Looking Ahead to LogiPharma Europe

Nicholas Saraceno

It was very tempting this month to title my "From the Editor" column something along the lines of “Bonjour, France!” but in an effort to avoid being cliché, we wisely decided against it. As you can tell, I am ecstatic to be heading to France later this month for LogiPharma Europe, where, just like last year, Pharma Commerce is a media recording partner.

This will be the second consecutive year that LogiPharma Europe is being held at Centre des Congrès de Lyon, named after the city in France where it is located, Lyon. It’s been hailed a “mini-Paris” from various rideshare drivers I’ve encountered, while being the capital city in France’s Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, and the nation’s third-largest city to only Paris and Marseille.

It’s safe to say that history is deeply ingrained in this city, just as the pharmaceutical supply chain is rooted into most of the attendees’ professional lives.

Speaking of which, although difficult to pick just one, I am very much looking forward to attending the opening day's keynote panel discussion on how to mitigate exposure to supply chain risk and improve disruption readiness while driving efficiency and sustainability goals. Lisa Callinan, PwC’s supply chain strategy partner, is going to be moderating the chat, and will be joined by Erica Olson, Gilead Sciences’ SVP of global supply chain; Igor Shtainberg, Teva’s VP of supply chain international markets; and Niklas Adamsson, Envirotainer’s chief operating officer, who I had the chance to interview as part of our conference coverage of last year’s show.

I would also like to tip my hat to Will Robinson, the commercial director of LogiPharma, who has now officially put together the conference agenda a whopping seven times. In fact, when it comes to structuring said agenda, in an article appearing exclusively in our publication in February, he described the process involved.

“The first thing I’m looking for are the topics with universal reach. When everybody from manager level up to C-suite is mentioning a certain subject, you can pretty much guarantee that those themes will draw the big crowds to the plenary sessions in the main hall. At the same time, though, I’m also looking for those topics which might be mentioned less, but make up for quantity with the importance attached to them. It is from these topics that I will draw up the tracks.”

Without further ado, I wish you all a wonderful conference, which will officially take place April 16-18, and please say hello if you see me roaming the halls.

Nicholas Saraceno is Pharmaceutical Commerce's Editor. He can be reached at [email protected].