Nordic Life Science 1
The best part of his job, according to Anders, is
that he has a great opportunity to take part in many different aspects of a biotech company. “When I am doing experiments, I am working with the biology and the physiology of the animals. At the same time I am collaborating with our chemists in decision making on new compounds, so there I get to know more about the chemistry and also IP. In addition, the screening team (which I am part of) has a close collaboration with the pharmacology team that works with live animals and animal disease models, and we have productive discussions on what to do with compounds that are hits in the screening and have to move into pharmacology to be tested further. So, all in all, it is a great pleasure to follow a compound through the different steps, from when it is made by our chemists, screened, moved forward to pharmacology, modified and maybe going into the clinic in the end,” he says. Challenges include sometimes needing to operate quite fast, since he and his colleagues can receive many compounds at one time. “In addition, we are a company that is growing a lot at the moment, and it can sometimes be difficult to have an overview of what goes on in the different departments,” he says. “However, generally in our company there is not much distance between the different departments (pharmacology, development and medicinal chemistry), which makes it easier to have discussions on different tasks.” NMD Pharma offers many opportunities, continues Anders. “I can become a specialist within the field of electrophysiology. Furthermore, since we are in touch with many different areas, such as chemistry, clinic, health and patenting, I have a chance to gain a broader knowledge within biotechnology and life sciences. This knowledge can be useful in the future if I want to have another position within the company or at another biotech company.” More and more biotech startups are also locating their businesses to the Aarhus and Middle Jutland area, notes Anders. “Previously, a lot of biotech companies have been located, and felt that they had to be located, in the eastern parts (Zealand), where major companies like Lundbeck, LEO Pharma and Novo Nordisk are established. Many of the new companies originate from Aarhus University and are based on a strong research tradition, which is an important fundament of the companies,” he says. Growing up, Anders always had a great interest in biology and life science. When he was younger he wanted to become a veterinarian but his grades were not good enough so he started studying biology instead. He obtained his Masters’s degree from Aarhus University in 2011 and then earned a PhD in insect physiology in 2015. “Actually the CEO of NMD Pharma, Thomas Holm Pedersen, was my co-supervisor,” says Anders. After finishing his PhD Anders wanted to “get out of the university world” and worked for two years as a high school teacher, teaching biology and natural sciences, before he was hired by NMD Pharma. Over the years Anders says that he has gained more and more interest in physiology, and especially animal physiology. “That interest became more and more specifically muscle physiology and especially the functions of different channels in the muscle cells. Many of these channels can be affected with different drugs, and since NMD Pharma was in its startup phase during my PhD that sparked my interest about how drugs work and how to improve the function of them,” he says. Anders says that in life sciences in general there is a trend toward genome editing. “It is a very interesting area which will probably grow bigger during the next couple of years. With that said, what we do within our field is still important. We are not going to be curative with the treatments we have, but we can give the patients a better and longer life with our treatment, which is an important supplement to the genome-based treatments. Many patients are not able to get the genome-based treatments, mainly because they are of a certain age, so we still need to develop drugs to help them.” NLS NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG 87