From Life Sciences Storytelling to AI for Good: My Highlights from BIO2025
“The World Can’t Wait.”
That was the theme of this year’s life sciences industry’s annual conference, BIO.
My personal theme was “The World Can’t Wait and Neither Can I.” I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the 2025 BIO International Convention (BIO2025) as a first-time full-on attendee. Usually, I’ve been on the exhibit floor. This time, I immersed myself in fascinating panels and moving keynotes.
Now, I can’t wait to share what I learned with all of you. I also can’t wait to attend another big industry conference. Most importantly, I can’t wait to continue contributing to the acceleration of cures and therapies for patients in need. Now, more than ever, with so much of our progress under threat from horrible budget cuts and horrendous decision-making.
BIO2025 tackled a myriad of topics, from AI and Digital Health, Cell and Gene Therapy to Infectious Diseases and Vaccines. With dozens of sessions each day, I had to decide what I wanted to focus on. Below, I’ve recapped my BIO experience with my top takeaways.
Life Sciences Storytelling Is Having Its Moment
This year, the BIO International Convention made a point to focus on storytelling in the life sciences. Huzzah! Naturally, I was quite thrilled to see this on the schedule. As soon as I walked into the exhibit hall, I was happy to be greeted by a large-scale storytelling stage. The exhibit featured various patient and clinician stories in the form of short clips and movies.
I attended a panel on the importance of storytelling. The panel focused on video-format storytelling, which is critical in today’s digital age. Of course, any video needs to start with text, so the takeaways from this session can also be applied to our work.
I also took a brief detour to Cambridge for an afternoon to attend Ticket To Biotech’s (T2B) Biopharma Communications Forum. T2B is a community exclusively for communications professionals in the industry, with regular value-packed sessions and networking opportunities.
Between the focus on storytelling and the communications forum, I gleaned the following takeaways:
The patient voice and lived experience play a critical role in patient and provider engagement.
In storytelling, you want to make the science as easy to understand as possible.
You also want to focus on 2-3 core messages.
Include visual storytelling like animation or infographics to complement the video or text.
Communicators are the connectors, and we help build trust.
Storytelling and communications have a business impact.
Humanizing biotech communications means putting leaders front and center on platforms like LinkedIn. (Yay!)
The good news is that many of the takeaways confirm what we’ve been talking about. Don’t you love it when that happens? It confirms the work we’ve been doing and means that the industry is on the right track.
AI Is a Change Agent, But We Should Proceed with Caution
Interestingly enough, despite the overarching theme of “The World Can’t Wait,” one subtheme I heard multiple times at the convention was that it can. Well, sort of. When it comes to AI, we should actually wait. Or at least take it slow and proceed with caution.
As we recently reported, AI is having a moment.
In the life sciences industry, AI will accelerate getting the best care to patients at the right time. It’s being used across all business functions in the industry. For example, it’s being used to:
Reduce admin work for clinicians, which allows them to focus more on the patient.
Accelerate clinical trials by finding the right patients.
Eliminate trial-and-error in prescribing medicines.
Improve access to new medicines.
However, before we let AI run free in our labs and laptops, we need to be honest with ourselves. The tools can get ahead of us, so we need to bear the following in mind:
Think of AI as the third person in the relationship between healthcare providers and patients. Both need to build trust with each other and the tool.
There is value in using AI, but we need to build protocols and guardrails slowly and cautiously.
AI use needs to be methodical, safe, and secure. Before you use the tools, take time to determine the strategy and consider the stakeholders involved.
We haven’t been able to translate AI's cost savings, and we need to start doing so.
Health Equity Has a Long Way to Go
The BIO International Convention is always a time to connect with colleagues and make new connections. At BIO2025, I had the pleasure of meeting my client in person for the first time–Murray Aitken, the Executive Director of the IQVIA Institute. Murray spoke on a panel on patient diversity and access to new medicines. Panelists pondered the question: Can AI improve access in disadvantaged patient populations and optimize the economics of medical innovation?
Between this panel and others, here are my takeaways about the current state of health equity.
We need to empower all populations, and we can do that through education and information.
The industry needs to meet patients where they are and create tailored messaging.
It’s also about being creative and thinking outside the box to find patients.
Equity and economics can go hand-in-hand.
Health equity is under attack these days, so conversations like these are more important than ever.
Improving Mental Health Care
I also focused on attending sessions exploring two areas near and dear to my heart (and also under attack): Mental Health and Women.
In a session on neuropsychology, panelists discussed implementing personalized medicine in various subpopulations of psychiatric illnesses. To make this a reality means collecting patient data at scale, focusing on person-centered care, educating clinicians, and accelerating biomarker research.
I’ve discussed the lack of biomarkers on my Mentally Fit Founder blog. Without a way to confirm an illness that could look different in each person, patients have to deal with prolonged symptoms and trial-and-error medicine management. Panelists (and audience members🙋♀️) felt this is a real issue. However, psychiatric biomarker research is promising.
The women-centered sessions included excellent discussions on Women’s Health and women as leaders. I’ve been digging into these areas more through my work with WEST and the Chronic Boss Co, so I was happy to hear more from the experts.
Here are the snippets that caught my attention:
“An empowered woman is relentless.” - Juan Camilo Arjona Ferreira, MD
Make your voice heard by growing a community with a variety of stakeholders. - Kathryn Schubert, MPP
[Women’s Health] can’t be treated as just another number [on a chart]–it’s a big part of our lives. - Carolee Lee
Women’s Health is gaining momentum, and we can’t lose that.
Women should not be treated as small men.
Women leaders who persevered did so because they believed in themselves, drowned out the noise, and kept the patient at the forefront of their journey.
The World Can’t Wait and Neither Can I
Attending BIO2025 as a full-on participant, not just an exhibitor, was such an enlightening and informative experience. I felt much more connected to the event and the industry in general.
However, it only worked because I was super prepared (in a surprise to no one). I mapped my week out and made a point of taking notes, asking questions, and introducing myself to the speakers.
I felt empowered and energized by the importance of the work we’re doing here at LPC. I dove deeper into the topics that matter to me while growing my network and bringing my takeaways to my audience.
The world can’t wait for cures and therapies, and neither can I. I also can’t wait to keep telling stories to connect with patients and clinicians, learning how to use AI for good, and accelerating mental health and Women’s Health care.
If this recap was helpful, be sure to sign up for my newsletter as I continue to report on the topics that matter most to me as a life sciences communicator and marketer.
