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AI for Biologics

AI Breakthroughs Powering the Future of Biologics Discovery

May 19, 2026

The AI for Biologics symposium will explore the transformative role of AI and machine learning (ML) in biologics drug discovery. Attendees will leave with insights into both the current capabilities and future opportunities of AI/ML in biologics innovation. We will showcase novel methods developed in-house and outside of pharma/biotech, along with early, promising results, demonstrating their impact on drug discovery pipelines. Join this symposium to learn about the future outlook for AI-driven drug development and its potential to drive breakthrough therapies.

Tuesday, May 19

7:30 amRegistration and Morning Coffee

EXECUTIVE SESSION & PHARMA USE CASES

8:30 am

Organizer's Welcome Remarks

Robin Lockett, Room Operations Lead, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

8:35 am

Chairperson's Remarks 

Sebastian Schlicker, Head, Biologics Business Operations, Genedata AG

8:40 am FEATURED PRESENTATION:

Transforming Drug Discovery with AI and Data at Scale

Justin M. Scheer, PhD, Vice President In Silico Discovery & Head, Molecular Computational Team, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine

AI is impacting all aspects of drug discovery, and at J&J we are transforming our entire discovery engine. Biologics discovery is undergoing a massive inflection in AI-technology development that is beginning to unlock opportunities once out of reach. However, translating cutting-edge models into portfolio impact requires consideration of many factors—data capture, benchmarking, and continuous model refinement—turning insight into performance across programs, at scale. In this talk, we describe aspects of how we are realizing the enormous value of integrating AI-technology breakthroughs into existing pharma infrastructure.

9:05 am PANEL DISCUSSION:

Unlocking the Potential of New Modalities through AI and Automation

PANEL MODERATOR:

Sebastian Schlicker, Head, Biologics Business Operations, Genedata AG

As biologics R&D expands into increasingly complex modalities such as bispecifics, multispecifics, and antibody-drug conjugates, the biopharma industry faces unprecedented challenges in data integration, workflow automation, and scientific decision-making. Artificial intelligence and intelligent automation are emerging as critical enablers to address these complexities, streamline processes, and accelerate innovation. This panel brings together leading experts to share real-world experiences, discuss practical solutions, and explore how AI is transforming biologics R&D. Panelists will highlight the opportunities and obstacles in applying AI-driven approaches, from harmonizing wet and dry lab environments to building trust in predictive models.

Key Discussion Points:

  • Real-World Applications of AI in Biologics R&D: Examples of successful implementations and lessons learned.
  • Data Quality and Governance Challenges: Strategies for harmonizing data across global research environments.
  • Integrating AI into Existing Workflow: Practical steps for bridging wet lab and computational environments.
  • Laboratory and Data Automation: Best practices for integrating automated data capture and processing with AI-driven analytics.
  • Scaling AI Solutions across Modalities: Harmonizing approaches across bispecifics, ADCs, and other complex biologics.
PANELISTS:

Barbara Brannetti, PhD, Director Bioinformatics & Biotherapeutic Modeling, Biologics Research Center, Novartis BioMedical Research

Sukru Kaymakcalan, Director, R&D Information Research, AbbVie, Inc.

Kausheek Nandy, Digital Transformation Director - Research, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Yves Fomekong Nanfack, PhD, Head of AI/ML Research, Takeda

9:30 am

Bridging Biological Complexity and Engineering Discipline to Transform Biologics Discovery in the Era of AI

Athena Hadjixenofontos, PhD, Director, Data Science & Head of AI/ML, Biotherapeutics and Genetic Medicines, Discovery Research, Abbvie

Combining the capabilities of a leading antibody-discovery organization with cutting-edge machine learning unlocks transformative opportunities in biotherapeutics discovery. At AbbVie, we are embedding predictive models directly into scientific workflows, addressing all aspects of a target product profile. This innovation enables programs to progress faster through stage gates, while also making better medicines by exploring previously inaccessible sequence space. We will share the principles that guide our building of this powerful predictive engine, which relies on a robust data platform and is powered by cross-functional teams shaping the future of biotherapeutics discovery.

9:55 am Your AI Doesn’t Know Your Data Isn’t Ready: A Practical Lens on Data Readiness, Hidden Costs, and How to Steward Biologics Data for AI

Rumana Begum Raffi, Scientific Data Architect, Zifo Technologies, Inc.

Many biologics AI programs hit the same wall—not a model problem, but a data problem. The challenge is the model doesn’t flag it. It doesn’t pause to ask for clarification. It trains on what it has, produces outputs that look credible, and errors propagate silently into downstream decisions. This talk introduces the concept of the data readiness tax—the hidden, cumulative cost of poor data governance, inconsistent metadata, fragmented data assets, and limited stewardship across biologics workflows. Drawing on real-world implementation experience, we will explore how these issues show up in practice and what it takes to address them. Attendees will leave with a practical lens to assess their own data readiness, along with concrete first steps to make their data truly usable for AI at scale.

10:10 am HYFT Data Architecture: Unlocking Sequence Semantics for Agentic-Era Biologics Workflows

Maria Giovanna Trovato, Director, Business Development, MindWalk

Biologics discovery generates vast sequence and structural data —the majority semantically inert and inaccessible to agentic AI systems. This talk presents a three-part framework—sequence embedding, structure–function inference, and LensAI-driven contextual prediction—enabling clonal epitope analysis, variant prioritization, and developability assessments on a unified, interpretable operating layer. The result: sequence data repositioned as a first-class asset for AI-ready biologics pipelines.

10:25 amNetworking Coffee Break

10:45 am

Operationalizing AI-Enabled Structural Biology and Protein Design at Sanofi

Joseph Batchelor, PhD, Head of Structural Biology, US Biologics Research, Sanofi Group

We outline how we are integrating AI into Sanofi's Large Molecule Research portfolio. Three main areas will be presented: (1) Improving accuracy of internal predictive models through a large-scale experimental effort; (2) Overview of AI to speed up cryoEM; (3) Structure-enabled AI for affinity maturation of biologics. This approach will help us use AI to accelerate our work and amplify the impact of rationally designed molecules.

11:10 am

NextGenPLM: Structural Awareness at Repertoire-Scale

Abhinav Gupta, PhD, Principal Machine Learning Scientist, AI Innovation, Large Molecule Research, Sanofi

NextGenPLM: a new paradigm in multimodal foundational models that fuses sequence, 3D structure, and interaction data in a single efficient transformer—enabling high-throughput, repertoire-scale antibody–antigen screening. On a diverse benchmark of antibody–antigen complexes, matches Chai-1 and Boltz-1x on contact-map and epitope accuracy at a fraction of the compute cost. In an internal affinity-maturation campaign, ranking mutants by predicted contact probabilities and masked-language-modeling (MLM) log-likelihoods helped achieve up to 17× affinity improvements—demonstrating its potential for rapid, data-driven biologics discovery.

11:35 amTransition to Lunch

11:45 amEnjoy Lunch on Your Own

12:15 pmSession Break

MODELS AND MORE

12:45 pm

Chairperson's Remarks

Sebastian Schlicker, Head, Biologics Business Operations, Genedata AG

12:50 pm

Using AI to Increase the Success Rate and Throughput of Biologics Discovery

Yuan Lin, Director Digital Biologics Products, Pfizer Inc.

The rapid advancement of biologics, particularly antibody-based therapeutics, has revolutionized the landscape of drug discovery and development. As the complexity and volume of biologics data continue to grow, effective data management strategies have become essential for accelerating research and ensuring data integrity. This presentation explores the intersection of biologics data management and artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of antibody drug discovery.

1:15 pm

Operationalizing AI in Biologics Discovery: Embedding Models into Scientific Workflows

Drazen Nadoveza, PhD, Complex Modalities Domain Architect, Novartis Biomedical Research

Kannan Sankar, PhD, Senior Expert II, Data Science, Novartis Biomedical Research

Operationalizing machine learning and generative AI in biologics discovery means more than building models—it involves embedding them into scientific workflows to run analyses alongside experimental data. This talk will cover strategies for streamlining data usage for model training, integrating in silico-generated data with laboratory results, and overcoming implementation challenges.

1:40 pm

Digital Transformation across Modalities and Geographies

Pravin Kumar, PhD, Senior Product Manager, Global Research Informatics Platform and Solutions (GRIPS), Abbvie Bioresearch Center

AbbVie’s discovery informatics platform empowers scientists to leverage AI and machine learning to uncover insights and solutions faster by seamlessly integrating data convergence, precision medicine, real-world evidence, genetics and genomics, and human-based drug discovery.

2:05 pmNetworking Refreshment Break

INNOVATION SPOTLIGHTS FROM ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY

2:25 pm

Introduction to the Innovation Spotlights from Academia & Industry Session

Douaa Mugahid, PhD, Data Officer, Hi-IMPAcTB Consortium, Harvard School of Public Health

Artificial Intelligence (AI)'s promise in accelerating drug discovery has generated plenty of excitement in biopharma. But how exactly is AI being built and leveraged to fulfill the promise of more scalable and efficient therapeutic design, especially in the field of biologics? Please join me and the speakers of the Innovation Showcase to discover how open source infrastructure, big data, and de novo AI models are changing the biologics development landscape.

2:30 pm

Can We Accelerate Vaccine Design with AI

Bryan Bryson, PhD, Associate Professor, Biological Engineering, MIT

2:45 pm

Better Medicines Created Rapidly through de novo Protein Design

Ben Meinen, PhD, Head, Protein Design, AI Proteins

Miniproteins are a powerful yet underutilized therapeutic modality with a structure that enables binding with high affinity and specificity to their targets and achieves remarkable stability using only canonical amino acids. By combining de novo design with synthetic biology and laboratory automation, we accelerate the discovery and optimization of protein binders and create a vast toolbox of modular miniprotein domains, each with ideal drug-like properties and developability profiles.

3:00 pm

Immune Logic Gates: Building the Programming Language for Antibody Function

Abdulaziz El-Gammal, Cofounder & Chief Product Officer, Proteinea, Inc.

What if you could specify an antibody's immune profile—ADCC without CDC, extended half-life with preserved Fc?R binding—and systematically design the Fc to deliver it? Proteinea is building this capability through what we call "immune logic gates": a framework for programming antibody effector function. This talk introduces the concept and shares how we're constructing the grammar of Fc-immune system interactions.

3:15 pm

EDA Toolkit: A Unified Framework for Transparent and Reproducible Data Science Workflows

Leon Shpaner, Data Scientist, UCLA Health

The EDA Toolkit is an open-source Python library designed to standardize and accelerate exploratory data analysis across domains. It combines automated data profiling, visualization, and preprocessing in a single, reproducible framework. This presentation demonstrates how the toolkit simplifies data strategy, enhances collaboration between teams, and promotes trust in AI model development through transparency and reproducibility.

3:30 pm

Q&A with Speakers

Douaa Mugahid, PhD, Data Officer, Hi-IMPAcTB Consortium, Harvard School of Public Health

3:45 pmClose of Symposium

3:45 pmRefreshment & Networking Break—Transition to Plenary Keynote

PLENARY KEYNOTE PROGRAM

4:30 pm

Grab Your Seat! 25th Annual Golden Ticket Prize Giveaway & Organizer’s Remarks*

Cindy Crowninshield, Executive Event Director, Cambridge Healthtech Institute

*Must be present to win.

4:35 pm

Welcome Remarks from the City of Boston and the Office of Mayor Michelle Wu

Donald Wright, Interim Chief, Economic Opportunity & Inclusion Cabinet, City of Boston

4:40 pm PLENARY KEYNOTE INTRODUCTION:

Getting Ready for Effective AI: Starting with FAIR Principles

Diana Gamez Diaz, Head, Data & AI Engineering, RCH Solutions

4:50 pm PLENARY KEYNOTE PRESENTATION:

Rare Conversations: Explorations of the Research, Funding, and Advocacy for Rare Diseases

Thomas Bartlett, Ambassador, MG Uniter Myasthenia Gravis, Amgen

Catherine Brownstein, PhD, Manager, Molecular Genomics Core Facility, Boston Children's Hospital; Scientific Director, Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research Gene Discovery Core; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Morgan Cheatham, MD, Partner, Head of Healthcare & Life Sciences, Breyer Capital

Sebastien Lefebvre, Head of Technology, Data and AI, Aurelis Insights

Dylan V. Livingston, Founder and President, The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives (A4LI)

William Van Etten, PhD, Co-Founder, CEO & Principal Scientist, StarfleetBio

Susan J. Ward, PhD, Founder & Executive Director, cTAP

In a unique plenary series of intimate conversations, we will explore the models, drivers, and challenges facing rare disease research. By uniting leaders in precision medicine, bioinformatics, national rare-disease infrastructure, and real-world legislative advocacy, we will give attendees an expansive, cross-disciplinary view of what’s required to deliver faster, more accurate, and more equitable rare-disease cures.

6:00 pmWelcome Reception & 25th Anniversary Celebration in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing

The Bio-IT Kickoff Reception is a reunion, reconnect with friends, explore cutting-edge research, and celebrate innovation! This year, join us in celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Bio-IT World Conference & Expo with cake and champagne as we mark a quarter century of advancing science and technology. Enjoy poster presentations, networking, and vote for the Best of Show and Poster awards.

7:15 pmClose of Day





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