Around Karolinska Institutet, north of Stockholm, we find a well defined and focused system for innovation support, with a long experience from the pharma industry, Karolinska Institutet Innovations AB (KIAB) and Karolinska Development AB (KD).
KIAB provides innovation support in terms of project development and basic seed funding and a number of leading Scandinavian universities have agreements in place with KIAB. KD adds further business development expertise and early, long-term financing.
Focus on drug development
Both KIAB and KD have a strong drug development focus with several companies within the KD portfolio developing compounds in specific therapeutic areas, e.g. cancer and wound healing.
So far, KIAB has evaluated over 1 000 ideas. Projects that pass this initial evaluation enjoy pre-seed financing to assure IP, and project-leadership to secure the development into proof-of-concept or similar.
Long-term majority-owner
Successful projects are presented as investment opportunities to KD as part of the ‘Deal Flow Agreement’. This assures KD first right of refusal on all projects KIAB deem to be commercially viable. However, KD also invests in other promising companies where their experts can build value. Companies that KD invests in gain a long-term, committed owner and dedicated management engaged in developing and growing the companies.
The business model developed by KD has produced five companies with pharmaceutical compounds undergoing Phase II clinical studies and four with compounds in Phase I clinical studies in less than 5 years and for less than 600 million SEK, (77 million USD). The portfolio comprises a product pipeline comparable with that of a major pharmaceutical company. - This is an achievement we are proud of, says Conny Bogentoft, CEO Karolinska Development, and is in contrast to the amounts traditionally spent by pharmaceutical companies to reach similar results.
Today, KD is active in around 40 companies, one of whom is Dilafor, which has gone from research result to Phase II trials in just five years.