SEPTEMBER 30, 2025

Ilmac Basel & Pharma Logistics in Switzerland

The 66th edition of Ilmac Basel brought together the chemistry, pharma, and life-sciences communities in a renewed, forward-looking format with a total of over 12,000 attendees. Ilmac’s format (conferences + thematic areas + exhibition) is designed to engage both technical professionals and strategic leaders.

Exhibitors span analytical instruments, process technologies, lab automation, packaging materials, digital tools, and logistics/transport services. Over 400 exhibitors from more than 20 countries gathered to showcase their latest solutions.

The event blends traditional exhibition with new formats like “Future Talks,” the “Future of Life Sciences Area,”. Beyond the physical event, Ilmac 365 ensures that the network and content persist throughout the year, enhancing connection and continuity.

Purpose & Strategic Goals

Ilmac’s purpose is clear: to bridge science, manufacturing, and logistics. Its goals include:

  • Showcasing cutting-edge technologies (AI, sustainable manufacturing, bioprocessing)
  • Driving cross-disciplinary collaboration across the pharma value chain
  • Connecting exhibitors directly with decision-makers
  • Enhancing knowledge exchange with new interactive formats like Coffee Talks

Pharma Logistics Days: A Core Pillar

Running in parallel to the broader Ilmac event, Pharma Logistics Days (PLD) enters its fourth edition in 2025. PLD is explicitly tailored for the pharmaceutical logistics ecosystem and is now a central meeting point for pharma logistics experts.

The scope of PLD spans the entire supply chain – from producers through transport, storage, last-mile delivery, and reverse logistics. The program covers pressing themes such as sustainability, innovation, regulatory compliance, packaging, cold chain integrity, and end-to-end logistics risk.

A new feature introduced in 2025 is the Coffee Talks Corner: informal 30-minute slots hosted by exhibiting companies where they present current topics, product developments, or case studies and engage directly with attendees. This relaxed format encourages candid exchange and networking at a micro level.

Topics That Matter

Logistics pros in pharma are wrestling with multiple, high-stakes challenges:

  • Ensuring temperature control and cold chain integrity, especially with more delicate biologics or complex therapeutics
  • Optimizing packaging design to balance insulation, weight, footprint, and cost
  • Meeting regulatory requirements, serialization, traceability, and compliance across multiple markets
  • Building resilient supply chains that can absorb shocks (e.g. transport disruptions, regulatory shifts, demand surges)
  • Integrating sustainability practices (lower carbon footprint, reuse/recycling of packaging) without compromising performance
  • Managing last-mile delivery, especially in regions with weaker cold-chain infrastructure

These are exactly the topics PLD aims to address.

Why Pharma Logistics Professionals Attend?

Logistics professionals attend PLD for several compelling reasons:

  • To get firsthand exposure to new packaging and cold-chain solutions – whether passive or active thermal protection
  • To learn best practices and case studies in compliance, risk mitigation, and process optimization
  • To engage with innovators and startups tackling novel logistics solutions
  • To evaluate and source new vendors (e.g. container or insulation providers, temperature monitoring systems, logistics partners)
  • To deepen relationships with packaging experts and thermal solutions firms

Because PLD is nested within Ilmac, participants get easy access to adjacent exhibitors (lab, manufacturing, process, analytics) and can cross-pollinate insights between upstream and downstream domains.

Takeaways & Outlook

Ilmac continues to refine its format to meet evolving industry demands, and by anchoring specialized tracks like Pharma Logistics Days, it strengthens its relevance for practitioners in high-stakes domains. For pharma logistics professionals, PLD offers a concentrated, high-impact window into the challenges, technologies, and connections needed to advance cold-chain and supply-chain excellence.

To learn more about Ilmac, visit https://www.ilmac.ch/en/