Life Sciences

Life Sciences Circle October 2026

AI in GMP between Platform and Production Reality

from Dr. Elena D’Cruz
29. October 2026

Group picture f.l.t.r.: Giulia Dini, Christian Gay Porcel, Sascha Gross (Coopers), Marc Michaelis, Shanker Bhanot (Coopers)

“Who spent more than an hour this week searching for information that already exists somewhere in the company?” With this question, Marc Michaelis opened his talk at the third Coopers Life Sciences Circle. It shows what the evening was all about: AI in GMP, not as a vision of the future, but in everyday production.

The topic was demanding, yet the atmosphere was anything but stiff. We are on a first-name basis, people either know each other or get to know each other, and it is exactly this setting that makes open professional conversations possible.

After capex and engineering in the first edition and regulatory affairs in quality and engineering in the second, this time the focus was on AI in GMP. The reason is obvious: with the progress of AI, the industry is changing noticeably. Two talks looked at the topic from two sides, from the perspective of a technology provider and from the perspective of a manufacturing company.

Christian Gay Porcel (Manager Quality & GxP Compliance) and Giulia Dini (Sr. Enterprise Account Executive) from Aizon kicked off the evening. Their key message: AI is only as good as the data it works with, and in a GMP environment, every model must remain traceable and validated. Giulia showed what this looks like in real production with a case study from biopharmaceutical manufacturing. One decisive factor there turned out to be, of all things, a pump.

Then the perspective shifted. Marc Michaelis, Head of Business Development & Projects at Aenova, brought the topic into everyday production. After the question quoted at the beginning, he had the audience vote live on how much autonomy they would trust AI with in production. Marc also talked about a pump: how fast its motor runs indirectly reveals whether something in the process is going off track. For him, this is an example of how much relevant information is not found in the critical process parameters at all.

We will present both talks in more detail in separate posts.

The feedback is very positive: on average, guests rated the evening 4.8 out of 5. They praised the organization, the speakers and above all the opportunity to meet new people from the industry.

Because the group is deliberately kept small, people really do get into conversation with each other. Many participants made new contacts, and all of them would like to join again. The Orangerie Basel as our host also received top marks throughout, with 5 out of 5.

Two voices from the feedback:

“Great platform to meet interesting people!”
“Just stay as committed and charming as you are.”