Danish company Vesper Bio impressed the jury at Nordic Life Science Days and took home the Nordic Star prize at the premier Nordic Life Science partnering conference, while Swedish company Veltio Pharma took home the prize for best Innovation Poster.
This year’s Nordic Life Science Days event in Gothenburg drew a record number of delegates, exhibitors and international delegations. Fourteen pre-selected startups competed in the Nordic Star Pitch competition while 19 academics and startups showcased their ideas in the Innovation Poster Exhibition.
The Danish life science company Vesper Bio took home the NLSDays Nordic Star 2025 Award, consisting of a €10,000 cash prize and two tickets to next year’s event. Vesper Bio is a clinical stage biotech developing an oral therapy for frontotemporal dementia. Lovisa Sunesson, Director of Business Development at Vesper Bio accepted the prize onstage.
“I’m super happy, I didn’t expect to win! Every opportunity to get awareness and to spread the word about what we are doing at Vesper is needed to highlight the importance of our work,” she said.
The jury said: A clear presentation with an understanding of the patient population and a patient centric approach, the winning company addresses an unmet need for a severe disease with a disease-modifying mechanism of action.
To celebrate and offer visibility to early innovators from the Nordics, NLSDays welcomed academic researchers and SMEs to showcase their ideas with commercial potential in the form of posters: 19 innovators were selected to showcase in this year’s Innovation Poster Exhibition.
The winning exhibitor, Veltio Pharma, specializes in enhancing pharmaceutical formulations with a strong focus on sustainability, presenting with a poster titled: “De-Risking Product Development and Shortening Time to Market.”
The company said it aims to improve patients’ lives while minimizing environmental impact by transforming poorly soluble drugs into highly effective solid oral dosage forms with enhanced bioavailability through its proprietary nanotechnology platform.
Stina Lundgren from Veltio Pharma said: “We worked hard on delivering what we promise in our poster, to be simple yet brilliant. Many delegates also commended us for having a visually appealing poster that is easy to comprehend.”
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