
54th Organic Process Research and Development Conference
Event overview
Welcome to the 54th OPR&D Conference – Lisbon, Portugal
We’re thrilled to bring the 54th Organic Process Research & Development (OPR&D) Conference to the vibrant city of Lisbon, Portugal.
Set in this beautiful and culturally rich location, the conference offers the perfect blend of cutting-edge scientific content and our signature networking receptions. Join fellow chemists from around the world to exchange ideas, gain fresh insights, and engage in dynamic Q&A and post-presentation discussions.
Whether you’re here to stay ahead of the latest industry developments or to expand your professional network, OPR&D is the place to be.
Take full advantage of our global reach—we invite top-tier industrial experts from around the world, carefully selected to present a broad and relevant programme. You’ll leave inspired, re-energised, and ready to apply new strategies in your lab.
Discover how to boost your efficiency, enhance innovation in synthetic route design, and optimise your development processes.
In an industry that’s rapidly evolving, where regulatory and economic pressures demand smarter, more sustainable manufacturing solutions, OPR&D stands as a trusted hub of knowledge, collaboration, and excellence.
You’ll also enjoy a welcoming environment to meet face-to-face with new partners, engage with peers, and explore innovative technologies in our dedicated exhibition area.
Please contact us if you are interested in Exhibiting or Sponsoring this event: [email protected]
A few highlights from OPRD 2024 Prague
Benefits of attending
- Continuing Professional Development (CPD ) keeps you up to date on current and emerging developments.
- Learn from a wide range of industrial case studies given by hand-picked industrial speakers.
- Take home relevant ideas and information that are directly applicable to your own work
- Save time. Our intensive, commercial-free programme means less time away from work.
- Network with the key people in the industry during the networking events
Who should attend?
- Process Research & Development Chemists
- Chemical Engineers in Industry
- Heads of Departments & Team Leaders
Sponsorship Opportunities
We have several sponsorship opportunities still available for this conference. These include networking and reception sponsorship.
Your company logo with link to your website would appear here and for premium sponsorship such as networking and reception, adjacent to the conference pages as well.
If you are interested in sponsoring this conference, please contact Dr Claire Francis: [email protected]
MEDIA SPONSORS
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Event speakers

Streamlining Early Phase Drug Development with Continuous Flow Technologies
I earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from Laval University (Quebec City, Canada) in 1996 and completed a doctoral degree in heterogeneous catalysis at the University of Technology Aachen (Germany) in 2001. I joined Lonza in March 2001 as a Laboratory Head for reaction engineering and safety assessment. In February 2003, I became the Project Leader for Lonza’s Microreactor Technology until July 2007. I then served as an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa from August 2007 to July 2008. Returning to Lonza in September 2008, I focused on continuous-flow technology and business development from 2009 to 2012. From 2013 to 2023, I was Director and Head of an R&D group in API Chemical Services, and since 2024, I’ve led the Advanced Chemistry Technologies group. I also supervise graduate students as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa, with their practical work done in Visp, Switzerland.


PharmECO: Sustainable Chemical Processing Using Flow Technology
Professor C. Oliver Kappe received his diploma- (1989) and his doctoral (1992) degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Graz where he worked with Professor Gert Kollenz on cycloaddition and rearrangement reactions of acylketenes. After periods of postdoctoral research work on reactive intermediates and matrix isolation spectroscopy with Professor Curt Wentrup at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia (1993- 1994) and on synthetic methodology/ alkaloid synthesis with Professor Albert Padwa at Emory University in Atlanta, USA (1994-1996), he moved back to the University of Graz in 1996 to start his independent academic career. He obtained his “Habilitation” in 1998 in organic chemistry and was appointed Associate Professor in 1999. Since 2011 he holds the position of Professor of “Technology of Organic Synthesis” (Organische Synthesetechnologie) at the University of Graz. He has spent time as visiting scientist/professor at e.g. the Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, USA, Professor K. Barry Sharpless, 2003), the Toyko Institute of Technology (Toyko, Japan, Professor T. Takahashi, 2008), the University of Sassari (Sassari, Italy, 2008), the Sanford-Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Orlando, USA, 2010) and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2013). The co-author of more than 300 publications, his main research interests have in the past focused on multicomponent reactions, combinatorial chemistry and the synthesis of biologically active heterocycles. More recently his research group has focused on the use of enabling and process intensification technologies for synthetic chemistry, including microwave and continuous flow processing. For his innovative work in microwave chemistry he received the 2004 Prous Science Award from the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry and the 2010 Houska Prize (€ 100.000) in addition to a number of other awards.


The Manufacture of MK-0616, a Large Small Molecule
Tiffany Piou is an associate principal scientist of Process Chemistry in the Process Research and Development organization at MSD. She obtained a M.Sc. in Chemistry from University of Paris-Orsay and she obtained her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Jieping Zhu at ISCN (Gif-sur-Yvette, France) and EPLF (Lausanne, Switzerland). She then moved to the US to conduct her postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Prof. Tom Rovis at Colorado State University and Columbia University where, she developed Rh(III) catalysts C-H activation reactions. In 2017, she joined MSD in the Discovery Process Chemistry (DPC) team based in Rahway (NJ). During her time, she had the opportunity to contribute to discovery and development programs across multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology and Alzheimer’s disease. Over four years ago, she joined the Process Chemistry team working on MK-0616 manufacture.

Sustainability at AstraZeneca: The development and use of earth-abundant metal catalysis in Chemical Development
Scott obtained his MChem from the University of Leeds in 2017 under the supervision of Dr Visuvanathar Sridharan on the synthesis of MDM2-p53 inhibitors. He stayed on at the University of Leeds to carry out his PhD under the joint supervision of Professor Adam Nelson and Professor Steve Marsden, working on the synthesis of diverse sp3-rich molecular scaffolds for applications in medicinal chemistry. In 2021, Scott joined AstraZeneca as a postdoctoral associate, where he began investigating earth-abundant metal catalysed reactions as an alternative to traditional platinum group metal (PGM) catalysis using high-throughput experimentation, focussing primarily on borylation and Suzuki reactions. He is now a senior scientist at AstraZeneca, where he continues to work on base metal catalysed reactions with applications in process chemistry.

Collaborative Innovation in Pharmaceutical Development: Unleashing the Power of AI, Data Science, and Open Science Initiatives
Julius Hillenbrand leads Digital Process Chemistry within the CMC department at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. He studied Chemistry and conducted research at Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, RWTH Aachen University, UC Berkeley, and the Max-Planck-Institute für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim. During his doctoral research, Julius developed an innovative class of catalysts for alkyne metathesis, earning recognition through the Thiel Award and the Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding scientific achievement from the Max-Planck-Institute and the Max Planck Society. Julius joined Bayer in March 2021, where he leads a team of highly experienced and educated lab scientists in process chemistry at the Wuppertal site. In this role, he is passionately driving initiatives to automate, digitize, and accelerate the optimization of chemical reactions through disruptive technologies and cutting-edge data science tools. In his seminar today, he will share valuable insights on this transformative approach to process chemistry.

Second-generation manufacturing process of Migoprotafib
Paolo Tosatti studied Chemistry at the University of Genoa (Italy), where he obtained his MSc in 2007, before moving to England to pursue a PhD at the University of Leeds in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline. After this experience, he moved to Switzerland to join the group of Prof. Andreas Pfaltz at the University of Basel as a postdoc. There he worked in the fields of hydrogenations mediated by frustrated Lewis pairs and asymmetric catalysis. In 2013, Paolo started his career in industry joining Novartis Animal Health (later evolved into Elanco) as a medicinal chemist and research project leader. Five years later, he joined the Synthetic Molecules Technical Development department at F. Hoffmann-La Roche, where he is currently working as principal scientist and chemistry project leader, as well as responsible scientist for the hydrogenation laboratory. Main activities and professional interests of Paolo’s include asymmetric catalysis, hydrogenation and the development of safe, robust and efficient synthetic routes to active pharmaceutical ingredients, including their transfer to manufacturing scale.

Route scouting and route optimization for Elimusertib (BAY1895344)
Richard van der Haas obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Leiden under Prof. Johan Lugtenburg for the synthesis of porphyrin derivatives for photodynamic therapy applications. He then spent two years at the University of Amsterdam under Prof. Henk Hiemstra to investigate organocatalytic conversions with cinchona alkaloids and with chiral phosphoric acids. After his academic career Richard continued in Nijmegen at Symeres bv in 2007. After five years, he switched from synthetic chemistry to process R&D, initially as Senior Scientist, but from 2014 on as a Team Leader. In this role he got involved in many different process R&D related projects dealing with topics such as route scouting and optimization, catalyst- and condition screenings, impurity structure elucidation and impurity synthesis. Richard has been involved in a fruitful collaboration with Bayer AG for a long time. The presentation here is a showcase of this collaboration.


Advancing Metal-Catalyzed Reactions through Optimized Precursor-Ligand Combinations
Angelino completed his Master’s degree in Chemistry at the University of Sassari in Sardinia, Italy. Following this, he earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from RWTH Aachen University in Germany, specializing in organometallic chemistry and homogeneous catalysis under the mentorship of Prof. Albrecht Salzer. In 2007, he joined Umicore Precious Metals Chemistry (PMC) as a Scientist in the Chemical Development Department. Since then, he has led teams in developing safe, economical, and robust processes for metal-based catalysts, from initial concept through to large- scale manufacture. His work encompasses a variety of applications, including metathesis, hydrosilylation, cross-coupling (CX), asymmetric hydrogenation, and more.
In 2024, Angelino was promoted to Principal Scientist. He now oversees the development of both precious metal and earth-abundant based catalyst portfolios, collaborating closely with university and industrial partners.

BASF’s super edge-coated precious metal catalysts
Bert received his M.Sc. degree in chemistry from the University of Nijmegen in 1996 followed in 2001 by his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam where he worked with Professor Piet van Leeuwen and Professor Joost Reek on the immobilization of homogeneous catalysts. After periods of postdoctoral activities at Cambridge University (triplet emission in semiconducting polymeric systems); Engelhard (heterogeneous catalysis) and the University of Amsterdam (commercial spin off activity developments) he joined BASF in 2009. After 4 years in R&D, developing a wide range of base- and precious metal catalyst recipes, he moved to the marketing team for Hydrogenation Catalysts, first as Marketing Manager and since 2018 as Technology Manager. His role is to understand and optimize the hydrogenation processes of BASF’s customers with cutting edge catalytic solutions. His presentation at the 54th ORPD Conference in beautiful Lisbon will be about finding the sweet spot for supported precious metal catalyst formulations between metal usage efficiency and catalyst performance.

Iptacopan/Fabhalte: Development of a First-in-Class, Oral Factor B inhibitor
Dr. Simon Allmendinger is a Senior Scientist in chemical and analytical development at Novartis Pharma AG in Basel, Switzerland. Since joining in 2017, he was involved in both early and late phase development of small molecule APIs aiming at the optimization of chemical synthetic routes into efficient, safe, and sustainable processes. Exemplary, he was the leading chemist behind Iptacopan and supported the project until its regulatory approval for the treatment of PNH in 2023. Furthermore, he leads efforts to bring novel synthetic methodologies, including photochemical transformations, to industrial applications and supports the innovation management within the organization to help to initiate new projects within the strategic portfolio. Simon studied chemistry at the University of Basel before moving to the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg to pursue his graduate studies with Bernhard Breit, working on ligand design for the asymmetric hydroformylation. After a visiting scientist position at the ICIQ Tarragona, working with Kilian Muniz on I2-catalyzed amination reactions, he moved to Princeton University to join Dave MacMillan’s group to explore metallaphotoredox-catalyzed Cross-coupling reactions.
Sponsors
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Interested in sponsoring an event?
If you are interested in Sponsoring this event we still have some great sponsorship opportunities available at the conference. See our sponsorship section on the advantages that sponsorship can bring to your business or contact Dr Claire Francis at [email protected]
Exhibitors

BASF SE

Bellen
Bellen is a manufacturer, highly focused on heterocyclic chemistry with great innovative research capabilities.

Cambrex
Cambrex is a leading global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) that provides drug substance, drug product, and analytical …

Heraeus Precious Metals GmbH & Co. KG
Heraeus Precious Metals is globally leading in the precious metals industry.

Mastermelt Ltd
At Mastermelt, we specialize in high efficiency Precious Metal Recycling, maximizing value recovery from post-industrial materials and manufacturing waste.

Merck

MilliporeSigma
The Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, which operates as MilliporeSigma in the U.S. and Canada, has more than 28,000 employees and more than 55 total manufacturing and testing sites worldwide, with a portfolio of more than 300,000 products focused on scientific discovery, biomanufacturing and testing services.

Technobis
Technobis is a world-leading laboratory technology provider for chemical synthesis, solid-state research, process development and formulation.
Why exhibit?
- Meet delegates from key international companies
- Interact directly with senior scientists, department heads and key decision-makers
- Ability to demonstrate your company’s products or services
The conferences are designed to provide exhibitors with the maximum time to network with delegates.
Other Information
Benefits of Attending
- Continuing Professional Development (CPD ) keeps you up to date on current and emerging developments.
- Learn from a wide range of industrial case studies given by hand-picked industrial speakers.
- Take home relevant ideas and information that are directly applicable to your own work, with the full proceedings in colour.
- Save time. Our intensive, commercial-free programme means less time away from work.
- Network with the key people in the industry via the networking receptions
General Information
Registration for each conference includes:
- Attendance at all the sessions
- Access to a mobile events app connected to the conference
- Lunch & refreshments daily
- Unlimited access to the exhibition
- Place at the networking reception
Why Exhibit?
- Meet delegates from key international companies
- Interact directly with senior scientists, department heads and key decision-makers
- Ability to demonstrate your company’s products or services
Sponsorship
Promote your company at one of our prestigious conferences with sponsorship packages to suit your budget.
Please contact Dr Claire Francis
FREE POSTER BOARD
If you are a registered academic delegate you can present a scientific technical poster FREE and have this published in the conference proceedings.
Please send an abstract of your poster via email.
54th Organic Process Research and Development Conference
If you get the opportunity to attend a conference, I highly recommend OPRD. The conference is thoughtfully put together with a wide range of topics covered by the speakers. It is a great way to see what technologies are being used and explored.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
The SciUp team truly does a fantastic job. The logistics are always taken care of, and it's clear the team puts lots of time and effort into preparing a successful show. No notes! Well done, as always!
Charleston, SC, March 2025
Well organized, great activities (run and happy hour), excellent venue and location.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
Even though it was first time for us, it was very excellent and suitable conference.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
Excellent selection of speakers and range of topics.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
The OPRD Conference was excellent, with breakfast and lunch provided. The networking event in the evening was a great opportunity to meet colleagues from various industries. It was also great to gain insights from big pharma on sustainable process development.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
Overall, great conference with fantastic talks which were highly relevant to process chemists at all career stages. Keep doing exactly this, and process chemists will keep coming.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
As usual, the technical content of this event is excellent. Keep it up for 2026!
Charleston, SC, March 2025
Organizing committee is superb. Their commitment to make this a success is immense.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
Everyone involved with organizing and running this conference were super helpful, friendly and knowledgeable throughout. Pre conference email info was all really helpful and welcoming. Thank you all at sci up for hosting a great event.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
Staff is awesome. The event is run with extreme professionalism.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
For process chemists, it was a great opportunity to hear firsthand insights into development trends in the pharmaceutical industry and to meet with various CDMO companies.
Charleston, SC, March 2025
Programme

Fee info
Venue info
1990-221 Portugal
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