Day 4: Strategies on how to be successful in biopharma

Biopharma trends in 2020 are;

  1. The development of novel personalized therapies.
  2. The ever increasing costs for the next generation of biologics.
  3. New technology in biopharma benefits the process development, quality by design and standardization.
  4. Companies are adapting to “fail fast and fail cheap”-methods be become more efficient.

Given these trends, can you please describe your product-market-fit? -A question that all participants, in one way or another, had to answer to during the Testa Challenge.

From presentation on trends in Biopharma by Cytiva.

Deep-dive into innovation in biopharma trends and strategies

Day four was in addition to day one, two and three, an intensive day. As a further aim for the Testa Challenge week, we had invited several guest speakers  (due to the pandemic only virtually) to talk about various topics ranging from “Bioprocessing market trends: Addressing the challenges in the analytical and regulatory interface for novel biologics” to “The industrial perspective on innovation and startups” in order to is to really connect startups with industry.

After each of the the presentations we opened the floor for questions. The discussions that arose  during these meetings quickly became a unique opportunity to ask those key questions to help the startups put themselves ahead of competition, as well as better understand their value within the current and future market.

Meeting industry and experts

Mixing industry and startups is a key element in the Testa Challenge. Meetings and discussions have been carefully set up between the participating companies, and industry representatives. The Testa Center functioned as  an open arena for investigating the innovations of the startups with clear preconditions regarding their intellectual property rights, without the risk for loss of confidential information.

 “The discussions we had, and contacts we made today might be as valuable, or even more valuable, as the lab experiment.

Erik Martinsson, CEO of ArgusEye AB

As the Testa Center is based on the Cytiva company grounds, we were able to further strengthen the interactions between the participating companies and industrial experts. Leveraging the ideal location of the Testa Center, the six startups were able to have individual “focus meetings” with principle scientists and possible future users of their products.

Listening and learning from previous expert experiences meant that participants could re-evaluate their product if needed in order to not avoid “reinventing the wheel” or perhaps certain pitfalls. Additionally, it provided a platform to future-proof their products by understanding what the current and future demands in the industry are. In some cases, the discussions lead to a collaborative approach to solve common obstacles both parties were facing from different angles.

Andreas Andersson, Frederik Petersen, Kristin Hellman and Magdalena Eggens, in room while videoconferencing at the Testa Challenge.

Meeting potential future users

When meeting potential future users lighting started to strike. Learning from senior application specialists what are prioritized product features was said to be something very valuable for many of the participants.

 “The discussions we had, and contacts we made today might be as valuable, or even more valuable, as the lab experiment.” Was one of the final remarks from Erik Martinsson, CEO of ArgusEye, as we closed the doors for the night.

Together we accelerate industrialization

The day really symbolized what we do in the Testa Center. The method of mixing industrial expertise, senior application specialist with entrepreneurs and academic spinouts is one of our core concepts which we also wanted to incorporate into the Testa Challenge. With less than a week into the Challenge we already see a magnitude of great outcomes  where companies were able to accelerate their projects during the intense few days working with the Testa Center.

Linda Hagman (seen from back), Fredrik Petersen and Jesper Hedberg at the Testa Challenge.

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