NLS Days 2026: what’s dealmaking like in the Nordics? By Roohi Mariam Peter Add Labiotech as your Google Preferred Source 11 minutesmins September 11, 2026 11 minutesmins Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email Phot credits: Roohi Mariam Peter Add Labiotech as your Google Preferred Source Newsletter Signup - Under Article / In Page"*" indicates required fieldsCommentsThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest biotech news!By clicking this I agree to receive Labiotech's newsletter and understand that my personal data will be processed according to the Privacy Policy.*Company name*Job title*Business email* The life science industry in Sweden is the cornerstone of the Swedish economy, as it is the second largest export sector in the region. Nordic Life Science Days being held in Stockholm, Sweden, echoes the growing role of collaboration in healthcare in Sweden, and in the Nordics at large. This week, biotech, pharma and healthtech entrepreneurs and keen investors gathered at NLS Days 2026 to showcase promising science and partner with investors to take this science and the technologies born out of it to the market and to patients. “We had a record number of investors, which is fantastic news for us because that’s what life science is very dependent on. We have a lot of young companies in Sweden and in the Nordics, so we really need international capital; one of the challenges faced by this industry,” said Marjo Puumalainen, international director of SwedenBIO, the country’s central non-profit association for the life science industry. More than 230 healthcare companies from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the U.K., South Korea, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, and Sweden, and over 180 investors convened on September 8th and 9th. Table of contentsSweden’s billion-dollar life science deals reflect growing Nordic innovation The summit took place on the heels of two major billion-dollar licensing deals between Swedish companies and big pharma Eli Lilly in the neurodegeneration space. The American giant licensed a gamma-secretase modulator treatment from AlzeCure and plans to employ BioArctic’s BrainTransporter technology to develop a drug to combat neurodegeneration. Outlicensing deals in Sweden were worth up to $2.9 billion, including $161 million in upfront payments, last year, a new peak for the region. Moreover, since 2020, Swedish biotechs have bagged nearly a hundred licensing deals with partners in Europe and North America, as well as a growing number of them with Asian biotechs. For instance, Japanese pharma Otsuka purchased an immunology program from Swedish biotech Cantargia for more than $600 million last year. Sweden also in-licensed 42 programs last year, most of them from Europe. The Nordics at large raked in about €22 billion ($25.54 billion), a record number in 2025, and pharmaceutical production was worth roughly €46 billion ($53.4 billion).The Nordics have digitalized healthcare system, national registries, and biobanks, which bolster an “innovative ecosystem,” according to Puumalainen. “But innovation doesn’t happen just by strengths. You need very good people; you need players that are supportive and make the most of these strengths that we have,” she said, pointing towards the need for a strong investor community. Of course, local investors like Stockholm-heaquartered HealthCap and Industrifonden, Danish VC Novo Holding, and Finnish VC InnoVestor, fund some of this innovation, but international investment has a vital role to play, Puumalainen explained. Local investors not only provide capital, but are also very important in attracting international investors into the Nordics and building a strong syndicate around Nordic companies,” she added. Late-stage R&D in dire need of funding However, a common refrain at NLS Days 2026 was the need for more life science funding. While seed and early-stage funding are not a scarcity, many biotechs struggle to make it to phase 3 simply because they don’t have enough money to cover clinical costs. “It’s like a tipping point now. We really need to get the large amounts of funding for companies to be able to scale efficiently. It’s easy to get seed funding and series A, but then phase 3 is almost impossible,” said Jessica Martinsson, chief executive officer (CEO) and director general of SwedenBio. So, many cash-strapped companies look towards licensing opportunities with big pharmas to fund late-stage trials. Moreover, the European Union’s Horizon program for research and development (R&D), will come to an end next year, but the proposed budget from 2027 until 2035 will be double the current €93.5 billion fund. At present, €10.1 billion has been dedicated to taking early-stage research to commercial scale-up under the European Innovation Council (EIC). Suggested Articles ESC 2026: The drug development readouts that stood out BIO-Europe Spring 2026: partnership event brings funding hope to biotechs BIO-Europe 2026: Expanding the scope at Europe’s leading biotech partnering event Six TIL therapy companies to watch out for Lytix Biopharma’s oncolytic peptide sees promising results in clinic At NLS Days 2026, the life science industries from different parts of Europe felt the same about the need for more funding. In Norway, clusters are attempting to fill the gap, oncology being a key focus. For instance, the Oslo Cancer Cluster comprises around 90 members, which include research institutions, university hospitals, patient organizations, startups, biotechs, and global pharmas. “We’re still a cluster because we’re doing quite well,” said Wenche Gerhardsen, head of Communications at Oslo Cancer Cluster. “We’re a whole ecosystem just occupied with cancer research and innovation for cancer patients.” One member of the Norwegian incubator is Lytix Biopharma, an oncolytic peptide developer. Its lead candidate is ruxotemitide, an oncolytic peptide in phase studies to treat melanoma. It is designed to destroy cancer cells such that they spill their contents into the tumor microenvironment, exposing the tumor, and thereby activating the immune system. “It’s given locally, and we have seen fantastic results in quite heavily pretreated late-stage patients,” said Øystein Rekdal, CEO of Lytix Biopharma. The challenge with local treatment in a more advanced disease metastatic study is that it’s difficult to predict which patient will respond and which of these patients have immune exhaustion, as this places constraints on treatment options. “So, treating tumors before surgery is the ideal place for local therapy,” said Rekdal. Today, there are two standards of care in melanoma: the immunotherapy pembrolizumab and the combination of the two monoclonal antibodies, nivolumab and ipilimumab. “We are very lucky to be in a position where we are planning for a phase 3 study with pembrolizumab,” said Rekdal, who added that the company will test the drug in patients who are on ipinivo. “The idea is to see whether we can change these patients from being non-responsive to responsive.” Phase 2 results from the study showed that the oncolytic peptide had a 13.6% objective response rate (ORR) and a 40.9% clinical benefit rate that lasted for more than two years. “Even in very sick patients, we were able to induce strong systemic immune responses and reduce the size of the tumor. So, I think that was very encouraging,” said Rekdal. Gearing up for phase 3 trials, Rekdal explained that NLS Days is an opportunity to meet potential investors and partners, as well as to represent growing innovation in Norway, to attract international specialist investors. NLS Days 2026: incubator programs propel Finnish life sciences Meanwhile, in Finland, the funding scene has improved over the past decade, according to Christian Lardot, incubator leader at Health Incubator Helsinki, but he reiterated the need for late-stage funding in the life sciences. While local investors do have funds ranging up to €400 million, Lardot pointed out that it’s not enough. Much of the money that goes into R&D is crowdfunded. “It’s an open shareholder. It’s like an initial public offering (IPO), but not on the public market, and then they (life science companies) usually get up to €12 to €15 million,” said Lardot. Lardot leads Health Incubator Helsinki, Finland’s first incubator program, situated in the Terkko Health Hub, that hosts life science organizations for free with no equity taken. He aids in partnering companies with VCs across Europe. “The biggest benefit of the incubator program is that we connect startups with investors and other experts who can help businesses to grow. We try to bring in companies that complement Helsinki’s broader health ecosystem and that we believe can be commercially successful,” said Incubator Lead Christian Lardot. The Health Incubator Helsinki is the largest cluster in the region, followed by the industry in Turku, which has a footprint in pharmaceuticals, and now in women’s health, with the newly launched Women’s Health Hub Finland. The city of Tampere mainly represents medtechs, and Oulu focuses on health innovation, which is served by the OYSTER Incubator. Lardot believes that partnering platforms like NLS Days can boost visibility for technologies that are born out of Finland. “That’s where we can add value to our companies – we have a big pool of VC investors in Europe. So, we try to make introductions to the investors who will look into our portfolio. And that’s why I’m here,” said Lardot. NLS Days 2026: epigenetics-focused Cereno Scientific keen on collaboration Aside from clusters and innovation hubs, NLS Days 2026 also saw a high turnout of R&D companies scouting for potential funding and collaboration opportunities, like Cereno Scientific. The Swedish company has honed in on epigenetic modulation to target cardiovascular disease. “The exploding science and interest in longevity research basically sprung out of the identification that probably around 70% of our destiny and well-being is modulated by how well our epigenetics is working, i.e. how well the DNA production of essential proteins is working. And that is impacted by how we live. If we fast, if we exercise, if we jump into the sauna or into cold water,” said Sten Sörensen, CEO of Cereno Scientific. But for some people, some populations, epigenetics can go wrong and cause diseases, explained Sörensen. Cereno Scientific wants to bring HDAC inhibitors that have the potential to slow down, halt, or even reverse the disease progression, as the HDAC ex “There are various kinds of epigenetic modulators. HDAC inhibition is one of them. So, you’re uncoupling something that has been locked up falsely in the DNA production, and the ability for our compound to be an epigenetic modulator was identified 30 years ago,” said Sörensen. While the company’s modulator was previously used in epilepsy prevention, nobody really tested it for cardiovascular conditions back then. Cereno Scientific’s lead HDAC inhibitor is being developed to address pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a rare and progressive type of high blood pressure that affects the arteries in the lungs, that mostly affects women. “Our molecule has actually been documented in pH animal models to both prevent and reverse the disease. And we have seen signs of this impact in our phase 2A trial with this molecule, which we have repurposed into its own formulation, uniquely developed formulation and protected,” said Sörensen. The company also gained orphan drug designation by the FDA in Europe to protect it, as it is a rare disease and could overcome the unmet needs in patients on vasodilators – the standard of care for PAH – which doesn’t halt disease progression. CuraCell’s TIL therapies take on prostate and colorectal cancer Another company at NLS Days 2026 was TIL therapy developer CuraCell, representing the Swedish ecosystem. One to watch out for, CuraCell’s lead TIL therapy is able to turn cold tumors into treatable hot tumors. “Immunologically ‘cold’ tumours often respond poorly to immunotherapy because the tumour microenvironment can prevent an effective anti-tumour immune response through a range of immunosuppressive mechanisms. The modality we work with is particularly aimed at overcoming these barriers and creating conditions that could enable a stronger anti-tumour immune response,” said Jonas Båtelson, CEO and co-founder of CuraCell.The candidate CC-38 aims to revitalize the exhausted T cells by retrieving them from patients and engineering them to target tumors in prostate and colorectal cancers. CC-38 is based on the company’s CytoPLY platform, which is a T-cell activation platform that amplifies cytotoxicity. The T-lymphocytes are harvested from patients’ tumor cells taken from a biopsy. The lymphocytes are converted into ‘potent cytotoxic effectors’ and then expanded and reinfused back into patients, where their job is to identify and attack cancer cells. The candidate is in phase 1/2 trials, and the first patient was included as part of the trial in Frankfurt, Germany in April. This year, the summit also held the Nordic Star pitch competition, and AAX Biotech was crowned the winner and awarded €10,000. The bispecific antibody and CAR-T developer convinced the jury of investors of its antibody discovery and mapping platforms, Opti-mAb and Seqitope, and their market potential. All in all, NLS Days was a busy one this year, as the industry came together to present research findings and engage in partnerships. But the hosts SwedenBio are already primed for NLS Days 2027, which will be held in Copenhagen next year, in hopes of raising the bar for investment opportunities and at a potentially larger scale. 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