News

Biotech Careers – You gotta boogie to your best…

Biotech Careers

You gotta boogie to your best ability

By Johanne Kloster Ellingsen, published 15 March 2023

How did a self-proclaimed dyslectic with a dream of becoming a professional gymnast end up as a senior R&D manager in one of the world’s biggest life science companies? This Axl Neurauter explains, together with Thermo Fisher Norway’s approach to personal development, strategy, and innovation. And how ShareLab plays a key part.

Originally from Austria, Axl’s family moved to Tromsø when he was 3 years old. He took up gymnastics at a young age with a dream of becoming professional. And as it turned out, there was a seamless transition from gymnast to break dancer for Axl who with a friend has been credited for having "introduced hip hop to Tromsø" as a touring break dancing duo. “It was pretty fun. We actually earned a fair amount of money touring, and even had a manager”, he reminisces. However, it was his original love for gymnastics that led him to move to Oslo. The goal was to become a professional gymnast, but to make ends meet he also started studying at university. “Education was initially a side hustle” he explains, as receiving a student loan was an “easy way to get some money”.

See Battle Force and Axl dance on national TV in year 1984 here (link directly to 24 min, 5 sec).

'Cause we're gettin' down and ain't givin' no slack. Axl Neurauter b-boying.

We got business from day one

Axl focus did eventually shift to his studies. Following a bachelor in biochemistry, he states he “accidently ended up in immunology”. His masters project ended up directing his professional life where he worked on T cell dynamics in collaboration with Oslo University Hospital. “Straight out of my masters I got head-hunted by Dynal” Axl says, where he studied T-cell activation using beads coupled with antibodies. In context of Dynal, the beads were the key point. Dynal was a Norwegian company founded on the work done by Professor John Uglestad. Uglestad invented the process of making uniform polystyrene spherical beads which can be coupled to polymers such as DNA or proteins. Axl joined the product development team early, where he worked on products aimed at the research market. “We got business from day one”.

Today, Axl is responsible for a team which focuses on development of products for both the research market and regulatory market for Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway. What was Dynal is now a part of the global company, which sells “Dynabeads” in what has become a multibillion USD market. “We have recently been working a lot on RNA-vaccines”, Axl says, explaining how more widely utilising this technology could make for instance seasonal influenza vaccines more effective.

We are very expensive machines

As a manager, Axl emphasises the importance of getting the best out of each employee. “My job as a manager is to figure out how to make the most out of the potential that exist in each individual”. It is also important to understand that not everyone fit into the same box, Axl explains, and that to maximise the potential of your team they need to enjoy going to work. A central part of Thermo Fisher Norway’s strategy the past years has therefor been to climb the “great-place-to-work” ranking. “We are very expensive machines”, Axl expresses, and maintenance should be a top priority.

ShareLab is a good fit for Thermo

Another central part of Thermo’s company culture and strategy is testing new concepts and out-sourcing some of the work associated to development. “Norwegian Thermo has proved to be competitive” Axl explains, adding that the Norwegian department is therefore granted substantial funds for investment and improvements. Out-sourcing is a way of reducing risk for us, Axl explains. This is where ShareLab enters the scene. Thermo has cooperated with ShareLab since 2018. “ShareLab is a good fit for Thermo”, Axl says. Initiating new collaborations is quite demanding due to the legal aspect of the process, and Axl explains that instead of finding 20 different partners ShareLab is a structure which can get the job done and has the network to find a third party to complement their competence. “This takes away a lot of the work associated with collaborations”. In essence the collaboration with ShareLab allow Thermo Fisher Norway to grow faster than would otherwise be possible. “And it also makes us visible in the network which ShareLab touches”.


About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO) is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue of approximately $40 billion. The company's mission is to enable customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. Whether customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, increasing productivity in their laboratories, improving patient health through diagnostics or the development and manufacture of life-changing therapies, Thermo Fisher are there to support them. The global team delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through industry-leading brands, including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services, Patheon and PPD.

About ShareLab

ShareLab is a lab incubator with fully equipped and serviced wet labs for startups and industrial partners, as well as a community of industry experts and biotech entrepreneurs. The laboratory is located at Oslo Science Park amid Norwegian institutions like University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital, SINTEF, and a range of life science companies. ShareLab is non-profit and will reinvest funds in cutting edge laboratories and industrial knowhow to fuel life science.

Contact

If you would like to know more, please contact the ShareLab Team via LinkedIn or other social media.

 

 

 

News

Epigenetics and Aging

Kalleberg and Age Labs - Epigenetics and how to age like a fine wine

A Canary in a Coal Mine

By Johanne Kloster Ellingsen, published 23 September, 2022

“I do things I’m interested in”, Karl Trygve explains, referring to his diverse, and impressive, resume. His most recent endeavour is using the combined power of biobanks and machine learning to help people stay healthier longer. 

Karl Trygve Kalleberg is one of those people who can operate at a high level in vastly different fields. When doing something he goes all in. As a foodie he takes it to the next level, using his pastime traveling around the globe eating at the best restaurants in the world. This holds true in his professional life as well. As an informatician he has built trading systems for Wall Street, finance systems for DNB and has a long history in data analysis. But computer science is only one side of his professional coin. Karl Trygve is also a medical doctor, with background from two of the major hospitals in Norway, Bergen and Oslo University Hospitals. Being an expert with both computers and people Karl Trygve is in a unique position to bring innovation into the health space. And this is exactly the current aim of his work. Combining his two alter egos as an informatician and physician he is working on what he refers to as not the sexiest of problems – age- and age-related disease.

Almost all disease is age-related, where both frequency and severity of the disease increase with age, he explains. Consequently, the disease becomes more challenging to treat and hence requires more resources. “The best tactic is avoiding getting sick in the first place”, Karl Trygve states. Age-related disease is already a major load on the health care system, and it is only expected to increase in the future as the average Norwegian grows older. “We need to shift more of our focus to make sure healthy people stay healthy. This is what we are trying to do at Age Labs.” He says, referring to the company he is CEO and co-founder of.

An aging population is not unique to Norway, and the domain of aging and preventative medicine is growing internationally. This field has the overarching goal of increasing the “healthspan” rather than, or in addition to, the lifespan of a person. In other words, the field wants to help people stay healthier for longer, and it is in this space Age Labs operates.

Happy aging Karl Trygve 

At Age Labs they are trying to find new biomarkers that can bring new information about what is going on within the cells of the body. Specifically, they are looking at epigenetics. “Research suggests that the body knows it’s getting sick, and so it is trying to adapt by changing the genes expressed” Karl Trygve explains. “Eventually, the body cannot cope with the disease and at this stage you can start to measure damage in the body”. In other words, at this stage the body shows signs of disease. “What is exciting about epigenetics is that, while you can’t do anything about the genes you are born with, the epigenetics of the cell is a function of things you can do something about”, Karl Trygve explains, listing lifestyle choices and medicines as examples of factors of change. If you can catch early on that the epigenetics of the cell is shifting towards a pattern associated with disease, the patient can do something about it before the disease takes hold, he explains. In addition to enabling early detection of disease, epigenetic biomarkers can provide a new way of segmenting patient groups. Epigenetic signatures can look slightly different across patient groups of the same disease. Connection can be made between epigenetic signatures and treatment. “A medicine which isn’t successful for all patients could be beneficial for some”, he says.

Age Labs is in the works of building a biobank of epigenetic data. Today it contains information such as methylation patterns connected to a range of age-related diseases for at least fifty thousand patients around the world, with new profiles being added all the time. Using machine learning they can exploit these data, in combination with other biobanks like gene banks, to unveil biological characteristics and patterns at different disease stages and in different patient groups over time. Based on this, Age Labs is developing tests for early detection of disease, with a test designed for rheumatoid arthritis detection in the works. Within the next two years the hope is that this test is in the market, and that tests for other diseases are under development. “We have a stack of tests we hope to get to market, so we’re taking them one by one.”

While working full time at Age Labs, Karl Trygve still occasionally pokes his head into the hospital. “When working as an entrepreneur you sometimes lose track of why you’re doing what you’re doing” Karl Trygve explains, adding that when working everyday with patients you get a sense of instant gratification as you blatantly see who you’re helping and how you are helping them. Besides working with what interests him, it is important for Karl Trygve that his work is moving the world in the right direction. “The work needs to be meaningful, have application value, and solve a problem for someone”.

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About Age Labs AS

Age Labs is a Norwegian life science company that discovers, develops and commercializes diagnostic tests for the early detection of age-related diseases. The pipeline includes a test for early detection of rheumatoid arthritis, a biological age predictor and a test predicting the severity of COVID-19 infection. Age Labs' service includes developing biomarkers for use in clinical trials and studying epigenetic drug effects.

About ShareLab

ShareLab is a lab incubator with fully equipped and serviced wet labs for startups and industrial partners, as well as a community of industry experts and biotech entrepreneurs. The laboratory is located at Oslo Science Park amid Norwegian institutions like University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital, SINTEF, and a range of life science companies. ShareLab is non-profit and will reinvest funds in cutting edge laboratories and industrial knowhow to fuel life science.

Contact

If you would like to know more, you may contact Johanne or the ShareLab Team via LinkedIn or other social media.

 

 

 

News

Direction Correction

LST

Caedo Oncology - Direction correction for the immune system

Helping the body’s defence system to find and fight cancer

By Johanne Kloster Ellingsen, published 12 August, 2022

What if one drug alone could not only treat a cancer type, but multiple cancer types more rapidly and with less side effects than the current gold standard? If all things go to plan, that is exactly what Caedo aims to accomplish.

“We are developing antibodies allowing the immune system to recognise cancer cells” Nina Richartz, Senior Scientist at Caedo, explains. She, together with Seham Skah, Research Scientist, and Sittana Mattar, Industrial PhD Candidate, make up the core lab team at Caedo. Caedo is an immuno-oncology company and the first product they are developing is an antibody that recognises and binds the cell surface molecule CD47. CD47 is expressed across all cell types in the body and is essentially signalling “don’t eat me” to the immune system. It is important that cells can signal to the body’s defence mechanisms that they are healthy and should be protected, however, the same mechanism has been found to be used by a range of cancer cell types for immune evasion. By over-expressing CD47, malignant cells can go under the radar of the immune system, which potentiates their development, metastasis, and treatment resistance. At Caedo, they are working on marking the cancer cells for clearance by the immune system. By blocking CD47 on the cancer cell, the “don’t eat me” signal is silenced, and the immune system is activated.

Although Caedo’s antibody, CO-1, is not the only anti-CD47 drug under development, it appears to be unique in its effects. One of the hallmarks of cancer cells is that they have acquired resistance to undergo programmed cell death (PCD). An important and exciting property of CO-1 is that its interaction with CD47 induces PCD of the cancer cells with high efficacy. “We are still in the pre-clinical phase with the effects of treatment still being uncovered.” Nina explains.  “However, we do have good indications that the antibody provides a dual mechanism both targeting cancer cells directly by inducing PCD and by enhancing cancer cell phagocytosis across multiple cancer cell types”.

Getting CO-1 to market could transform the lives of cancer patients. Cancer treatment comes with a range of life quality reducing side-effects. The proposed dual mechanism of the Caedo’s drug could lower the need for co-treatments, consequently decreasing the potential side-effects, and improving the patient’s quality of life during treatment. Moreover, the rapid induction of the response may also result in a shorter treatment window for the patient. Lastly, as over-expression of CD47 is common in several cancer types, multiple patient groups could benefit from the drug. Although still speculative, CO-1 could in short provide a swifter therapy with less side effects across patient groups than current gold standards.

 

  

From left: Seham Skah, Nina Richartz, Sittana Matar 

When asked about life in Caedo, the passion for the field is evident across the scientific team. “You are developing a product that you know can help people, and society in general”, says Seham. All three have backgrounds in academia, and they are quick to emphasise the importance of academic research. However, the potential of knowledge translation in applying the insights gained from study and research to develop something tangible with the power to help people is rewarding, they explain. This aspect was always a badge of pride for Sittana from her days in BigPharma. “Being able to see the products you have worked with on the shelf at the pharmacy is rewarding” she explains.

Life in a small company is varied. The next day does not look like the last, and the team faces new challenges on the frequent. It is important to be flexible and solution oriented, they explain, adding on that the dynamics in the company allows them to develop a broad set of skills and test different facets of their field. Watching the team discuss their work, the passion for the product is evident. “When you’re excited about the product, the challenges become interesting problems to solve.” And it all boils down to the passion for improving patients’ lives. “The bottom line is helping people” Nina finishes.

Two years from now the hope is that Caedo goes into the first clinical trials with CO-1. Potentially they have also started to explore some of their other potential targets, “and we hope we’re a big team by then” Nina smiles.

 

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About Caedo Oncology

Caedo Oncology AS was established by Kjetil Hestdal and Rolf Pettersen in 2020. It is based on research conducted by Hestdal and Pettersen in the late nineties at Oslo University Hospital with the original discovery of CD47 as a programmed cell death inducing pathway. The company is backed by Norwegian specialist investor Sarsia Seed, with the administration and research located at ShareLab, Oslo Science Park.

About CO-01

CO-01 is a monoclonal antibody blocking the SIRPa CD47 interaction by binding to CD47. CD47, a “don't eat me” signal for phagocytic cells, is expressed on the surface of all human solid tumor cells. Interestingly, CO-01's interaction with CD47 also triggers apoptosis of the target cancer cell. The antibody is in preclinical development.

About ShareLab

ShareLab is an incubator with fully equipped and serviced wet labs for startups and industrial partners, as well as a community of industry experts and biotech entrepreneurs. The laboratory is located at Oslo Science Park amid Norwegian institutions like University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital, SINTEF, and a range of life science companies. ShareLab is non-profit and will reinvest funds in cutting edge laboratories and industrial knowhow to help fuel life science.

Contact

If you would like to know more, you may contact Johanne and the ShareLab Team via LinkedIn or other social media.

 

 

 

News

From big pharma to biotech start-up

LST

Jonas Hallén - From big pharma to biotech start-up

If you want something done, start it yourself

By Johanne Kloster Ellingsen, published 10 June, 2022

With the ambition of treating an autoimmune disease, but struggling to find a company matching his ambitions, Jonas Hallén took matters into his own hands. In collaboration with a colleague, he founded Arxx Therapeutics in 2018, which, just four years later, is approaching its first clinical trial. By giving insight into his world in Arxx, Hallén illustrates the entrepreneurial spirit of getting it done.

Hallén illustrates the entrepreneurial spirit of getting it done

After finishing his PhD, Jonas was planning on going back to the hospital as an MD, however, through the act of fortune he ended up as a medical advisor for a large pharmaceutical company. After over a decade in big pharma, Jonas wanted a change. With the aspiration of working for a smaller biotech firm, but failing to find the right match, he, together with his colleague Riswan Hussain, decided to be the makers of their own fortune. Benefiting from over 30 years of research, Arxx is developing therapies for patients with the autoimmune, fibrotic disease systemic sclerosis based on the monoclonal antibody AX-202.

Every meeting we have serves a clear purpose

As the chief medical and development officer of Arxx, Jonas’s primary responsibilities include managing the pre-clinical and clinical pipeline for drug development, as well as maintaining communication with experts in the field. However, the nature of working in a small start-up makes for a flexible interpretation of what the role entails. “One of the benefits of working in a small company is the liberty of autonomy in your day-to-day work” he explains, which results in a much more flexible and varied work week compared to larger companies. When further asked about the differences between working in big pharma and a biotech start-up, he highlights the efficiency and the fruitfulness of the work put in. Less energy is directed towards internal bureaucratic processes, he explains, “every meeting we have serves a clear purpose”. This results in quicker implementation of decisions made, as less time and energy are spent on internal communication and decision-making across departments. In essence, the work you put down makes a visible impact on the future of the company, he states.

Always have a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C

Despite the intrigue of starting on your own, the task of starting a biotech firm can seem daunting. Jonas has several tips for aspiring entrepreneurs. First, do your homework. Follow the field you’re interested in closely and make connections. “Most people you encounter are nice, so don’t be afraid to reach out”. Ideally through information exchange as “having some questions makes it easier to make a connection”. Second, have a plan. The decisions made in the early stages will follow the company for a long time, so it is important to think potential scenarios through. “Always have a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C”. Thirdly, be flexible and solution oriented. With a small team you will face a varied set of completely new challenges, and so being open minded about the nature of your role is important. However, the absolute key, he says, is working with something you are passionate about, and never giving up. Starting up a business is hard, especially in a field which is as highly regulated as life science and biotech. Being passion driven and resilient will, however, allow you to put in the extra hours it takes to solve what can appear unsolvable resulting in a meaningful, dynamic, and exciting career.

He has taken the wheel of his own career

And it is perhaps this ethos which has allowed Jonas and the small team at Arxx to make important steps towards realising his dream of helping people with a disease where no effective treatment is currently available. The coming year will be an exciting one for Arxx, as AX-202 is approaching phase 1 clinical trials. Fuelled by the passion to make a meaningful difference for a largely overlooked patient group, Arxx serves as an inspiring case study in the possibility for trailblazing entrepreneurship to fulfil ambitions left unattended by larger industry. Hallén is this story. He has taken the wheel of his own career and demonstrates the empowering possibilities of doing so.

 

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About Arxx Therapeutics AS

Arxx was established in 2018 by Jonas Hallén, Rizwan Hussein, Jörg Klingelhöfer based on research conducted at the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen. The company is backed by Norwegian specialist investors Sarsia Seed and P53, with the administration located at ShareLab, Oslo Science Park. Øystein Soug, formerly with Algeta and Targovax, is heading Arxx as May 2022.

About AX-202

AX-202 is a monoclonal antibody neutralising the bioactivity of S100A4. S100A4 is a Damage Associated Molecular Pattern protein located inside the cells under physiological conditions. Upon tissue injury or stress, S100A4 is released into the extracellular environment alerting the surrounding cells to danger by engaging with Pattern Recognition Receptors. These receptors in turn trigger a broad repertoire of inflammatory and fibrotic responses including release of inflammatory mediators from macrophages and other immune cells, activation and differentiation of fibroblasts, and attraction of additional immune and stromal cells to the site of injury. Elevated levels of S100A4 are a hallmark of pathological tissue fibrosis and chronic inflammation and is seen in a wide range of diseases.

AX-202 has been shown to effectively ameliorate tissue fibrosis, chronic inflammation and cancer spread in multiple in vivo models

About ShareLab

ShareLab offers fully equipped and serviced wet labs for startups and industrial partners, as well as a community of industry experts and biotech entrepreneurs. The laboratory is located at Oslo Science Park amid Norwegian institutions like University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital, SINTEF, and a range of life science companies. ShareLab is non-profit and invests all funds in cutting edge laboratories and industrial knowhow to help fuel life science.

Contact

If you would like to know more, you may contact Johanne and the ShareLab Team via LinkedIn or other social media.

 

 

 

News

No plans to ever stop asking ‘why’

LST

Meet Johanne - the staff writer at ShareLab

Whiskey, ‘why's, and a future world of bio

ShareLab Team, published 30 March, 2022

“I was a definitely ‘why’ kid”, Johanne Ellingsen explains. And this curiosity burned all the way down to the ‘why’ of life. In the quest for an answer to her ‘why’, Johanne pursued biology as a natural field of uncovering the mysteries at the root of her curiousness. Her initial interest in the sciences has refined into a focus on biotechnology. Her goal for the future is to aid the development of biobusiness as a tool in solving pressing issues of our time. And in her role as staff writer at ShareLab, she investigates businesses wanting to do just that. 

As the tale of the dancing birds of paradise was told on TV by Sir David Attenborough, Johanne’s fascination for biology was born.

As the tale of the dancing birds of paradise was told on TV by Sir David Attenborough, Johanne’s fascination for biology was born. Throughout her school years many subjects captivated her interest, and at different points in time she wanted to become an IT engineer or study international relations. However, the interest in the system of life lingered and persistently more than all the rest. “One of my favourite exercises in school was to try to explain why some plant or animal looked or acted like it did. What can appear as a random and non-functional part of an organism generally has a logical explanation (although the logic might be somewhat obscure) which is always fun to debate”. However, it was the concept of humans using and manipulating biology to do something we want that was the selling ticket. “I find it extremely fascinating what bright minds can come up with using the toolbox of biology. Whether it be producing beer, meat, a drug or even something as theoretically ambitious as DNA for data storage.”

Johanne is currently finishing a degree in biotechnology at The University of Edinburgh.

The wave of bio-based industry is coming, and the opportunity to join it is one I feel cannot be missed

The field's capability to combine various branches of science was the second major selling point for Johanne. “A primary reason why I chose biotechnology is the interdisciplinary nature of the field. The intersection with computational sciences is an area I am currently exploring in my final year project in which I am evaluating deep learning models for automatic cell segmentation. I also think the field of synthetic biology is very interesting and a space to watch in the future.” Jason Kelly, co-founder of Gingko Bioworks, has stated that the industry of biotech, and more specifically synthetic biology, is now where the informatics industry was in the 1950s. “The wave of bio-based industry is coming, and the opportunity to join it is one I feel cannot be missed.”

...school, time outdoors, and a (cheeky) night out can all be combined

Besides her studies Johanne enjoys exploring Scotland. Having grown up involved in musical theatre, a major appeal of moving to Edinburgh was the thriving cultural scene of the city. Now that Covid is finally easing its grip, the bustling feel of the city is re-emerging. “I do try to sneak in some stand-up or concerts between study-sessions”. She also enjoys spending the weekends outdoors in the natural surroundings of Scotland. They are not always mutually exclusive, however, and school, time outdoors, and a (cheeky) night out can all be combined. “Last week we went on a whiskey distillery tour (and tasting) as a part of a “core skills” course. Consider it one of the benefits of studying biotechnology in Scotland” she smiles.

no plans to ever stop asking ‘why’

After her studies, Johanne is motivated to be involved in innovative ways of utilising knowledge gained through science for problem solving and product development of biobased products. As a member of her generation, she finds it necessary to engage in a field that is actively trying to solve our planet's biggest crisis. “I strongly believe biotechnology will be a key industry in the handling of the climate crisis, in both its root causes and its consequences.” And while she aims to contribute to the answering of many of our most pressing questions as a globalising society, she also has no plans to ever stop asking ‘why’.

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About ShareLab

ShareLab offers fully equipped and serviced wet labs for startups and industrial partners, as well as a community of industry experts and biotech entrepreneurs. The laboratory is located at Oslo Science Park amid Norwegian institutions like University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital, SINTEF, and a range of life science companies. ShareLab is non-profit and invests all funds in cutting edge laboratories and industrial knowhow to help fuel life science.

Contact

If you would like to know more, you may contact Johanne and the ShareLab Team via LinkedIn or other social media.