Programme
Two days packed with opportunity
Morning plenary
Impressionniste
08:30 → 09:30
Registration & Coffee
09:30 → 09:50
Welcome by Sylvie Ponchaut & Xavier Hormaechea (BioWin)
09:50 → 10:30
Fireside chat - Belgium in action: How biopharma and health-tech Leaders accelerate R&D excellence
Join a high-level fireside chat between two of Belgium’s leading health and life sciences CEOs,one from Wallonia, the other from Flanders,as they share how their companies are staying ahead in global R&D. This engaging conversation will uncover how AI, agile ecosystems and academic-industry partnerships are reshaping innovation strategies. What does it take to maintain Belgium’s leadership in health-tech and biopharma? From building impactful collaborations to navigating funding dynamics, this session offers insights from two leaders who are shaping the future of our sector.
→ Speakers: Sam Possemiers (MRM Health), Henri de Romrée (IBA)
10:30 → 10:45
Coffee break
Partnering
Félicien
10:30 → 16:30
Organise multiple one-to-one meetings with a specialised and experienced audience across the biopharma and health-tech ecosystem.
This is your chance to network with other industry professionals and make some valuable connections.
Morning breakout sessions (parallel tracks)
Track 1 - Advanced therapies
Surréaliste
Sponsored by
10:45 → 10:55
Ecosystem snapshot - Advanced therapies in Belgium: What we’ve learned, what comes next
A sharp, data-driven analysis based on expert and BioWin member input: past wins, tough lessons, and critical gaps in Belgium’s advanced therapies ecosystem. This sets the tone for what must change, and what must scale.
→ Speaker: Kevin Missault (Deloitte)
10:55 → 11:55
Interactive Panel - A forward look at Belgium’s advanced therapies ecosystem through lessons learned
Top leaders from industry, policy and research challenge each other in this interactive conversation grounded in real-world experience. By unpacking key lessons from success stories, they’ll look forward - debating the strategic choices needed to strengthen Belgium’s position as a resilient, globally impactful hub for advanced therapies.
→ Speakers: Christian Homsy (Biotech Executive), Claire Beuneu (AFMPS – CoE ATMP), Koen Debackere (UZ Leuven), Hara Episkopou (Novadip)
11:55 → 12:15
Open Q&A - Challenge the vision
Time to ask your toughest questions, share ideas, and hold the panel accountable. Your voice helps shape the final takeaways.
Track 2: Nuclear medicine
Pop Art
Sponsored by
10:45 → 10:55
Strategic Snapshot: Wallonia’s nuclear medicine strengths in the Belgian context
This session presents a clear overview of Belgium’s nuclear medicine ecosystem, with a focus on Wallonia’s unique assets. Based on a strategic diagnostic and stakeholder inputs, it highlights the main strengths as well as gaps and challenges. The goal: share concrete recommendations to consolidate the ecosystem, scale what works and guide future action.
→ Speaker: Kim Vriens (PwC)
10:55 → 11:10
Testimonial - When patient experience meets innovation in nuclear medicine
A patient and a nuclear medicine specialist share a complementary perspective on prostate cancer - from daily life with the disease to its clinical management. Their joint testimonial underscores how lived experience and research-driven care must work hand in hand to drive meaningful progress in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
→ Speakers: Erik Briers (European Cancer Patient Coalition), Nadia Withofs (CHU of Liege)
11:10 → 11:55
Interactive panel – Nuclear medicine in action: Innovation through collaboration
Belgium’s nuclear medicine value chain is a global standout from isotope production to clinical application. In this interactive panel, leaders from industry, clinics, and research institutions unpack how integrated R&D partnerships fuel innovation, accelerate patient access, and build ecosystem resilience.
Grounded in real-world success stories the discussion will explore how to consolidate the full value chain, stay globally competitive, and identify the strategic levers to activate: from scale-up infrastructure and targeted investment to talent development, regulation, and smarter coordination across actors.
→ Speakers: Caroline Defraiteur (Telix), Jean-Luc Morelle (Trasis), Jean Bonnet (IRE), François Moonen (Elysia), Nadia Withofs (CHU Liège)
11:55 → 12:15
Open Q&A – Beyond the talk
React. Question. Challenge. What still needs to happen for Belgium to stay ahead?
Baroque
12:15 → 13:15
Networking lunch
Afternoon breakout sessions (parallel tracks)
Surréaliste
Track 3: Health-tech
13:30 → 13:45
Setting the scene - Technology as enabler for rapidly evolving health care models
The changing health care landscape and evolution of care models (health care budget constraints, lack of care personnel, increase of end-to-end care, personalised treatments, combination therapies, diagnostics and prognostics) necessitate usable and actionable data and automation to allow for cost reduction through value-based healthcare and clinical decision support systems. New digital health and diagnostics technologies and applications (medical devices, e-health, AI, digital biomarkers, IVD, digital pathology) are key in enabling this, but will only be successful when considering both payer and user perspective.
→ Speaker: Jean Van Nuwenbord (Inovigate)
13:45 → 14:10
Companies panel – Leading the next wave of digital health and diagnostics together
what are the ambitions and expectations of small and big companies in the innovative digital health and diagnostic landscape, why is collaboration necessary (academia and clinic are engines for innovation and necessary for the sector) and how can they collaborate to successfully develop and introduce innovations.
→ Speakers: Julien Penders (Bloomlife), Antoine Pouppez (neuroClues), Alex Lefevre (Roche Diagnostics Belgium), Abdelaziz Laouar (GE HealthCare)
14:10 → 14:35
Investors panel – How innovation is shaping investment strategies in digital health and diagnostics
why to invest in innovative diagnostic companies and did the introduction of new technologies and applications in digital health and diagnostics have an impact on the investment criteria and/or decisions
→ Speakers: Katleen Vandersmissen (HERAN Partners), Didier Allaer (Diagenode), Pommeline Korstanje (Gilde Healthcare)
14:35 → 14:50
Open Q&A – Beyond the talk
It’s your turn. Challenge the panel, question the blockers, and share what it will really take to accelerate diagnostic innovation in Europe.
Track 4: Finance
Pop Art
Sponsored by
13:30 → 13:40
EIC Accelerator programme: framework, eligibility and opportunities
This session offers a practical introduction to the EIC Accelerator programme, covering eligibility, funding mechanisms, and how innovators in biotech and medtech can access support to scale breakthrough solutions.
→ Speaker: Vilma Radvilaite (European Innovation Council)
13:40 → 14:30
Interactive Panel - funding health innovation: Two startups journeys, two investor perspectives
Two health startups share their real-world journeys through grants, public programs, and private capital. Alongside them, two leading pan-European investors offer insights into what drives funding decisions today. This interactive panel provides a practical lens on how to finance innovation in Europe’s biotech, medtech, and digital health sectors - and what it takes for founders to stand out in a value-driven market
→ Speakers: Halina Novak (Fund+), Philippe Peltier (Kurma Partners), Kristof Vercruysse (TargED BioPharmaceuticals), Alexander Goemans (Xeltis), Henk Joos ( Silver Arrow )
14:30 → 14:50
Open Q&A - Challenge
Time to ask your toughest questions, share ideas, and hold the panel accountable. Your voice helps shape the final takeaways.
Satellite session
Vaccine Trial Network
Pop Art
Sponsored by
13:30 → 14:30
Interactive panel - Building a Belgian vaccine trial network
Belgium has a unique opportunity to strengthen its position as a leader in vaccine R&D. But to seize it, we need to act now. This interactive panel brings together stakeholders involved in deploying and consolidating a Belgian vaccine trial network. We will start with BioWin presenting the context and key findings of its recent feasibility study, which highlighted the clear need for such a network to keep Belgium competitive globally.
Deploying the network and harmonizing practices across the ecosystem will be a real challenge. Our panel will discuss these hurdles, share strategic insights, and generate ideas for collective action.
This panel has three objectives:
Inform the community about the main insights from the feasibility study.
Engage national stakeholders in constructive dialogue.
Inspire new collaborative innovation projects to support the rollout of a Belgian vaccine trial network.
This is a must-attend conversation to shape the future of vaccine trials in Belgium and ensure the country remains a leader in innovation.
→ Speakers: Cristelle Noirhomme (GSK), Laurence Vigneron (FAMHP), Thibault Helleputte (DNAlytics), Benjamin Booinem (Inokura), Representative from Plotkin Institute
14:30 → 14:50
Open Q&A – Operationalising Belgium’s vaccine trial ambitions
Time to ask your toughest questions and share ideas. Your voice helps shape the final takeaways.
Impressionniste
14:45 → 15:15
Coffee break
Afternoon plenary
Impressionniste
15:15 → 16:15
Keynote - The purpose of innovation
The session explores how innovation, when rooted in purpose, can address societal challenges and generate sustainable value.
→ Speaker: Laurent Hublet
16:15 → 16:30
Closing keynote 1 - Looking ahead, together
A forward-looking message, wrap-ups of the day.
→ Speaker: David Honba (BioWin)
16:30 → 16:45
Closing keynote 2 - Belgium’s innovation momentum: A strategic outlook for health and competitiveness
Regional authorities (M. Jeholet) will outline how policy, funding and regulatory modernisation can accelerate innovation while improving access and resilience.
→ Speaker: Pierre-Yves Jeholet (Ministre wallon de l'Économie)
Impressionniste
16:45 → 18:00