A live audience selected Gedea Biotech and Sigrid Therapeutics as winners on the first day of Nordic Life Science Days 2018. There was a tie when the largest partnering conference for life science in the nordics picked this year’s best pitches. Acuru Pharma, another company emerging from the Nordic life science ecosystem, took third place. No less then 166 delegates cast their votes.
Both Anette Säfholm from Gedea Biotech, and Sana Alajmovic from Sigrid Therapeutics, were surprised but happy. The pitch contest moderator, Carolina Hawranek, called them up on stage and presented the winners after a tough competition. This only minutes after the voting resulted in an exact tie between the two, leaving Jennifer Hansson as the runner up. Thus, Akuru Pharma snatched a third place.
All female line-up in the top three pitch winners at NLSDays 2018
The team at Gedea Biotech is developing an antibiotic-free and safe treatment of vaginal infections and Sigrid Therapeutics are working on a medical device for treatment of pre-diabetes. Acuru Pharma who also reached the podium is exploiting transporter proteins for diagnosis and treatment of kidney cancer and like all 12 companies, they all aim for the global market for their innovations.
Jennie Ekbeck, CEO of Umeå Biotech Incubator from this year’s co-organizers of the live pitch event was impressed with the companies’ efforts:
– Hearing these twelve diverse and brave startups makes me confident that life sciences in the Nordics is on the rise and we’ll keep growing stronger together, she says.
Twelve competitors pitched live in front of 166 live voters at Waterfront
In May 2018, an expert jury selected the 12 startups to pitch live on stage during this challenge. They have prepared their pitches during the summer, and the final vote was made by 166 delegates in the live audience at Waterfront right after the presentations. The organizers thank the event sponsor Pfizer for their support.
About Startup Challenge
The startup challenge is an event showcasing the best and brightest startups currently emerging from the Nordic life science ecosystem. Based on their video contributions, the best 12 have been selected to pitch live in front of a qualified audience of life science industry decision makers and investors.
About Nordic Life Science Days
NLSDays is a SwedenBIO event, produced by Bionordic. Nordic Life Science Days has grown rapidly since its launch in 2012 to become the largest Nordic partnering conference for the global life science industry. This year, almost 1300 delegates from 40 countries are attending the meeting.
About Umeå Biotech Incubator
More info about our incubator process and goals on this page (link).
