatics long-term strategicinitiatives and accelerating the delivery of value to Dotmatics’ global scientific customer base.Michael previously served as Senior Vice President of Enterprise Product Strategy, where he playeda pivotal role in the development of Dotmatics Luma, the company’s Scientific Intelligence Platform.
A recognized pioneer in the digital transformation of life sciences R&D, Michael brings more than 25years of experience bridging science and software to modernize laboratory workflows and unlock thepower of data. Prior to joining Dotmatics, Michael was Vice President of Software Solutions andStrategy at PerkinElmer Informatics (now Revvity), where he led portfolio strategy for industry-leadingplatforms including Signals, ChemDraw, and Spotfire. He has also held leadership roles atCambridgeSoft, including Vice President of Knowledge Management.
Jonathan Lippy leads a global team leveraging state-of-the-art automation and data technologies to deliver end-to-end capabilities with a focus on speed and portfolio impact across all therapeutic areas and modalities. With 29 years of experience in drug discovery, Jonathan has driven transformative strategies delivering next-generation AI-driven automation capabilities and workflows. Prior to joining J&J, Jonathan spent 22 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he led the Kinome Hit-to-Leads Platform and Screening Operations team and was a member of the Discovery team for SOTYKTU®.
With nearly 30 years of visionary leadership, Wolfgang Colsman serves as the Chief Executive Officer of ZONTAL, a pioneering enterprise platform transforming the way organizations manage and preserve their digital information. Under his leadership, ZONTAL has become a catalyst for change across industries, redefining how data is captured, connected, and safeguarded for long-term value.
Before founding ZONTAL, Wolfgang spent over two decades at OSTHUS as Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Technology Officer, where he guided large-scale digital transformation initiatives. His ability to bridge cutting-edge technology with real-world business needs helped establish OSTHUS as a trusted, vendor-agnostic partner driving innovation for global enterprises.
Beyond his corporate achievements, Wolfgang has left a lasting mark on the life sciences and technology ecosystems through his leadership at the Allotrope Foundation and the Pistoia Alliance Methods Hub project. By championing data standards, interoperability, and collaborative infrastructures, he has empowered industries to break down silos, accelerate discovery, and unlock new opportunities for digital transformation. These efforts continue to shape how organizations think about data as a strategic asset rather than a byproduct.
Recognized for his ability to anticipate technological shifts and inspire collaborative progress, Wolfgang has become a respected voice in the digital landscape—bringing together vision, strategy, and execution to create sustainable impact.
Matthew Davis is Senior Partner and Head of Pioneering Intelligence, an initiative of Flagship Pioneering that harnesses AI to accelerate innovation in the life sciences & beyond. He joined Flagship in 2024 as Chief AI Scientist for Ignacio Martinez’s Pioneering Business Unit working in sustainability and health ventures.
Prior to joining Flagship, Matt advanced innovation at leading human genetic diagnostics companies. He served first as Head of AI & Data at Invitae, where he led strategic business development in AI/ML and grew a team to apply machine learning to clinical interpretation, scalable operations, and personalized patient insights. His team’s application of probabilistic machine learning to variant interpretation led to the resolution of tens of thousands of clinical human variants. He later led the technical transformation of Sema4/GeneDx as Chief Product and Technology Officer.
He began his career at IBM working in Linux development and high-performance computing, which led him to academic research in systems and computational biology. He worked with pioneers at UT Austin and UC Berkeley applying machine learning to high throughput morphological phenotyping, x-ray crystallography, and transcriptional regulation.
Matt returned to computer science as a group leader at IBM Research, founding a team to research multimodal AI agents and human-computer interaction. In addition to developing several enterprise software products in this space, Matt continued to author papers and patents in the fields of NLP, AI, HCI, and biology. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from UT Austin and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.
Matthew Davis is Senior Partner and Head of Pioneering Intelligence, an initiative of Flagship Pioneering that harnesses AI to accelerate innovation in the life sciences & beyond. He joined Flagship in 2024 as Chief AI Scientist for Ignacio Martinez’s Pioneering Business Unit working in sustainability and health ventures.
Prior to joining Flagship, Matt advanced innovation at leading human genetic diagnostics companies. He served first as Head of AI & Data at Invitae, where he led strategic business development in AI/ML and grew a team to apply machine learning to clinical interpretation, scalable operations, and personalized patient insights. His team’s application of probabilistic machine learning to variant interpretation led to the resolution of tens of thousands of clinical human variants. He later led the technical transformation of Sema4/GeneDx as Chief Product and Technology Officer.
He began his career at IBM working in Linux development and high-performance computing, which led him to academic research in systems and computational biology. He worked with pioneers at UT Austin and UC Berkeley applying machine learning to high throughput morphological phenotyping, x-ray crystallography, and transcriptional regulation.
Matt returned to computer science as a group leader at IBM Research, founding a team to research multimodal AI agents and human-computer interaction. In addition to developing several enterprise software products in this space, Matt continued to author papers and patents in the fields of NLP, AI, HCI, and biology. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from UT Austin and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.
David Cooney is the Head of GTM strategy at HelixAI and former Strategic Client Partner at Causaly AI and former Associate Partner at McKinsey, focused on AI in life sciences R&D. He has led GTM strategy, value proposition design, and enterprise partnerships across top-20 pharma, building multimillion-dollar pipelines and shaping AI product-packaging and partnership
Jonathan Gilbert leads the growth of the Lilly TuneLab Ecosystem on the east coast of US and Europe. Jonathan received his PhD from MIT in Chemical Engineering and has spent his last decade plus in biotech at multiple companies ranging from the Seed stage to early clinical public companies. Immediately prior to Lilly, Jonathan lead Corporate Development and Strategy at Entact Bio.
Vatsala Rajanala is a Sr. Business Analyst with extensive experience driving digital and data transformation in R&D. At AstraZeneca, Vatsala leads initiatives to advance data governance and AI-readiness strategies within Biopharmaceutical Development, building frameworks for structured and unstructured data integration enabling future-ready analytics and data automation capabilities. Vatsala’s work spans business process optimization, shaping the IT technology and data roadmap for BPD, ensuring alignment with enterprise goals for digital transformation and scientific innovation. Prior to this, Vatsala contributed to projects focused on implementing foundational systems, bringing a collaborative and strategic approach to delivering innovative solutions.
Dana Filoti is Associate Director of Early Biologics Analytical Development and Digital Strategy within PDS&T, where she leads the enablement of analytical deep learning tools to drive efficiency and innovation in biologics process development. She holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of New Hampshire and a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Bucharest. Prior to joining AbbVie, Dana served as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Genentech and the Biomolecular Interaction Technologies Center (BITC), where she advanced instrumentation for characterizing protein charge and macromolecular interactions at high concentrations. Her current work centers on transformative data automation and advanced analytical strategies—empowering lab-in-the-loop, knowledge-based models to interpolate multimodal CMC data and integrate knowledge platforms that accelerate and optimize bioprocess development.
In this talk, I’ll explore how to close the gap between data visibility and operational decision-making by understanding how equipment is actually used in the lab. I’ll show how connected intelligence built on real equipment usage can drive clear, prioritized operational decisions. We’ll look at how bringing together disparate data points exposes hidden inefficiencies, equipment risk, and capacity challenges—and I’ll share what the next phase of connected lab operations looks like in practice.
Thibaut is the Head of Portfolio Management & Operations of the Genomic Medicine Unit, a Research Platform at Sanofi. A scientist by training and at heart, Thibaut holds a PhD in Physics from his work on understanding the mechanics at the cell-cytoskeleton interface, performed at Institut Curie in Paris. After obtaining his MBA he joined the pharmaceutical industry in 2018 and, after some years spent within Consumer Healthcare, focuses on Biopharma R&D since 2023. He is passionate about human-centric Transformations, putting employees at the heart of organizational efficiency gains, through Change Management, Process Optimization and Enabling Technologies. Active mentorship and driving efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion are embedded within that approach.
Dan Petkanas is a leader in the digital transformation of laboratories, drawing on years of experience driving impactful change across hundreds of laboratories globally. His expertise spans research and development (R&D), compliance, and manufacturing, where he focuses on optimizing data integrity, maximizing laboratory asset utilization, and ensuring seamless equipment compliance and connectivity. At Elemental Machines, Dan’s strategic vision helps laboratories achieve new levels of operational efficiency, data accuracy, and regulatory excellence.
This will talk will cover the following topics :
• Data Value & AI/ML: Laboratory data is increasingly valuable as AI/ML tools can interpret large datasets and deliver actionable insights.
• Standardized Formats: Trends, alerts, and predictive modeling rely on data being in a standardized format for easy evaluation by these tools.
• OpenLab Advantage: OpenLab enables seamless data sharing with dashboarding tools and converts Agilent and multivendor data types into industry-standard formats for integration into data lakes and AI-driven insights
Alayna is an Associate Director within Biologics CMC Developability at AbbVie. Her team oversees biophysical and structural screening of biotherapeutic candidates in late Discovery timelines. Training in structural biology and mass spectrometry inform her interest in developing mechanistic based understanding of protein structure/function relationships. Additionally, she is interested in maximizing the impact of the complex data sets enabled by recent advances in analytical techniques and data capture
Kate Mingle is a Principal Data Scientist at AbbVie focused on advancing AI and machine learning initiatives to accelerate the development of new therapies. Her work is centered in cultivating innovative and scalable strategies to facilitate broad applications in pharmacokinetics, safety, and biophysical property prediction. Prior to joining AbbVie, she led CMC data science efforts at Moderna, where she supported scale-up and commercialization of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Jon Welsh has been with Agilent for over 30 years. He currently leads the Americas informatics sales team responsible for selling enterprise informatics CDS, LIMS and SDMS and core management software solutions. He has held different positions in software applications, sales, and services marketing management across Agilent.
