Promising Swedish biotech companies transforming the country’s healthcare landscape

Sweden, renowned for its lush forests, varied smorgasbord cuisine, and globally recognized pop sensation ABBA, thrives on a vibrant economy driven by manufacturing and exports. Its thriving biotech industry is powered by a wealth of over 1,000 life science companies and top-notch research from institutions like the globally recognized Karolinska Institutet, making it a hotbed of innovative Swedish startups.

Let’s look at notable biotech companies in Sweden spearheading the country’s innovation in healthcare.

Exploring biotech breakthroughs

These companies harness the power of Swedish technology to drive transformative advancements, shaping the future of biotechnology on a global scale.

Amferia

Amferia innovates with wound care dressings, offering antimicrobial gel that stays effective for five days and is capable of binding and killing bacteria. Its shelf-life of 18 months allows flexibility, with a spray option for broader coverage. Derived from mammalian immune systems, the antimicrobial peptides combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The company has also developed antimicrobial patches for pre-surgical incision sites, ensuring sterility and reducing complications.

Anocca

Another trailblazing Swedish company, Anocca in Södertälje, is revolutionizing cancer treatment through TCR-T therapies against tumors.

Its technology platform harnesses engineered human T cells to pinpoint disease antigens. The company’s objective includes creating extensive libraries of these engineered antigen-presenting cells (eAPCs), each featuring a single HLA gene, to facilitate detailed antigen mapping.

Aprea Therapeutics

Aprea Therapeutics is revolutionizing the creation of cancer immunotherapies with its cutting-edge direct cell reprogramming techniques.

Cells rely on the DNA damage response (DDR) to function correctly. This process activates repair mechanisms or triggers apoptosis if the damage is beyond repair. In cancer cells, these DDR pathways behave differently, making them a viable target for cancer treatment. Aprea Therapeutics is focused on exploiting these differences to develop new cancer therapies.

Diamyd Medical

This biotech company develops precision therapies for autoimmune diabetes, targeting inflammation that affects insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. The antigen-specific immunotherapy known as Diamyd, currently being developed by Hamlet BioPharma in Stockholm, offers a potential solution to managing autoimmune diabetes.

Currently undergoing phase 3 clinical trials, Diamyd targets the protein antigen GAD65 and aims to help patients with type 1 diabetes regain insulin production.