Nordic Life Science 1
Lao Saal, founder and COO, SAGA Diagnostics Eveli
na Vågesjö, CEO, Ilya Pharma, Jenni Nordborg, Life Science Coordinator, Government offices of Sweden, Sana Alajmovic, CEO, Sigrid Therapeutics, and Sara Mangsbo, co-founder, Immuneed and Strike Pharma. Sofinnova Investments, Mark Goldstone, Partner, Eckuity Fund and Roger Gunnarsson, Managing Partner, Segulah Medical Acceleration (SMA) provided the investor perspective. Another theme of the event was cell and gene therapy and Lars Ekman spoke about “Gene therapy – what does it take?” Anna Sandström, Science Policy & Relations Director, AstraZeneca, spoke about “Cell, Gene & Oligonucleotide Therapies – the next steps”. “A lot of money and a lot of patience! About the way forward for the industry: Collaboration Collaboration!” summarized the SALSS team. The panel discussing what has been learned about COVID-19 to date included Florence Haseltine, professor, University of Texas, and Anders Tegnell, State Epidemiologist of Sweden. The conference also included sessions on Patient Entrepreneurship, Nasdaq Stockholm: The leading growth market in Europe, company presentations, a rising star exhibit and the announcement of the SALSS Rising Star Award. Robert Langer, one of the jury members for the award, mentioned the following desirable characteristics of special interests in new companies, “Platform 90 NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG technologies, good patents, good in vivo data and a great managing team.” This year’s Rising Star winner was Icelandic EpiEndo Pharmaceutical. “The winner of SALSS 2021 Rising Stars is EpiEndo for its level of innovation and potential impact in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), one of the leading causes of debilitating disease and death globally. EpiEndo is developing a candidate drug with a novel mode of action that, if successfully brought to the patients, could change the treatment paradigm for COPD,” said Eugen Steiner, member of the award jury after the announcement. “I thoroughly enjoyed coming to Stockholm to participate in SALSS. The panel discussions with the young companies were really interesting. One company going for products that were not highly regulated and another creating products in a highly regulated space. The discussion could not have been more enlightening. The ability to interact with colleagues of many years duration was an added bonus,” said Florence Haseltine, Professor, University of Texas at Arlington, after the event. NLS