March is always a busy month for us. It is also the most exciting time of the year. The reason? The EU Pharma PPM Toolbox. This year, the 6th Annual Pharma PPM Toolbox took place in the beautiful city of Basel on March 3rd and 4th. Our attendees and speakers enjoyed two days full of presentations, case studies, networking sessions and impactful workshops with high acclaimed Project and Portfolio Management professionals from all over Europe.
It is nice to hear the different approaches and different experiences from industry peers and outdoor academic researchers for project and/or portfolio management. Very inspiring, will recommend to my colleagues.
– Ye Wu, Strategic Growth Office China Key Projects Manager, Sanofi Pasteur
What makes our conferences so successful comes from our main principal. Networking, fun and interactivity are just as important as knowledge. Our 30+ speakers supported their presentations with practical examples, in which the attendees could interact, get involved and find answers to their critical questions. And don’t forget the 8+ hours of informal networking where our attendees had the opportunity to meet their peers and
A compelling event that brings professionals with the same appetite to learn and share their experience with the goal to continuously improve.
– Eric Bouilloux, Director, Global Project Leader at Ipsen
Change, Innovate and Cooperate for a Better Tomorrow
On Day 1, Christian Morello from Sanofi talked about the importance of portfolio for PM structures while Richard Sonnenblick from Enrich and Maurice Storey from AstraZeneca took the stage and presented how they created a company-wide portfolio capability that democratized data and unlocked R&D value. Markus Kosch from Pfizer and David St-Denis from Merck discussed some key lessons and experiences from the partnership of Pfizer and Merck in developing their Avelumab, and their co-marketing agreement for Xalkori, a targeted therapy for lung cancer established in 2015. Right before morning coffee, Matthias Krings from Catenion gave attendees a fresh look into R&D Productivity.
During our productive morning, Dirk-Jan Opstelten from HAL Allergy talked about the challenges of developing leadership while Gerald Grün from Lenzing (Microsoft Customer) explained why an organization would want to standardize project management processes. Eric Bouilloux from Ipsen gave attendees a practical insight on the impact of overall change management on a team followed by a number of polylogues with our speakers and campfire sessions pointing out several crucial industry issues.
A great venue to get a close-up view of the issues, approaches & solutions project & portfolio management is faced with in today’s pharma environment.
– Gebhard Neyer, Senior Director, Program Management, Ferring Research Institute
Day 2 was dedicated to workshops. But with a twist! This year, our workshops were more challenging and exciting than before. Attendees had the opportunity to choose between three separate streams of workshops and built their own agenda according to their industry.
Stream A was focused on Project Management, how to master your project budget and how to deal with potential crisis.
Stream B was focused on Portfolio Management, new reporting concepts, how to manage projects efficiently with SAP Portfolio and Project Management and how to valuate individual projects or portfolios.
Stream C focused on Risk Management, how strong is risk management in your company and the way to achieve a Strong Portfolio in a Generic Company.
Our flagship conference, the Pharma PPM Toolbox, was the first event EBCG produced. In the course of just a few years, it has become the leader in European market, one that keeps growing in size and quality. This year’s event was our biggest and most successful one ever with more than 170 attendees. As we brought down the curtains, we knew that this event will not only impact our lives but also the life and the careers of each and every one of our attendees and speakers. We would like to thank you all for your support. You inspire us to build really unique events that will be here to stay!