“Thank you, yes, it feels great to be trusted to lead this dynamic organization, at least for a while.”
I’ve said that phrase so many times in recent weeks that it’s starting to feel stale, and the positive response you’ve given me is warming in the autumn cold.
It is an honor to lead and represent an organization with so much tangible energy. Those of you who attended the NLSDays in Malmö know what I am talking about – the feeling that we are doing it together, that we are creating opportunities for ourselves and each other in networking, collaboration and knowledge sharing.
During NLSDays, the desire to meet, talk and develop collaborations never seemed to wane, despite busy days and late nights. And as a positive effect, we also show the rest of the world what we in our remote corner have to offer.
I think the latter will become increasingly important. For many years we have been living in a global order where opportunities to develop activities, cooperation and knowledge have become increasingly independent of geography. Recently, however, our world has been marked by war, populism, increased protectionism and a faltering international economy. As a small country, our currency is negatively affected relative to larger economies, but we have something else that the others don’t have.
We have a stable foundation, with systemic assets that are not directly dependent on economic cycles, with high levels of education, universal healthcare, population data and high levels of trust in our institutions. Not least, we have an inherent power of low thresholds, short distances and influence that breeds creativity and innovation, but also responsibility and trust. We simply have a culture of co-creation that breeds sustainable innovation.
But we need to wash Luther off our shoulders and start bragging about ourselves if we want the world’s willingness to invest and establish itself in our companies and life science environments. We will therefore continue to raise the profile of our Swedish companies and create meeting places in the international arena. Next up for JP Morgan in San Francisco and looking ahead to the 10th anniversary of NLSDays in Copenhagen at the end of next year.
Autumn has only just begun. We at SwedenBIO’s office will continue to deliver on our mission with meeting places, knowledge dissemination and giving you a strong voice – and also with developing the 20-year-old SwedenBIO to meet the industry’s new challenges.
We are currently taking the temperature of the industry with the life science barometer and collecting facts that will be used in the next edition of the pipeline report. We also continue our training activities with a new round of business development training and new activities under the Dialogue Forum with the Medical Products Agency. We will offer meeting places for networking within our ecosystem with the SwedenBIO Summit as the season finale at the Grand Hotel on December 6.
I hope to see you and that we will have the opportunity to build a strong and solid future for our companies, together!
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Photo: SwedenBIO’s team line-up for the fall of 2022, from left: Marjo Puumalainen, Frida Eriksson, Alexandra Hoegberg, Maja Neiman, Frida Lawenius, Olivier Duchamp-Giudicelli, Alejandra Marroquin, Johanna Assadi Rissanen. (Photo by Camille Sonally.)
