On 7 May 2026 the Ayesda Bio team spent a day at LabLive London — the UK's annual exhibition for laboratory technology, biotech and life-sciences innovation. The show brings together equipment manufacturers, automation specialists, software vendors, and the working scientists who buy from them, which makes it one of the better venues each year for taking the temperature of where the sector is heading.
Why we go
Our work sits close to the bench and close to the boardroom — recruiting expert respondents for life-sciences market research, and advising clients on what those experts are telling us. Events like LabLive give us a direct look at the products, platforms, and themes that our clients will be evaluating in the next 12 to 24 months, and let us put faces to the names we hear about in interviews.
What we noticed
A few threads stood out across the floor this year:
- Automation is no longer just for high-throughput labs. Several vendors were showing compact bench-top automation aimed at small and mid-sized research groups — a meaningful shift in where the productivity gains are now reaching.
- Software is moving from peripheral to central. LIMS, ELN, and AI-assisted analysis platforms occupied a larger share of the floor than in prior years, often co-located with the instruments they integrate with.
- Sustainability and reagent provenance were recurring talking points at multiple stands — reflecting both ESG pressure and the ongoing supply-chain tightness across UK life sciences.
