Mallory TOLLEFSON, Ph.D., is Project Manager for the OpenFold and OpenADMET initiatives at the Open Molecular Software Foundation, where she leads global collaborations spanning academia, biotech, and pharmaceutical partners. She directs consortium strategy, partnerships, and technical project management to advance open-source AI platforms for protein structure prediction and ADMET chemistry. Her work focuses on building sustainable ecosystems in which open science and industry engagement accelerate the translation of AI models into real-world applications.
Jason BENEDICT is the Vice President of R&D and CEO, BIOVIA brand of Dassault Systèmes. He is a broadly experienced software industry executive with more than 15 years of experience building rigorous internal company processes and high-performance teams supporting the development, quality assurance, and lifecycle management of scientific software products. As vice president of R&D, Mr. BENEDICT is responsible for the full BIOVIA product portfolio—defining and directing scientific software development strategies supporting molecular modeling/simulation, data science, scientific and laboratory informatics, formulation design, quality/compliance, and manufacturing analytics solutions that advance collaborative innovation for science-based industries. In his current role as CEO of BIOVIA, Mr. BENEDICT has assumed overall responsibility for Finance, Marketing, Sales, Services, and Customer Success. Prior to becoming VP R&D, Mr. BENEDICT served as director, solutions consulting, Accelrys (2004-2008); principal architect, R&D, Accelrys (2008-2013); and senior director, software development, BIOVIA (2013-2016). Mr. BENEDICT is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Xiunan Zhang, Ph.D. is a crystallization process engineer at APC, specializing in molecular modeling and crystal engineering. He completed his postdoctoral research at the National University of Singapore and holds a Ph.D. from Tianjin University. His work supports pharmaceutical development with a focus on morphology prediction, polymorph/morphology control and process optimization.
Mirella SIMÕES SANTOS, Ph.D is an R&I Process Engineer at Syensqo’s Research and Innovation Center in Lyon. She holds a PhD in chemical engineering and brings extensive expertise in multiscale modelling, spanning from density functional theory (DFT), molecular dynamics, to equations of state. Mirella’s work is distinguished by a strong focus on applied and statistical thermodynamics, contributing to innovative solutions in advanced materials and specialty chemicals.
James ELLIOTT is Professor of Macromolecular Materials Science at the University of Cambridge. He is currently on sabbatical leave and enjoying getting back to full-time research on polymers and carbon nanomaterials, with a particular focus on energy and sustainability. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, Director of the EPSRC CDT in Computational Methods for Materials Science, and Professorial Fellow at Fitzwilliam College, where he directs studies for students in the physical sciences.
I hold a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Kinshasa, DR Congo, and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, majoring in molecular biophysics & biochemistry. After postdoctoral research in molecular dynamics at Wesleyan University, I moved to the biopharmaceutical industry, working in computational chemistry roles at BioNumerik, Targacept, Proteostasis Therapeutics, and RCH Solutions. Since 2020, I’ve been Principal Scientist II at Sanofi, specializing in AI/ML-driven drug design.
Laurent HOFFER, Ph.D is a Research Scientist at the Drug Discovery department of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR). His main focus has been the computer-aided development of molecular probes and potent inhibitors for diverse targets, including protein kinases, bromodomains and WDR-domain containing proteins. Dr. Hoffer received his Ph.D. in chemoinformatics from the University of Strasbourg (Pr Varnek Lab) in 2013. During his doctoral research, he specialized in the molecular docking of small organic compounds and their optimization through in silico methods. He pursued his post-doctoral fellowship at the Cancer Research Centre of Marseille (CRCM, France) in the Morelli team, where he developed the molecular modeling methods (DOTS & CovaDOTS) for the structure-guided optimization of compounds. Finaly, he also contributed to the development of the ChemoDOTS web-server (https://chemodots.marseille.inserm.fr).
Bio: Hello! My name is Tiffany LAI and I work in informatics in drug product design at Pfizer in Groton, Connecticut. My work involves structuring our scientific data and implementing a variety of digital applications and tools to make our research more efficient. I’m a pharmacist by training, but my love of creating innovative solutions using digital technology has kept in the informatics space for the past 7 years. One of my team’s main projects is creating Tasks for R&D experiments using OneLab’s Compose and Capture, and my role has been focused on business analysis and recipe authoring.
Ashok NAYAK is a seasoned technology leader with over 25 + years of expertise in driving digital transformation and IT innovation within the pharmaceutical industry. Currently serving as the Chief Information Officer at Ipca Laboratories Limited, he has been instrumental in shaping the company’s IT landscape since 2000, steadily advancing from his role as General Manager – IT to spearheading strategic initiatives as CIO.
Throughout his career, Ashok has demonstrated a strong ability to align business objectives with technology solutions, ensuring that IT remains a core enabler of growth, efficiency, and compliance in a highly regulated industry. His leadership has been pivotal in modernising IT operations, enhancing data-driven decision-making, and fostering a culture of continuous innovation.
Dennis is an informatician with 10+ years of experience within the pharmaceutical industry. With a strong background in software development and business analysis, Dennis started his journey in the global Digital Transformation program of CMC labs for Sanofi in 2021 and is now building and supporting to shape the future of digital laboratory work with a sustainable strategy.
Sam Watson is a Sr. Manager of Data Engineering and Architecture at Thermo Fisher Scientific, with 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical data management and process optimization. With a background in Biochemistry and Microbial Biotechnology, Sam Watson has implemented advanced data integration and process analysis solutions to enhance operational efficiency and regulatory compliance in the pharmaceutical industry.
Martin Strachon is a Digital Scientist in Analytical R&D at Pfizer, based in Sandwich. He specializes in laboratory digitalization, with expertise in Python and Pipeline Pilot automation, machine learning, and integration with BIOVIA ONE Lab. Martin contributes to the development of digital test methods and data-driven workflows.
Murray is a Research Fellow at the CMAC Medicines Manufacturing Research Centre, based at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Murray leads the development of CMAC’s digital platform, driving innovation in how research data are structured, accessed, and utilized across the center. His work focuses on building integrated digital workflows, designing robust data architectures, and fostering digital literacy within the research community. With a strong commitment to advancing digital transformation in pharmaceutical manufacturing, Murray plays a key role in aligning CMAC’s research capabilities with the evolving needs of industry and academia.
Riccardo CONTI leads the Digital Transformation in preclinical research and overall R&D, ensuring proper digital integration and data storage within the corporate database. Collaborating with various R&D units, he spots their challenges and suggests innovative approaches to enhance operationa lproficiency and impact. Additionally, he designs specialized data analysis applications and tailors solutions to meet departmental requirements.
Sara STOMBERG is a Business Systems Analyst in AstraZeneca’s Global Product Development department. She began her AstraZeneca career in 1998 as an analytical chemist and has since gained deep expertise in Electronic Laboratory Notebook systems. As an ELN superuser and recipe-building expert, Sara supports the implementation and optimization of digital solutions to improve scientific workflows.
Francine C. ARCHER is a CNRS Research Director Emeritus at the Saints-Pères Paris Institute for the Neurosciences (SPPIN), Université Paris Cité. As a medicinal chemist, she developed strong expertise in molecular modeling, closely integrating synthetic chemistry and biology. Her work has led to major advances in receptor activation mechanisms, virtual high-throughput screening, and proof-of-concept studies validating therapeutic targets.
Adrian ANDRONACHE is a computer science engineer. His former studies in Electronics and Telecommunication in Bucharest opened the way to gain a PhD in Computer Vision at ETH Zurich. There, while developing algorithms for non-rigid image registration of medical images, he understood that his technical knowledge can be applied and help people in a wide range of life science fields. For more than two decades now, he conducted research and development as a software engineer for medical devices, web platforms for medical classifications, and lately in biology research and drug-discovery domains. Currently he is a bioinformatician in the Experimental Therapeutics Program of IFOM-ETS, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan.
A data professional with 14 years of experience, Abha RAMCHANDANI has expertise in data engineering, analysis, and operations. At Gilead Sciences since 2017, she is a key member of the Discoverant team. She has developed varied solutions from process verification to automation, combining Discoverant and Pipeline Pilot (PLP) capabilities, to support key metrics, procedures, and stability trending.
Marty is a process chemist (by training) but has been working on documentation platforms and technologies for the past decade. He is part of a team that is focused on evolving a modern pharmaceutical development organization towards a structured data-first documentation paradigm, using a widely diverse set of tools from BIOVIA and others. He’s been using Pipeline Pilot, the focus of this presentation, since 2015, generally in the context of OneLab-based solutions.
Flora ESPOSITO is a Chemical Engineer holding a B.Sc and a M.Sc degree from the University of Naples Federico II. During her research internship at Institut National de Recherche et de Sécurité in Nancy, France, she specialised in CFD Modelling and Simulation of Ammonia Adsorption Process. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. at KU Leuven, Belgium, her expertise lies in the prediction of thermodynamic parameters through Hybrid Modeling.
Dr. Björn LOEPRECHT is an Industry Process Consultant at BIOVIA, Dassault Systèmes. He has helped building strategic relationships with a number of key Dassault Systèmes partners, by designing scientific innovation and information strategies. He has consulted many chemical and life science companies in streamlining and digitalizing their R&D processes. Dr. LOEPRECHT holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry from Leipzig University.
Expertise: Pipeline Pilot, CISPro
Claire has recently joined BIOVIA as an Industry Process Consultant. Claire is an experienced chemist, with 10 years in the laboratory primarily focused on Infectious Diseases but with experience in Oncology and also Radioisotope chemistry. For the last 7 years Claire has been focused on SaaS Solution Presales within the Life and Material Science industries.
At BIOVIA Gene provides the vision, strategy and management of the Laboratory Management product portfolio that includes the Electronic Laboratory Notebook, Laboratory Information Management System and the Laboratory Execution system. Gene has over 30 years of experience in the Life Science industry developing and delivering Laboratory informatics solutions for the research, development and quality control labs. Prior to joining BIOVIA, Gene led product development efforts for Zymark Corporation and REMP USA. Gene obtained is BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts in 1991.
Expertise: Pipeline Pilot, LLMs, Lab Workflows, Data Analytics, Automotive Battery Materials
Gregory is an Industry Process Scientist at BIOVIA, with a focus on cheminformatics and materials science. Greg is an experienced chemist with extensive knowledge in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, commodity chemicals, and structure-property studies.
Expertise: Data Science, Machine Learning, Data pipelining, Pipeline Pilot, Pipeline Creator, Machine Learning Workbench
Clement is an Aerospace Engineer with 10 years of experience, having worked in France, Germany, and the US. Specializing in aerospace engineering, cloud computing, and data science, he has collaborated with industry leaders such as Dassault Systèmes, NASA, and Airbus. Now a Product Manager at Dassault Systèmes, Clement oversees the development of cloud-based Machine Learning applications and Pipeline Pilot. He is driven by a passion for health and science topics.
Dr. Frank ECKERT is Theoretical Chemist by education (PhD in the group of Hans-Joachim Werner at University of Stuttgart, Germany in 1997-1999). Frank joined COSMOlogic GmbH & Co KG (now Solvation Chemistry, a part of the BIOVIA brand of Dassault Systèmes) when the company was founded in 1999. He wrote most of the COSMOtherm code and is involved in the scientific development, quality management and maintenance of what are now the BIOVIA Solvation Chemistry program packages. Over the years, he has specialized in chemical engineering thermodynamics, including process modelling & CAPE-OPEN, and physicochemical properties. Frank is also an expert for the intersections of molecular modelling, quantum chemistry, and thermodynamics, for example in the modeling of reaction mechanisms and pKa calculation.
Expertise: Laboratory Informatics, Materials Sciences
Managing the European Tech Sales Team covering the BIOVIA solutions working closely with customers in Consumer Package Goods, Oil and Gas, Chemical, Automotive, Aerospace and Defense and other industries. Part of Dassault Systèmes since 2014 with nearly 30 years of experience in cheminformatics (Accelrys, Symyx, Elsevier, MDL). PhD in organic Chemistry from the University in Freiburg.
Expertise: Materials Modeling & Simulation; Energy Production & Storage; Polymer Resins & Composites; Pharmaceutical Development; Materials Science On Cloud & On Premise; Sustainable Products & Processes
With background in soft materials, James has worked with customers in applying BIOVIA’s molecular modeling and simulation solutions to innovate new materials for more than twenty years, and is currently the Product Manager for Materials Studio. He has publications and patents in a range of topics, and is especially interested in the application of coarse-graining methods and scale bridging strategies for enabling multiscale-multiphysics models.
Expertise: Atomistic simulations, Lab informatics and Data Science.Materials Science and Battery Materials
Bio: Dr. Johan M. CARLSSON is a Senior Industry Process Scientist and Fellow of the Science Council at the BIOVIA brand of Dassault Systèmes. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
He subsequently headed the Nanoporous Carbon group in the Theory department of Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin for six years. In 2008, Dr. CARLSSON joined the Contract Research group at BIOVIA and moved to the Technical sales Department in 2011.
In his role as Senior Industry Process Scientist, he helps customers to solve their scientific problems virtually by modeling and simulation techniques and practically by lab informatics using the BIOVIA Software Solutions. As a Fellow of the Science Council, he gives advice for the scientific strategy of the BIOVIA brand.
The research interests focus on computational materials science and cover metals, carbon, and battery materials and he has published 20 articles in scientific journals, which have received over 10000 citations in total.
Expertise: Digital transformation, Materials Science and Formulation, Drug Discovery, Sustainability, Lab informatics
Bio: DDr. Kai Zhang is the marketing director at BIOVIA, Dassault Systèmes. Dr. ZHANG has over 15 year experience in global marketing, R&D and product development. He is a passionate advocate for empowering scientists to innovate better and faster with advanced software solutions. Dr. ZHANG holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Expertise: Lab Informatics, ELN, LIMS, Digitalization
Kirsten GESENBERG is portfolio director for BIOVIA ONE Lab products. She began her career as a small molecule process chemist in the pharmaceutical industry. Since joining BIOVIA more than 15 years ago, she has been involved in the successful implementation of BIOVIA ONE Lab and Workbook across the Life Sciences industry.
Expertise: Discoverant
As Discoverant’s Product Manager, Larry is part of the Product management organization within BIOVIA and is responsible for product development for the BIOVIA Discoverant solution. Larry obtained his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech under the direction of Professor John R. MORRIS, working on ultrahigh vacuum studies of the reaction mechanisms of ozone with saturated and unsaturated self-assembled monolayers. Prior to graduate school, Larry’s industrial experience includes four years as a New Process and Development Chemist working on scale up of chemical processes from pilot plant to full scale manufacturing.
Expertise: Lab Informatics, Lab Data Analytics, Structured Document Authoring/CMC Authoring, Process Development, Quality Control
Margaux has experience in both pharmaceutical R&D and Manufacturing. She first worked as a Data Specialist in Manufacturing at UCB BioPharma to help QA ans QC teams ensure process control and compliance through data monitoring. She then joined Pierre Fabre as a project manager to digitalize Reasearch and Phamaceutical Development laboratories using BIOVIA solutions. She is now part of BIOVIA Pre-Sales as Solution Consultant, specializing in Solutions for QC and manufacturing labs.
Expertise: Scientific Informatics (Cheminformatics, Data Science), ELN, Search, Registration
Bio: Matthew SAGE, Ph.D. is a Senior Product Manager for Scientific Informatics at BIOVIA / Dassault Systèmes and received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry with Molecular Modelling from the University of Bath, UK.
Over the last 20 years he has helped customers from many industries to implement decision support tools that enable them to manage their specific scientific data requirements, ranging from small molecules to reactions and more recently chemically modified bimolecular entities. He also helped grow the Cheminformatics portfolio through various sales, support and services functions to become the industry standard it is today. Currently as a senior product manager, he manages the chemistry solutions at BIOVIA.
Phil COCHRANE has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, specializing in the synthesis of indole alkaloids, and has amassed over 20 years of experience working with Pipeline Pilot as a services consultant, both independently and as part of Accelrys, where his expertise in chemistry has been highly valuable and earned him a reputation as an industry expert.
Expertise: Scientific Informatics, Machine Learning, Structured Content, Digital Transformation
Stéphane joined the BIOVIA team 16 years ago to advise scientists and engineers, from the lab bench, the plant, hospitals, and the executive team, in their innovation endeavour. As a pharmacist coming from the industry, and with my scientific informatics experience, I could help you understand how to effectively use your data and improve your processes with BIOVIA Discoverant and BIOVIA Pipeline Pilot.
Expertise: Materials Science and Formulation, Computational Chemistry, Materials Modeling, Sustainability, Physics-Based Modeling, AI Based Modeling
Bio: Stephen TODD is a Strategy Planning Expert for the BIOVIA team at Dassault Systèmes UK with a special focus on materials science and simulation tools. Prior to joining the Strategy team, Stephen was the Portfolio Manager for BIOVA’s discrete modeling and simulation tools and worked for 15 years with various stakeholders to build the market leading Materials Studio simulation product. He holds a PhD in molecular modeling of liquid crystals from the University of Hull, UK and enjoys getting people excited about science.
Walid DARGHOUTH joined Dassault Systèmes in 2006. Walid holds a Master degree in informatics from Toulouse university in France and an MBA from Bologna university in Italy. Walid’s has more than 20 years of consulting experience in Consumer Goods industry, with expertise in customer engagement for transformation and deploying innovation projects. Over the last 4 years, Walid is leading the Home & Lifestyle and CPG & Retail Industry Solution with focus on defining the industry solution portfolio to address specific industry challenges around packaging, product and formula development & optimization, Lab digitalization, manufacturing scheduling & execution and solving inbound and outbound supply Chain puzzles.
Erik Bierwagen is the Biosciences Portfolio Lead at BIOVIA, Dassault Systèmes. He plays a key role in shaping solutions that advance lab digitalization across life sciences.
Erik brings over 25 years of experience in leadership and hands-on experience driving lab digitalization in R&D Informatics.
Throughout his career, Erik has partnered closely with scientists across a wide range of disciplines, including in vivo and pathology, complex in vitro models, large-molecule drug development, and electronic laboratory notebooks, to deliver transformative solutions. Before joining BIOVIA, Erik was the Director of Lab Sciences Informatics at Genentech.
Erik holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Anne GOUPIL-LAMY, Ph.D., principal field application scientist and Science Council Fellow at BIOVIA, obtained her doctorate in molecular biophysics from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris VI, France). She studied protein dynamics and denaturation using molecular dynamic simulations and neutron scattering experiments under the supervision of Professor Jeremy C. Smith. Goupil-Lamy joined MSI (now BIOVIA) in 1998 as a support scientist and gained expertise in the many modelling areas supported by BIOVIA' life science modelling tools. While managing BIOVIA' contract research group for many years in Europe and worldwide, she performed feasibility studies, developed proposals and was involved in the delivery of structure-based design and ligand-based design projects with one contract resulting in a patent. As a pre-sales scientist, she has performed several validation studies in fragment-based design and protein-protein interactions that were presented at conferences and to customers. She is also involved in biotherapeutics projects focusing on antibody design.
"I am passionate about applying Science and AI to Transform the way R&D works, moving from vastly physical experimentation to virtual that are generative and data driven.”
Reza has over 30 years of experience in executive management, with roles from R&D and portfolio management to driving mergers and acquisitions. As chief strategy officer, he is responsible for BIOVIA’s entire portfolio as well as BIOVIA’s contract research organization. After beginning his career in Defense, Reza moved on to an executive role at a Palo Alto startup and later with MSC Software. As chief Technology Officer at MSC Software, Reza was responsible for the global R&D and a multi-industry portfolio with teams covering Multi-scale Modeling & Simulation and Simulation Lifecycle Management. He holds a number of advisory board positions, including US National Labs. Reza lives in La Jolla Ca. He retains an adjunct status at UCSD and SDSU graduate schools of engineering.
Taoufiq serves as a Life Science Solution Consultant at BIOVIA-Dassault Systèmes in the EMEA region. With a unique background that bridges advanced biomedical research and innovative technology, Taoufiq is focusing on how to support the digitalization of modern biology.
Kevin O’Leary has many years of experience in executive management, CEO and R&D development and has a deep knowledge of life sciences quality and regulatory. AS BIOVIA VP R&D, he leads the direction for all Quality & Regulatory solutions on Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Kevin has worked in the pharmaceutical industry, both in the U.S. and Europe.YQuality Regulatory and Product Lifecycle in Biopharma and Med Device.
Expertise: Digital transformation, Lab informatics and workflows, Scientific information and data
Bio: Frederic BARBERIS has been working for 25+ years at Dassault Systèmes Life Science, in direct relation with customer’s end-users to help addressing their daily challenges at the desk and in the laboratory.
Kaamil began his career as a developer on BIOVIA Pipeline Pilot before moving into consultancy, where he worked closely with customers to solve complex R&D challenges. For the past four years, he has specialized in product management, gaining hands-on experience with the rapid evolution of research informatics and analytics. He is currently a Product Manager at BIOVIA, Dassault Systèmes, where he leads the product management of Scientific Insight within the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, a solution designed to help scientists analyse data and make informed decisions. With a background in Biotechnology and experience across industries such as pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, Kaamil is passionate about transforming complex research data into actionable insights.
Marc MEUNIER, Ph.D., principal field application scientist and Science Council Fellow at BIOVIA, holds a master's from Pierre and Marie Curie University (Fr) and received a doctorate in chemistry from Bangor University (UK). After completing his doctorate he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Imperial College, London. He joined BIOVIA in 2000 as a product specialist for materials modelling. MEUNIER's research interests include the study of nanodielectrics, the simulation of polymeric materials used in membrane technology, pharmaceutical materials science and more recently the growing field of materials informatics. He is on the editorial board of the journal Molecular Simulation; his publications appear in Chemical Physics, Applied Physics and Polymer journals; and he has recently edited a book entitled "Industrial Applications of Molecular Simulations.
Dr. Lalitha SUBRAMANIAN is a Science Fellow and Senior Director of Global Contract Research & Scientific Consulting Program. She leads a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers on strategic collaborations with industry customers to solve their business-critical challenges using 3D modeling & simulations and generative AI methods. For over 25 years, she has successfully delivered energy savings, helped remediate product and process failures and driven product innovation for her customers. She and her team have won innovation awards from her customers for the break-through scientific work that solved critical industry challenges and enabled better and more sustainable products and processes. Conventional and clean energy, battery and fuel cell chemistry, downstream and upstream catalyst optimization, CCUS, completion tool materials and their performance, etc., are few of the many topics she and her team have worked on recently.
Niamh FINN is a Solution Consultant at BIOVIA, Dassault Systèmes and has been with the company for 2 years. Since studying Biological, Biomolecular and Biomedical Science at University College Dublin, Niamh’s background has been in Pharmaceuticals specializing in Quality Control.
In her role, Niamh leverages her background to provide scientific and technical support to our customer’s in adopting solutions for Document Management, Quality Process Management, Learning management and Laboratory Informatics.
Tarkan is an Expert Solution Architect at BIOVIA. With 36 years of experience in digital transformation and innovation, Tarkan plays a crucial role in the implementation of Dassault Systèmes enterprise solutions to enhance research and development processes.
