The Life Sciences Industry Conference 2026 takes place tomorrow, Thursday 22 October, at the Crowne Plaza, Santry, bringing site and operations leaders together around one question: how can AI be put to work on the manufacturing floor safely, at scale, and for real?

Registration opens at 9:00, with Conference Chair Brendan McGrath, former Ireland Site Head and VP of Manufacturing at WuXi Biologics, welcoming delegates before William Fahey of Pfizer delivers the keynote on the future of biopharma manufacturing in the age of AI. Professor Damien Thompson of the University of Limerick follows with a look at how AI is changing pharma R&D.

The first theme, Trust, Governance and Responsible AI, opens with a presentation on the foundations of responsible adoption, followed by a panel asking whether AI can be trusted enough to scale. Matt Moran, James Murphy of Eirgen Pharma and Dr Araz Raoof of ARC Hub for Therapeutics join the discussion.

After refreshments, the second theme turns to scaling AI from pilot to production. Trevor Marshall of Cognizant sets out the barriers to enterprise adoption, before a panel with Colm Bambury of Amgen and Meg Leahey of Sanofi asks why so many AI projects never scale.

The afternoon begins with People, Skills and Organisational Change. Fergal Wall of NIBRT presents interview findings from senior biopharma executives on digital and AI maturity, with a panel on the human side of adoption featuring Dinny Crowe of ABM, Domhnall Carroll of Digital Manufacturing Ireland, Dr Hisham Al-Obaidi of the University of Reading and Susan Costello of BioPharmaChem Skillnet.

The final theme, The AI-Ready Enterprise, opens with Cormac Byrne of APC and closes with a leaders panel on how AI will redefine manufacturing leadership. Alice Redmond of CAI, Tom Quinn of Novo Nordisk, Matt Moran and Brendan McGrath will examine strategy, investment priorities and competitive advantage.

Organised by BusinessRiver, the conference is built for site, operations, quality, engineering and supply chain teams across pharma, biotech, MedTech and medical devices. Seats are still available for delegates.

Visit the Life Sciences Industry Conference 2026 website to book your place and receive further speaker announcements and programme updates ahead of the October event.