Bioprocess UK 2025 – Reflections from Newcastle

My time at this year’s Bioprocess UK conference started on a high note, quite literally, with a pre-event run organised by Lucy Foley, CEO of Exmoor. Around twenty leaders from across the UK bioprocessing community joined for a 5K route along the Gateshead Quays (which felt more like 10k as I had not ran for a while). It was a great way to start the event, and the energy carried through to the main conference.

 

A Changed Market, but a Positive Outlook

One thing that came through clearly was that most organisations have navigated a choppy couple of years. Innovation has been unpredictable and often slowed by the knock-on effects of investment turbulence. Even so, the overall sentiment looking ahead to 2026 was encouraging.
Many companies are seeing stabilisation, renewed interest from investors and a better sense of direction. Collaboration came up again and again as a core theme. Whether it’s co-development, shared platforms or industry-academia partnerships, people are genuinely leaning into working together.

 

Celebrating Excellence

A standout moment was seeing Professor Cath Green receive the annual Peter Dunnill Award. Her keynote, rooted in the innovation coming from Oxford University’s Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility (CBF), was superb and a reminder of how much world-leading work is happening in the UK.

 

Evening at The Glass House

The evening dinner at The Glass House in Gateshead brought together around 400 people from across the sector. It was a great atmosphere, and the conversations continued well into the night. It’s one of those events where you can feel the collective momentum building across the industry.

 

Topics That Shaped the Conference

Across the sessions, a few themes kept resurfacing:

• ADCs moving faster with more end-to-end thinking from development to manufacturing.
• Global clinical development strategies, including why some organisations are turning to Australia to speed up clinical trials, while others are pushing to make the UK process more agile.
• AI becoming part of the bioprocessing toolkit, from product development to smoothing out continuous manufacturing workflows.
• Robotics and automation steadily making their way into facilities to de-risk operations and support future capacity.

 

There was also a lively session hosted by Steve Bates on riding the geopolitical wave, which used a Bioprocessors’ Countdown format to dig into global turbulence, sustainability challenges, investment patterns and the importance of international collaboration.

 

Closing Thoughts

Overall, Bioprocess UK this year had a clear direction: the industry is learning from the uncertainty of the last couple of years and shifting towards more resilience, smarter partnerships and improved use of technology. The conversations felt grounded but optimistic. Companies are working out how to innovate efficiently, scale sustainably and stick together in what is still a rapidly evolving landscape.