Check in, grab a coffee, and connect with your peers before the day begins.

Dr. Nadine Bongaerts, Founder, Amplicon Advisors

Simon Turner, Partner, Digital Medicine Strategy, Sofinnova Partners

AI is reshaping industries everywhere — yet in biopharma R&D, its journey has been more nuanced and complex than many expected. Far from an overnight revolution, its adoption is revealing both the promise and the practical realities of applying AI to science. In this keynote, Simon Turner, Partner at Sofinnova Partners, brings a venture capital perspective on where AI is truly making an impact and how it’s paving the way for a new generation of discovery. He’ll explore how smarter strategies, stronger data foundations, and bold investment are driving the next wave of breakthroughs. Setting the tone for the day, this session invites the community to move past the hype — and harness AI’s real power to accelerate innovation in biopharma R&D.

9:35 — 9:55, Erica Lieberman, Director of Research Operations and Facility Management, Eligo Bioscience

Pioneering First-In-Class Genetic Medicines for Microbiome Targets

Eligo Bioscience is developing a unique platform technology to precisely remove, edit, or add genes in vivo to a patient’s microbiome. This presentation describes the technology behind the platform and its application to their lead program, EB005, which targets the bacterial strains driving the development of moderate-to-severe acne vulgaris. Eligo will also present some of the potential future applications of their work on microbiome gene editing.

10:00 — 10:20, Paul Monnier, Solution Consultant - R&D, Benchling

Driving Efficiency and Automation Across the Entire Development Lifecycle

The increased Process Development (PD) productivity demands can be felt across the industry. While PD teams are expected to deliver more, the biggest productivity driver is AI. Take part in this session to learn how Benchling helps to digitise workflows to streamline operations, outsource tedious data cleaning to expert AI agents and ultimately helps scientists to focus on high-value experiments.

10:25 — 10:45, Jean-Claude Haw-King-Chon, Chief Data Science and Information Officer, Micropep Technologies

From Discovery to Market: How Micropep’s Krisalix™ Platform Leverages AI to Accelerate Sustainable Crop Protection

Micropep’s Krisalix™ platform is harnessing generative AI to revolutionize the discovery and development of peptide-based biocontrol solutions. It accelerates the identification of promising candidates that meet key business constraints such as efficacy, molecular stability, safety, and producibility. By streamlining early-stage screening and decision-making, Krisalix™ enables faster transitions from lab to field. This approach shortens development timelines and supports the creation of environmentally responsible crop protection products. From discovery to deployment, Krisalix™ demonstrates how AI can rapidly uncover novel modes of action and accelerate the development of innovative crop protection solutions, making agriculture smarter, more agile, and sustainably driven.

11:15 — 11:45

Panel: Next Generation Antibody Research

Panelist: Gergana Bounova, Senior Research Scientist - Computational Drug Discovery, Owkin

Panelist: Aurore Morello, Head of research, Director of R&D programs, OSE Immunotherapeutics

Moderator: Pawan Patel, Leader, Strategic EMEA, Benchling

Throughout this panel discussion we will explore how AI and machine learning are reshaping antibody discovery—from de novo design and lead optimization to data-driven insights and automation. We will cover the use of AI in developability prediction, repertoire analysis, clinical data interpretation, and lab-in-the-loop strategies. We'll also touch on the readiness of the field, implications for IP, and the potential to reduce reliance on animal models as recently outlined by FDA.

11:50 — 12:10, Zakaria Djediat, Head of Transversal Projects, Innate Pharma

Smart Data for Smarter Antibodies: Closing the Loop Between Experiment and Data

Structured data, advanced analytics, and AI are reshaping antibody discovery. At Innate Pharma, cutting-edge technology is seamlessly integrated with scientific expertise to accelerate the development of differentiated molecules. Central to this approach, Benchling provides a unified, AI-ready platform that tightly connects wet and dry lab. This integration ensures data consistency, enhances traceability, and removes development bottlenecks—empowering scientists to make faster & more informed decisions across the entire R&D value chain.

Location: Salon Vendôme, Les Salons Hoche

13:30 — 14:00

Panel: AI - Cutting Through the Hype to Deliver Real Value

Panelist: Amine Raji, Co-founder & CEO, Spore.Bio

Panelist: Eric Letouzé, Head of single cell, One Biosciences

Panelist: Narasimhan Aravamudhan, VP Scientific Data for AI, Zifo

Moderator: Jean Louis Honeine, Solution Consultant - IT & Data Science, Benchling

This panel discussion will focus on cutting through the hype to show where AI is delivering value. Panelists will share how AI-ready data, targeted models, and tighter wet/dry lab integration are helping teams accelerate discovery, improve predictions, and streamline decision-making.

14:05 — 14:25, Revital Rattenbach, CEO, 4P-Pharma

AI and the New Era of Virtual Drug Development

Artificial intelligence is transforming how we generate evidence in drug development. What began with regulatory acceptance of PK/PD and exposure–response modelling has expanded to AI-driven patient stratification and virtual control arms that strengthen study power and reduce burden for patients. Today, hybrid virtual trials inform clinical design before execution in humans, improving the chances of success from the start. This stepwise evolution brings us closer to a future where efficacy is established primarily through virtual evaluation, complemented by targeted real-world validation. Such a model could accelerate access, reduce costs, and enable outcome-based pricing grounded in real-world performance.

14:30 — 14:50, Elodie Pronier, VP Biomedical Discovery, Owkin 

From Code to Clinical Benefit: Agentic AI-Powered Development of Novel Therapies

Owkin is harnessing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to reshape the clinical development pipeline, transforming biological complexity into actionable, patient-centric insights. This presentation will share a detailed case study from an ongoing Phase 1 oncology trial, showing how Agentic AI models are leveraged for precise patient population selection and the identification of robust predictive biomarkers of response. It will also cover Owkin’s proprietary drug discovery platform and lab approach for finding preclinical assets, including the use of Agentic AI for de novo drug design and optimization, and how deep learning accelerates candidate generation and refines molecular properties before synthesis. Finally, it will offer a high-level perspective on the global deployment of AI, highlighting its impact on speed and precision, and challenges such as interpretability, ethics, and translation from in silico prediction to clinical reality.

15:20 — 15:40, Andrea Di Gioacchino, Head of Data and AI, Phagos

Accelerating Alternative to Antibiotics Through Predictive AI

Phagos is developing a predictive AI platform to accelerate phage-host matching, addressing one of the biggest barriers to the clinical viability of phage therapy as an alternative to antibiotics. This presentation will describe how large-scale interaction datasets are used to train machine learning models that forecast phage efficacy on new bacterial genomes. We will also highlight how Phagos uses Benchling’s structured data model to connect wet-lab experimentation with dry-lab analytics, driving efficiency, better decision-making, and progress toward scalable, AI-guided antibacterial therapeutics.

15:45 — 16:05, Jean Louis Honeine, Solution Consultant - IT & Data Science, Benchling

Empowering the Bench: How Dry Lab Can Drive Smarter, Faster Science

Modern R&D depends as much on data as it does on experiments. Yet scientists often lose valuable time wrangling fragmented information instead of focusing on discovery. In this session, we’ll explore how Benchling’s Dry Lab capabilities are transforming this balance—connecting clean, structured, AI-ready data with agentic automations that accelerate every stage of science. You’ll see how researchers are now using AI agents to process and contextualize lab data in seconds, validate notebook entries automatically, and uncover insights across assays, molecules, and studies that used to take days. We’ll also share how leading biopharma companies are leveraging Benchling’s unified platform and AI foundation—built in collaboration with partners like Anthropic, Nvidia, and GXL—to empower scientists at the bench and beyond to drive smarter, faster science.

Panelist: Elodie Pronier, VP Biomedical Discovery, Owkin

Panelist: Natasha Rostovtseva, Strategic Advisor & Angel Investor

Moderator: Meritxell Orpinell, Leader, CX EMEA, Benchling

Women in Biotech is an inclusive panel series hosted by Benchling that invites open, honest dialogue about leadership, identity, and growth for women in the life sciences. This session creates space for diverse voices to reflect on their journeys in science and technology—where they've come from, what they’ve overcome, and how individuals envision their future in a rapidly evolving landscape shaped by AI. Together, we’ll challenge outdated norms, surface unspoken challenges, and uncover new paths to sustainable, authentic leadership.

Dr. Nadine Bongaerts, Founder, Amplicon Advisors

Location: Salon Vendôme, Les Salons Hoche