Great turnout at first Meet Umeå Life Science – networking and matchmaking at IVA in Stockholm

The first ever edition of Meet Umeå Life Sceince gathered over 70 branch experts, entrepreneurs and researchers in Stockholm. This after-work networking mingle allowed startups to connect with experienced professionals with industrial expertise and business know-how. The aim was to match our promising ideas with the skills necessary to grow successfully.

The startups in the Biotech Umeå cluster are renowned for their excellent science base and innovative approaches, but once the cases start to develop, teams often need to involve specific expertise in management, product development, IPR, marketing etc.

Some of these skills can be acquired through consultants, but at some point the companies need experienced partners to keep evolving successfully. This need prompted the networking event "Meet Umeå Life Science" - held at Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien on the evening of the 31st of January 2018.

Strong interest in the Umeå Life Science cluster

Despite it beeing the first time the event was arranged, over half of the seats were filled up in the first few days. In total almost 40 business and pharma executives attended the evening.

– Overall, the event exceeded our expectations. We were proud to host a select group of top professionals in the biotech field with extensive experience in business development within life sciences, says Göran Lidgren from Uminova Innovation, who organised the event together with Anne-Charlotte Aronsson from Umeå Biotech Incubator.

– The feedback was very positive and several people were asking for the next year's edition, she says.

Björn Ekström delivered insights from a highly successful innovation career

Special guest Björn Ekström, legendary entrepreneur and innovator in the field and honorary doctor at Uppsala University, held a talk on the translation of research into business and innovations. Then mingle sessions were mixed with live pitching sessions by the startups and cases. During the brakes, diskussions piked up quickly and the crowd was hard to get back in the auditorium.

During wrap-up the mc handed out a surprize prize to the evening's most effective networking star - Dagmar Kasper. She is a strong profile within life science and the current Director of Clinical Business Development from Agena Bioscience in Hamburg, Germany. She visited Stockholm to attend the event.

Upon recieving the symbolic prize she concluded the night with the words:

– It's my first time here. It was a terrific event. I will be back next year.