London 2027 Speaker Spotlights: Who’s Presenting at ImmunoMark

London 2027 Speaker Spotlights: Who’s Presenting at ImmunoMark

The 2027 agenda for ImmunoMark Summit London (3–4 March 2027, 2nd annual) is now taking shape, with speakers from AstraZeneca, Roche, Novartis, Ipsen, Merck KGaA, LifeArc and two UK universities confirmed. This preview profiles eleven of them across the two parallel streams: Next-Gen Immuno-Oncology (NGIO) and Biomarkers & Companion Diagnostics (CDx).

This is a preview, not an interview series: names, job titles and session titles come from the published London agenda, and added context is linked to public sources. For conversations with last year’s speakers, see our Speaker Spotlight Series from London 2026.

Key takeaways

• Myeloid biology is a strong theme in the NGIO stream, from Faron’s anti-Clever-1 antibody to Southampton’s work on LILRB receptors as myeloid checkpoints.
• The CDx stream opens with AstraZeneca on the clinical utility of biomarkers and includes Roche on companion diagnostics.
• Cell therapy is covered from two angles: logic-gated CAR T for solid tumours (ImmunoKey) and allogeneic cellular therapies (University of Southampton).
• The agenda is not final: several sessions have no named speaker yet, and sponsor speaking slots are reserved in both streams.

Featured speakers at a glance

Stream 1: Next-Gen Immuno-Oncology

Myeloid targets: Petri Bono and Ali Roghanian

Petri Bono, Chief Medical Officer at Faron Pharmaceuticals, opens the NGIO stream with Keynote: Myeloid-Targeted Immunotherapies: Clinical Lessons from MDS and Solid Tumor Studies. Faron’s lead asset, bexmarilimab, is an antibody against Clever-1, a receptor on immunosuppressive macrophages. In the BEXMAB study it has been combined with azacitidine in higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome, and Faron presented matured BEXMAB data at EHA 2026, including translational findings on bone marrow reprogramming, ahead of a randomised Phase 2b trial.

On Day 2, Ali Roghanian, Associate Professor at the University of Southampton, presents Therapeutic Targeting of Human LILRBs: A Novel Class of Myeloid Checkpoint Inhibitors. His group, with Mark Cragg’s team, has described LILRB3 as an inhibitory myeloid checkpoint and generated LILRB3-specific monoclonal antibodies. Most approved checkpoint inhibitors act on T cells, so inhibitory receptors on myeloid cells are one of the main places to look for new IO targets.

Cell therapy: John Bridgeman and Salah Mansour

John Bridgeman, Chief Scientific Officer at ImmunoKey Ltd, presents CARKey: A multi-antigen specific logic-gated CAR T platform designed to overcome antigen heterogeneity in solid tumours. Antigen heterogeneity remains one of the main reasons single-target CAR T has struggled in solid tumours, and logic gating (requiring or combining more than one antigen) is one of the most active engineering responses to it.

Salah Mansour, Principal Fellow (Associate Professor) at the University of Southampton, presents Allogeneic Cellular Therapies. Off-the-shelf products remove the manufacturing delay of autologous therapy but raise questions on persistence and host rejection. For a related look at how manufacturing models change monitoring needs, see our article on in vivo CAR-T and biomarkers.

Pharma strategy and discovery: Novartis, Ipsen and Merck KGaA

Rafik FELLAGUE-CHEBRA, Executive Global Group medical Director, Solid tumors franchise, GI cancers at Novartis Oncology, presents How new biology is harnessing our knowledge in IO on Day 1.

Ivan Diaz-Padilla, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Oncology R&D at Ipsen, opens Day 2 of the NGIO stream with Keynote: Next-Gen Combo Immunotherapies. Combination regimens are now standard in many IO programmes, which makes biomarker selection harder because benefit is hard to attribute to each component.

Marc Siggel, Associate Director – Head of Digital @ Next-Gen Drug Discovery at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, presents AI protein design work and our various other digital initiatives. It is the agenda’s main session on computational design.

Paediatric oncology: Lone Friis

Lone Friis, C-Further Programme Lead, Scientific Director, Childhood Cancer at LifeArc, presents C-Further: Pioneering Child-First Cancer Medicines. C-Further is an international consortium launched in 2024 by LifeArc and Cancer Research Horizons to develop medicines designed for children’s and young people’s cancers rather than adapted from adult programmes.

Stream 2: Biomarkers & Companion Diagnostics

Espen Walker, AstraZeneca

Espen Walker, Head of Global Medical Diagnostics at AstraZeneca, gives the opening Stream 2 keynote, Keynote : Clinical Utility of Biomarkers. AstraZeneca has been one of the most visible companies in computational pathology: its TROP2 normalised membrane ratio biomarker, scored with Quantitative Continuous Scoring (QCS), was reported as predictive of outcomes in an exploratory analysis of TROPION-Lung01 and is being co-developed as a companion diagnostic with Roche Tissue Diagnostics. Clinical utility, rather than analytical performance alone, is the bar that payers and regulators increasingly apply.

Rafael Carrión Izquierdo, Roche

Rafael Carrión Izquierdo, Marketing Molecular & Sequencing & Pathology at Roche, presents Companion Diagnostics and the Role of Diagnostics in Precision Medicine. Roche’s tissue diagnostics business supplies several approved companion diagnostics, including the VENTANA CLDN18 (43-14A) RxDx Assay approved by FDA in October 2024 alongside zolbetuximab. For European teams, our IVDR companion diagnostics guide covers the EU regulatory side.

Marc Vendrell, The University of Edinburgh

Marc Vendrell, Chair of Translational Chemistry and Biomedical Imaging | Head of IRR Chemistry Hub at The University of Edinburgh, presents Functional T cell Biomarkers for Precision Immuno-Oncology. His group published a fluorogenic probe for granzyme B in Nature Communications that reports T cell-mediated anticancer activity in tumour tissue, including samples from lung cancer patients. Measuring what T cells are doing, not just how many are present, is a gap in many current IO biomarker panels.

Other Stream 2 sessions to watch

Stream 2 sessions still awaiting named speakers include Regulation of Companion Diagnostics from a Pharma Perspective, Digital Pathology & Spatial Transcriptomics in Oncology, Real-World Evidence Integration into Biomarker Strategy and the Day 2 panel Global CDx Approval Pathways – EMA, FDA & MHRA Perspectives. For background on the spatial session, see spatial proteomics vs spatial transcriptomics.

What sponsors can do with this agenda

The London agenda builds sponsor content into both streams. Day 1 includes a reserved Title Sponsor slot and several Platinum Sponsor slots in each stream, and Day 2 has Gold and Silver Sponsor slots. That means a diagnostics, tools or CRO company can present in the same stream as the speakers above, to the same room.

• Speaking slots: Platinum, Gold and Silver packages include presentation slots on the agenda.
• Pre-arranged 1:1 meetings: London 2026 saw 200+ meetings in total, with 15–25 meetings per sponsor.
• Stream alignment: spatial or multiplex platforms fit Stream 2; cell therapy analytics fit Stream 1.

See the London 2027 sponsorship opportunities, or our guide on how to choose biotech conferences to sponsor.

More speaker spotlights

Read the London 2026 speaker interviews and our preview of San Diego 2027 speakers (10–11 February 2027).

FAQs

When and where is ImmunoMark Summit London 2027?

ImmunoMark Summit London, the 2nd annual UK edition, takes place on 3–4 March 2027 in London, with two parallel streams: Next-Gen Immuno-Oncology and Biomarkers & Companion Diagnostics.

Which companies are speaking at ImmunoMark London 2027?

Confirmed speakers include representatives of AstraZeneca, Roche, Novartis Oncology, Ipsen, Merck KGaA, Faron Pharmaceuticals, ImmunoKey, LifeArc, Sanofi, GSK, UCB and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, plus academics from the University of Southampton, The University of Edinburgh and The Francis Crick Institute.

Is the London 2027 agenda final?

No. Several sessions and panels do not yet have named speakers, and sponsor slots are still being allocated. Check the London edition page for the latest programme.

Can sponsors present at ImmunoMark London?

Yes. The agenda includes reserved slots for Title, Platinum, Gold and Silver sponsors in both streams, and sponsors also get pre-arranged 1:1 meetings. At London 2026, sponsors had 15–25 meetings each.

Join us at ImmunoMark Summit London, 3–4 March 2027

The immuno-oncology and biomarker conference in London returns for its second year, targeting 400+ attendees from pharma, biotech, diagnostics and academia. Expect keynotes, panels, case studies, 1:1 meetings and a Day 1 drinks reception. London 2026 drew 300+ attendees from 100+ companies, 70% of them senior decision-makers (see the London 2026 recap).

Register for ImmunoMark London 2027

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