A Lead Candidate Look Back at CPhI Worldwide, Milan 2021

Musings from Milan…

Earlier this month our Talent Champions Andrew Mears and Tom Kirkpatrick were lucky enough to travel to Milan, Italy for CPhI Worldwide 2021. 

Our dynamic duo were accompanied by the team from ramarketing to travel for business for the very first time since the company launched in late summer! Having never visited CPhI before Andrew and Tom could only learn about the conference from their counterparts at ramarketing and via conversations with clients inside the outsourcing space. 

With pretty high expectations the guys donned their face masks and grabbed their passports before heading to the heart of Milan with a couple of days set aside to explore the conference and see for themselves what CPhI had to offer.

So what did we make of CPhI Milan?

CPhI promotes itself as an event that brings together thousands of pharma suppliers and buyers from across the full supply chain. Offering end-to-end pharmaceutical industry coverage, the event boasts that it unites the organisations and people in locations around the world on-line and in-person. And to be fair, they’re not wrong.

The scale of the venue and each exhibition hall gave an indication of the event's draw, with our team reporting that visitor numbers previously tipped 35,000 plus delegates. Sadly Milan was not able to muster visitors in such huge numbers - largely due to continuing Covid-19 restrictions and a resistance to travel, particularly from organisations based outside Europe, with notable absences from those based in the US, India and Asia.

On the plus side the people that had made the trip to Italy were very keen to be there. Actually they were happy to be there and delighted to be networking with people face-to-face. What the venue lacked in footfall was made up for by the buzz of delegates and it was refreshing to hear real life, unmuted conversations and small talk taking place throughout the event.

What CPhI failed to deliver in quantity, it more than made up for in quality.

Every exhibitor, every appointment and every networking opportunity delivered the same evaluation with our team reporting that the common summary could be put like this: ‘we’re having fewer conversations, but the duration and the quality have both increased’. 

Feeling the surge in quality, connections felt more genuine and provided far more value. People had more time for each other and outside of the ‘business talk’ genuine, caring conversations were taking place and it felt like these conversations added more value to the event and will provide better foundations for converting business in the future (fingers crossed).

Keen to hear from fellow delegates, we asked Andrew Henderson, Chief Commercial Officer at Sterling Pharma Solutions and Dan Stanton, Editor at Bioprocess International and Managing Editor at Xconomy their thoughts on the event, encouraging them to share any observations that they and fellow connections made regarding the future of events and the good/bad points of in-person and hybrid events. 

Andrew was only too happy to comment, revealing that:

“CPhI was quieter than previous years, but whilst delegate numbers were not huge, the quality of every conversation was exceptional.” 

Andrew went on to add, “With less conversations and appointments booked I was initially worried, but I had nothing to be concerned about! The conversations were a huge improvement on previous events and the enhanced quality delivered real value and made attending the event feel worthwhile.”

Dan added:

“Pre-pandemic, conversations often centered on the value of attending trade shows especially with such full calendars. But in the words of Joni Mitchell “you don't know what you got 'til it's gone,” and two years of trying to conduct business online with all the pitfalls of Zoom conversations and engaging with virtual platforms left the industry hungry to connect face-to-face. For those who managed to travel to Milan, the hunger was fed!” 

Dan goes on to say, “While clearly the event wasn’t quite back to ‘business as usual,’ the ability to meet up with both colleagues and business partners – present and prospective – brought a sense of celebration to the event. Conversations felt refreshed, deeper, and more valued than in previous years, and the absence of much of the drudgery that often accompanies such global events was very much appreciated.” 

Reflecting on his own experience of CPhI Andrew Mears, Chief Executive Officer at Lead Candidate said: 

“Tom and I were delighted to have the opportunity to attend CPhI. Having never previously attended we had nothing to benchmark the event against, but even so our expectations were high and we had heard incredible things... Whilst the reality of a post-pandemic event didn’t quite live up to our expectations, we were pleasantly surprised. People were genuinely pleased to be travelling for business and networking face-to-face and the quality of the connections we made, and the conversations we had were fantastic. Delegates seemed very positive and were keen to get back out into the world and to do business away from a screen. Whilst things continue to change and evolve, there is clearly a space for events, and I am certain CPhI and others will learn and adapt, and the sector will witness some exciting innovations, which I am only too happy to participate in!”

Dan surmised CPhI perfectly by saying:

“We’re still feeling the tremors of COVID-19 but CPhI laid dead in the water those early-stage discussions surrounding the end of tradeshows as we know them and a permanent move to virtual events.”

It seems that with quality outweighing quantity events are here to stay and the sector certainly has the appetite to sign-up for in-person events providing there are opportunities to connect, converse and dare we say socialise…?

Until next time >>>