LogiPharma Europe 2025: An Innovative Journey

Lyon is a magical place. Considered by many to be the world capital of gastronomy, France’s third largest city is also the host of LogiPharma Europe’s 25th anniversary.

The event was officially led off by Steffen Lang, president of operations & executive committee member with Novartis, who presented a keynote case study surrounding “Reimagining Operations: Novartis Transformative Journey of Innovation.” The goals of his session included diving into the operation efforts made by Novartis; providing advice on encouraging a workforce to deliver change and increases productivity; and how to balance resilience, efficiency, and sustainability while aiming to boost the patient connection.

Lang commenced the session by providing some general reflection of the past 25 years.

“So 25 years doesn't seem a long time, certainly not in historical terms, but when you reflect back, a lot has happened … We had no iPhones. There was no Netflix. We were not knowing about hybrid working, remote working, and we just finished the concerns around Y2K,” he pointed out. “A lot of change has happened in healthcare, in new technology and a lot of operational changes for us here. When I reflect back, I was 25 years ago working as a head of laboratory doing formulation development. I was working in the US at that time, and many of you will still remember at that time, our work in pharmaceuticals was very different. For example, regulatory submissions, were paper-based, so we compiled loads of papers and which were then submitted to regulatory authorities.

“… A lot has changed and there have been lot of big improvements, with regard to how disease understanding has improved. New technologies have come. Twenty-five years ago, nothing was there with regard to mRNA vaccines, CRISPR, gene editing technology; we use artificial intelligence to diagnose treatments. Pharmaceutical operations are a key enabler, and I'm very proud of the leadership we at Novartis have placed through the 25 years to bring these treatments to patients, with seismic shifts in these technologies.”

And according to Lang, transforming pharma operations can be broken down into five main buckets:

• Technological & digital advancements
• The rise of biologics
• New technology platforms
• The COVID-19 pandemic
• Environmental sustainability

With regard to tech and digital advancements, these are highly influenced by data & analytics; automation; robotics; and automation. Interestingly, with biologics, 2022 represented a huge year for Novartis, with the opening of BioFuture, a production facility for therapeutic proteins using continuous and automated process technologies to create active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for biologics.

The Big Pharma company has been heavily involved in the battle to treat various types of cancers via CAR-T therapy, cell and gene therapies, siRNA (small interfering RNA), and most recently, radioligand therapy, which is their “next chapter of pioneering work.” Essentially, this form of treatment involves using radioactivity—the isotopes are basically then connected to a targeting moiety and once infused, they will basically destroy the cancer cells. It limits the impact on nearby healthy cells, but they will preserve healthy, intact tissue. He described is a “very elegant way to treat certain cancers,” and over the past year, Novartis has dedicated a plethora of time toward establishing technology to build facilities that will be able to deliver those therapies to the market.

When it comes to the COVID pandemic, agility and collaboration have been critical—noted Lang—while from a sustainability standpoint, in 2024, the company last year saw a 71% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and 72% reduction in waste disposal compared to 2016.

Novartis is excited to embrace new horizons as it looks ahead to world in which operations push boundaries; innovate; get the basics right; and never settle.

Reference

Lang S. Reimagining Operations: Novartis Transformative Journey of Innovation. April 8, 2025. LogiPharma Europe 2025. Lyon.