Every year on the first day of the worldwide show – CPHI Milan – runs the CPHI Celebration, where winners of the CPHI Pharma Awards are announced.
For 2026 the organisers of CPHI went bigger than ever, with several new award categories, aiming to reflect the changes in industry and acknowledge what has become more important as the field evolves. With 15 awards to hand out it, it was a busy night, with huge jubilation from the winners.
1. CEO of the year
Anil Okay – Adalvo
Anil Okay is the Founder and CEO of Adalvo. He founded the business in 2018 with five employees and has scaled it into a Top-2 global B2B pharma player. In October 2025, Adalvo received a major growth equity investment from EQT. Okay brings over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, including nine years as CCO at Alvotech. Under his leadership, Adalvo’s ambition is to become the number one global B2B pharmaceutical partner by 2027.
2. Supply chain excellence
Zero Margin for Error: Supply Chain Excellence in Ultra-Rare Gene Therapy with Almac Adapt – Almac Clinical Services
Almac Clinical Services developed the Almac Adapt Just-in-Time Manufacturing Solution to address the growing complexity of advanced therapy supply chains. Designed for low-volume, patient-specific, and time-critical therapies, the solution replaces traditional forecast-led logistics with adaptive supply orchestration aligned to verified patient readiness and scheduling milestones. As advanced therapies continue to reshape pharmaceutical development, Almac Adapt provides a scalable and repeatable solution for future supply chains.
3. Manufacturing excellence
AMCAP: Evolving the enzymatic mRNA manufacturing – Anemocyte
Anemocyte’s AMCAP is a patent-pending technology that transforms therapeutic mRNA manufacturing. By integrating In Vitro Transcription and enzymatic capping into a single ‘one-pot'”‘ step, it replaces inefficient two-step methods and costly co-transcriptional alternatives. Fully compatible with modified nucleotides, it offers a faster, safer, and more cost-effective route to high-quality mRNA production.
4. Sustainable transformation partnership
Further Together: Partnering for Systemic Change – AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca’s ‘further together’ collaboration model supports more inclusive and consistent approaches across the supplier market. They developed a supplier transformation model designed to raise the bar on sustainability performance without leaving anyone behind. Collaboration starts with leadership. At the centre of the model is their active leadership in collaborative industry groups that extend impact well beyond AstraZeneca’s own supply chain. These include the Sustainable Markets Initiative where CEO, Pascal Soriot, chairs the Health Systems Taskforce, and the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative where Robert Williams, Senior Director Sustainable Procurement, serves on the Board. AstraZeneca were founders of the Energize, Activate and Converge initiatives for Pharma supply chains and have initiated Clean Heat collaboration.
5. True partnership excellence
Zoliflodacin End-to-End Multiparty Partnership – Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services
Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services collaborated with DRL, IST, and GARDP to develop and scale a first-in-class therapy for Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The partnership addressed a complex 12-step synthesis, controlled multiple isomers, and developed a non-commercial chiral side chain while achieving impurity limits below 0.05%. Through QbD-based development, scale-up, and validation, Aurigene supported Phase 2 clinical supply through commercialisation, ensuring robust manufacturing and partnership continuity.
6. Woman of the year
Emma Charles – Bristol Myers Squibb
Emma Charles is Senior Vice President for Europe Region at Bristol Myers Squibb, leading operations across 19 countries and shaping access to innovation for millions of patients. With over 25 years of experience across global markets, she brings a rare combination of strategic expertise, international perspective, and people-centred leadership. She is widely recognised for building inclusive, high-performing organisations, with a strong focus on diversity, engagement, and open dialogue. Her leadership is grounded in the belief that empowering people is essential to delivering sustainable performance and meaningful impact. Emma is also a powerful advocate for equitable access to medicines, consistently using her platform to address disparities and drive systemic change across healthcare systems. Her commitment to innovation, including digital transformation and clinical research, further strengthens her contribution to advancing patient outcomes and shaping the future of healthcare. Charles represents a new generation of pharmaceutical leaders, combining ambition with humility, impact with purpose and leadership with authenticity.
7. Sustainable pharma excellence
Leading the green chemical revolution – Celtic Renewables
Celtic Renewables is a leading biotechnology company that has developed a patented and scaled biorefining process that converts low-value waste and residue materials into high-value bio-based chemicals used throughout the pharmaceutical industry. Conventional chemical production relies on fossil-derived raw materials, Celtic Renewables converts waste like whisky residues and reject potatoes into bio-acetone, bio-butanol, and bio-ethanol. These chemicals are chemically equivalent to their fossil-based counterparts and can be integrated into existing pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. By converting waste into essential chemicals, Celtic Renewables is pioneering circular, low-carbon solutions for the future of the pharmaceutical industry.
8. Future leader
Dr Pauline van der Wijst–Janssen, DFE pharma
Dr Pauline van der Wijst-Janssen is an accomplished pharmaceutical scientist and emerging leader who has made notable contributions in a short span of time. Pauline joined DFE Pharma in 2017 and progressed swiftly culminating in her current position as Product Development Manager and Global Technical Lead. Pauline’s blend of deep technical expertise, leadership ability, and passion for collaboration uniquely position her as a rising star. She is widely respected both within her organisation and by external peers, embodying the qualities of a true “future leader” in the pharma industry.
9. Digital transformation
Evonik Self Driving Labs – Evonik
Evonik’s Self Driving Labs is redefining pharmaceutical process development. As a globally available service within Evonik’s CDMO business, it is the first and only offering of its kind to combine advanced automation, data science, and chemical engineering into a fully autonomous development platform. Self Driving Labs enables pharmaceutical companies to reach robust, scalable processes faster – reducing development timelines, resource consumption and risk. It is setting a new benchmark for efficient, data-driven and sustainable API development from the very first generation.
10. Drug delivery, devices, and packaging innovation
ForgeStop × EM Microelectronic — Secure Connected Packaging for Pharmaceutical Track-and-Trace and Authentication – ForgeStop
ForgeStop and EM Microelectronic have created secure, connected intelligent packaging for pharmaceuticals. EM’s em|echo is a single dual-frequency chip readable by both UHF RAIN RFID readers (warehouse, case, pallet) and standard NFC smartphones (pharmacist and patient), with configurable on-chip cryptographic authentication. ForgeStop’s platform activates each chip on the production line as a tamper-evident smart label, binds it to a serialised digital identity, and verifies it securely in real time, so a single tap confirms a pack is genuine and opens trusted, regulated product information (ePI), while the same tag supports item-level track-and-trace from packaging through distribution to dispensing.
11. Excellence with purpose
Making Medicines Affordable in Uzbekistan: Reference Pricing, Digital Monitoring and Public Access – Medical and Pharmaceutical Industry Development Agency, Ministry of Health of Uzbekistan
The Medical and Pharmaceutical Industry Development Agency of Uzbekistan has implemented a national medicine affordability and access initiative focused on reference pricing, digital monitoring and public communication. The initiative addresses one of the most important barriers to healthcare; the cost of medicines. Through the revision of reference prices, wholesale prices for around 2,000 imported medicines were reduced by 40–60%, with nearly 6,000 medicines expected to be covered during 2026. The initiative has already generated measurable impact, including an estimated US$70 million economic effect, identification of 686,000 pricing violations, and prevention of inflated prices in more than 12,500 pharmacies. By combining affordability, transparency, public feedback and industrial development, the Agency is building a more patient-centred pharmaceutical system for Uzbekistan.
12. API development: Combined platform for neurodegeneration
PD DETECT (SAA early diagnostics) and Emrusolmin (disease-modifying therapy) – MODAG
MODAG presents a historic paradigm shift in neurology: combining early diagnostics and disease-modifying therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases under one roof. To close the diagnostic gap, PD DETECT – the world’s first CE-certified test kit for early biochemical Parkinson’s diagnosis – transforms the complex Seed Amplification Assay into a standardised routine laboratory procedure. On the therapeutic side, Emrusolmin (TEV-56286), developed in partnership with Teva Pharmaceuticals, targets the root cause of neurodegeneration. Given its potential in treating the fatal disease MSA, the US FDA recently granted Emrusolmin both Fast Track status and Orphan Drug Designation. Together, and supported by global partners including Teva and the Michael J Fox Foundation, these innovations set a new standard: making the invisible visible and the untreatable treatable.
13. Start-up initiative
Cell-Free Enzymatic Biomanufacturing Platform – Primogene
The Cell-Free Enzymatic Biomanufacturing platform enables the synthesis of complex molecules with a level of molecular precision that conventional fermentation and chemical synthesis cannot achieve – at scale. Unlike fermentation, the cell-free approach operates without living organisms, using enzyme cascades under mild conditions; cheaper to operate and consuming less energy. Primogene’s specialty is low molecular weight dextran with a narrow molecular weight distribution. Primogene’s technology achieves precise control over chain length and linearity, delivering high-quality dextran.
14. Finished formulation
NanoGlass, a formulation platform for oral BCS IV and bRo5 drugs – SeraNovo
NanoGlass is a platform family designed to improve oral bioavailability in difficult BCS IV and beyond Rule of five molecules where conventional formulation technologies remain insufficient. The GlassA and GlassE platforms generate amorphous nanoparticles during dissolution, simultaneously improving solubility, dissolution rate, and apparent permeability to achieve higher oral exposure.
15. Innovation catalyst
Touchlight’s cell-free Doggybone DNA (dbDNA) platform – Touchlight
Touchlight was founded in 2007 to solve a fundamental bottleneck in genetic medicine: DNA production. Realising that advanced genetic therapies would require a faster, cleaner, and more scalable DNA supply, the company set out to build an alternative to bacterial fermentation. Touchlight’s proprietary Doggybone DNA (dbDNA) was developed. As a cell-free, enzymatically produced DNA technology, dbDNA enables rapid, high-purity DNA manufacturing without the constraints of plasmid-based systems, supporting mRNA, viral vectors, gene editing, and DNA vaccines. With the world’s first GMP-licensed cell-free DNA manufacturing facility in London, Touchlight has established a new category of DNA production built for the next generation of genetic medicines.
