Hansa Biopharma’s CEO, Renée Aguiar-Lucander, received the award in a prize ceremony during SwedenBIO Summit at Grand Hôtel in Stockholm on January 21.   

“Absolutely fantastic. What an amazing honour. It has taken some time and a lot of hard work from my colleagues, but here we are! What a lovely surprise, she said upon the announcement,” she says.

Hansa Biopharma 

Hansa Biopharma is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company developing therapies for patients with rare immunological diseases. The company has a focused research and development program based on its proprietary IgG-cleaving enzyme technology platform, with the goal of addressing unmet medical needs in autoimmune diseases, gene therapy, and transplantation. The company’s portfolio includes imlifidase, a first-in-class enzyme therapy that cleaves immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies and has been shown to enable kidney transplantation in highly sensitized patients.  

“This is a Swedish invention, Swedish life science, that has truly stood the test of time. It would be fantastic to reach the point where we have strong commercial operations not only in Europe but also in the United States”, said Aguiar-Lucander on stage. 

SwedenBIO Award

The SwedenBIO Award is given annually in collaboration with HealthCap to a life-science company that has shown outstanding achievements and contributions to society and that exemplifies the potential of a strong Swedish life-science industry.  

This year’s three award finalists were Hansa Biopharma, Gesynta Pharma and Cantargia.