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Steve Rees is Senior Vice-President of Discovery Sciences at AstraZeneca with responsibility for the discovery of novel drug candidates, using multiple therapeutic modalities, for projects for all AstraZeneca therapy areas. Prior to his current appointment Steve held positions of increasing responsibility at AstraZeneca including leadership of the Discovery Biology and Screening Sciences and Sample Management departments. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Steve worked at GlaxoSmithKline for 24 years. He has served as Chair of the European Laboratory Research and Innovation Group, Chair of the European Council of the Society of Laboratory Automation and Screening and as Industry Trustee of the British Pharmacological Society and is a member of the Royal Society Science, Industry and Translation Committee. Steve was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen in 2021 for services to science and the COVID19 response.
Graduated as an engineer from École Centrale Paris, with additional training completed by a PhD in bioengineering, Béatrice Perron has held positions with increasing responsibilities in R&D over her more than 25-year professional career within mid-sized French pharmaceutical companies and large groups. She was notably in charge of the portfolio and the PMO of R&D projects. She joined Servier in 2015 and currently holds the position of Executive Director, Global Head of R&D Strategy within the Strategy, Portfolio, Execution, and Excellence Department, as a member of the R&D leadership team. As the guarantor of achieving R&D objectives within the Group’s strategic framework, she oversees the R&D portfolio strategy and its governance, as well
Dr. Peter Cox is a biologist with over 25 years experience working in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Peter holds a PhD in Molecular Virology from the University of Glasgow, followed by postdoctoral training in Neuroscience at INSERM, Paris and the University of Cambridge.
Peter began his industry career in 1998 at Pfizer dedicating 16 years to small molecule drug discovery for chronic pain, evolving from a bench scientist to taking on significant responsibilities in pain target identification and leading drug discovery projects through to IND preparation. This period provided him with extensive experience in the molecular pharmacology of diverse target classes, innovative target identification methodologies, and comprehensive drug discovery project leadership.
In 2014, Peter joined BenevolentAI (BAI), a pioneering AI-led drug discovery company. There, he was instrumental in building and expanding a multidisciplinary team of drug discovery scientists and establishing a robust portfolio of projects. As a key member of BAI’s drug discovery leadership team, he provided strategic direction, leveraged BAI’s knowledge graph-based target identification platform, and led large multidisciplinary teams and drug discovery initiatives.
Peter is currently Head of the Translational Science team at Isomorphic Labs, which is developing and applying frontier AI to reimagine and advance the drug design process to unlock deeper scientific insights and faster breakthroughs. Peter’s team of in vitro pharmacologists / translational biologists are responsible for the biology strategy of Isomorphic Labs’ AI-led drug design projects and provides critical validation for their innovative in-silico predictions through the generation of experimental biological data, directly advancing the evolution of some of the most sophisticated and powerful AI drug design platforms.
Tamara graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry, from the University of Witwatersrand. After graduating, she spent some time working as a process metallurgist for a Mining Research and Technology business before moving into the LIMS industry. She has behind her more than 22+ years’ experience in the laboratory information technology and services industry, where she held positions in Services, Sales & Strategic Accounts Management. Tamara joined Clinisys in May 2023 and is now the Director, Global LIMS Sales.
Kris is the Head of Molecular AI in Computational Drug Design at Novo Nordisk. She is leading a global team focused on AI and structure-based drug design for synthetic modalities. Her team is actively developing and applying new approaches to drug discovery through advances in combining experimental data, computational tools and ML to develop novel therapeutics. She is leading internal cross-functional initiatives to optimize the data foundations for drug design within Novo Nordisk. Kris holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Northwestern University and she further pursued a postdoctoral position with David Baker where she entered into the field of computational molecular design.
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.
At Insilico Medicine, she oversees the corporate strategy for the AI-driven platforms and services. Her expertise bridges computational chemistry and AI, driving innovation in molecular discovery.
Bethan Howells is a Senior Automation Scientist within AstraZeneca’s High Throughput Screening (HTS) Department. Her primary responsibility entails the design and optimization of automated screening protocols for biochemical, biophysical, and cell-based high-throughput screens. Bethan is also involved in the identification and implementation of innovative automation workflows to drive operational efficiency and advancement. Notably, over the past year, Bethan has played a pivotal role in the successful relocation and installation of AstraZeneca’s HTS automation platforms from Alderley Park, Cheshire to The Discovery Centre, Cambridge. Prior to this role, Bethan has 6.5 years’ experience within AstraZeneca, in HTS Screening and DNA-Encoded Library Screening.
Joel Poissonnier leads the Manufacturing Intelligence team, as part of the Data, Digital and Technology (DD&T) group in Takeda. He is also the business partner of a group called Global Manufacturing Science, composed mainly of Process Scientists supporting all Takeda production sites. Prior to this, he spent 20 years in the Engineering & Automation domains with Baxter, 12 years in MES global deployments with Baxter/Baxalta/Shire and 3 years in IT/OT Cybersecurity & Solution Architecture with Takeda. His background is Industrial Engineering in Electro-Mechanics and Master in Biomedical Engineering.
Rob Brown is Global VP, Head of Scientific Office Sapio Sciences. Prior to joining Sapio Sciences, he spent eight years at Dotmatics where he held various positions including Head of Global Presales and Head of Product Marketing & Product Management. Earlier in his career he was responsible for product marketing teams for cheminformatics and bioinformatics at Accelrys, SciTegic and MSI. Rob started his career as a postdoc and later research scientist in the Computer Aided Molecular Design department at Abbott Laboratories (now Abbvie). He received his PhD in Cheminformatics from the University of Sheffield, UK.
Tobias Bächtold is the Global Lead for Digital Lab Services & Infrastructure at Roche, pRED (Pharma Research and Early Development). In this role, he collaborates with his team and partners to deliver innovative digital solutions that enhance efficiency in pREDs’ R&D labs. Throughout his career, Tobias has been deeply engaged in digital transformation across various industries and business domains, extending beyond laboratory environments. His work has consistently touched “the edge of IT” (intersection of IT and the physical world) – spanning industrial automation, industry 4.0, smart buildings, and now, the labs of the future.
Live Lab sessions are interactive group discussions which tackle the bigger questions of the day in an open forum to brainstorm ideas and discuss the roadblocks to break-through innovation. They take the format of moderated standing discussions. The objective is to share views and experiences to stimulate new ways of thinking about common objectives.
Jesper Lau (JL) started with Novo Nordisk as bench chemists in 1990 working with small molecules but was quickly promoted to project manager for a specific project aiming to discover small molecule GLP-1 agonists as well as glugacon receptor antagonists. From 2003 JL was leading a new organization composed of organic chemists with experience from tradition medicinal chemistry that were transitioning into the untouched field of peptide and protein engineering aiming to build new capabilities on how to turn unstable peptides and proteins into effective and safe pharmaceuticals with long duration of action. Semaglutide was invented as the first once weekly GLP-1 based on human GLP-1 which has today inspired many others to follow.
Stéphane Maikovsky Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) / Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Stéphane joined LifeArc as CFO and Trustee in June 2022, and he took on the additional responsibility of Deputy CEO in October 2024, following a year as Interim CEO, during which he led the organisation. Stéphane heads up the Finance, Investment, LifeArc Ventures, Information Technology and Strategic Planning and Performance teams. Stéphane was previously CFO at the Francis Crick Institute and, prior to that, held senior financial, commercial and strategic roles at Mobil Oil, Accenture and Amgen.
With a multidisciplinary background across various domains and industries including the pharmaceutical, Swiss luxury watchmaking, drone, and creative sectors, Maria Sedykh is a knowledgeable AI expert currently serving as AI Strategy Lead and Principal Data Scientist at Lonza AG. Since March 2021, Maria has been identifying opportunities and leading AI initiatives, shaping Lonza’s technology landscape of tomorrow with an AI portfolio leveraging in-house custom-developed software. Her commitment to AI adoption and Good AI Practices extends beyond organizational boundaries by actively engaging with regulatory authorities on these topics on behalf of Lonza. Maria’s technical expertise includes machine learning, deep learning, (3D) computer vision, and natural language processing, among others. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Basel, specializing in drug discovery and toxicology.
How digital, done right, can foster a data culture, while establishing a data foundation for the future.
Kåre is a product owner at Novo Nordisk. He holds a master’s degree in IT, organization, and economics from Copenhagen Business School. With over 20 years of experience in digital transformation across R&D and various sectors.
For the past many years, Kåre has been driven by finding a solution to the fundamental dilemma of digital transformation in research; Research challenges the known, while IT products focus on optimizing and scaling the known. The tangible outcome of the product sciworm, short for scientific workflow management.
Having worked 10+ years in digitalization across different industries, Le (Muller) Mu is combining his IT experience with his knowledge in molecular biology to help accelerate the drug discovery process in Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED). He is currently the product line manager for End-to-End AI/ML and product owner and tech lead for the Roche pRED MLOps Service team, driving the operationalization of many different machine learning models, which helps to bring better future medicines faster into the hands of the patients
Driving digital transformation, automation, and AI in the pharmaceutical industry. As an Expert for Lab Automation & Digitalization within the ADME Chapter at Roche, I specialize in modernizing laboratory operations to enhance efficiency and innovation. With a strong background in chemistry and extensive experience in deploying cutting-edge technologies, I am committed to leveraging digital tools to accelerate research and development.
Driving digital transformation, automation, and AI in the pharmaceutical industry. As an Expert for Lab Automation & Digitalization within the ADME Chapter at Roche, I specialize in modernizing laboratory operations to enhance efficiency and innovation. With a strong background in chemistry and extensive experience in deploying cutting-edge technologies, I am committed to leveraging digital tools to accelerate research and development.
Dr Mark Basham is Science Director for Artificial Intelligence and Informatics at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, located on the RAL campus in South Oxfordshire. Mark was awarded his Physics PhD in surface science simulation from the University of Reading, he then moved to data acquisition and analysis of synchrotron and other experimental data after working with colleagues in the field.
Mark’s primary research contributions have focused on the removal of barriers between image processing techniques in different scientific domains, and the open development of these techniques. He is a strong advocate of open-source software tools that focus on the similarities between different fields rather than their differences, and in so doing, bring advances to all. A key aspect of these collaborative projects is their inclusive nature, bringing key stakeholders to the table. For example, in the development of SuRVoS workbench, Mark gathered together a group of biochemists, cell biologists, beamline physicists, and computer vision programmers to identify the needs in segmentation of biological images and work towards the development of a software program that addressed these needs.
Laura is Head of Research Software Engineering at The Rosalind Franklin Institute where she leads a team responsible for infrastructure and scientific Research Software Engineering. She studied physics at Imperial College London before completing a PhD in X-ray Imaging at UCL. She has worked between academia and industry in various Data Science and Software Engineering roles in various exciting companies and fields. Laura is passionate about accelerating scientific research with good data, technology and software engineering practices.
Joe is a Senior Data & AI Executive at Cancer Research Horizons, leading its Data & AI team to facilitate access to high-quality cancer research data for academic and commercial use. With extensive experience in research Data Partnerships, he has led data-focused initiatives at Cancer Research Horizons for six years, following various roles at Cancer Research Horizons and Cancer Research UK. Before transitioning to Business Development, he trained as a biochemist at the University of Oxford.
Dr Mark Basham is Science Director for Artificial Intelligence and Informatics at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, located on the RAL campus in South Oxfordshire. Mark was awarded his Physics PhD in surface science simulation from the University of Reading, he then moved to data acquisition and analysis of synchrotron and other experimental data after working with colleagues in the field.
Mark’s primary research contributions have focused on the removal of barriers between image processing techniques in different scientific domains, and the open development of these techniques. He is a strong advocate of open-source software tools that focus on the similarities between different fields rather than their differences, and in so doing, bring advances to all. A key aspect of these collaborative projects is their inclusive nature, bringing key stakeholders to the table. For example, in the development of SuRVoS workbench, Mark gathered together a group of biochemists, cell biologists, beamline physicists, and computer vision programmers to identify the needs in segmentation of biological images and work towards the development of a software program that addressed these needs.
Laura is Head of Research Software Engineering at The Rosalind Franklin Institute where she leads a team responsible for infrastructure and scientific Research Software Engineering. She studied physics at Imperial College London before completing a PhD in X-ray Imaging at UCL. She has worked between academia and industry in various Data Science and Software Engineering roles in various exciting companies and fields. Laura is passionate about accelerating scientific research with good data, technology and software engineering practices.
