MyCural Therapeutics wins Nordic Star Pitch Competition

MyCural winner at NLSDays pitch competition

MyCural Therapeutics awed the audience at Nordic Life Science Days and took home the prize at the premier Nordic Life Science partnering conference.

As the premier event dedicated to Nordic life science innovation, NLSDays provides a platform to raise the visibility of early-stage companies and founders, and this year in Malmö two awards in two different competitions were handed out, the Nordic Star pitch competition and the Innovation Poster exhibition.

Nordic Star Pitch Competition
The Nordic Star pitch competition welcomed 20 SMEs from across the Nordics, which each gave a four-minute pitch on-stage to the jury and an audience of investors.

The Swedish life science start-up MyCural Therapeutics took home the NLSDays Nordic Star 2024 Award, consisting of a 10,000 EUR cash prize and two tickets to next year’s event. Dr Alina Castell, the CEO of the young company accepted the prize onstage.
MyCural Therapeutics is a start-up life science company founded by cancer researchers from Karolinska Institutet, Linköping University and Uppsala University.

”I am surprised by the win because I don't think we are that close to having a product yet, but I believe I put together a pitch that answered most of the questions, and I think that was the key. It also certainly helps that I have spent two years practicing pitching," said Dr. Alina Catell, CEO of MyCural Therapeutics.

”The winning company is working on a well validated clinical unmet need that also harbors significant commercial potential. As an investor, we are always on the look for innovative approaches with platform potential, and that is what we see in MyCural”, commented Dr. Sara Kangaspeska, Investment Director at Innovestor Life Science & Health Fund and member of the jury.

The pitch competition jury consisted of Mandeep Dhillon, Global Scientific Sourcing, Strategy & Operations, Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Sara Kangaspeska, Investment Director at Innovestor Life Science & Health Fund, Dr. Markus Dietrich, Senior Investment Associate, Hadean Ventures, Inka Mero, Founder & Managing Partner at Voima Ventures, Dr. Chloé Lepretre, Head of Global R&D Search and Evaluation at Servier, Dr. Lovisa Backemar, Principal at Eir Ventures, Dr. Marjo Puumalainen, International Director at SwedenBIO and Program Director NLSDays.

The Nordic Star pitch competition was sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, Innovestor, and SwedenBIO

Innovation Poster Exhibition winner

22 academic researchers and SME:s from Nordic academia and industry were selected to present posters outlining a project with commercial potential.

Dr Giacomo Roman from Oslo University Hospital, Norway, won the competition with his poster: “Autologous cell-based therapy for coagulation factor deficiency”.

”I think the novelty of the approach, particularly the tremendous therapeutic (as well as drug screening and disease modelling) potential of the three-dimensional liver organoids has been the key that attracted participants’ attention”, commented Dr Roman.

NLSDays 2025
Next year's NLSDays is taking place in Gothenburg, Sweden 13–14 October.