Big Presence, Small Stand: Our ELRIG Drug Discovery 2026 Recap

Last week, the PartitionBio team headed to ExCeL London for ELRIG Drug Discovery 2026, and what a two days it was. This year’s event marked a special milestone: the 20th edition of ELRIG’s flagship conference, Europe’s largest drug discovery event, bringing together scientists from academia and industry under one roof, free to attend, in the spirit of collaboration and inclusion that has defined ELRIG for two decades.

For us, it was a milestone too. One year ago, at ELRIG Drug Discovery 2025 in Liverpool, BubbleFect won the Innovation Award. Twelve months on, we returned with something we didn’t have then: data generated by researchers we first met at ELRIG.

Twenty years of ELRIG

ExCeL London was a fitting home for the anniversary. The vast halls on the Royal Victoria Dock were filled with exhibitors, poster sessions and theatres, and with 18 scientific tracks spanning AI in compound discovery, multiomics, CRISPR, next-generation biophysics, imaging, cell-based models and medicinal chemistry, there was something for everyone.

The opening plenary set the tone. Dr Sam Barrell CBE, CEO of LifeArc, delivered a keynote titled “Where need meets momentum: The next 20 years”, reflecting on two decades of progress and the challenges still ahead, particularly for rare diseases and drug-resistant infections. On day two, Dr Saleha Patel chaired a panel on “20 Years of Discovery: Lessons from the Past, Blueprints for the Next 20”, with Dr Anne Phelan of GSK, Dr Jason Mellad of OtoImmune, Prof Sir Mene Pangalos, former R&D chief at AstraZeneca, and Prof Raghib Ali OBE of Our Future Health. Hearing leaders from pharma, biotech and population health discuss where drug discovery is heading was a reminder of why tools that make experiments simpler and more reliable matter so much.

One of our favourite features of ELRIG is the silent theatre format. Grab a headset, tune in, and you can follow a talk in the middle of a busy exhibition hall without missing a word. It makes the science feel woven into the event rather than tucked away from it, and it meant many visitors could catch a talk and then walk straight over to the stands to continue the conversation.

ELRIG also continued its commitment to the next generation of scientists, with early-career sessions such as “Network Like a Boss” and partnerships with organisations including SLAS, Cancer Research UK, the Microbiology Society, the British Neuroscience Association and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Zehra on stage

On day one, our Head of Business Development & Scientific Partnerships, Dr Zehra Nizami, took to the Tech Theatre as part of the CRISPR and Genome Engineering track. In five fast-paced minutes, Zehra shared how BubbleFect delivers CRISPR components into cells without viruses or lipids, including over 90% RNP editing efficiency and 79% precise HDR knock-in. Thank you to everyone who tuned in, and to those who followed Zehra back to the stand with questions.

The gumball machine’s final outing

If you visited Stand S19, you probably met our gumball machine. Each capsule held a surprise cell and/or cargo, a playful nod to the huge range of ways researchers are using BubbleFect, from plasmid DNA and mRNA to CRISPR and proteins, in everything from HEK cells to iPSCs and organoids.

It turned out to be a brilliant conversation starter. People came over for a spin, then came back with colleagues so they could learn about the technology too. This was the gumball machine’s final event, and it went out on a high.

Alongside it, our flasks of chocolates and new 3D printed cells all drew plenty of curious visitors and smiles.

Small stand, big conversations

We had a compact stand this year, but you wouldn’t have known it. We had visitors queuing, people returning throughout the day, and more than one person telling us they’d been trying to talk to us all day. We’re grateful to everyone who was patient with us.

The conversations were what made the event. A few themes came up again and again:

Difficult-to-transfect cells. This was the challenge we heard most often. Many researchers are working with cells that resist lipid reagents and suffer under electroporation, and they were keen to hear about a gentler approach.

Results from real users. It was a special moment to meet Alpha and Beta users in person who told us BubbleFect had transfected cells they simply couldn’t with other methods, and shared the great results they’ve been getting.

Primary cells. Several labs are gearing up to work with primary cells and wanted to talk through how to get started.

Scaling up. We had excellent discussions about scaling BubbleFect protocols, especially for CRISPR screening, where reliable, high-efficiency delivery across many samples is essential.

New frontiers. We were asked more than once whether BubbleFect works in fish and plant cells, a great reminder of how broad the need for better delivery is. We also had some exciting early conversations about potential collaborations involving ultrasound.

Small labs, big ambitions. Many visitors came from smaller labs working with limited budgets. Those conversations matter a lot to us. Our vision has always been to make cell delivery simpler and more accessible, with no specialist equipment and no cold chain.

Great neighbours

A conference is only as good as its community, and we were lucky with ours. A special thank you to our neighbours at MedTech for the great company, the shared laughs and the visits we passed back and forth over two busy days. It was also a pleasure to catch up with fellow exhibitors across the hall, many of whom we now see on the circuit throughout the year.

One year on

Looking back, the past twelve months show exactly what makes ELRIG special. Conversations that began at our stand in Liverpool turned into Alpha and Beta experiments, and those experiments became the results we brought to London. Our community has now grown to 200 researchers in 104 organisations across 18 countries.

Thank you to the ELRIG team and volunteers for an outstanding 20th anniversary event, and to everyone who visited Stand S19.

If we didn’t get to chat, or you’d like to continue the conversation, explore our data at partitionbio.co.uk/data, or get in touch at partitionbio.co.uk/contact-us. We’d love to hear about your delivery challenges.

See you next year!