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LSC adds Precision Medicine World Conference to its network after buying CDMO Live and PharmaSource in June

Life Science Connect acquires PharmaSource, CDMO Live. PENNSYLVANIA, UNITED STATES - Life Science Connect has acquired PharmaSource and CDMO Live from Life Science Networks, creating what the PE-backed buyer calls the world's leading biopharma outsourcing platform - a deal that brings together four media and events brands and installs Life Science Connect's AI-enabled technology and institutional capital behind the combined portfolio, according to a press release. PE backing signals biopharma outsourcing market maturity. The combined portfolio serves approximately 50,000 biopharma outsourcing professionals through events across Europe and the Americas and PharmaSource's online buyer community. Co-founders Luke Bilton and Chris Kilbee join Life Science Connect as Senior Vice Presidents, preserving founding team continuity through CDMO Live Americas in Boston in October 2026 and CDMO Live Europe in Rotterdam in May 2027. Life Science Connect will supply AI-enabled technology and institutional capital, backing from Latticework Capital Management and Edgehill Management, to accelerate the combined portfolio's commercial development. "To build and grow our events division, our approach is to start with great people, entrepreneurs with a vision of how to provide specific audiences with actionable content and connections," said Jon Howland, CEO of Life Science Connect. Bootstrapped startup joins institutional platform for scale. Life Science Networks bootstrapped from launch to profitability - earning the AEO Excellence Award for Best Event Launch in June 2026 - without a single round of external financing. The acquisition provides the founders' brands with the technology investment and distribution reach that independent bootstrapping cannot deliver at pace. The transaction follows a recurring pattern: PE-backed platforms consolidating the events and media infrastructure of an outsourcing sub-sector once it reaches sufficient commercial scale. "Winning the AEO Excellence Award for Best Event Launch feels like a meaningful validation of that bet. The timing now feels right to accelerate - the market is moving fast, and joining forces with Life Science Connect means we can scale at the pace the opportunity demands," said Luke Bilton, Co-founder, Life Science Networks. The deal marks an inflection point for biopharma outsourcing: SNS Insider projects the global CDMO market will reach $281 billion by 2032, with offshore CDMO operations across India, China, and Eastern Europe already accounting for a material share of that growth. When institutional capital moves to consolidate the commercial and technology infrastructure of an outsourcing sub-sector, it signals the underlying market has reached the scale and predictability that platform investment demands. For the broader outsourcing industry, Life Science Connect's move sets a template - the information infrastructure moment that typically precedes the next wave of commercial consolidation.

M&A: Life Science Connect buys organizer of CDMO Live to build biopharma outsourcing events division. LSN co-founders Luke Bilton and Chris Kilbee remain as senior vice presidents to lead a new events division. June 23, 2026 CDMO Live wins "Best Event Launch" at the Association of Event Organisers (AEO) Excellence Awards. At a glance. * Life Science Connect acquired Life Science Networks, forming a new events division focused on biopharma outsourcing. * Portfolio includes CDMO Live Europe & Americas, External Manufacturing Leaders and PharmaSource. * LSN's model emphasizes curated 1-2-1 meetings via its PartnerMatch program, roundtables and targeted networking. Life Science Connect (LSC), a company that produces content, events, and editorial brands for the life science sector, has acquired Life Science Networks (LSN), the specialist media and events company behind CDMO Live Europe, CDMO Live Americas, External Manufacturing Leaders and PharmaSource. CDMO Live is powered by the 121 PartnerMatch meeting program, targeted connections between buyers and sellers. Photo: Life Science Connect The companies said the combination will create a biopharma outsourcing platform by pairing LSN's fast-growing events and communities with LSC's established media properties, including Outsourced Pharma and the CDMO Leadership Awards. The brands will sit within a new events division at LSC. Founded in 2023 by media and events entrepreneurs Luke Bilton and Chris Kilbee, LSN said its portfolio of partnering events, digital media and executive communities reaches about 50,000 industry professionals. CDMO Live was recognized as Best Event Launch at the Association of Event Organiser (AEO) Excellence Awards on June 12, 2026, in London, where judges praised its buyer-focused model and curated engagement approach. LSN said the acquisition will be supported by LSC investment and an AI-enabled technology platform aimed at connecting biopharma professionals with information and suppliers across development and manufacturing. Bilton and Kilbee will continue in their roles, leading the new events division as senior vice presidents alongside the existing LSC team. "To build and grow our events division, our approach is to start with great people, entrepreneurs with a vision of how to provide specific audiences with actionable content and connections," said LSC CEO Jon Howland. Doug Emslie, who serves on the LSC advisory board, said: "I've known Chris Kilbee and Luke Bilton for many years and have watched them build an exceptional business from the ground up. Just as importantly, I've had the pleasure of getting to know Jon Howland over the last year. Jon is building Life Science Connect with a clear vision, a long-term mindset and a deep appreciation that great businesses are built around great people and communities. His ambition for the platform and his commitment to backing entrepreneurs make this a natural partnership. This is an important milestone for Life Science Connect and an exciting first step as we invest behind outstanding entrepreneurs and market-leading communities." Life Science Networks team pictured with Doug Emslie (right) at the Association of Event Organisers (AEO) Excellence Awards. Photo: Life Science Connect To find out more about the deal, we asked Bilton to share the scoop with us. Here's our Q&A. Tormohlen: How did the deal come about? Bilton: Doug Emslie is an industry legend, and Chris and I are both ex-Informa, so we first met not long after we launched in 2023, before he officially joined the LSC board - he's someone we had a huge amount of respect for, and we kept in touch after that initial meeting. We've been in serious discussions with Life Science Connect since January, and once it was clear we shared the same vision for what a world-class biopharma events business should look like, things moved quickly from there. What also made this a natural fit is that LSC's portfolio of media in the biopharma outsourcing space is highly complementary to what we've built. Brands like Outsourced Pharma and the CDMO Leadership Awards are well regarded in the market, and so are the people behind them. Jon Howell's ambition for this new event division is genuinely exciting, so it quickly became clear from both sides that we wanted to launch and grow this business together rather than alone. Our curated, targeted model was clearly something that resonated with them, too. We never wanted to be another trade show - we're very focused on 1-2-1 meetings between buyers and suppliers, and connection sits at the core of everything we do, whether that's through the PartnerMatch meeting programme, roundtables or the wider networking experiences. That clarity of proposition, and the fact that it was clearly resonating with our community, was part of what made this happen so quickly. CDMO Live wins "Best Event Launch" at the Association of Event Organisers (AEO) Excellence Awards. Photo: AEO Tormohlen: Why now? Bilton: We launched Life Science Networks coming out of COVID, at a moment when the events industry had been turned upside down and the pharma contract manufacturing sector - which had quietly supported so much of the global vaccine rollout - was finally getting the recognition it deserved. We felt it deserved dedicated, focused content and events, and that still isn't something the mainstream events industry had delivered. COVID also showed us something personally: that with the right digital tools and technology, you can build a media and events business from home and from scratch faster than ever before. There's never been a better time to build, and we wanted to do it in a sector that (as the pandemic highlighted), despite underpinning so many of the therapies that patients rely on, is a real force for good that often goes unrecognised. Winning the AEO Excellence Award for Best Event Launch feels like a meaningful validation of that bet. The timing now feels right to accelerate - the market is moving fast, and joining forces with Life Science Connect means we can scale at the pace the opportunity demands. Tormohlen: How were you able to build the company with no investment? Bilton: It was a lot of work! Bootstrapping is all about focus. The barriers to entry for a podcast are minimal - you don't need much to start publishing and building an audience if you're creating content people genuinely find useful. Sponsorship of the virtual event then gave us the cash flow to take the next step, and we just kept going from there, each stage funding the next, hiring our next team member. We never spent money we didn't have, and we spent very little on marketing. Growth was word of mouth, organic momentum, showing up consistently. It takes a lot longer that way, but it was also genuinely rewarding to build it like that. Tormohlen: Tell us about your advisory board. Bilton: Happy to share some useful background on the LSC board and some recent coverage: We talk about the board in our podcast interview: "The board assembled around that thesis is notable. Doug Emslie - the exhibition veteran who executed the events industry's largest-ever transaction when he sold Tarsus to Informa - brings deep event industry expertise and, as Howland noted, is "boots on the ground" rather than a quarterly boardroom presence. Sean Griffey, who built and sold Industry Dive, advises on audience-building. Don Hawk, co-founder of TechTarget, helped pioneer the use of intent data and behavioral signals in B2B media - directly applicable to what LSC is building. George Gallate, a digital marketing pioneer who helped launch the first digital-only marketing organization." Listen to the rest of the podcast here. Danica Tormohlen, who has reported on the trade show industry since 1994, currently oversees content for TSNN as the VP of Group Content for Meetings|Travel|Sports at Informa Connect. Previously, she served as content director, publisher and editor-in-chief for the Society of Independent Show Organizers, editor at large at Trade Show Executive, and editor-In-chief and publisher of EXPO magazine. She also serves as president of the Women in Exhibitions Network North America. Connect with Danica on LinkedIn or Twitter.