KI; An important actor in Swedish Life Science

This is a blog post by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor at KI:

Realizing the governments ambitions for Life Science
Life Science is a prioritized area for the Swedish government most recently exemplified by establishment of a permanent Life Science office under the ministry for enterprise and innovation. Karolinska Institutet and the holding company Karolinska Institutet Holding AB (KIHAB) are important actors in realizing the government’s ambitions by contributing ideas and business cases in various stages of development. As part of the KI management and Chairman of KIHAB, I see challenges in maintaining innovation activities of critical mass to achieve efficiency and sustainability given restricted resources. Without regional support and resources to the innovation system this is particularly challenging. A national coordination in this area, as has been agreed for national infrastructures, with distributed responsibilities, have the potential to achieve critical mass for increased efficiency and sustainability and additionally facilitate coordination between different areas such as medical sciences, engineering sciences and humanities.

Board meetings in KIHAB and KIIAB
Last week we had board meetings in Karolinska Institutet Holding AB (KIHAB) and its subsidiary Karolinska Institutet Innovations AB (KIIAB). For KIHAB the focus last year was to consolidate its own activities and also that of its subsidiaries. For KIIAB, 2018 will include an expansion of activities where KIIAB has been tasked with the responsibility to run the KI Innovation office. Thus KIIABs responsibilities will reach from inspiration, advice and guidance in the development of ideas with potential for innovation for researchers, students and other employees to business advice, marketing, patent issues, and business development. Additionally, KIIAB has qualified for Vinnova’s Excellence program for incubators, which gives the opportunity to offer early life science companies support to develop. It is important to keep in mind that commercialization can be seen as a tool to implement knowledge. From 2018 KIHAB and KIAB are located at Berzelius väg 3 in the heart of the KI Campus Solna.

Visit to the Medical Product Agency in Uppsala
I ended the week with a visit to the Medical Product Agency (Läkemedelsverket) in Uppsala. It is very important to have a good dialogue with the agency and the major topic this time was advanced cell therapy, where it is important to clarify the regulatory responsibilities not least as this is a field that offers great potential for therapies. The visit also provided me with an opportunity to present the important work, involving many individuals, that has led to the establishment of the Karolinska Cell Therapy Center (KCC); A collaboration between the Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institutet to maintain a core facility for advanced therapy medicinal products and cells for transplantation (https://ki.se/en/research/kcc-and-vecura).

For further blog posts by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, see her blog at this link.