The Nordic life science ecosystem is thriving, but to ensure that Denmark further develops and consolidates its position as a stronghold within life science innovation and commercialization of novel ideas, the Nordic Mentor Network for Entrepreneurship (NOME) and BioInnovation Institute (BII) has decided to strengthen and formalize its collaboration.
The mission of NOME and BII ties nicely together, as both parties support life science entrepreneurs on their entrepreneurial journeys to become successful companies. However, while BII focuses primarily on supporting early-stage start-ups and translational projects through its venture and company creation programs, NOME plays a significant role at a later stage and plays a vital role for more mature start-ups, such as those that graduate from BII and need to scale up their activities.
Thus, there are clear synergies in thinking about how to encompass a start-up’s journey from establishment to scale-up when offering support, according to Peter Birk, NOME.
“BII plays a significant role in the Nordic life science ecosystem, and through an even closer relationship and dialogue with them, we expect to have better conditions to select the right start-ups to NOME’s programs and help each of the selected start-ups with their individual needs. Exchanging knowledge and insights between our organizations will be beneficial to increase the likelihood of the companies’ success in a long-term perspective,”
Approximately 20% of all the companies in NOME have participated in one of BII’s programs. Due to the strengthened collaboration, they will get a better framework for success, expects Nina Haldipur, Director of Therapeutics Business Development at BioInnovation Institute.
“NOME is an elite life science mentoring program from which several of BII’s portfolio start-ups have benefitted. To further strengthen our offerings to early-stage start-ups, we will introduce them to NOME’s programs, as they can be vital in their progress towards becoming successful and well-established companies,”
Cross-collaboration paves the road to success
One of the start-ups that have already taken advantage of being part of BII and NOME’s programs are Teitur Trophics, a company battling neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington’s and Frontotemporal Dementia.
In 2020, Teitur Trophics was accepted into BII’s Venture House program while participating in NOME’s life science mentoring program. Being part of both programs paid dividends for the company, according to its CEO and Co-founder, Simon Mølgaard.
“Both programs provided us with invaluable sparring and input to help us scale up our activities. Thus, I’m genuinely delighted to see that NOME and BII will work closer together as many companies and the ecosystem as a whole will benefit from this”
Both NOME and BII will initiate more activities to raise awareness around the collaboration to ensure more success stories for the ecosystem, such as the one of Teitur Trophics.
About NOME:
The Nordic Mentor Network for Entrepreneurship (NOME) is an elite Nordic Mentoring program for promising life science startups, driven by the vision of transforming Nordic life science startups into internationally renowned commercial successes. NOME matches selected startups with high-profile industry mentors in the Nordics and in the US, and arranges a yearly US Camp.
NOME is funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and operated by nine Nordic partner organizations: Accelerace (DK), Medicon Village, Uppsala Innovation Center and Karolinska Institutet Innovations AB (SE), Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator and Aleap (NO), Turku Science Park and Vertical (FI) and Life Science Nord (GER).
