If you were to walk past a department store where every successful industry in Sweden displayed their achievements, what would you see? You would most likely walk by a forestry window, next to mining, and then hydropower. They might display how they once tamed the wild natural resources and laid the foundation of the Swedish economy.

The window for automotives would likely show a high-tech, self-driving vehicle. The fashion window would obviously be full of stunning creations, and wouldn’t it be neat if the music window featured Spotify playing a repertoire of Sweden’s greatest hits?

But what about the life science window? This pride of Sweden with the third-largest export value in 2023.

But what about the life science window? This pride of Sweden with the third-largest export value in 2023. What would be on display? Improving patients’ lives is what the industry is all about, but the well-being of the patients is not our accomplishment. Pills and syringes? Sure, but their magic lies in their molecular composition, not their physical appearance. On the other hand, molecular models are not viewed by the general public as intuitively impressive, the same way as, say, a car, a dress or a song.
Pharmaceuticals are only a fraction of the products generated by the life science industry. There is a vast product category called medical technology (medtech) which includes everything from wheelchairs and band aids to CT scanners and laser surgery instrumentation. The problem with medical technology (aesthetically speaking) is that the beauty lies in what it achieves, rather than its appearance.

How would you showcase the awesomeness of an antibody purification column that stems from Swedish engineering of a naturally occurring antibody-binding domain of a bacterial protein, that has been produced and shared with labs and factories worldwide?

Perhaps an even more challenging product group to display are the so called “life science tools”, reagents and instruments that are fundamental for research and the manufacturing of biological molecules and materials. How would you showcase the awesomeness of an antibody purification column that stems from Swedish engineering of a naturally occurring antibody-binding domain of a bacterial protein, that has been produced and shared with labs and factories worldwide? The column itself is dull but its use has enabled billions of antibodies to be purified for research or therapeutic purposes, curing millions.

How can we present this awesomeness without starting off with a lecture on “What is an antibody”? Life science is considered hard to grasp, something for the experts, and irrelevant to the general public. However, it is the general public that shapes opinion, and their children form the future workforce. Life sciences is about people and health, making it relevant to everyone.

We have a challenge in presenting what we do. We need better narratives, that are relatable to the general public and create intuitive mental images equivalent to those of the Swedish music wonders.

To showcase the Swedish life science success, SwedenBIO has selected six Swedish inventions from six decades. Besides the antibody purification technology already mentioned, we selected CRISPR-Cas9 for its paradigm shift in gene editing, enabling the cure of all manner of diseases. We also selected the omeprazole molecule (the active component of Losec) to showcase a blockbuster pharmaceutical that has helped millions of sufferers of gastric acid-related disorders. As for medical technology inventions, we selected the pacemaker, the gamma knife and the blood cradle to represent Swedish contributions to improving the quality of life of billions of people.

What would you place in the Swedish life science display window?

The blood cradle is a great example of an invention used worldwide, that has been instrumental to improving healthcare, yet few people know about it. It is a technologically simple device that keeps blood tubes in motion and allows blood to mix with the anticoagulant. Invented by the nurse Barbro Hjalmarsson in the 1990s to facilitate day-to-day medical work, it has been crucial in standardizing the handling of blood samples, thus enabling the extremely detailed molecular profiling of blood that modern precision medicine relies on.

Join our efforts to showcase this amazing industry. What stories could describe our amazing industry to the general public, to politicians, and to young people? What would you place in the Swedish life science display window?

6 INNOVATIONS – 6 DECADES

1950s: The pacemaker

The pacemaker literally saves thousands of lives, every day. Is it the first step towards cyborgs?

1960s: the gamma knife

This is an example of an approach that has developed into precision medicine: to increase the effectiveness of a treatment and reduce the side effects by being more specifically targeted.

1970s: Omeprazole

Omeprazole is perhaps Sweden’s most important pharma “block buster”. A clear example that great research cannot take place without robust funding.

1980s: antibody purification with protein a

This is a fine example of how basic research on a bacterium leads to a biotechnological use that enables an entire field of research and the purification of antibodies as medicine.

1990s: the blood cradle

While it may be considered a low-tech innovation, its implications are gigantic. Standardization of blood sampling is absolutely crucial for all high-tech analysis of blood samples.

2000s: CRISPR Cas9

These gene scissors have the potential to circumvent the problem of genetic modification being scary once and for all and allow us to use modern methods to adapt our food production. In addition, it can cure (not just relieve) extremely serious diseases.