diff --git a/modules/nextflow/src/main/groovy/nextflow/cli/CmdRun.groovy b/modules/nextflow/src/main/groovy/nextflow/cli/CmdRun.groovy
index d096e678e6..0b9db73145 100644
--- a/modules/nextflow/src/main/groovy/nextflow/cli/CmdRun.groovy
+++ b/modules/nextflow/src/main/groovy/nextflow/cli/CmdRun.groovy
@@ -322,6 +322,8 @@ class CmdRun extends CmdBase implements HubOptions {
         printBanner()
         Plugins.init()
 
+        this.preloadLifebitPlugins()
+
         // -- specify the arguments
         final scriptFile = getScriptFile(pipeline)
 
@@ -779,4 +781,15 @@ class CmdRun extends CmdBase implements HubOptions {
         }
     }
 
+    private void preloadLifebitPlugins() {
+        def envPlugins = sysEnv.get('NXF_LIFEBIT_PRELOAD_PLUGINS')
+        if( envPlugins && envPlugins.trim().length() > 0 ) {
+            log.debug("Pre-loading Lifebit's plugins '${envPlugins}'...")
+            Plugins.load([plugins: envPlugins.tokenize(',').collect { it.trim() }.findAll { it }.unique()])
+            log.debug("Preloaded Lifebit's plugins '${envPlugins}'.")
+        } else {
+            log.debug("No Lifebit's plugins to pre-load")
+        }
+    }
+
 }