3 x Norway at BIO-Europe 2024
BIO-Europe 2024 was held at Stockholmsmässan in Älvsjö on November 4-6, and Nordic Life Science asked three Norwegian life science profiles about their impressions and reasons for attending.
November 13, 2024
Nordic Life Science asked Chelsea Ranger, Chair, WiLD Norway, Jutta Heix,
Head of International Affairs, Oslo Cancer Cluster, and Anette Weyergang, CEO, RAB Diagnostics, about their impressions from BIO-Europe 2024.
1. Empowering women
Women in Life Science Norway (WiLD Norway) is a professional network focused on empowering women in the health and life science sector, with a mission to support more women in stepping into leadership roles, board positions, entrepreneurship, and investments. At BIO-Europe, Chelsea Ranger, founder and chair of WiLD Norway, participated in the panel “Listen to Your Heart: Navigating the wild path – Nordic leaders raising the ceiling for women”, together with Lene Gerlach, Founder & Chair of Women in Life Science Denmark (WiLD), Christina LLoyd, Chairwoman of VILDA Sverige, and Markus Dietrich who is Senior Investment Associate at Hadean Ventures and Ambassador at WiLD Norway. Hans Schambye, Chair of Dansk Biotek and CEO & President of Galecto, was the moderator. NLS asked Chelsea about the panel and her impressions from BIO-Europe.
What’s the purpose of WiLD Norway and the WiLD initiatives in the other Nordic countries?
“Wild Norway is a recently founded professional network organization, following in the footsteps of Women in Life Science Denmark (WiLD) and VILDA in Sweden. Our aim is to inspire and empower more women to enter leadership positions, board positions, investments, and entrepreneurship in the health and life science space. We believe that creating a gender balanced ecosystem has a direct link to improving our sector, as well as has direct implications on women’s health and public health. Wild Norway has taken an added step of adding men into the board and member base to also direct concrete initiatives towards collaborating on how we can all uncover and address unconscious bias in corporate/leadership culture.”
We still need a concrete focus and actions towards ensuring that gender and diversity are represented in equal and proportionate measure, in our business, in our clinical science, and our society.
What’s the value for your organisation to attend BIO-Europe and participate in a panel?
“BIO-Europe plays a valuable role in our ecosystem by bringing together so many great minds from all aspects of our sector. And just like it takes a village to build a competent, successful industry, it takes a village to realize that women are still not balanced at the top, even in societies and industries that pride themselves on progress. We still need a concrete focus and actions towards ensuring that gender and diversity are represented in equal and proportionate measure, in our business, in our clinical science, and our society. So being able to address this in front of our industry peers, those who can directly help improve this very issue, is really valuable to our organizations.”
What general trends have you observed in the Nordic life science ecosystem?
“The Nordics are a strong ecosystem and we have numerous examples of how we are thriving, even in the face of global and regional economic challenges. The capital sector is a challenge for us and I think it remains to be seen, particularly after the US election results, how our ecosystem might be impacted. I do see a lot more dialogue around the need for Nordic and European-focused funding and innovation as a protective measure moving forward – and it will be interesting to see whether that translates in the capital available and raised here.”
One big challenge moving forward will be access to talent – and this is where our organization can play a direct role.
“More locally, in Norway, there is a large movement towards the creation of new infrastructure that will help to expand our capabilities in R&D, manufacturing, and production. The government is also handing down some measures that are positive towards the health and life science industry, including in women’s health. One big challenge moving forward will be access to talent – and this is where our organization can play a direct role. Because we believe that rather than only looking externally for competence to help our industry succeed, we should be focusing on exploiting the untapped talent we have already – which is namely women and minorities who are highly educated, skilled, and experienced, yet have not yet risen into leadership roles.”
Empowering Women’s Leadership in Health and Life Sciences
It’s an exciting time to be a part of Norway’s health and life science environment, with a marked uptick in activity and a distinct sense of progress brewing.
2. Partnering and networking
Oslo Cancer Cluster (OCC) is an oncology cluster dedicated to improving the lives of cancer patients by accelerating the development of new cancer diagnostics and treatments. OCC was a part of the Norwegian pavilion at BIO-Europe 2024 and we asked their Head of International Affairs, Jutta Heix, about her impressions.
Why are you attending BIO-Europe?
“I’m a long-term attendee at BIO-Europe. My first BIO-Europe was in fact in the year 2000 when I was working for a German biotech company. And ever since then, I’ve seen BIO-Europe as a very good platform for partnering with pharma companies and talking to investors, but also for building a larger network. Additionally I’m here to talk to other clusters, because we also want to have a larger EU consortia and the other clusters are very good partners in that respect.”
I’ve seen BIO-Europe as a very good platform for partnering with pharma companies and talking to investors, but also for building a larger network.
“I’m really proud of this year’s Norwegian presence at BIO-Europe because it’s the first time that Norway has its own booth. This is a result of Norway’s export focus on health, and because of that focus, Innovation Norway got involved. We really wanted to have a visible footprint in the exhibition hall, we wanted to have a meeting place for our participating companies, and we wanted to attract people who wanted to learn more about the Norwegian ecosystem.”
“I’ve had close to 30 partnering meetings during the conference. I’ve spoken with investors, pharma companies, other clusters, and also with some really innovative European and US companies that can be very complementary to some of our smaller companies. This is an opportunity to support small companies and making introductions to my network, also during networking receptions, this is also a valuable part. Since I’ve been in the industry for so long I have a broad network and I always try to leverage that to support our member companies in different ways.”
What are your impressions from this year’s BIO-Europe?
“Overall it was a very nice because we had a booth, we had a reception, we had the Norwegian ambassador to Sweden visiting, plus we all had lots of partnering meetings and lots of interactions in between. We’ve really been making the most out of the days here, and Stockholm is such a beautiful city to host this conference.”
Jutta Heix: Advancing the oncology innovation ecosystem
For the past 14 years Jutta Heix has been an important cog in the wheel in accelerating the development of new cancer treatments and diagnostics – connecting and helping innovators and putting Norwegian oncology on the global map.
3. Seeking financing
RAB Diagnostics is a start-up spun off from Oslo University Hospital. The company is developing a predictive tool for antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), i.e. targeted chemotherapy designed to bring the chemotherapeutic drug to the cancer cells while sparing normal tissue. RAB Diagnostic’s diagnostics kit aims to foresee whether or not a patient will respond to an ADC. We asked Anette Weyergang, CEO, RAB Diagnostics, about her impressions.
Why are you attending BIO-Europe?
“We’re seeking financing in order to develop our first product, both public funding and private money. Our mission here at BIO-Europe is to get in contact with pharma companies within the ADC space, and there are quite a lot of them attending this conference. I’ve had a lot of opportunities, both through the partnering system as well as through the programme. Really, being here has been of high value for making new connections and also to learn more about the general news in this field.”
I’m absolutely sure that I’ve established connections here that I will use in the future.
What are your impressions from the conference?
“I’m having a very good conference, and it’s very big! This is my first BIO-Europe and I wasn’t really prepared for how big it is to be honest. Also, in addition to the pharma companies I’ve also interacted with a lot with CDMOs and CROs, which has also been very interesting and encouraging. I’m absolutely sure that I’ve established connections here that I will use in the future.”
BIO-Europe 2024: Highlights & Interviews
The 30th edition of BIO-Europe was held at Stockholmsmässan in Älvsjö on November 4-6, and Nordic Life Science was there to cover, report and bring you some of the highlights.
Published: November 13, 2024
