Nordic Life Science 1
Very few days are the same, but obviously there a
re periods and routines that repeat themselves.” He and his colleagues have just come back from the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, which takes place in January every year, and he says it is a great place to meet potential industry partners and investors. “It requires quite a bit of planning and preparation – and follow-up and catching up on the things that you did not have time to do whilst traveling. In parallel, the organization is growing, so we are moving offices. As we get closer to the end of the month it is time to do the monthly report for the Board. So, a lot of variation, change and most importantly – fun.” Working in business development in the field of life sciences, Caspar has the right kind of combination of degrees. He holds an MSc in Management from the University of Surrey and a BSc (Honours) in Chemistry with Biological Chemistry from the University of St Andrews. aspar Foghsgaard is Director of Business Development at the Norwegian vaccine platform company Vaccibody. The company mainly focuses on cancer, but the platform is broadly applicable and the vacc-ine has shown a favorable safety profile. It may be also be applied outside cancer e.g., in the infectious diseases area. Their clinical programs is a personalized neoantigen vaccine, where they are running a phase I/IIa basket trial for five indications, and a phase II study with their off-the-shelf cancer vaccine directed against HPV16-related advanced or recurrent cervical cancer. “We are a small company. My tasks span from creating opportunities for licensing and collaborations to strategy sessions and many other diverse tasks, right from arranging key opinion leader meetings to negotiating lease agreements, to writing press releases,” he says. Caspar Foghsgaard’s days at the company are very varied and they often depend on input from his colleagues. “I just try to connect the dots. It still fascinates me how specialized the industry is across the value chain. “Both science and business have always interested me, so for me it was an easy motivation to do both. When I was to apply for my first job, I believe that was also what differentiated me. Today, it appears to be more common and I think PhDs now set applicants apart,” he advises. He was attracted to the pharma industry early on. The companies impressed him, and he says he was attracted to companies such as Novo Nordisk and Lundbeck. “It is an international industry with ambitious people who want to make a difference. It is knowledge-based and therefore intellectually challenging, and obviously, potentially improving the lives of patients is a very meaningful job purpose,” he says. Business development has satisfied both his interests in science and business, but it has also fed his appetite for the new and innovative, he says. “I am a curious person, always eager to learn more.” Foghsgaard’s professional experience before going to Vaccibody in 2018 spans from business and development and strategy at Novozymes to being an independent consultant for biotech companies. His experience includes diverse transactions within business development, fundraising and mergers and acquisitions. “In Novozymes we focused a lot on open innovation and MTOR (market, technology, organization and resource) analysis, and how the organizational and resource parts are some of the most critical factors in order to succeed with a project,” he says. 60 NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG