CPhI North America will feature the first-ever Connect Conference.

The world's largest pharmaceutical event series, CPhI, will debut in Philadelphia 16–18 May 2017. Leveraging the strength of the CPhI brand and adjacency to the leading fine and specialty chemical event, InformEx, CPhI North America will feature the first-ever Connect Conference. In addition to more than 44 sessions delivered by more than 55 speakers, the Connect Conference program will feature distinguished keynote presentations addressing some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities the pharmaceutical industry has before it.

CPhI North America Keynote Speaker - Ronald T. Piervincenzi, Ph.D., CEO, United States Pharmacopeial Convention.

CPhI North America Keynote Presentations

"Partnering for Quality: A New Era" — Ronald T. Piervincenzi, Ph.D., CEO, United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP)

Partnerships among industry, healthcare professionals, government, and nonprofit organizations such as USP have helped to lay the foundation for high-quality medicines for decades. These critical partnerships are needed more than ever to harness expertise from diverse sources to improve global access to high-quality medicines, today and in the future. Mr Piervincenzi will share USP's vision for this new era of quality and the work being done to advance the concept of quality as well as an understanding of the value of quality.

"Discovery of Innovative Therapeutics: Today's Realities and Tomorrow's Vision" — Magid Abou-GharbiaMoulder, Ph.D., FRSC Center for Drug Discovery, School of Pharmacy, Temple University

Today's pharmaceutical industry is experiencing unprecedented difficulty and faces enormous challenges, which include the industry's declining efficiencies, patent expirations for key drugs, fierce price competition from generics, mergers and acquisitions, high regulatory hurdles, declining innovation, and the industry's perceived tarnished image. Magid Abou-Gharbia of Temple University will address these challenges and the paradigms needed to advance them while still maintaining a commitment to drug innovation.

When asked about the value of the launch of CPhI North America, Magid Abou-Gharbia commented: "Attendees will advance their understanding of pharmaceutical industry efforts to address the major challenges they and our healthcare system are facing, while continuing the industry's commitment to innovation, reducing costs, and benefiting patients."

CPhI Connect Conference Program

Powered by the expertise of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA), and UBM's rich programming resources, CPhI's unparalleled Connect Conference program will contain four tracks: Drug Development, Quality/Regulatory, Drug Manufacturing, and Outsourcing. The program will offer perspectives on a wide assortment of pressing topics within the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries, featuring speakers such as

Sunny Bhardwaj, Senior Scientist, Merck

Richard D. Braatz, Ph.D., Edwin R. Gilliland Professor of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

David Conlon, Senior Principal Scientist, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Ian W. Davies, Department of Process and Analytical Chemistry, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck

Amy Ethier, Ph.D., Formulation Scientist, Skin Delivery, BASF Pharma Solutions

Robert Garbaccio, Executive Director, Merck

Stephen V. Hammond, Senior Director/Team Leader of the Process Analytical Sciences Group, Pfizer Global Technology

Antonio Hernandez-Cardoso, Senior Scientific Liaison, USP

Jim Lalonde, Senior Vice President of R&D, Codexis Inc.

D. Jeffery Liu, Ph.D., M.B.A., M.S., Director/Clinical Development Head, ID/IIDPH, R&D, GSK

Yihong Qiu, Oral Drug Products, Manufacturing Science & Technology, AbbVie Inc.

David Rabuka, Ph.D., Global Head of R&D, Chemical Biology, Catalent Biologics—West (formerly Redwood Bioscience), Catalent Pharma Solutions

Peter D. Senter, Ph.D., Vice President, Chemistry and Senior Distinguished Fellow, Seattle Genetics

Satish K. Singh, Drug Product Services, Lonza Pharma and Biotech, Lonza Ltd

Arvind Srivastava, Ph.D., Research Advisor, Formulation Development, CMC Development, Eli Lilly and Company

Pete Stevenson, Vice President and General Manager, Pfizer CentreOne

Tom Wilson, Vice President, Contract Manufacturing Operations, Pfizer Global Supply and Pfizer CentreOne

Ron Vladyka, Director of Research & Development, Catalent Pharma Solutions

"CPhI brings together a community of healthcare stakeholders with diverse, specialized expertise and perspectives," said Ronald T. Piervincenzi, Ph.D., CEO, USP. "The collaborations facilitated by this first CPhI conference held in North America provide unique opportunities to inspire new approaches to advancing the public health mission of improving the quality of medicines and foods globally."