Nordic Life Science 1
54 path has taken him from Sweden to Germany and
across the Atlantic to the USA, where he has been living for the past 20 years. After decades abroad, he was invited to speak at the Swedish-American Life Science Summit (SALSS), October 20–22, on the topic Gene therapy – What does it take? Before going to Stockholm, he said he was looking forward to interacting with peers in his native country. “Coming back to the medical and scientific community in Sweden after 36 years is exciting,” he said. The biggest difference Lars has found between the life science sectors in Europe and the U.S. is funding. “The two sectors are similar and intimately interconnected, but the capital markets in the U.S. are much more efficient,” he says. “This creates a higher abundance of companies willing to take higher risks. The accessibility of capital, seed and venture money, and the operations of NASDAQ makes the U.S. biotech sector much better capitalized than the European one.” Over time, this does create a technology disadvantage for Europe as many scientific entrepreneurs are drawn to the U.S. opportunities. “The efficacy of capital markets in the U.S. makes a difference,” says Lars. Lars Ekman, a board-certified surgeon with a PhD in experimental biology and an MD from the University of Gothenburg, began his global career path early. After graduating, he held clinical and academic positions in both Europe and the U.S. Between 1984 and 1997, he worked within the life science industry in a variety of senior scientific and clinical functions at Pharmacia (acquired by Pfizer in 1998), in Sweden and in Germany. In Germany, Lars also worked for four years for Schwarz Pharma as Executive Vice President R&D, where he was responsible for developing a pipeline delivering three NDAs. n 2001 Lars was appointed Executive Vice President and President R&D at Elan Pharmaceuticals. “As I moved to to Elan I was primarily located to the site in San Francisco and relocated to San Diego after a year. Once I got to San Diego I realized that I was done moving around the world and this was the place I wanted to call home,” he says. At Elan, he advanced the company’s immunotherapeutic programs into several Phase III clinical trials and brought three innovative neuroscience-based products to market, including Tysabri for multiple sclerosis. After seven successful years at Elan, Lars became Executive Partner at the San Francisco and San Diegobased venture capital firm Sofinnova Investments. Lars’ career, from R&D executive roles to investor and advisor, has included both achievements and challenges. “I would say that the approval of eight drugs were my greatest achievements,” he says. “These resulted in therapeutics for thousands of patients, and that’s what matters the most.” Securing funding for several companies that grew to be publicly listed is also among his proudest achievements, he adds. “A great satisfaction in my Director role was to see the Philadelphia-based gene therapy company Spark Therapeutics being acquired by Roche for 4.3 billion USD in late 2019.” Lars Ekman Lars says that he has faced two major challenges, one involving the drug Tysabri, the first-in-class drug for multiple sclerosis. “It was withdrawn by the FDA three months after approval, because two patients