Why Should You Join Us at the 10th Edition of LEAP HR: Life Sciences East?
This year, we’re bringing together senior HR, TA, and L&D leaders all under one roof to compare what’s working now and what isn’t. LEAP HR: Life Sciences East is the definitive end-to-end people meeting for your entire HR team.
Uncover smarter workforce planning techniques that can withstand unpredictable conditions, build and retain specialized talent pipelines, sustain culture through change, and design practical guardrails for AI-enabled ways of working. Expect focused content for teams that need decisions today, not theory.
Uniting all components of your people team under one roof ensures that HR, TA, and L&D can each go deep into their function specific challenges, see how others in their shoes have overcome them, and reconvene with a shared plan. You’ll leave with tested playbooks to accelerate hiring and mobility, upskill leaders and teams, navigate evolving pay expectations, and operationalize AI responsibly, so you can return with clarity, confidence, and a roadmap to solve your most pressing people problems.
Unmissable Highlights Backed by Proven-ROI
Discover how CSL delivered an end-to-end R&D transformation across 2,500 employees in 35 countries in just 6–9 months, unlocking over $100M in targeted cost savings
See how Novo Nordisk led a seamless global reorganization impacting ~9,000 roles using people analytics, delivering a flatter, more agile organization with minimal business disruption
Learn how Sanofi redesigned HR around the employee lifecycle, breaking COE silos through governance and data to create a fundamentally more human-centered operating model
Discover how Sarah Cannon Research Institute built an HR–Finance partnership that redesigned time-off policies to maintain employee benefits while reducing expenses by $4M
Explore how Mirador Therapeutics built a best-in-class culture from zero infrastructure, filing three INDs in one year, raising $663M across two funding rounds, and earning Great Place to Work® certification
Learn how Sionna Therapeutics' "Flexible First" culture delivered 93%+ engagement, 100% employee advocacy, and zero regrettable turnover through the first years of scaling
Discover how Ferring's data-led global culture transformation achieved first-year awareness scores above 4.2/5, creating measurable leadership accountability across the organization
See how Arcus Biosciences transformed a 15-person HR team into a single cohesive function, improving decision-making speed and reducing operational friction across a 550-employee organization
Learn how Ultragenyx's "Stop the Swirl" initiative drove sustained cross-level engagement over 18 months, delivering clearer accountability and improved execution discipline across R&D
Explore how Grey Wolf Therapeutics used radically transparent performance and pay communication to eliminate ambiguity, reduce pay disparity, and unlock significant cultural energy, without large HR teams or expensive L&D programs
Divide & Conquer
LEAP HR: Life Sciences East 2026 has been designed to be the ultimate platform for all your people needs. With dedicated content streams spanning HR, TA, L&D, AI, and more, your team can divide and conquer in 2026, picking up actionable insights from each track before reuniting and creating one integrated strategy for when you return to the office.
Pre-Conference Day:
The CHRO Track:
Exclusively for CHROs and CPOs navigating the strategic demands of senior leadership.
Highlights Include:
- Expanding influence of the CPO+ role as HR continues to undertake more and expand scope with ESG, commercial strategy, and enterprise accountability while leading from the top with Prime Medicine, BioMarin, and Dyno Therapeutics
- Reorganizing your HR function around your employee’s experience rather than HR’s thinking with Sanofi
- CHRO panel discussion on leading the people function during a period of unprecedented change, stemming from the reality of AI and geopolitical uncertainty with Alkermes, Sanofi, Sionna Therapeutics, Mirador Therapeutics, and Cardurion Pharmaceuticals
The AI Track:
Practical, hands-on sessions on embedding AI across HR, TA, and L&D workflows.
Highlights Include:
- How Gilead is building a multi-year AI-enabled growth system for development, skills intelligence, and manager-led growth conversations, to integrate learning, talent mobility, and future skills directly into everyday work
- A practical workshop enabling you to integrate AI into day-to-day HR leadership to deliver value and increase productivity by 25-35% with Amneal Pharmaceuticals and PMV Pharmaceuticals
- See where HR leaders are deploying AI across TA, L&D, workforce planning, and analytics to learn what is working, what guardrails look like in practice, and where the real ROI is emerging with Pfizer, ICON, Biogen, Dyno Therapeutics, and Alnylam
The TA Track:
Premium content for senior TA leaders, rethinking recruitment to deliver speed, scalability, and strategic impact.
Highlights Include:
- Learn how Vertex Pharmaceuticals is redefining the recruiter role and make your hiring model more resilient and strategic by combining AI-powered efficiency with investments in recruiter capability
- Scaling TA globally with a unified model that keeps costs and complexity down while enabling greater efficiency, clearer recruitment paths, consistent candidate experiences internationally, and creates a stronger employer brand with Daiichi Sankyo
- Overhaul your talent management model to take a 360-view combining succession planning, talent development, and executive scouting to pressure-test pipelines and make greater data-led decisions which have in the case of Roche delivered $80 million in cost avoidance over six years
Main Conference Days:
HR Track:
This track is designed for HR leaders driving cultural alignment, retention, and workforce resilience in a rapidly evolving life sciences landscape. Explore strategies that protect culture, improve performance, and embed HR as a strategic partner in organizational success.
Highlights Include:
- Utilizing data during hyper-growth to transform culture in line with steep growth targets – Ferring were able to achieve first-year awareness scores above 4.2/5, create measurable momentum, leadership accountability, and build a scalable foundation for long-term behavior change
- Reducing decision-making friction and role confusion to increase R&D productivity, execution, and cross-level engagement – see how the Stop the Swirl program and Fix It framework helped Ultragenyx to create a shared decision language, improved execution discipline, and accountability
- Embedding a “flexible first” culture which drives engagement, and decreases turnover – see how leadership at Sionna Therapeutics were able to deliver 93%+ engagement, 100% employee advocacy, and zero regrettable turnover while scaling by grounding culture in trust, high impact in-person connections, and organizational rituals
TA Track:
This track is designed for TA leaders rethinking recruitment to deliver speed, scalability, and strategic impact through data-led and skills-based hiring. Explore approaches that transform hiring into a growth engine, protects critical talent, productivity, and ensures resilience during M&A.
Highlights Include:
- How Blueprint Medicines implemented a practical cross-pollination of talent to reduce reliance on external hiring and sustain engagement and productivity during a prolonged acquisition and six-month talent-at-risk period – resulting in a repeatable model for other life sciences organizations navigating M&A or commercial scale-up
- Bayer’s redesigned TA operating model using Dynamic Shared Ownership, running 90-day cycles, integrating retros for continuous iteration, mapping the full candidate communication journey, and activating a company-wide skills marketplace to accelerate upskilling and cross-functional capability
- How Insmed built a data‑driven, enterprise‑aligned TA competency model, conducted a cross‑functional gap analysis (including CEO, HRLT, and business stakeholder input), and created a 5‑year strategic roadmap to shift TA from “role fillers” to true talent advisors
L&D Track:
This track is designed for L&D leaders focused on leadership development, incorporating AI-enabled learning, creating a coaching culture, and building future-ready, capable teams. Explore solutions that accelerate competency, strengthen succession pipelines, and embed learning into the flow of work.
Highlights Include:
- Merck & Co’s centralized L&D approach which has delivered tens of millions of dollars in savings, faster and more consistent learning at scale cross-functionally, and established a single set of leadership standards across the entire organization
- How Swedish Orphan Biovitrum has re-energized talent management by defining clear global versus local development lanes, centralized frameworks and platforms to increase agility, generated ROI through reducing duplication, and enabled faster local decision-making – all while maximizing limited global resources
- Charles River Laboratories has prepared for a strategic shift through a partnership with McKinsey, implementing a multi-year transformation effort which has leveraged existing leadership models and enhanced desired behaviors for the company’s next chapter
Plenary Sessions:
Shared agenda content uniting all functions around breaking silos and building a unified, resilient, and complementary people function.
Highlights Include:
- Novo Nordisk’s data-driven workforce design utilizing people analytics and clear design principles which enabled a large-scale global transformation and seamless global reorganization impacting ~9,000 roles, improving spans of control, reducing duplication, and increasing agility
- How Arcus Biosciences’ three-year transformation enabled a 15-person HR team to operate a single, cohesive function unifying HR, TA, L&D, TR, and Operations, supporting a 550-employee organization through a prolonged period of growth and complexity
- Creating a unified and data-driven talent lifecycle by breaking down the silos between HR, TA, L&D, and TR with ConnectiveRx – from candidate assesment through development, mobility, and retention
Explore the Full Event Guide
- Unlock the Full SHRM & HRCI Accredited Agenda
- Identify Your Unmissable Sessions & Highlights Based on Your Role & Needs
- Learn More About the 50+ Experts Sharing Their ROI-Backed Case Studies of HR Success
- Explore Dedicated Streams of HR, TA, L&D & AI-Specific Content
- Find Out More About Early Bird Pricing, Group Discounts & More
Attending Companies Include
Explore The 2026 Agenda
Hear real-world breakthroughs from the most senior biopharma people leaders across dedicated tracks of content for HR, TA, and L&D.
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