Nordic Life Science 1
30 “Good ideas often need support from an early s
tage of development to become mature and prepared for commercialization,” says Birgitte Nauntofte, CEO, NNF. Danish life science is best known for its large pharmaceutical companies, but also has an increasing number of strong SMEs with a focus on medical applications, for example in the fields of metabolism, endocrinology, cancer research, inflammatory and infectious diseases, CNS and industrial biotech. Many of these companies originate from life science research at the Danish Universities with world-class research facilities and highly skilled scientists, in combination with one of the best data collection systems in the world, notes Lüders. “The collaborative efforts between Danish universities and life science companies clearly strengthens the joint research projects and improves their competitiveness. This cross fertilization between Danish academia and industry is one of Denmark’s key strengths and one of the main opportunities to develop an even stronger life science ecosystem.” “An area in need of improvement is ensuring the establishment of new platforms that can facilitate an increased collaboration between industry and academia to reduce the “Not invented here-culture”.” 30 NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG “Also, we need to further strengthen the Danish life science brand internationally to attract foreign researchers, business experts and investments to Denmark. We need to ensure that life science companies have favorable conditions to grow in Denmark, to reduce the risk that they would establish in or relocate themselves to other countries,” he adds. Lüders concludes that both Denmark and the Nordics need to continue building a strong innovation ecosystem, and create an essential flow in the system that will help the researchers to accelerate the process from scientific discovery to final product. “We need to support academic researchers at the universities and clinics with research funding and mentoring from business and industry experts, as well as access to infrastructure and networks. We also need to continue the development of the support system at the later innovation stages in order to fully develop the commercial potential of Danish research projects. This should be ensured by giving the researchers and entrepreneurs increased access to international experts and increased funding from venture capital investments.” NLS DENMARK