What Participants Say

  • “It was a very open and comfortable discussion between peers, with everyone genuinely interested in sharing and learning. The absence of an audience made it even more candid — much deeper than a typical conference panel. You struck a great balance between guiding and letting the conversation flow freely, and the resulting white paper captured that exchange remarkably well: comprehensive, well-articulated, and genuinely valuable for all participants.“

    Didier Blondel - CFO Abivax

  • "Really enjoyed the conversation — great group of people, clearly very experienced and knowledgeable. This would be a great panel for BIO ."

    Paulo Fontoura - CMO Xaira Therapeutics, formerly SVP, Global Head Clinical Development Neuroscience, Immunology, Ophthalmology, Infectious and Rare Diseases at Roche

  • “It was a real privilege to be invited to this bioCatalyst roundtable, joining moderator Kuba Majcher and fellow participants for a candid conversation on Built for Value: Rethinking Early Development in Biotech. What made this session special was the openness and shared spirit. These small peer gatherings let us hit pause and ask ourselves if we’re designing studies that build a bridge to real patient and payer outcomes, not just chasing conventional endpoints. The red thread throughout our dialogue was about how respect and curiosity across disciplines can open doors to unexpected partnerships and better questions. Our roundtable felt like the best kind of debate — rigorous, sometimes a bit scrappy, but always rooted in driving innovation.”

    Denise Mueller - former CBO at Affimed and senior commercial leader at Pfizer and Wyeth, now advising biotech companies through her firm Given2Fly

  • “I really enjoyed the session. It was a great group of folks and the discussion was informative for me. It was great to see the similarities between our experiences and also the different perspectives. This is a great idea as a series bringing different people together that might not necessarily have a chance to interact and learn from each other. Happy to participate or support in any way. Thanks for including me.“

    Kim Stepanski - an executive coach and senior HR leader with 25+ years of experience, including leadership roles at Pfizer, Rallybio and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

AI can analyse trends and surface patterns in seconds — but the priorities, trade-offs, and strategic tensions that shape real decisions rarely show up in a spreadsheet.

That’s where dialogue still matters.

The bioCatalyst Roundtable Series offers a confidential forum for senior biopharma leaders to exchange perspectives on the challenges they’re actively navigating.

These aren’t webinars or panels. Each session brings together a small group of experienced executives — often spanning both the US and Europe — to explore focused topics in an informal, off-the-record setting.

The goal isn’t consensus, but nuance: sharing lived experience and learning from how others think through similar complexities.

The white papers that follow distil these conversations — anonymised where needed, detailed where it helps — to reflect the real-world thinking of senior decision-makers.

Whether it’s building partnerships, launching in rare disease, or aligning strategy across functions, understanding how others are approaching the same inflection points can be invaluable.

If you're interested in joining a future session or suggesting a topic, we’d love to hear from you.

To read insights from past discussions, explore our White Papers here.