EIF provides support to early-stage Life Science companies in the Nordic Region.

EIF today announced the launch of a EUR 36.1m Co-Investment fund together with Karolinska Development AB which makes early-stage investments in Life Science and Medtech companies and manages one of the largest portfolios of Life Science companies in Europe. An investment by EIF of EUR 26.7m and a corresponding EUR 9.4m by Karolinska Development will be made to the Co-Investment fund. EIF and Karolinska Development are both committed to the long-term success and commercialisation of innovations arising from research. 

Karolinska Development's mission is to turn top science in to business by tapping into Karolinska Institutet's innovation system, with hundreds of professors and thousands of researchers at one of the world's leading medical universities, as well as many other leading universities in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Since 2008, Karolinska Development has an exclusive deal flow agreement with Karolinska Institutet Innovations AB (KIAB) that secures the right to first refusal regarding all innovations submitted to KIAB for evaluation by researchers from Karolinska Institutet and other universities. This provides Karolinska Development with access to a rich flow of start-up opportunities difficult to match by any other player in the Nordic region with the same investment focus. Karolinska Institutet is one of the highest ranked medical universities in the world and each year, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Research accounts for 80% of the Karolinska Institutet's activity and the university conducts more than 40% of all academic medical research in Sweden with over 600 research groups. 

Karolinska Development identifies those research ideas with the greatest commercial potential developing them as quickly and efficiently as possible. This Co-Investment fund will help to fill the financing gap which early-stage Life Science companies often face and will help them to move to the next development stage. 

EIF's Chief Executive, Richard Pelly summarised, "Not only is this a landmark transaction representing the largest single investment ever made by EIF into a Swedish fund, but it also demonstrates EIF's firm commitment to support Technology Transfer initiatives across Europe where a funding gap for innovative SMEs has been identified. This investment will help innovations from research organisations to reach the marketplace more quickly and will hopefully allow spin-out companies to reach their full potential working in conjunction with the Karolinska Development team." 

This investment represents EIF's fifth commitment to support Technology Transfer initiatives in Europe since 2006. A commitment of GBP 14m was made in the IP Venture Fund (London, UK) in September 2006, a EUR 4m commitment in the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery, CD3 (Leuven, Belgium) in July 2006, a GBP 9m commitment in the University of Manchester UMIP Premier Fund (Manchester, UK) in April 2008 and a SEK 55m commitment in Chalmers Innovation (Göteborg, Sweden) in July 2008. 

EIF used funds from the European Investment Bank, the European Commission (Technology Transfer Pilot) as well as its own resources. The commercialisation of European research, and Technology Transfer specifically is regarded as a key part of the Lisbon Strategy. 

Contact: Dr. Piyush Unalkat, tel +34 91 436 0863 (Madrid), e-mail: unalkat@eif.org