Dr. Richard Stratford, the CEO of NEC Oncoimmunity about NLSDays’ Vaccine Crosslinks: From Cancer to COVID super session interviewed by Chelsea Ranger, Senior advisor, SwedenBIO Personalized medicine is a large focus across the Nordic ecosystem and NEC Oncoimmunity is a great example of putting this into practice. Tell us a little about what your company does and is doing today NEC OncoImmunity (NOI) has developed AI-based software that models how human cells process and present immunogenic peptides to the immune system called the NEC Immune Profiler (NIP). The NIP software can be used in conjunction with other software solutions developed at NOI to identify immunogenic neoantigens for use in cancer immunotherapies or patient stratification and can also be used to design prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines that target infectious disease. The software is currently being used to design personalized cancer vaccines for two clinical trials. In addition, NOI has recently signed deals with the Japanese pharma company Shionogi and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to design a therapeutic vaccine against the human hepatitis B virus (HBV) and a pan beta-coronavirus prophylactic vaccine respectively. In this session, we will talk about acquiring and implementing learnings beyond silos, the fact that collaboration across sectors, therapy areas, and applications of technology are necessary for progress. How has your company approached and been impacted by such an approach? NOI operates at the intersection of multiple disciplines including, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, statistics, software development, biology, immunology, and cancer, and has by necessity built a strong international and multidisciplinary team to address opportunities within this divergent space. NOI also works as part of a multinational team within the broader NEC organization, collaborating closely with the Artificial Intelligent Drug Development (AIDD) division in Tokyo, the NEC Research Laboratories Europe (NLE) and America (NLA), NEC India, and NOI also recently established a clinical development team in Mannheim Germany. At NOI we are firm believers in leveraging the different expertise and strengths that exists across NEC network and our other national and international partners, to maximize our chance of success and deliver on our goal of developing tomorrow’s intelligently designed medicines. We look forward to having you join us at NLSDays this year, to share your experience and learnings with our Nordic ecosystem. What do you hope to gain from the conference, and what is one tip that you would offer our early-stage companies and entrepreneurs? By participating in the conference, NOI wishes to engage with more big pharma companies with a view to identifying future partners for developing personalized cancer treatments and novel vaccines that can address both endemic and emerging infectious disease threats. Our advice for the early-stage companies and entrepreneurs is to have confidence in your ideas, continuously road-test your hypotheses with relevant international players, and most importantly be persistent. Thank you so much Richard and see you in Malmö! Super Session 3 28 September 2022 Vaccine Crosslinks: From Cancer to COVID