Swedish American Life Science Summit 2011- a shifting industry

Some 100 delegates gathered on the 25th of August at Ernst & Young headquarters in Stockholm to discuss trends and opportunities in the coming decade for the life science industry. Göran Hägglund, Minister for Health and Social Affairs, revealed that the first national innovation strategy is to be launched in the fall of 2012.

The stage was set by Carl-Johan Sundberg, professor at Karolinska Institutet and head of Bioentrepreneurship. Sundberg talked about changed disease patterns in the world – lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, cancer and hypertension affecting not only the western societies but to a larger extent also affecting the rising economies of the East.

The Minister of Health and Social Affairs Göran Hägglund mentioned that right now resolutions are being passed about the national pharmaceutical strategy aiming to increase the cost effectiveness of drugs. He also revealed that the first Swedish innovation strategy will be launched in the fall of 2012. Life science will be a prioritised field and important issues will be how innovations come into practice in everyday healthcare.

Minister of Health and Social Affairs, Göran Hägglund.

The rest of the morning was filled with discussions/presentations and a panel debate about the best strategies for remodeling the pharma and biotech industries in times of recession. Håkan Åström, chairman at Orexo, pointed out that the productivity of pharma has been falling linearly since the 1950´s. Åström said that breaking this trend might be calling for different attitudes where the needs of the patient are in the center.

The Swedish American Life Science Summit continued for another two days with a full-ripe program, featuring among other things revolutionary approaches to fighting cancer and new opportunities in ophthalmology.  The Swedish American Life Science Summit 2011 is the seventh in a series of meetings bringing together keynote speakers and promising companies from both the United States and Sweden.