CPHI Celebration - the winners from the 2025 CPHI Pharma Awards

CPHI Celebration was held on the first night of CPHI Frankfurt 2025 in October 2025, whereby pre-eminent pharma players came together to recognise winners of the 2025 CPHI Pharma Awards.

This annual event is more than just an awards ceremony, it’s a celebration of the creativity, collaboration, and hard work that power the pharma world. From cutting-edge research to game-changing technologies, and from sustainability initiatives to inspiring leadership, the awards recognise excellence across a range of categories.

With industry leaders, rising stars, and changemakers all in one room, the CPHI Celebration was an unforgettable evening of recognition, connection, and inspiration.

API Development and Innovation              

Winner: TAPS: TAG Assisted Peptide Synthesis – CordenPharma International         

Entry: TAPS (TAG-Assisted Peptide Synthesis) is a cutting-edge, sustainable peptide manufacturing technology designed to address the challenges of solid-phase synthesis. By using a proprietary TAG-anchor molecule to keep peptides in solution, TAPS eliminates the need for resin, reduces organic solvent use by over 90%, and replaces toxic reagents with greener alternatives. Compatible with standard peptide chemistries (Fmoc, Boc), it supports advanced modifications, inline process analytics, and automation, enabling scalable production from grams to multi-hundred kilograms in standard reactors. Proven effective for GLP-1 peptide synthesis, TAPS offers high purity, cost-efficiency, and significant environmental benefits, positioning it as a future-ready solution for peptide manufacturing.

Accelerating Innovation     

Winner: Custom, cell-free, synthetic DNA - including high complexity sequences, multi kilobase length and milligram scale - made in days to weeks – NunaBio

Entry: Nunabio has transformed synthetic DNA manufacturing with efficient, sustainable enzymatic synthesis, producing high-purity DNA faster and cheaper than traditional methods. Their portable device generates 40mg of DNA in 80 minutes, enabling rapid, on-site production of vaccines and medicines, crucial during health emergencies. Supporting gene therapies and personalised medicine, Nunabio accelerates development while driving biotech growth in the North East UK with 20 patents and innovative solutions that lower costs and improve global healthcare access.

At the Heart of Pharma

Winner: Talent without barriers: CNX's inclusive recruitment programme with the Social Mobility Foundation – CNX Therapeutics

Entry: CNX’s partnership with the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) marks a transformative step in pharmaceutical recruitment, addressing systemic barriers while delivering exceptional business outcomes. From planning in 2024 to execution in 2025, the initiative welcomed five interns from underrepresented backgrounds into key business functions, representing a 10% workforce expansion for the 50-person company. This programme not only demonstrates CNX’s commitment to social mobility but also showcases how inclusive recruitment can strengthen organisational capabilities and inspire industry-wide change.

Key Highlights:

• Values-based recruitment methodology: Evaluates potential over privilege, removes unconscious bias, and offers structured assessments, full employee benefits, LinkedIn Learning access, and R&D budgets.
• Measurable impact: Interns achieved transformational outcomes, with their corporate presentation receiving top ratings at CNX’s three-day event.
• Community engagement: Interns inspire young people through school fairs and SMF outreach, building networks and promoting pharmaceutical careers.
• Industry leadership: CNX developed a replicable framework for inclusive recruitment, encouraging adoption across the pharmaceutical sector.
• Cultural excellence: Celebrates diversity through initiatives like Ramadan reflections, fostering education and respect within the organisation.
• Future vision: Advocates for inclusive recruitment to better serve diverse patient populations and build innovative organisations.
• Blueprint for change: Demonstrates how inclusive practices transform lives, strengthen organisations, and drive industry evolution.

CEO of the Year

Winner: Lars Petersen - FUJIFILM  Biotechnologies

Entry: Lars Petersen, CEO of FUJIFILM Biotechnologies, is a transformative leader in the life sciences sector, overseeing a global contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) with over 4,800 employees across Denmark, the UK, USA, and Japan. Renowned for his strategic vision and "people first" philosophy, Lars has driven cultural transformation and operational excellence since his appointment as CEO in June 2023. His leadership style, shaped by an engineering background and extensive experience at companies like Novo Nordisk, Genentech/Roche, and Biogen, emphasises trust, empowerment, and workplace freedom.

Drug Delivery and Device Innovation

Winner: Uniting sustainability and patient convenience in self-injection devices – Ypsomed

Entry: Ypsomed’s YpsoLoop™ Autoinjector introduces groundbreaking innovations in self-injection technology with a focus on sustainability and usability. Its circular-ready design reduces CO₂ emissions by up to 73% compared to Ypsomed’s current autoinjector platform, using only two recyclable materials for simplified disassembly and circular integration, supporting pharma’s net-zero goals. On the usability front, the ClickGuide™ feature provides continuous acoustic feedback during injection, significantly improving patient confidence and compliance, with clinical studies showing over three times better adherence compared to traditional devices. Designed for high fill volumes and compatibility with existing assembly lines, YpsoLoop™ combines sustainability, safety, and scalability, making it a future-ready solution for patients and pharmaceutical partners.

Finished Formulation

Winner: EUDRACAP® colon – The world’s first functional ready-to-fill capsule for oral drug delivery to target the ileo-colonic region – Evonik Industries

Entry: EUDRACAP® colon is the first ready-to-fill capsule designed for targeted drug delivery to the ileo-colonic region, enabling breakthroughs in oral drug development for sensitive APIs like live biotherapeutics, oral biologics, and peptides. It protects APIs during manufacturing and against gastric acid, ensuring efficient delivery to the target site. By eliminating complex formulation needs, it accelerates clinical trials and drug commercialisation, offering a unique solution for developing innovative treatments for conditions like diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Future Leader            

Winner: Yolanda Gomez – Esteve CDMO   

Entry: Gomez is a visionary pharmaceutical leader, combining technical expertise, humanity, and purpose. Their ability to align people, processes, and goals is redefining pharmaceutical excellence and shaping the future of the industry.

“She's not just prepared for the future; she’s helping build it.”

Manufacturing excellence

Winner: EnzeneX™ - Fully-connected continuous manufacturing™ - Enzene          

Entry: EnzeneX™ is Enzene’s Fully-Connected Continuous Manufacturing™ (FCCM™) platform, revolutionising biologics and monoclonal antibody production with high productivity, cost-efficiency, modular scalability, and sustainability. Operating 24/7 with minimal hold times, it achieves up to 10x higher yields and 50% lower costs, targeting production costs as low as $40 per gram. Its compact, modular design enables rapid deployment and scalability, while single-use technologies reduce environmental impact. EnzeneX™ ensures exceptional product quality for complex proteins and is now transforming biologics manufacturing in India and the US, offering affordable and sustainable solutions for global health.

Packaging and Machinery 

Winner: SCHOTT TOPPAC® infuse – the next generation – SCHOTT Pharma

Entry: SCHOTT TOPPAC® infuse prefillable polymer syringes address critical hospital challenges like drug waste, manual preparation, and storage issues. Made from Cyclic Olefin Copolymer (COC), they offer enhanced drug stability, extended shelf life, and improved patient safety by eliminating manual preparation steps. Featuring tamper-evident caps, RFID chips for traceability, and tailored labels for light and oxygen protection, these syringes streamline processes, reducing anesthesia tray preparation time from 20 minutes to 1 minute. Their blister-free packaging minimises waste, saves space, and lowers CO₂ emissions, making them a sustainable and efficient solution for healthcare settings.

Start-Up Initiative    

Winner: CellScrew® - Green Elephant Biotech

Entry: Green Elephant Biotech’s CellScrew® is a sustainable cultivation system for adherent cells used in Cell and Gene Therapies, vaccines, and biologics. Designed to tackle scalability, efficiency, and environmental impact, its compact, high-surface-area design reduces material use, manual handling, and production space, lowering costs and carbon footprint. By streamlining scale-up from research to commercial production, CellScrew® makes advanced therapies more accessible, embodying a vision of healthcare that is scalable, sustainable, and equitable.

Supply Chain Excellence

Winner: Cryoport Systems' Integrated End-to-End Supply Chain Platform – Cryoport Systems

Entry: Cryoport Systems revolutionises the biopharmaceutical supply chain with an integrated platform tailored to the cell and gene therapy industry. Covering cryopreservation, storage, packaging, labelling, advisory services, and global distribution, it ensures safe, temperature-controlled management of life-saving therapies. As a single-source provider, Cryoport Systems supports clinical trials and commercialisation with risk-mitigation strategies that preserve product integrity. Operating under unified compliance standards across a global network, it delivers consistent quality while meeting critical timelines. Dedicated to ensuring therapies reach patients safely, Cryoport Systems transforms lives by enabling access to life-saving treatments.

Sustainability             

Winner: Sustainability Grows on Trees: Producing the Gold Standard Vaccine Adjuvant QS-21 through In-Lab Cultivation & Extraction from Quillaja saponaria trees – Botanical Solution

Entry: Botanical Solution (BSI) produces the vaccine adjuvant QS-21 sustainably by cultivating Quillaja saponaria trees in its labs, avoiding deforestation. This innovative method addresses supply chain issues and reduces costs, making QS-21, which currently costs $400,000 per gram, more accessible for vaccines. By enabling broader use in vaccines, including for poorer and developing countries, BSI helps save lives through more effective and affordable immunisations.

Woman of the Year

Winner: Adriana Kiędzierska-Mencfeld – Rezon Bio (formerly Polpharma Biologics)             

Entry: Dr. Adriana Kiędzierska-Mencfeld, Chief Operating Officer of Polpharma Biologics Group, has transformed the company into Central and Eastern Europe’s largest biotechnology organisation. Under her leadership, Polpharma Biologics launched Poland’s first biosimilar drugs, meeting EMA and FDA standards, and transitioned into a Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisation (CDMO). As the only woman leading a biotech company in Poland, she fosters innovation, diversity, and long-term growth, setting new standards for Polish biotechnology.

“Dr. Kiędzierska-Mencfeld is not only building a company, but she is also building a sector, a culture, and a future for Polish biotechnology. Her work has a lasting impact, and her leadership is setting new standards for what is possible in science, business, and beyond."

Congratulations to all of this year's winners - we can't wait for next year!