As the life sciences community prepares to gather in Frankfurt for CPHI 2025, from October 28 to 30, Ninestars is excited to participate in the event for the first time. We are looking forward to engage with customers, partners, peers, and innovators who are shaping the future of the industry.
This participation comes at a time when packaging is moving from being a backroom process to a strategic driver of quality, compliance, and speed. The growing role of AI and automation is redefining how pharmaceutical and medical device companies manage creative and proofing workflows, ensuring precision while reducing time to market.
At the centre of this shift is AOTM PACKX, our intelligent automation platform for packaging artwork. It brings together creative teams, regulatory reviewers, and production stakeholders in one connected ecosystem—helping companies simplify complexity and build packaging operations that are faster, more transparent, and fully compliant.
Ahead of CPHI 2025, we sat down for Five Questions with Gopal Chandra Shekar, SVP – Creative Excellence, Life Sciences, to discuss what is driving the change in life sciences packaging, how AOTM PACKX supports this transformation, and why this year’s CPHI holds special significance for Ninestars.
Q1. What’s driving the need for automation and AI in life sciences packaging today?
In life sciences, every label, leaflet, and carton carries critical information — and the cost of even a small error can be huge, both financially and reputationally.
Regulatory changes are constant, markets are global, and timelines are shrinking. Manual processes just can’t keep pace anymore. That’s where automation and AI step in — to handle the repeatable, error-prone tasks, while giving teams more visibility, control, and speed. It’s about creating packaging operations that are not only compliant but also intelligent and scalable.
Q2. How is AOTM PACKX redefining the creative and proofing workflow for pharma and medical device companies?
With AOTM PACKX, we wanted to bring true digital transformation to an area that’s often been left behind. We’ve built an intelligent platform that brings together creative teams, regulatory reviewers, and packaging engineers in one connected ecosystem.
What makes it powerful is the automation behind the scenes — AI that checks label content, verifies artwork, and ensures compliance automatically. It means less back-and-forth, fewer manual checks, and complete traceability across every version. The creative and proofing process becomes faster, smarter, and stress-free.
Q3. Can you share a specific challenge in life sciences packaging that AOTM PACKX directly solves?
One big challenge we see all the time is managing regulatory-driven label changes across SKUs. An update, say a dosage or ingredient change, can trigger a massive wave of artwork revisions across regions.
AOTM PACKX along with AOTM VAULT simplifies the chaos. It automatically identifies all impacted artworks, links them to the right master data, and pushes them through automated review and proofing workflows. What used to take weeks of manual coordination now happens in a fraction of the time, with far fewer errors.
Q4. How does automation improve both compliance and speed for pharma brands?
For a long time, people believed you had to choose between moving fast and staying compliant. But with automation, you can do both — and do them better.
In AOTM PACKX, every process is built with compliance in mind. Every step is tracked, every approval is auditable, and AI ensures the final artwork always matches the approved data. The beauty of automation is that it eliminates human bottlenecks while actually strengthening compliance. So instead of slowing things down, it builds confidence and momentum.
Q5. What excites you most about being part of CPHI this year?
CPHI is such a vibrant space — it’s where innovation really comes to life in the pharma world. For me, it’s exciting to see how packaging is finally being recognized as a critical part of the value chain, not just a downstream activity.
We are passionate about showcasing how AI and automation can unlock new possibilities — helping pharma and medical device companies launch faster, reduce risk, and create more agile operations. Being part of that global conversation, surrounded by people who are shaping the future of the industry, is something I am genuinely looking forward to.
Are you at CPHI 2025?
If you are attending CPHI 2025 in Frankfurt, we would be happy to connect in person. Visit us at Hall 4.0, Booth 4P12 to learn more about AOTM PACKX and how AI and automation are shaping the future of life sciences packaging. For additional information, you can visit https://www.ninestarsglobal.com/CPHI-2025/ or reach us at contactus@ninestars.in.
Stay tuned for more conversations from Ninestars’ leaders as part of the Debut Dialogues series.
