Obviously, we cannot expect a Medicon Valley-based scientist to win every year, although Danish laureate Morten Meldal, who is affiliated with the University of Copenhagen and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022, and Swedish Anne L’Huillier, affiliated with Lund University and who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023, have set the bar high.

In the Swedish-Danish life science cluster organization Medicon Valley Alliance we aspire to cultivate the life science ecosystem in the hope that we will pave the way for the Nobel Prize laureates of the future.

How then do we continue to strengthen the research and innovation environment so that it fosters more Nobel Prize rewards in Medicon Valley? In the Swedish-Danish life science cluster organization Medicon Valley Alliance (MVA) we aspire to cultivate the life science ecosystem in the hope that we will pave the way for the Nobel Prize laureates of the future.

And according to the brand-new “State of Medicon Valley” report from Citeline, presented at the MVA Annual Summit in Copenhagen in November, there is indeed fertile soil to work with.

The Medicon Valley biopharma industry is attracting substantial investment from local and international investors. From July 2023 to June 2024 companies in Medicon Valley secured considerably more financing than any other life science cluster in Europe, a total of USD 3 billion. Clearly, Medicon Valley has the most active fundraisers in Europe, surpassing both London and Paris.

Furthermore, Medicon Valley has the second-highest number of manufacturing facilities in Europe. FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnologies’ facility is undergoing a multibillion-dollar expansion and AGC Biologics’ Copenhagen site has doubled the size of its single-use bioreactor capacity for mammalian services with a USD 239 million investment.

Partnerships have been established with big pharma to provide coaching, workspace, and capital injection.

Incubators in the region such as the SmiLe Incubator in Lund and the BioInnovation Institute in Copenhagen continue to successfully support early-stage research, spinouts and startups within life sciences. Partnerships have been established with big pharma to provide coaching, workspace, and capital injection, while graduate companies are elevating capital investment through larger fundraising including IPOs, licenses, and M&As.

This strong life science ecosystem facilitated by decades of regional cross-border collaboration and strong support from academia, the regions/hospitals, and industry makes Medicon Valley a very popular location for establishing headquarters, and it also ranks highly versus European clusters on pipeline size.

Life science-related talent and the Nobel Prize laureates of the future need to be cultivated already today. Hopefully, the Danish and Swedish governments will acknowledge this fact in their upcoming national life science strategies. Perhaps this time they may even seek collaboration and inspiration from their Nordic neighbor when it comes to both talent development and talent attraction. Student-led organizations such as Synapse Life Science Connect have paved the way and shown that life science talent can be developed within a Nordic and Danish-Swedish framework.

My hope is that the ongoing Danish healthcare reform will ensure we have even stronger regions with the capacity to work and collaborate across borders.

If they can do it, so can the life science decision-makers in both Copenhagen and Stockholm. My hope is that the ongoing Danish healthcare reform will ensure we have even stronger regions with the capacity to work and collaborate across borders. Unfortunately, the most recent proposals for reform might undermine such efforts, but I am an optimist, and there is still time for the necessary adjustments.

About the author

Niels Abel Bonde is the Chairman of Medicon Valley Alliance (MVA). He is a recurring columnist in NLS magazine. This column was originally published in NLS No 04 2024, out November 2024.