Nordic innovation in the spotlight at NLSDays: Vesper Bio wins pitch competition, Veltio Pharma tops innovation poster exhibition
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.
Nordic Life Science Days attracts the best innovators and actors across the Nordics to do business and to showcase and celebrate Nordic ingenuity. This year’s event in Gothenburg, which drew a record number of delegates, exhibitors and international delegations, saw 14 pre-selected startups competing in the Nordic Star Pitch competition while 19 academics and startups showcased their ideas in the Innovation Poster Exhibition.
Vesper Bio wins Nordic Star Pitch Competition
The Danish life science company Vesper Bio took home the NLSDays Nordic Star 2025 Award, consisting of a 10,000 EUR 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 about the win.
The jury’s motivation for the winning company reads: 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 desease modifying mechanism of action. The Nordic Star pitch competition was sponsored by HSBC Innovation Banking.
The pitch competition jury consisted of Yun Yang, Investment Associate, Hadean Ventures, Carl Kilander, Partner, HealthCap, Emilia Carlqvist, Analyst, Innovestor Life Science, Jón Bergsteinsson, Founder and MP, LIFA.VC, Chloé Leprêtre, Head of Global R&D Search and Evaluation, Servier and Marjo Puumalainen, International Director at SwedenBIO and Program Director NLSDays.
Veltio Pharma wins Innovation Poster Exhibition
To celebrate and offer visibility to early innovators from the Nordics, NLSDays welcomes academic researchers and SME:s 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 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. The company won
Stina Lundgren from Veltio Pharma accepted the prize on stage: “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”, she said.