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To celebrate the 10th anniversary of LEAP HR: Life Sciences and ensure that this meeting fully serves the needs of the life sciences HR and talent community, this year's edition has evolved to incorporate LEAP TA and LEAP TD: Life Sciences.
By breaking down silos between talent acquisition, development, and overarching HR - this year's meeting better serves the full remit of the people function in life sciences. This new, improved, and more valuable-than-ever forum is engineered to foster real collaboration across teams, so organizations leave with a truly integrated and ready-to-implement strategy while ensuring every attendee leaves with the role-specific insights and toolkit needed to excel in the day-to-day.
All life sciences people leaders - whether you specialize in talent acquisition, L&D, total rewards, DE&I, culture, or HR.
Attending job titles include:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Chief Human Resources Officer
- Chief People Officer
- Vice President of HR
- Vice President of Talent Management
- Director of Learning & Development
- Director of Global Talent Acquisition
- Director of Organizational Development
- Global Learning & Development Manager
- Benefits and HRIS Specialist
- Attracting and sourcing technical talent
- Upskilling and retaining today's life sciences workforce
- Improving engagement, productivity, and performance
- Effectively implementing AI into day-to-day workflows and establishing essential guardrails
- Building future-ready workforce planning models
- Strengthening leadership capability
- Protecting critical talent and culture during disruption such as M&A, scale up, and geopolitical uncertainty
LEAP HR: Life Sciences East 2026 takes place across three days, starting with the pre-conference focus day before moving into the main two conference days.
Pre-Conference Day
A three tracked focus day with content streams dedicated to Strategic HR, AI-Enablement, and TA.
Strategic HR Track - Designed exclusively for CHROs, CPOs, and equivalent HR and Talent leaders ready to examine the strategic and commercial demands of leading at the very top.
Key Topics: Designing HR for people rather than functions, strengthening HR-Finance partnerships to drive impact and cut costs, and redefining the role of senior HR leadership.
AI-Enablement Track - For HR, Talent, and People leaders who want to move beyond theory and leave with practical, immediately applicable AI tools and frameworks.
Key Topics: Embedding AI-enabled growth while keeping people front and center of workforce transformation, building necessary guardrails and ethics frameworks for responsible AI use, ensuring AI adoption sticks across the people function.
Talent Acquisition Track - Built for senior TA leaders to benchmark their approaches against peers and industry trends at the highest level.
Key Topics: Building a global TA operating model, attracting and retaining tech/AI talent in the future, protecting critical roles through a 360-degree view of talent.
Main Conference Days
Two days of content spanning three dedicated tracks across Strategic HR, TA, and L&D, designed to give your people team the function specific breakdown needed to optimize each function's impact.
Track A: Human Resources
Key Topics: Scaling while building culture and sustaining identity, using data to drive change that sticks even through hypergrowth, reducing decision-making friction and role confusion that slows scientific and commercial execution, navigating generational complexity, and building organizational accountability.
Track B: Talent Acquisition
Key Topics: Protecting critical talent through M&A and organizational uncertainty, re-engineering TA for greater agility and efficiency, scaling TA to power global growth, redesigning the TA function to be a more proactive and skills-led strategic partner rather than a traditional and often reactive function.
Track C: Learning & Development
Key Topics: Transforming L&D into an enterprise-wide growth engine through centralization to unlock greater scale and consistency, balancing global consistency with local agility, building a coaching first culture to strengthen manager capability and ensure continuous development, and incorporating AI into learning.
Additional sessions outside of these tracks are crafted to ensure collaboration across functions, roles, and teams so your team leaves with an integrated and ready-to-implement strategy that covers the key pillars and purposes of your people function.
To ensure the relevance of the content, every session is delivered by HR and talent leaders in life sciences from a range of companies at different scales and stages of growth, including:
- Big Pharma & Global Organizations: Roche, Pfizer, Sanofi, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Merck & Co, Takeda, Gilead, GSK
- Mid-Sized, Established Organizations: BioMarin, Vertex Pharma, Biogen, UCB, IPSEN, Daiichi Sankyo, CSL, Charles River, Ferring Pharma
- Emerging & Scaling Biopharma: Revolution Medicines, Blueprint Medicines, Alnylam, Syndax Pharma, Intellia Therapeutics, Prime Medicine, Ultragenyx, Mirador Therapeutics, Grey Wolf Therapeutics
You can access the full 2026 agenda in the event brochure, available to download here.
Attendance
The 2026 meeting will be held from October 5-7, at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport Hotel in Boston, MA.
Yes - accommodation is available at the conference hotel.
Attendees who register with colleagues are eligible for exclusive group discounts:
- 10% for 2 Delegates
- 15% for 3 Delegates
- 20% for 4 or more Delegates
To unlock these, you must register at the same time either via the registration portal here or through the Audience Manager who you can contact by emailing leaphr@hansonwade.com.
You can still utilize these discounts even if you haven't fully confirmed who in your team is attending by purchasing blank passes and assigning them to your colleagues at a later date.
Registration is available up to and including the second full conference day, however, to secure the best rate register before the conference to maximize on your ticket with early bird savings. This also ensures your pass is confirmed ahead of the conference and guarantees optimal on-site experience.
To do this, you can secure your pass via the website here or get in touch by emailing leaphr@hansonwade.com where a member of our team can help.
We have a discounted room rate starting at $359++ at the conference hotel. Discounted rooms are not guaranteed and offered on a first-come, first-serve basis so we recommend booking as soon as possible to ensure you can secure your room at this rate. Please note that all reservations will need to be made by September 5 as this is the cut-off date.
Sponsorship
Sponsoring a LEAP HR event is the perfect way to increase brand awareness, visibility, and have meaningful conversations with decision-makers. Each sponsorship package is bespoke and tailored to the needs and commercial objectives of each individual business.
For more information on what your package could include, get your copy of the LEAP HR Partnership Prospectus here. Alternatively, email sponsor@hansonwade.com where our dedicated Partnership Director can provide a consultation to better understand your needs, goals, and build a package that truly works for your business.
Every sponsorship package is bespoke; however, standard inventory includes but is not limited to:
- Presenting slots on the agenda
- Access to the delegate list ahead of the conference to plan meetings
- Exhibition booths and slots
- Hosting opportunities to cultivate conversation and gain firsthand insight (breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and drinks receptions)
- Onsite and online branding
- Strategic seat drops
- Additional passes for clients and members of the team
- Panel hosting
For more information on what your package could include, get your copy of the LEAP HR Partnership Prospectus here. Alternatively, email sponsor@hansonwade.com where our dedicated Partnership Director can provide a consultation to better understand your needs, goals, and build a package that truly works for your business.
Contact
Visit the contact us page to learn more about the team and get in touch with the appropriate members to answer your query.
Speaking opportunities for 2026 have now been allocated, however, to get in touch about speaking in 2027 or to inquire about attending the 2026 meeting, please email leaphr@hansonwade.com.
Alternatively, if you are an HR solutions provider and would like to run a sponsored talk on the 2026 agenda, please contact sponsor@hansonwade.com.
Connect with Leading HR Innovators
Hear from senior HR leaders from across North America who are actively shaping the AI-enabled life sciences workforce and redefining what success looks like in a new era of work.
Position Your Solution at the Core of Transformation
Collaborate with forward-thinking organizations and showcase how your offering can drive meaningful change across the evolving North American life sciences landscape.
Secure Your Place & Leave with an Action Plan
Reserve your seat and walk away with practical, actionable insights you can implement immediately to accelerate your organization’s workforce transformation.