Explore the Agenda

8:00 am Morning Coffee & Registration

8:55 am Chairs Opening Remarks

Characterizing mRNA Therapeutics to Define Integrity, Structure, & Analytical Reliability

9:00 am Lessons Learned for Building Fast & Reliable Analytical Development Strategies from Early Research to Phase I

Senior Director & Head of Analytical Development, Pfizer
  •  Key learnings from accelerating analytical development during the COVID-19 vaccine era
  • Establishing fit-for-purpose assays to enable rapid transition from research to clinical manufacturing
  • Implementing flexible analytical frameworks to support novel mRNA modalities and vaccine programs

9:30 am Roundtable Discussion: Translating Complex mRNA Characterization Assays into QC-Ready Strategies to Reduce Downtime between Teams

Sr director, Arcturus Therapeutics
Associate Director, Analytical Development, Tessera Therapeutics
  • How to adapt AD assays into validated QC workflows to ensure reproducibility across sites and manufacturing scales
  • How to overcome challenges of assay transfer, variability, and lack of reference standards to safeguard consistency and compliance
  • How to embed standardized characterization workflows to support smoother regulatory submissions, tech transfer and global comparability

10:30 am From Bench to Bioinformatics: Harnessing RNA Sequencing as a Next-Generation Analytical Tool for mRNA Characterization & Q

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

 Applying RNA-Seq to detect impurities, truncated transcripts, and dsRNA species that escape traditional assays

  • Comparing sequencing against conventional integrity and potency assays to define regulatory-ready standards
  • Establishing seamless workflows from sample prep to bioinformatics to bride wet lab and digital pipelines and accelerate decision-making
  • Positioning sequencing-based analytics as a potential platform method for comparability, release, and long-term stability studies

11:00 am Morning Break & Speed Networking

Our dedicated speed networking session is the perfect opportunity to have in-depth conversations  and forge long-lasting connections with fellow technical experts working within mRNA Analytical  Development & Quality Control.

Defining mRNA Functionality Through Assays that Accurately Reflect Biological Activity & Predict Clinical Performance

12:00 pm From Development to QC: Phase-Appropriate Validation & Reagent Qualification for Reproducible mRNA Assays

Quality Control Manager, Inventprise
  • Establish robust reference standards and qualified reagents early to enable long-term reproducibility across analytical sites
  • Apply phase-appropriate validation to maintain flexibility in early development while ensuring regulatory readiness at later stages
  • Control assay variability from IVT reagents, detection antibodies and instrumentation to safeguard data integrity and batch comparability

12:30 pm Decoding RNA Quality with Sequencing-Based Analytics

Scientific Strategy Head, Eclipse Bioinnovations
  •  Compare manufacturing conditions using sequencing-based quality control
  • Identify dsRNA impurities that drive off-target immune and safety risks
  • Reveal potency-relevant insights from drug product uptake to translation

1:00 pm Establishing Core Endpoints That Truly Correlate with Biological Readouts to Validate mRNA Functionality

QC Specialist & Data Analyst, Genetech Biotech
  • Comparing in vitro, cell-based and engineered model systems to determine which assays should be standardized to best represent functional mRNA performance
  • Differentiating between integrity, encapsulation, and total mRNA content to determine which attributes meaningfully correlate with biological activity
  • Lessons learnt from CQAs that failed to predict immunogenicity or efficacy to streamline submission packages that prove mRNA functionality

1:30 pm Lunch Break

Toxicity & Impurity Characterization in mRNA Therapeutics to Identify, Quantify & Remove Immunogenic Byproducts

2:30 pm Challenges in measuring dsRNA in drug substance samples

Director Molecular Biology, Analytical Development, BioNTech
  • Comparison of established methods to measure dsRNA
  • Characterization of the dsRNA pool

3:00 pm Session details to be revealed

3:30 pm Advancing Impurity and Residual Analysis to Strengthen mRNA Product Quality and QC Readiness

Associate Director, Analytical Development, Tessera Therapeutics
  •  Developing and optimizing assays to detect and quantify critical impurities and residuals including dsRNA, proteins, and DNA in mRNA therapeutics
  • Translating analytical rigor from development to QC to ensure reproducibility, compliance, and regulatory acceptance

4:00 pm Afternoon Break & Poster Session

Contribute to the conversation and share your cutting-edge research with like-minded AD & QC Experts. To present a poster, register your place and submit an abstract highlighting your breakthroughs. *Please visit the website for T&Cs for presenting a poster.

Embedding Robust Analytical Processes into GMP Environments to Secure Compliance & Enable Seamless AD-to-QC Transfer

5:00 pm Ensuring GMP Readiness Through Robust Analytical Strategy: Building Phase-Appropriate Methods to Support mRNA Quality and Purity

Vice President - Analytical Science, AboGen Inc.
  • Establishing a risk-based analytical control strategy to meet GMP requirements across development stages.
  • Balancing flexibility and compliance: when to validate versus qualify analytical methods in early vs late phase.
  • Overcoming common pitfalls in method transfer to QC labs and CDMOs while maintaining data integrity.
  • Building feedback loops between analytical and manufacturing teams to pre-empt deviations and batch release delays.

5:30 pm Session details to be revealed

6:00 pm Ensuring Phase-Appropriate Method Readiness from AD Through QC to GMP

Associate Director - Analytical Development, nChroma Bio
  • How to establish phase-appropriate analytical methods that meet regulatory expectations despite limited resources and compressed development timelines.
  • Strategies to adapt and validate assays for QC environments while maintaining analytical precision and CMC consistency.
  • Approaches to coordinate cross-functional transfer from development to GMP to secure compliance and minimize rework at scale.

6:30 pm Chairs Closing Remarks

6:35 pm End of Day One