INTERPHEX 2025, the leading global trade event for pharmaceutical and biotechnology professionals, concluded with resounding success after three days (April 1-3, 2025) at the Javits Center, New York City. This year’s event brought together nearly 10,000 industry professionals representing all stages of the pharmaceutical product development lifecycle.
INTERPHEX is the premier pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and device development and manufacturing event where you can “Experience Science through Commercialization.” The event is based in New York and brings approximately 9,000+ global industry professionals and industry leading suppliers together through a unique combination of exhibits, demonstrations, partnering opportunities, networking and a curated INTERPHEX Conference in the Learning Lab to leverage quality, efficiency, and cost effectiveness in today’s ever-changing global market.
With 550+ exhibitors, cutting-edge innovations, and countless opportunities for meaningful engagement, INTERPHEX 2025 proved to be a defining moment for the future of pharmaceutical and biotechnology advancements.
A highlight of INTERPHEX 2025 was the introduction of the Show Floor Tours, in collaboration with industry leaders, CRB Group and PDA. Tailored to attendees’ varied interests, the tours spotlighted pivotal themes such as Aseptic Filling, Cell and Gene Therapy, Continuous Biotech Manufacturing, Cleanroom and Disinfection, and Intro to RABS.
The tours, which included both expert-guided and self-guided tracks, offered attendees an immersive way to connect with innovations most relevant to their fields. Complementing this was CRB’s Hospitality Suite, which served as a hub for networking and thought leadership presentations, and PDA’s popular mini-training courses on critical topics.
INTERPHEX Conference in the Learning Lab, sponsored by Lisure Science, returned for its second year, raising the bar for knowledge-sharing on the Show Floor. The Conference featured 45+ curated education sessions in partnership with the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and a 2025 Scientific Programming Advisory Committee.
The Learning Lab created a personalized experience, offering not only education content, but also career-enhancing amenities such as a professional headshot booth, sponsored by Endress + Hauser, and a resume review/LinkedIn profile review area. Lisure Science also hosted an interactive Fireside Chat exploring M++’s latest capabilities.
Spanning topics from Advanced Manufacturing, Acceleration to Market, Access to Innovative Medicines, Compliance, Solutions to Supply Chain Challenges, Cell and Gene Therapy, and so much more, sessions in the Learning Lab included engaging Keynotes, Panel Discussions, Quick Fires, and Late Breaking Sessions, providing actionable insights that attendees could apply to their workplaces.
For all badge holders, the Show Floor buzzed with activity across its multiple stages — the Contract Stage, Technical Theaters, and all-new Community Talks Theater, where popular sessions took place including “Puerto Rico: A Strategic Hub for Business, Global Trade, and Expansion Opportunities” and “Embracing Diversity: LGBTQIA+ Inclusion and Allyship in the Life Science Workplace”.
The rapidly growing CDMO/CMO Pavilion hosted educational content that included topics ranging from Container Closure Integrity, What to Consider When looking for a Credible CDMO, AI Application as a Statistical Mechanism for CPV, and much more.
Exhibitors in this pavilion included leading CDMO / CMO companies such as Aprecia Pharmaceuticals, Aizon, CMIC CMO USA Corporation, Glatt Air Techniques, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, INCOG BioPharma Services, PharmaPhixx, and Simtra BioPharma Solutions.
Adding to the excitement, INTERPHEX TV returned with live interviews from exhibitors, speakers, and visitors with topics ranging from product launches, new trends, education programming sneak peeks, the future of pharmaceuticals, and much more.
As the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries continue to evolve at an unprecedented pace, INTERPHEX remains an indispensable platform for driving innovation, knowledge exchange, and collaboration,” shared Douglas Lugo, Event Director for INTERPHEX.
“This year highlighted groundbreaking developments in advanced manufacturing, aseptic processing, and cell and gene therapy, all while driving dialogue on pivotal topics such as compliance and supply chain resilience. By providing a platform for meaningful collaboration and actionable insights, INTERPHEX 2025 directly contributes to the progression of safe, efficient, and innovative solutions in patient care worldwide.”
INTERPHEX Exhibitor Awards
The INTERPHEX Exhibitor Awards honored advancements in technology-development, efficiency, and up-and-coming innovation. Sponsored and reviewed by American Pharmaceutical Review, Pharmaceutical Outsourcing, Cell & Gene Therapy Review, and Tablets & Capsules award categories and winners for 2025 include:
Best in Show
MilliporeSigma – Mobius® ADC Reactors: Scalable Single-Use Systems for Bioconjugation
Best New Product/Service
Apprentice.io – Apprentice’s Human-in-the-Loop AI and Autonomous Agents
Editor's Choice
Tema Sinergie – ZEROC – RTP Integrity Testing System
Best Technologies Innovation
Asahi Kasei Bioprocess – The Cleavage & Deprotection (C&D) and Tangential Flow Filtration (TFF) unit
INTERPHEX Efficiency Champion
AST – Digital Twin for Fill-Finish: An Advanced Virtual Solution
Biotech Innovation Award
IMA Group – Tile-X: New Generation Gloveless Aseptic Fill-Finish System
INTERPHEX is organized by RX (formerly Reed Exhibitions), a global leader in events and exhibitions, leveraging industry expertise, data, and technology to build businesses for individuals, communities, and organisations. With a presence in 25 countries across 41 industry sectors, RX hosts approximately 350 events annually. RX is committed to creating an inclusive work environment for all our people. RX empowers businesses to thrive by leveraging data-driven insights and digital solutions.
RX is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. RELX serves customers in more than 180 countries and territories and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs more than 36,000 people over 40% of whom are in North America.
INTERPHEX Conference
INTERPHEX Conference in the Learning Lab featured 45+ curated education sessions in partnership with the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and a 2025 Scientific Programming Advisory Committee. Some of the topics covered are:
Towards Continuous Cleanroom Decontamination: Implementation of Far-UVC
Human activity remains a significant challenge in maintaining the cleanliness and integrity of cleanroom environments. Despite the use of specialized cleanroom suits, rigorous time-consuming protocols, multiple operator training procedures and air filtration systems, the generation of contamination from human-related factors is a persistent concern.
Recent scientific breakthrough has unveiled the potential of shorter UV-C wavelengths, residing within the “Far-UVC” range, spanning at 200–230 nm. Scientific research has shown that these wavelengths are unable to penetrate the outer layer of mammalian skin or the ocular surface and have less material degradation. Among these, light at 222 nm, generated by excimer lamps based on krypton-chloride, presents a groundbreaking advantage. UV light at 222 nm is highly effective for inactivation of microorganisms.
The talk focussed on presenting Far-UVC from a scientific point of view and their potential usages and implementations in the pharmaceutical facilities to become the leading facilities of the future.
Gloveless Aseptic Fill-Finish System Using Magnetically Levitated Shuttles
In the current landscape of injectable products, small production batches typical of clinical and pre-clinical phases and high-value productions in personalized therapies, cell-based products, and ATMPs are growing rapidly. These small batches require adaptable, safe, and regulatory-compliant filling systems. Robotic technology, such as SCARA or anthropomorphic types, is the current golden standard for low-speed lines, mitigating risks by avoiding manual procedures.
The presented solution, advances this field with a magnetic levitation conveyor system that avoids particulate generation and allows for perfect cleanability. The system integrates with the isolator chamber, providing seamless movement for vials, syringes, cartridges. The modular design optimizes airflow and first air design, avoiding the use of HVAC, reducing technical area footprints and design complexities.
This approach customizes the transport trajectories and fill-finish steps to the final product’s needs, addressing the challenge of combining operational flexibility with a standard platform. The system automates the management of direct/indirect contact parts and integrates the movement of plates for sampling within each isolated module. The solution meets the peculiar needs of C&G and ATMP products: it can handle cell suspension products, specific temperature / humidity environmental conditions and it can manage multiple filling steps, mixing different liquid solutions.
A Novel Method for Efficiently Profiling Powder Mechanical Properties
Powder compaction is a highly complex process involving multiple simultaneous deformation mechanisms. Characterizing powder compressibility, which is the reduction in powder volume in response to an applied pressure, can provide valuable insights into optimal formulation parameters that ensure tablet drug products meet quality standards.
To overcome the limitations of current compressibility analysis methods, a new in-die compressibility model and characterization method have been developed that provides extensive insights into a powder’s deformation behavior, including parameters quantifying plasticity, elasticity, and true density. Importantly, this technique requires less than 1 gram of powder and takes just minutes to collect, making it highly resource-efficient, which can be essential in early drug formulation development.
This presentation focussed on understanding the limitations of existing compressibility assessment methods and how the new model addresses them. Furthermore, practical applications of compressibility modeling in tablet formulation development and optimization were discussed . By addressing key limitations of existing methods, this new approach can enable more efficient formulation decisions.
A Novel Pathway for Ultra-Rare Disease Treatment Development, Commercialization and Access
In recent years, hundreds of orphan drug programs have been “shelved.” Many were shelved despite pressing unmet need and promising clinical trial results. This talk presented the novel approach of the Orphan Therapeutics Accelerator, a non-profit biotech company focused on efficiently advancing promising shelved treatments for ultra-rare conditions through late-stage clinical development. This model utilizes tax and other incentives to dramatically reduce up-front costs to obtain and develop therapeutic assets, features unique risk-sharing opportunities with CDMOs and other strategic partners, and leverages philanthropic and impact investment to establish a regenerative source of funding to build and sustain a pipeline of ultra-orphan drugs.
Spray Dried Dispersions: Design, Develop, Manufacture
Current new molecular entities requiring enabling bioavailability enhancement formulations continue to have increasingly challenging physical/chemical properties. Specifically, molecules are being nominated for progression that have poor aqueous solubility but are also with poor solubility in common volatile organic spray drying solvents and tend to rapidly crystallize once converted to an amorphous powder. This presentation discussed current practices in designing amorphous formulations and developing spray drying processes for these challenging molecules.
Productivity Optimization in Alternating Tangential Flow CHO Cell Culture
Alternating tangential flow (ATF) has been widely adopted as a method of continuous cell culture, with potential benefits of reduced fouling and improving sieving in upstream N-1 and production bioreactor processes. ATF utilizes a diaphragm pump to push the process fluid across the membrane surface in alternating directions. The bi-directional sweeping effect can reduce fouling and improve filter longevity during cell culture. The cell line, cell culture media, and filter membranes also greatly influence the performance of a perfusion run, and process parameters should be optimized to the properties and composition of those elements to maximize performance and intensify upstream processes. The renewed interest in perfusion cell culture technologies for continuous production of therapeutic recombinant proteins has led to the development of a cell culture media that can support high cell densities at 1 vessel volume per day, utilizing a CHO DG44 cell line.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Amorphous Manufacturing Technologies
Current nanoparticle and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) applications will be addressed to better understand continuous manufacturing efforts and to meet capacity needs. As advanced drug delivery systems require specialized equipment and highly trained operators, there are difficulties with processing nanoparticles. Continuous manufacturing technology has been developed that simplifies the process of producing nanoparticles from particle formation to bulk collection ready for release testing and fill finish.
Drug Device Combination Products for Subcutaneous Self Administration
Mitigating risk in combination product development is complex. In the development of large volume subcutaneous injection systems these complexities may be intensified. This is true whether you’re developing an injection system for the delivery of large or small molecules at any phase of life-cycle management. Areas of uncertainty and risk include drug compatibility, device functionality, usability and overall strategic alignment between pharma and device manufacturers.
Early feasibility assessments conducted in partnership between pharma and experienced device companies offer valuable opportunities to prioritize and study focused areas of potential risk. Structured investigations and testing can be conducted during pharma portfolio planning to provide insights and de-risk potential device options, at the combination product or device platform level.
This presentation identified a number of key combination product development risks and provided example wearable injector case studies.
Taste Masking of Super Bitter Actives
Many active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) have a bitter or unpleasant taste, making oral dosing, especially frequent or repeated use of liquids, chewable tablets, and orally disintegrating tablets that linger in the mouth, an unpleasant experience. This is worse for super-bitter drugs where conventional taste-masking methods like coating, microencapsulation, or flavoring may not work.
Children, the elderly, and patients in distress (e.g., oncology) may refuse these medications, which can also trigger nausea or gag reflexes, complicating oral delivery. Treatment success for buccal delivery of super-bitter drugs depends on novel technologies that allow drug release and absorption without impacting bioavailability.
Long Acting Injectables/Implants: Reduced Dosing Frequency
An insightful panel discussion on the impact of long-acting injectables and implants in reducing dosing frequency, making treatments more tolerable, inherently leading to better adherence, and ultimately producing better outcomes.
The panel discussed the relative priorities in product development. What exactly does reducing dosing frequency provide for patients, providers, and drug companies? How should drug developers think about other priorities such as pharmacokinetic efficiency, safety, and routes of administration? What are the challenges of building AI models for complex formulations? And what cases exist that demonstrate the value of next-generation technologies in pharmaceutical development?
Smart Manufacturing
GMP’s, material advances, and manufacturing changes have all pushed the adoption of industrialized automation into the Life Science manufacturing space as never before. By extension the necessary EOAT’s (End of Arm Tools) needed to perform these ever-increasing tasks need to also be optimized to conform to these different regulatory and manufacturing standards. For the current manufacturer of a standardized industrial EOAT any alternative materials, modified manufacturing processes or new testing procedures can amount to a sometimes radical departure from any standard product they have previously made. Additionally, the testing and process driven environment necessitated by life sciences manufacturing can also pose challenges for proper product development and deployment by traditional EOAT manufacturers.