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Think ing beyond t he needs of t odayWe had a chance to discuss healthcare of the future with Trifork eHealth
Leveraging AI and Advanced Analyt ics t o Realize Value in
t he Healt h Care Indust rySøren Viereck and Mathias Blom from BCG,
shares their insights in AI and advanced analytics
Opt im ize, Im prove, AIInsights from Coloplast on employing AI
11th issue | Q4 2019
Synapse Release
Synapse - Life Science Con-nect 's magazine
This edition of The Synapse Release dives into the topic of AI & Big Data within the healthcare industry.
Issue 11 - Q4 2019
The magazine is published four times a year.
Edit or in Chief :
Jonas Arnold Jürgensen
The Synapse Release Team :
Emilie Dalbram
Jonas Arnold Jürgensen
Mads Krogh Larsen
Veridiana Pedrosa Merino
Emily Barot
Julie Bolding
Synapse - Life Science Connect
Nørre Allé 41, 2200 Køben-havn N
The year 2019 has come to an end, and so we are midst finalizing year an-other year of Synapse, while preparing to spend the holidays with our friends and family. All of Synapse wants to thanks our close collaborators, partners, advisors, and students who participated in our events through-out the year. All in all, Synapse effectively arranged 30 events catering to roughly 2500 students across Aalborg, Lund, and Copenhagen area. 2019 was in fact the year where our Aalborg hub was successfully launched through an event series of three events during the fall focused on "Re-search vs. Industry", and proved that the Synapse concept is not depen-dent on the Copenhagen-vibe. As for the coming year, we are hoping to ex-pand our activities to include Skåne, primarily focusing on building a Synapse Lund hub - we will keep you posted about that.
If we take a closer look at the magazine, 2019 was the year where we celebrated the international women's day by releasing a 'Women in Sci-ence' issue, with five inspiring interviews with women leaders within the field. Furthermore, we got to explore the topics of sustainability and inno-vation throughout our three flagship events; Synapse Connect UK, Copen-hagen Life Science Summit, and BioBusiness SummerSchool, which were all covered in our 'Sustainability & Innovation in Life Science' issue. Throughout 2019 we have managed to reach more than 2500 online sub-scribers, while having the magazine physically present at multiple universi-ties in Denmark. A large round of applause to the entire Synapse Release team for making all of this possible, and for providing consistent and high quality content for all of the magazines released this year.
Diving into this issue of Synapse Relase you will get an understand-ing of how AI and Big Data is being employed in healthcare. To deepen your understanding of thinking beyond the needs of today, we have in-cluded an interview with Trifork eHealth, a company specialized in digital health. Furthermore, we have asked our partners to give some insights into how they employ AI and Big Data, which you can read more about in the articles tit led 'Leveraging AI and Advanced Analytics to Realize Value in the Health Care Industry', and 'Optimize, Improve, AI'.
Once again, Synapse prepares to face a new year, and 2020 will bring both new challenges and new people to the table. Personally, I be-lieve Synapse have proven a itself as a sustainable organization in 2019, as we have managed to sustain high professionalism and throughput of events, while ultimately improving our use of resources. Additionally, 2020 will be the year of an international Synapse expansion, as we plan to ex-pand to Skåne region with our Synapse Lund Hub. Finally, I hope you will find the content interesting and enjoy your well-deserved holiday.
Where t o next ?
Jonas Arnold JürgensenChairman of the Board & Editor In Chief
Cont ent
Event s & Shor t News
04 Shor t and Sweet
Life science news served short and sweet
06 Event Announcem ent s
A list of events to attend
Synapse Wit hin
07 Synapse Insider
Interview with Eugene Padi, a new Synapse Core Team member
08 Synapse Rew ind
A look back at our past events
12 Synapse Connect Medicon Valley
A deep-dive into the medicon valley life science cluster.
16 The iGEM Journey for t eam Ovulaid
Ovulaid shares some thoughts on their journey through iGEM
20 Think ing beyond t he needs of t oday
Interview with Holti Kellezi, Head of Business Development and Regulatory Affairs at Trifork eHealth
Par t ner Insight s
24 Leveraging AI and Advanced Analyt ics t o Realize Value in t he Healt h Care Indust ry
Søren Viereck and Mathias Blom from BCG, shares their insights in AI and advanced analytics
28 Oppor t unit ies at BCG
30 Opt im ize, Im prove, AI
Coloplast shares some insights on how they make use of AI in their organization
33 Are you t ak ing ownership of your career?
Kirsten M. Poulsen, Director, KMP+ House of Mentoring, shares her thoughts on the benefits of having a mentor through career transitions
35 Can you apply for t he Novo Nordisk Graduat e Program m e w it h a degree in a nat ural science?
37 Oppor t unit ies at Novo Nordisk MARS
Chr . Hansen, Universit y of Copenhagen and t he
Danish Technological Inst it ut e (DTI) par t ner up
t o develop nat ural solut ions t o reduce t he
environm ent al im pact of agr icult ural
product ion
The Danish Innovation Fund has awarded 3.9 mio.
Euro grant to the Bac4CroP project, which
addresses the global challenge of increasing crop
productivity while providing a natural alternative to
chemical pesticides. The project, which will run
until 2023, aims to use the help of beneficial
bacteria to naturally improve plant health, and
contribute to increase and stabilize crop yield. The
key steps during the project development will
include the use of Plant and Microbiome
` predictors´ to screen for new bacterial strains;
further data integration and prediction by
advanced machine learning; strain breeding
and/or creation of microbial consortia to engineer
more productive and resistant crops. (Source:
Innovation Fund Denmark)
Newly founded st ar t up grant ed DKK 50,000 for
det ect ion of l i fe-t hreat ening neurological
diseases
Paragit Solutions, formed by five DTU life science
students, are developing an electronic arm
bandage capable of assessing the presence and
seriousness of early symptoms of Parkinson?s
disease. Only in Denmark, 800 people are
diagnosed with this neurodegenerative disease
every year, whose symptom range from muscle
stiffness and uncontrolled shaking to the
development of mental disorders. Although no
current treatment is available, patients can benefit
from an early detection to help optimizing
treatment outcomes. Paragit Sleeves achieve this
by combining hardware and software technology
to create a wearable diagnostic tool for early
stages of Parkinson?s disease. The company has
been awarded with DKK 50,000 by the
pharmaceutical company Bristoll-Myers Squibb
and the Fonden for Entreprenørskab for further IP
protection of Paragit Sleeve. (Source: Medwatch)
Int ernat ional vaccine all iance w il l spend 178
m il l ion dollars in st ock of Ebola vaccine
The first vaccine against Ebola was finally approved
last November by the European Medicines Agency
(EMA). The vaccine, marketed by Merk, has already
been administered to thousands as an attempt to
palliate the ongoing disease outbreak in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now, the global
vaccine alliance GAVI will stock 500,000 doses of
the vaccine as a prevention measure in case of
new outbreaks. (Source: The Guardian)
The latest life science news served short and sweet
Shor t and Sweet
4
A t eam of Copenhagen Universit y st udent s in a
cont est t o im prove wom en?s changes t o get
pregnant w it h a chew ing gum
The 13 science students selected to represent
Copenhagen University in the International
Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM)
competition celebrated last October in Boston
want to help women become pregnant. Their idea;
to develop a chewing gum that exactly measures
the concentration of estrogen, progesterone and
LH hormones and changes color according to the
woman?s stage along her menstrual cycle. Current
fertility measuring solutions lack convenience and
are usually not very precise. The chewing gum
would represent and alternative, cheaper and
user-friendly solution to determine the exact
moment when ovulation occurs. Read more about
this years UCPH iGEM team later in the magazine.
(Source: University of Copenhagen)
Developing a new m echanical insulin pil l , t he
aim of t he joint vent ure bet ween Novo Nordisk
and MIT researchers
For a considerable number of drugs, including
insulin, the only possible route of intake is as an
injectable. A group of MIT engineers and Novo
Nordisk scientists have created a new capsule
capable of protecting drugs from degradation in
the gastrointestinal tract. It is only when the
capsule gets to the small intestine that it opens to
release solvent microneedles that penetrate the
intestine lining and release the drug into the
bloodstream. Tested in pigs with positive results,
this new coated pill has shown to be able to deliver
similar insulin dosage as that of an injection.
(Source: MIT News)
The Synapse Aalborg Hub f in ishes of f a
successful fal l
The Synapse Aalborg Hub was started in 2018 due
to the lack of an organization that could bridge the
gap between students and their future careers.
The hub has grown steadily since then as a result
of this demand, organizing events to help students
learn more about and network with companies
and researchers from many different fields.
A great example of this is the Autumn event series
under the name Research vs. Industry. The aim of
the events was to educate students on the
differences between working in the academic and
the corporate world, informing them about both
the pros and cons of both. Each event had its own
topic and had exciting speakers from companies
such as Coloplast, Rambøll and Novo Nordisk as
well as professors and Ph.d. students from AAU.
The events were well received by attendees and
speakers alike, making this another successful step
forward for the young hub.
The Synapse Aalborg team is now looking forward
to 2020. An expansion of the team via a
recruitment day is scheduled for February, and
new events are in the works. Stay tuned!
5
Event Announcem ent sNew events from Synapse and our partners
Jan 16th Copenhagen Bioscience Lecture:Epigenetics and the Lifestyle: Influence of diet and exercise on epigenetic memory and metabolic health
Jan 16th Application deadline for Female Mentorship Program
Feb 5t h To PhD or not t o PhD
Spr ing Meet 'n ' Greet : Pharm a and Biot ech
Spr ing Ant im icrobial resist ance and Biosecur it y
March 12-13th Hello Tomorrow Global Summit
April 22-24th BCG Crack the Case
Want t o st ay updat ed on all of our act ivit ies? Follow us on:
6
We had a chance to chat with Eugene Padi, one of
the new Synapse Core Team Members, on his
journey with Synapse prior to joining the team.
As a bit of a vet eran par t icipant (since you?ve
been a m ent ee, on SCUK and at BBSS), what do
you t h ink t hese individual event s of fer / what
did you learn f rom each?
The mentorship programme was a valuable
resource in my professional development. It
exposed me to a broad network and helped me
define my professional path. Dorte Clausen was an
excellent mentor and a coach; heresteemed
competencies in giving constructive feedback and
criticism allowed me to see my owncapabilit ies and
that of others. In addition, we had moments where
we exchanged knowledge anddiscussed topics
which I still apply in my daily working life.
Going on SCUK opened doors o leading experts
and practitioners (e.g.Francis Crick Institute,
Wellcome Trust, EMBL-EBI, to name a few) in the
field of life science withwhom I still have contact.
These valuable networks have been sponsors in
my career path and have helped enhance my
visibility.
As a life science student, I have always flouted
business, thinking that there will always be
someone to do the business-related work. Yes, this
may be true; however, my perception of business
altered when I discovered the field of
start-ups/bio-entrepreneurship. Here, I could be
challenged into applying my existing scientific
background with business. So, I saw this path and
applied for the BBS. During the summer
programme, my knowledge in different areas of
business was enriched. Particularly, the
programme provided insights into finance,
marketing, accounting, etc. which were presented
by experts in the respective fields. The programme
also provided the occasion to properly handle and
delegate tasks. This has been a tremendous
contribution to my ability to assign and manage
my workload. Further, my interaction with
inspiring professionals and participants
immensely strengthened my interpersonal skills.
These skills were also bolstered during the case
competition and workshops. Overall, the
programme offered key skills, which I could not
have gained from my normal academic route.
Follow ing on f rom t he last quest ion, what ot her
t h ings do you t h ink Synapse can of fer st udent s,
in t erm s of event s and schem es?
Perhaps more of skill-focused events targeting
specific areas and positions in the industry. Thiswill
provide the platform to turn theories into practice
(like the BBS). We could have twobiobusiness
schools in a year; thus, advocating biobusiness
/bioentrepreneurship
As a l i fe science st udent how do you see Big
Dat a et c. inf luencing your fut ure career?
As long as technology continues to improve with
new gadgets, apps, social media, etc. big data will
change how we conduct research and tackle
diseases. Soon, I believe with the data we
accumulate from eHealth and other sensory/digital
platforms, we will be able to reduce the cost of
medication by developing targeted and precise
treatments for patients. Additionally, the data can
be integrated into research purposes to find
preventive methods to diseases. Nonetheless,
everything has its caveats and as such we need to
start questioning the storage and protection of
such humongous data
Finally, what is on your chr ist m as l ist Eugene?
and what are your hopes for 2020?
I am looking forward to spending more time
during the holiday with my family. My hopes for
the coming year are to finish my master thesis and
to continue advancing modern medicine and
research.
Synapse InsiderLearn more about the Synapse organization
and the people in it
7
Synapse: Life Science Career Fair & Kick-Of f
The academic year took off in the Maersk Tower at
University of Copenhagen with our annual ?Life
Science Career Fair & Kick-off? event where more
than 17+ life science companies presented and
interacted with students and young professionals
through company stands and unique networking
sessions. The event was a big success and more
than 600+ students participated and had exclusive
opportunities to talk to representatives from
companies such as Bavarian Nordic, Boston
Consulting Group, Coloplast, Høiberg, LEO Pharma,
Novo Nordisk, Roche, etc. The event also included
more in-depth introductions to our partner
companies in an adjacent auditorium with exciting
talks and interesting question sessions. It was
exciting for us to see so many curious participants
networking with industry professionals, and this
was a perfect way for us to start off the new
academic year because it gave us a great boost to
bring even more events to this ever-budding field.
We hope to expand this event in the future with
even more companies being represented because
we believe that it provides a one-of-a-kind setting
for students and young professionals to get an
insight into the variety of career opportunities that
a degree in life science can offer.
LEO Pharm a x Synapse: Biom et r ics
Following a very successful start to the academic
year, we co-hosted an event and exclusive
company visit with our partner LEO Pharma in
Ballerup. The focus of the day was on Biometrics
and how the various departments of a life science
company come together in the development of a
single molecule all the way into the final medical
product. The event was sold-out, and the lucky
participants who got a spot were introduced to the
Synapse Rew ind
8
We reflect on our most recent activities, events and programs
As the year draws to a close, it seems like a good time to rewind and take a look back on our recent events, workshops, and other activities in Synapse as we have had one of our busiest fall semesters ever. We have connected more students, young graduates, and industry professionals than ever before, and we hope that our fall events can provide the basis for our events in the spring and beyond?
Written by Mads Krogh Larsen,Core Team Member
9
history of LEO Pharma and the challenges a
pharmaceutical company face when they go
through testing, clinical trials, reporting,
submission and approval, publishing, etc. The
presentations were followed by a very interesting
Q&A session with all the speakers and company
representatives, and the day ended with lunch and
a visit to the LEO Museum.
Synapse Academ y
Another initiative we provide to students who are
interested in pursuing a career in life science is our
own Synapse Academy initiative where we connect
enrolled students and young graduates with career
advisers and other professionals from FK Select in
a workshop where you get to strengthen your
professional profile. This fall, we held this full-day
workshop in Lyngby in the beginning of October,
and the selected participants went through topics
such as how to sell yourself, inputs on a good CV
and motivational letter, ideas on how to use your
network both offline and online, do?s and don?ts,
etc. The participants received some great advice
and some concrete instructions for their future
job-hunt, and all in all it was a very fruitful day for
all those involved.
Lund Kick-Of f
On the 8th of October, we kicked off the academic
year for our Lund group with inspiring talks and
networking sessions in great combination with the
Swedish tradition of ?fika?. The first talk of the
evening was given by Shahram Lavasani who is the
founder and CEO of ImmuneBiotech AB. Shahram
Lavasani holds a Ph.D. degree from Lund
University in Medical Inflammation Research, and
he provided an interesting insight into immunology
and autoimmune disease research with a focus on
gut microbiota and potential drug candidates. This
talk was followed by a presentation by Jonas A.
Jürgensen who is the co-founder of VenomAid
Diagnostics and chairman of Synapse ? Life
Science Connect. Jonas gave an introduction to his
work with antibody discovery against toxins and
how it is to be an impact focused start-up. The final
talk of the kick-off event was held by Adam Clauss
who has experience from his post doc at
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical
School, Boston, MA, followed by two years at the
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Adam
Clauss is currently heading the Regenerative
Medicines department at LEO Pharma, and his talk
was focused on how LEO Pharma utilizes the
strong Danish-Swedish collaboration. This focus is
always very relevant for us in Synapse as we are
trying to bridge the gap between academia and
industry throughout the entire Scandinavian life
science cluster, and this also provided a perfect
springboard for the ?Connect Medicon Valley? event
we had later in the fall.
Bæredygt ighed ? en biobaseret f rem t id
This fall, we also had some time for experimenting
in Synapse and this included our first-ever event
held in Danish with the topic ?Bæredygtighed ? en
biobaseret fremtid? (Eng: Sustainability ? a
biobased future). Furthermore, this was our first
event ever at the Frederiksberg Campus (University
of Copenhagen) which gave us the opportunity to
attract a lot of new participants to their first-ever
Synapse event. The event was held in the beautiful
and historic ?Festauditorium? with speakers from
different fields of research within biosustainability
and biotechnology. The topic was introduced by
Morten Nørholm (Senior Researcher) from the
Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for
Biosustainability. Then, we had the honor of
presenting Prof Birger Lindberg Møller as our
keynote speaker for the event. Birger Lindberg
Møller is a former Head of Carlsberg Laboratory
and he has held various positions as Director of
research centers which has ultimately earned him
the Order of the Dannebrog by the Queen of
Denmark. Through his talk, he gave a very
interesting in-depth introduction to solar energy
and carbon dioxide-based production of high value
natural products with potential use of these
technologies in the future. Subsequently, Marianne
Riisbøll from Food Nation gave an overview of the
Danish food industry and how different new
technologies and biological solutions can provide a
future with less carbon dioxide emissions and a
more sustainable future, and we had the
opportunity to present one of these concrete
solutions in the form of a company called
?BiomassProtein?.
BiomassProtein was presented by David Valbjørn
Christensen and he introduced us to the
company?s patented technologies of extracting
protein from natural resources such as grass and
clover. This was a unique opportunity for students
to get an insight into real-life technologies and
research going on in the field of sustainability, and
it provided the participants with some tools to
better understand the challenges we are facing in
future both in life science and in society in general.
BCG x Synapse: Science of Consult ing
For our second partner event of the fall, we
co-hosted an event with Boston Consulting Group
focusing on taking a different career path with a
life science degree ? consulting. The selected
participants were introduced to BCG and
management consulting, followed by a unique
opportunity to try their Interactive Digital
Transformation game which was a hands-on
experience with the different challenges and tasks
you might face in the consulting business. This was
then followed by an intimate Q&A session with
BCG consultants where the participants were able
to gain some insight into the different experiences
you get from working within consulting. The event
was topped-off with an informal dinner and some
time for networking, and it was a very successful
event for both the participants and the
consultants.
Ment orship Kick -Of f
One of our most popular activities, the Mentorship
Program, was also kicked-off this fall with a big
event in the Maersk Tower (University of
Copenhagen). The 2019/2020 Mentorship Program
is a collaboration with Synapse ? Life Science
Connect, Kirsten M. Poulsen, and KMP+ House of
Mentoring. The kick-off was the first meeting
between the mentors and the mentees, and it was
a great workshop for all the 30 mentors and
mentees taking part in the program. We look
forward to a productive 6 months of mentoring
and hope to see all the participants again at the
Midway Event.
Synapse Present s: The Era of Im m unot herapy
The final event of the year was also the biggest
event of the fall when we hosted our topic-based
Immunotherapy event with Robert G. Urban
(Former Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation) as
our keynote speaker on the 4th of December.
10
More than 250+ students and young professionals
participated in the event at the Biocenter
(University of Copenhagen). We had the
opportunity to invite Robert G. Urban as our
keynote speaker with his unique background and
insight into the field of immunotherapy and
oncology. From 2007-12, Robert founded and was
the Executive Director of Koch Institute for
Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. He led the
Koch Institute into a more interdisciplinary
disease-focused research environment and during
his leadership, the Koch Institute launched 17
start-up companies and its technology was the
source of over 50 out-licensing transactions.
Robert G. Urban offered historical perspectives on
how immunotherapy within oncology has evolved
as well as insights into his own fascinating and
inspiring career.
Following Robert 's presentation, we took a deeper
dive into the world of immunotherapy with a
presentation by Ditte Jæhger (Postdoctoral
Research at DTU Health Tech) about research and
by Troels Holz Borch (Clinical Trial Specialist, MD,
PhD National Center for Cancer Immune Therapy)
about clinical trials and the potential use of
immunotherapy in treatment. Moreover, the
Danish company Cytovac A/S presented their work
within immunotherapies for orphan diseases. This
was one of our biggest events ever and we were
very happy to see so many interested and engaged
participants from a variety of different schools and
academic backgrounds all with an interest in the
immunotherapy field and industry and in the
application of these new technologies in life
science ? this is truly the mission of Synapse.
With a very successful fall, we are happy to see
that our community is growing day by day, and we
look very much forward to seeing you all for more
events in the spring!
11
A deep dive int o t he Medicon
Valley Life Science Clust er
Coverage of Synapse Connect Medicon Valley By Julie Bolding
Connect Medicon Valley is a three-day trip where Synapse ? Life Science Connect
invites 30 dedicated and ambitious students and young professionals from Danish
and Swedish universities to experience the amazing opportunities offered by the
life science cluster Medicon Valley. The trip consists of one day in Lund and one
day in Copenhagen and Northern Zealand and ends with a hackathon at Hello
Science on the last day. The participants will gain insights into the companies
located in this cluster and are presented to new exciting career opportunities on
both sides of Oresund.
The Medicon Valley clust er
Medicon Valley is a life science cluster in
Scandinavia located at the gateway between
Denmark and Sweden. It has a vibrant ecosystem
and deep talent pool underpinned by world-class
life science universities and research
infrastructure. Within Medicon Valley there is a rich
life science heritage that attracts many successful
companies. Companies like Novo Nordisk, LEO
Pharma, Chr. Hansen, Baxter Gambro,
Novozymes and Lundbeck are located in this life
science cluster, but many smaller and innovative
start-ups are also located in this area.
To Sweden and back
Connect Medicon Valley 2019 started out with a
full day in Lund, where we first had an inspiring
workshop presented by Venture Lab. VentureLab
is a nonprofit organization that is helping
university students through entrepreneurial
learning. During this workshop everyone learned
about having an entrepreneurial mindset and
learned to make an elevator pitch to a potential
investor. The workshop was followed by exiting
talks from different startup companies all located
in Lund. They all shared their story of how to
create a start-up and shared both the difficulties
and the successes in the process of starting a
company. The day in Lund ended with a visit to the
MAX IV facility, which is a synchrotron that
provides X-rays of the highest quality available and
makes the invisible visible. We got the opportunity
to walk around the whole synchrotron and learned
about its many applications in life science. After a
bus-ride to Elsinore we ended the first day on
Connect Medicon Valley with an amazing Italian
dinner.
A m ixt ure of t he Danish Life Science
The second day in the Connect Medicon Valley
2019 program started out at Chr. Hansen, which is
a global bioscience company that develops natural
solutions for the food, beverage, nutritional,
pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. The
company is a supplier of food cultures, probiotics,
enzymes and natural colors. At Chr. Hansen we
learned from people working at different
departments in Chr. Hansen such as, sales,
research and bioinformatic solutions and heard
about their educational backgrounds and exiting
career paths. The visit ended with a tour of their
facility where we experienced one of their
production lines and a great lunch where we had
the opportunity to talk and network with all the
speakers from Chr. Hansen. After experiencing one
13
of the larger companies in Medicon Village we
used the afternoon with talks from some of the
smaller companies located in the area. Bioneer A/S
is an innovative research-based company
providing services within biomedicine and
biotechnology. They gave an inspiring talk about
the career opportunities in Bioneer A/S and taught
about how it is to work in a company that helps
other life science companies and does research for
them. Glycom is the world's leading supplier in the
Human Milk Oligosaccharides market and the only
fully integrated HMO player with its own product
development, preclinical and clinical development,
regulatory and large-scale production. They talked
about how they are now researching how their
product Human Milk Oligosaccharides can be used
for other purposes such as treatment for irritable
bowl syndrome. Trifork e-health gave the third talk
in the afternoon and taught the participants about
how you as life science students can contribute to
the design of software solutions. The afternoon
ended with a great talk about Lundbeck - one of
the larger companies in Medicon Valley. They took
us through the long process of designing a drug
against a specific target, testing it and in the end
take it to market. We ended the day with a visit to
SkyLab where we got an introduction to the
Sustainable Development Goals, and the teams for
the hackathon had the opportunity of
brainstorming for their idea to a solution for one
of the three sustainable development goals ?zero
hunger?, ?good health and well-being? and ?clean
water and sanitation?.
Life Hackat hon
The last day at Connect Medicon Valley took place
at Hello Science ? a startup accelerator focused on
the sustainable development goals. The
participants were divided into their teams and they
all had 6 hours to prepare a solution for one of the
sustainable development goals. During the day
professionals from Novozymes contributed with
inputs to the teams and acted as judges in the end
of the day. The teams worked extremely hard all
day and in the end the winning team was
announced team ?Make More Crop from the Drop?
who managed to create a solution for Sustainable
Development Goal 6 ?clean water and sanitation?
that the judges from Novozymes found their
solution easy to implement, a good solution for
?clean water and sanitation? and a solution that
could potentially be commercialized.
We would like to thank partners and sponsors for
making this trip possible. Furthermore, a large
round of applause to Medicon Valley Alliance for
opening up their network in Sweden, and helping
us with practicalities across Øresund.
14
Why did you sign up for Connect Medicon
Valley?
I signed up for Connect Medicon valley for three
reasons. 1: I want to learn about the businesses
that are located in the area of Medicon Valley. 2: I
want to learn more about the start-up
environment in Medicon Valley as I am very
interested in starting my own company. 3: I want
to participate in the hackathon ? I like the setup
with Hello Science and I am looking forward to
experience the support you can get from such a
platform. If my team develop a cool idea I hope
that we can keep working on it afterwards.
What did you l ike t he m ost about Connect
Medicon Valley?
The visit to Chr. Hansen was what I liked most
about the trip. It was very interesting to see how
the science is directly applied in such a
science-based company. I also enjoyed that we got
the opportunity to get a tour of the facilit ies in at
Chr. Hansen and see a production line.
Has t he t r ip m ade you consider new career
opt ions or career goals?
During Connect Medicon Valley I have definitely
learned about new companies that I had not heard
about before, and it has made me think about new
alternative career options for me after I finish my
master?s degree. I was especially inspired by the
talk from Bioneer, who solve problems for other
companies. I found it extremely interesting as I
never thought about that type of job before.
Why did you sign up for Connect Medicon
Valley?
I come from Austria and have only lived in
Denmark for three months. I signed up for
Connect Medicon Valley because I would like to get
an overview of the opportunities that are in this
area, and I wanted to see the differences between
Medicon Valley and Austria.
What did you l ike t he m ost about Connect
Medicon Valley?
I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to dive
deep into Chr. Hansen as a company. Getting the
opportunity to talk to the people who work there
was a great experience.
Has t he t r ip m ade you consider new career
opt ions or career goals?
During the second day at Connect Medicon Valley I
was very inspired by the e-health company Trifork.
I got really motivated to get involved in Trifork
because I learned that I can be a part of this kind
of company with my educational background. I
actually ended the day with applying for student
position at Trifork.
Why do you want t o work w it h solving
sust ainable developm ent goals.?
I want to work with Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) because sustainability is the most
important thing to work with. When we think
about the future generations it is not a possibility
to not think about SDGs.
15
So what did t he par t icipant s t h ink about it ?
Niels, M.Sc.stud, Molecular Biomedicine, UCPH
Felix, M.Sc.stud, Business Administration and Entrepreneurship, CBS
iGEM is the world championship in synthetic biology for students. In 2019, more than 400 teams from universities and high schools from all around the world participated in the competition, where they used their whole summer (and often more) to create a project in synthetic biology, using their own crazy ideas and design (https://igem.org/Main_Page). All this hard work led to the ?The Giant Jamboree?, a 5 days long conference, that took place in Boston, USA at the end of October.
St udent s f rom t he Universit y of Copenhagen w in a gold m edal and t he people?s choice award at iGEM 2019
This year, 13 students from the University of Copen-
hagen participated in the competition with their
project Ovulaid. The team worked on making a
chewing gum that could predict ovulation and
thereby measure the fertility of women by using
gene- modified baker?s yeast. This way, women
would be able to exchange so-called ?cycle tracking?
apps and ovulation tests with a simple piece of
chewing gum, that changes color according to the
point in their menstrual cycle. In addition to the un-
countable hours spent in the lab, the team also de-
veloped an app, a business plan, a target group
analysis and held a lot of meetings with stakehold-
ers - all of this to make sure the lab work was in ac-
cordance with the needs of the women that will use
the product in the future.
The team quickly discovered a huge interest from
the outside on the product and even got an article
published about Ovulaid in the British newspaper
The Guardian, as well as in French, German, Belgian
and Indian newspapers.
With all of these amazing experiences and compe-
tencies attained by the team, the excited students
left for Boston for the finale The Giant Jamboree,
that is a 5 daylong celebration of the achievements
of all the teams, of the amazing projects shaped by
the students, and of synthetic biology in general.
During these 5 days, all the teams got to present
their project with a presentation and a poster.
The University of Copenhagen didn?t only come
home from the competition with their baggage full
of experiences. Ovulaid fulfilled all the iGEM criteria,
and the proud students brought home a gold
medal. But this wasn?t all. To their big surprise, they
also won the prestigious people?s choice award ?iGE-
Mer?s choice award?, which was a big honor, as well
as the price for the ? Best education and engage-
ment?. In addition to that, they also got nominated
in the categories for ?Best entrepreneurship?, ?Best
model?, and ?Best integrated human practices?.
Summed up, the University of Copenhagen man-
Ovulaid team gathered in the lab
16
aged to make a project that was relevant and well
enough done to give amazing prizes and results
and left the students and their supervisors super
proud.
How t o t ake par t in t he upcom ing iGEM?
The search for the new 2020 iGEM team has already
begun, and this team will already start their project
in February 2020. So if you are a proactive student
from the University of Copenhagen, that wants to
gain a lot of new skills and experiences, and with an
interest in biology projects, then iGEM is just for
you. The competition is a multidisciplinary competi-
tion and needs students from all fields. Professional
diversity is a strength and everyone is encouraged
to apply to be a part of the team.
Throughout December, we will have different infor-
mation events, so keep an eye on the facebook
page of iGEM TeamCopenhagen.
About t he aut hors:
See t his years post er f rom Ovulaid on
t he next page
Ovulaid team after the final vote at the Giant Jamboree
Selma Belfakir, B.Sc.stud in Biology-Biotech at University of Copenhagen
Benedicte Smith-Sivertsen, B.Sc.stud in Molecular Biomedicine at University of Copenhagen
17
1818
1919
20
Trifork eHealth was founded in 2016 and combines
the best of two worlds. As an individual technology
spin-off, the company enjoys the agility and DNA of
a true start-up while the connection to the mother
company, Trifork, simultaneously ensure a high de-
gree of professionalism, quality, and experience.
Holti Kellezi, Head of Business Development & Reg-
ulatory Affairs, joined the company nearly 7 months
ago after four years in Novo Nordisk ? first as a
graduate and later as a regulatory affairs profes-
sional in the Novo Nordisk Digital Health team.
Thus, he has vast experience with digital health- and
medical device solutions as well as the regulation
thereof, and he is not in doubt - digital health is the
future.
"Digital health technology has become a new health
care revolution that empowers users to make better-
informed decisions about their health. At Trifork
eHealth, I work to identify the therapeutic areas where
digital health can have a positive impact. I combine
this understanding with a specialty on digital health-
and medical device regulations to ensure that we as an
organization develop digital solution that are safe, ef-
fective and of high-quality."
To put it simple, Trifork eHealth uses technology to
help improve the health and wellness of individuals
- or to sum it up in their own words, they ?code to
While digital health is a simple concept ? using technology to help improve individuals? health and wellness - it is a broad and growing industry. It can cover everything from wearable tech to ingestible sensors, mobile health apps, artificial intelligence, robotics and electronic records. To bring together all these disparate strands and gain insights into the digital health market, I met with Holti Kellezi who is Head of Business Development & Regulatory Affairs at Trifork eHealth ? a Danish software company specialized exclusively in digital health.
Think ing beyond t he needs of t odayAn interview with Holti Kellezi, Head of Business Development and Regulatory Affairs at Trifork eHealth
Written by Emilie Dalbram,Core Team Member
21
save lives?. They do so in collaboration with global
health authorities as well as a broad variety of
stakeholders including patients, providers, payers,
the public and the private sector.
?As an agile software company focusing entirely on dig-
ital health, we get a lot of attention from the health-
care industries. We therefore have numerous projects
with some of the leading Pharma and MedTech compa-
nies in Denmark working specifically in the fields of
awareness, diagnosis, treatment support & compli-
ance, and clinical trials. This means that we have expe-
rience with the development of mobile medical appli-
cations, patient empowerment programs, telemedicine
solutions, image recognition software for medical pur-
poses, connectivity projects, machine learning tools for
diagnosis and much more.?
But although digital health is experiencing a huge
take-off, both in developing and emerging markets,
the digital future of healthcare is a complex world.
Digital health solutions, which are intended to pro-
vide information for diagnostic or therapeutic pur-
poses, are sometimes viewed and regulated as
medical devices. This is fantastic for patients and
healthcare professionals since it pushes manufac-
turers to increase the quality of products and en-
sure patient safety. However, it is a fine balance
and in some cases, it can have a negative impact on
the level of innovation thereby reducing the number
of digital solutions available on the market.
?Digital health solutions must be developed in a man-
ner that ensures patient safety and product efficacy. If,
for example, a patient utilizes a mobile application to
calculate a dose of insulin ? and the calculation engine
has a simple bug that wrongly informs the patient to
take a factor 10 more insulin, and the user does so ? it
could have deadly consequences. In order to prevent
such situations, we must develop according to industry
golden standards and comply with necessary regula-
tory guidelines. At Trifork eHealth, we have extensive
experience in software regulated as a medical device
and we develop our software in coherence with regula-
tory requirements and international guidelines.?
In other words, Trifork eHealth is specialized in de-
veloping software as a medical device and accord-
ing to Holti Kellezi, the company excels in develop-
ing certified solutions that address the unique is-
sues and requirements in an increasingly complex,
global life science environment.
?We believe in challenging the status quo in all our ac-
tivities and we strive to become a leading player within
the digital health industry. Our main contribution is to
leverage modern technology within the healthcare in-
dustry and thereby accelerate the digital health journey
for pharma, MedTech and healthcare companies.?
And who knows - maybe they will? New innovations
are often created in companies, such as Trifork
eHealth, where they enjoy the enthusiasm, hyper
energy, focus, and firm belief that ?you can change
the world?, which is essential for driving break-
through technology to success. But what are the fu-
ture trends within digital health and what predicts
their success?
So far, the consumer side of digital health has been
driven to a substantial degree by the growth of
wearable?s and mobile health apps. Most of these
have been focused on ?lifestyle? measures of health,
allowing us to measure everything from sleep to re-
productive health. However, in the future these
"The integration of biological data with data from wearable tech will create a platform for ever more proactive health management from users and patients ? leading to a significant increase in empowerment."
21
22
apps are likely to become more medical as hard-
ware capability expands and new sensors and func-
tionalities are added.
?While digital health can give users the tools to practice
lifestyle medicine with just a smartphone and an app,
adding in a peripheral or two could improve the med-
ical management of their disease as well. Thus, digital
health will increasingly offer ways for people with
chronic conditions to better monitor and manage
them. Virtual care (e.g. patient portals, electronic
health records, remote patient monitoring etc.) will in-
crease in a number of chronic disease areas, and artifi-
cial intelligence and technological sensors will gradu-
ally be implemented into electronic health records to
provide decision-support and monitoring to healthcare
professionals ? especially within diagnosis from images
such as X-rays, CT-Scans, MRIs etc.?
Digital health has the potential to impact the health-
care industry both by prolonging people?s health
and lives, empowering patients, creating more value
for healthcare professionals and helping cut costs
by reducing emergency visits, hospital admissions
and doctor appointments. Moreover, with the help
of big data systems and artificial intelligence, we
may be able to establish connections between med-
ical conditions and lifestyles and thereby determine
how doing or not doing certain things (be it where
you live, what you eat, what medications you take,
etc.) will increase or reduce your risk of getting a
disease. But what does this mean? Will technolo-
gies, eventually, replace human doctors?
?No, at least not in the foreseeable future. All studies
on the utilization of digital health solutions show that
the greatest impact on precision, quality and patient
benefit is when healthcare professionals and tech is
used in combination. Digital health will be a big step
on the road to personalized medicine - the integration
of biological data with data from wearable tech will
create a platform for ever more proactive health man-
agement from users and patients ? leading to a signifi-
cant increase in empowerment.?
As such, technology is changing what is possible in
healthcare and moving forward there are many
promising applications of digital solutions within the
healthcare industries from telemedicine to predic-
tive diagnostics, augmented reality and artificial in-
telligence. Thus, the future of healthcare is just
around the corner ? the question is whether we are
ready to take the next step and start thinking be-
yond the needs of today?
Par t ner Insight sFeat ur ing Bost on Consult ing Group, Coloplast , KMP+ House of Ment or ing, and Novo Nordisk MARS
24
Leveraging AI and Advanced Analyt ics t o Realize Value in t he Healt h Care Indust ry
As AI applications increasingly transform the way companies operate, healthcare
is no longer an exception. Today, the technology is already incorporated into
heart monitors, smart glucose pumps, and other recently approved diagnostic
devices. Biopharma companies use AI to improve efficiency in R&D; for example,
through identification of better drug targets. Boston Consulting Group has
conducted an in-depth analysis of AI applications across the healthcare sector,
which are summarized in this article and elaborated at more length in ?Chasing
Value as AI Transforms Health Care?1.
1 ? Aboshiha A, Gallagher R, Gargan L. Chasing Value as AI Transforms Health Care. The
Boston Consulting Group. 2019.
AI should not be confused with traditional business
analytics, which depends heavily on curated data
and classical statistical methods that make multiple
assumptions of underlying data distributions. In
contrast, AI employs novel methods that allow for
automated development and continuous improve-
ment of the deployed analytic techniques, as ever-
larger volumes of data are processed (?machine
learning?).
The upcoming explosion of AI in health care is not
due to chance, as a particular set of circumstances
provide the fertile soil needed to fuel a major trans-
formation. First, there is increasing pressure to con-
tain or reduce health care costs, which continue to
soar well into the teens of GDP percentage. This sit-
uation is aggravated by an ageing population and
ever- increasing ambitions in delivering care. Sec-
ond, there has been an explosion in the availability
of health care data, including genomics data, elec-
tronic medical records, as well as data from moni-
toring devices and wearables. Third, the exponential
increase in computational power enables novel ana-
lytic techniques that previously were not feasible.
There are major opportunities to increase efficiency
in seven areas across the health care value chain.
Players in the four traditional health care sectors, as
well as technology companies, are already deploy-
ing AI tools and approaches in order to seize those
opportunities. By 2022, spending on AI-related tools
is expected to top $8 billion annually across these
seven areas.
1. Remote Prevention and Care
AI can be used to serve patients outside their doc-
tor?s office or the local hospital. Virtual agents, for
example, can be used to conduct an initial consulta-
tion with a patient to provide important information
to physicians about those who do need treatment.
2. Diagnostics Support
As AI- driven innovations take off, they will allow
providers to diagnose the disease earlier with
greater accuracy? and ultimately manage it more
effectively. Such advances will be critical drivers to
help deliver improved patient outcomes at a lower
cost? which is known as value- based health care
(VBHC).
3. Treatment Pathways and Support
Health care professionals can use AI tools to create
individualized treatment plans that support VBHC
by reducing risk, improving outcomes, and reducing
costs. One case in point is how the direct costs of
medical errors, including those associated with
readmissions, account for about 2% of health care
spending in the US. Those errors ultimately take a
25
toll on the broader economy with indirect costs? in-
cluding lost productivity? estimated to total nearly
$1 trillion. By leveraging the potential of health care
data and novel analytics techniques, health care
professionals can better target patients at risk of
medical errors and thereby mitigate them.
4. Drug Discovery and Development
Biopharma companies invest roughly 60% more in
R&D than companies in almost any other sector,
spending half of that investment on clinical develop-
ment. However, the payoff is declining. Over the
past 60 years, the number of new molecular entities
from the biopharma industry per dollar of R&D
spent has declined by approximately 9% annually,
according to Bernstein Research. AI can begin to re-
verse that trend, by leveraging deep data such as
past screening results combined with clinical data,
to help companies identify and develop promising
drugs, while simultaneously accelerating trial design
and recruitment.
5. Operations
Advanced analytic techniques such as natural lan-
guage processing (NLP)? can help automate the
writing and reviewing of many health care?related
records. Physicians, for example, spend one-third of
their time on paperwork? and payers face a signifi-
cant administrative burden in handling claims. Re-
lieving health care professionals of this burden
frees up time, which can lower the costs of health
care provision or be invested with patients to im-
prove the patient experience and quality of care.
6. Marketing and Sales
AI can allow both biopharma and medtech compa-
nies to identify providers who are likely to be recep-
tive to the company?s products and create highly ef-
fective, personalized marketing messages to reach
them, which could improve the efficiency of sales
forces in both sectors.
7. Support Functions
Computer vision, voice recognition, and NLP are
making the automation of standard tasks and
processes a reality. Chatbots, for example, can an-
swer consumers? questions related to bills or pass-
word resets. Those AI tools, in combination with ad-
vances in robotics, can enhance support function
performance across all four health care sectors.
26
In order to deliver on its promise, the journey to in-
tegrate AI into strategies and operations must be a
sustained one and strategies must be put in place
to manage all the major pitfalls of a data and
analytics-driven health care system.
First, health care players must ensure they have ac-
cess to the right talent. The talent challenge has a
number of different? but interconnected? layers.
For one, health care players will need to lure data
scientists and engineers away from the likes of Al-
phabet, Apple, and Tesla. At the same time, they will
need leaders who understand the AI opportunity,
are conversant with the technical issues involved,
and can communicate with the wider organization.
Companies will also need to figure out where to
house and how to organize AI talent so that they
build a group that is both cohesive and dy-
namic? but is also accessible to, and integrated
within, the overall organization. One particular chal-
lenge that BCG Gamma has noticed in working with
in-house data science teams, is that they often suf-
fer from split vision and get drawn into multiple
short- term initiatives that detract their focus from
the most important business challenges at hand.
Second, the health care industry still faces several
challenges in accessing and leveraging data. While
AI requires large amounts of data, health care data
are often irregular or poorly structured, and dis-
persed among players that use different standards,
which renders data uninterpretable across
processes (lacking interoperability). In turn, this lim-
its the rate at which data are converted into infor-
mation.
A third major pitfall is the risk of institutionalizing
bias that is already present in the health care sys-
tem. One example of this is how e.g. racial or gen-
der bias that is present among health care workers
taint their clinical decisions, which in turn is re-
flected in the data that are generated in the routine
care delivery these health care workers engage in.
By training algorithms on these data, biases might
become incorporated in applications that are de-
ployed at scale, thus magnifying the problem im-
mensely. This is likely to happen unless applications
and their underlying data can be interrogated and
challenged appropriately before deployment and
continuously after deployment.
Given the opportunities and pitfalls briefly dis-
cussed here, health care organizations with access
to the right talent and the right data will have enor-
mous advantages in the health care system of to-
morrow, providing an imperative for health care
players to act now to develop and implement strate-
gies to position themselves for the AI race to come.
About t he aut hors:
Søren Viereck (MD, PhD) is a consultant in the BCG CPH office and a core part of the BCG Health Care team
Mathias Blom (MD, PhD, MSc) is a senior data scientist with BCG Gamma and part of the BCG Health Care team
27
From March to December every year, we will enroll top female university students in the program, and each
student will be assigned a BCG mentor. Throughout the program, you will have individual sessions with the
mentor and participate in joint FMP events, getting to know fellow mentees and BCGers. By the end of the
program, you should have an understanding of what it takes to become a management consultant, the chal-
lenges and the many possibilit ies.
As part of the mentorship, you are also guaranteed an interview with BCG Copenhagen and personalized in-
terview training. Bachelor students enrolled in their first or second year when the program begins, are guar-
anteed an interview for an internship. Bachelor students enrolled in their last year and Master students en-
rolled in their first year, when the program begins, are guaranteed a full-time position interview.
WHO WE SEEK
We welcome applications from female students from all fields of study with outstanding academic records,
strong analytical and interpersonal skills, intellectual curiosity, and great ambition. Note that you need to
graduate from your Master education after March 2020 in order to apply.
The applicat ion deadline for the program is January 19, 2020.
For more information, please visit our website: connect .bcg/ fm p and follow us on Facebook: BCG in Den-
m ark .
Fem ale Ment orship Program w it h BCG Our Female Mentorship Program is about growing. As a member, you will meet like-minded people, attend inspirational events, be challenged, and get a dedicated mentor to assist your development and growth.
28
?The best part about participating in the Female Mentorship Program was meeting and networking with some of the most talented people I have ever met?
? Malene Grønbech Jensen, Associat e at BCG.
The Female Mentorship Program (FMP) at Boston
Consulting Group is a unique opportunity to grow and
learn more about management consulting and BCG.
The purpose of the program is to establish a strong
relationship with aspiring, young women who wish to
get an insight into what a potential career with BCG
could be like.
with coaching from ? some of the brightest minds in business. You will be fully involved in transformational,
cutting-edge client work in sectors like health care, consumer goods, sustainable energy, shipping, and fi-
nance. This means that you will have impact from day one, as you will take on the responsibility for specific
components of a client project. Consequently, as a case team member, you will gain a 360-degree perspec-
tive on life as a BCG consultant ? from working on client projects to socializing with colleagues.
WHO WE SEEK
In your academic studies, you are used to approaching complex issues and using your theoretical knowl-
edge, logical mindset and business intuition in problem solving and strategic decision-making. This is exactly
what we do at BCG, helping our clients address their biggest challenges. More than an opportunity to bolster
your résumé, an internship offers the potential to launch a career at BCG as a vast majority of our interns re-
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To be eligible as Visit ing Associate you need to be enrolled in a Master?s program or in the final year of your
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We accept applicat ions all year .
For more information, please visit our website: ht t ps:/ / on.bcg.com / int ernships20
And follow us on Facebook: BCG in Denm ark .
Int ernships at Bost on Consult ing Group ? An unparalleled learning exper ience
Are you curious about the life as a Management Consultant? Then jumpstart your career with an internship at BCG, and get ready for an unparalleled learning experience.
29
?You are often thrown into the deep end to keep developing your talent. But you are never alone. From day one, you have dedicated people who help you grow.?
? Rasm us Michler Mogensen, Project Leader at BCG.
An internship at BCG will give you the opportunity to
demonstrate and advance your quantitative and qual-
itative techniques by applying them in a dynamic busi-
ness context. It is also a unique opportunity to get a
true feel of what it is like to work at BCG.
For 6-8 weeks, you will work in teams, alongside ? and
Opt im ize, Im prove, AI Deep Learning Aiding Production
There is a growing trend within the medical industry to explore the use of AI. In
the middle of 2018 Coloplast started to investigate the possibilities of using AI in
production to support automation. We will describe some important aspects in
the investigation and show a pilot project developed internally in Coloplast
utilizing AI to achieve high performance and increased productivity.
Coloplast develops products and services that make
life easier for people with very personal and private
medical conditions. Working closely with the people
who use our products, we create solutions that are
sensitive to their special needs. We call this intimate
healthcare. Our business includes Ostomy Care,
Continence Care, Wound & Skin Care and Interven-
tional Urology. We operate globally, and our organi-
zation is about 12,000 people. We are truly interna-
tional company represented with offices in 43 coun-
tries and selling to 143 countries across the world.
The amount of people that Coloplast could help an-
nually is extraordinary. The next step for Coloplast
to succeed and help more people is to increase au-
tomation across all our sites, and this requires new
thinking.
While Coloplast and the medical and pharmaceuti-
cal industry in general is seeing and hearing a lot of
buzz regarding AI, we are still in the initial phase
within our domain. We see large investments in the
area such as 250 million £ for the NHS for AI investi-
gations (Boseley, 2019). This interest is sparked in
the development seen at universities across the
world. The universities have focused on deep learn-
ing for assessing medical images such as MRIs and
CT scans. This can also be reflected in the start-ups
popping- up all- over talking about the use of AI.
Therefore it is important to be realistic in this hype
and not risk a new ?dot com? era as stated in the
quote by Mat Velloso Figure 1. Basically, academia
does not view AI, machine learning, and deep learn-
ing as synonyms. We will focus on the sub-domain
of machine learning called deep learning as this is
what academia has found to be very good at learn-
ing features in high dimensional data, without re-
quiring deep human insights. In this domain the
data is the most critical factor. In Coloplast and the
Figure 1 Mat Velloso, technical advisor to the CEO at Microsoft, tweeted about the difference between AI and
machine learning.
30
medical industry in general, there have been an ac-
cumulation of large amount of data that can con-
tribute to knowledge about processes and ma-
chines. The analysis used predominantly today is to
have scientists or engineers find correlations in
data, which can be very difficult for humans. This
can either be because of lack of knowledge of the
processes, i.e., how the features impact each other,
or too high-dimensionality in the data. This is where
deep learning has a great opportunity in speeding
up the implementation across a wide range of top-
ics in manufacturing and research and
development.
How is Opt im izat ion Per form ed Today?
Today the industry is striving for optimization rely-
ing on a large workforce of specialized people trying
to utilize the large amount of collected data. This is
done in many ways, e.g., by creating insights into
processes using standard group methodologies
from databases or through statistical methods to
obtain deeper insights. Thereby classifying the data
and creating action plans. The different methods
support the engineers in optimizing processes and
the generation of knowledge. This allows the engi-
neers to improve control and quality in the produc-
tion by using standardized methods such as statisti-
cal process control (SPC). SPC enables data scien-
tists and engineers to visually assess and decode
processes to detect trends and allow for statistical
models. Many more statistical methods exist that
are ?hard- core? mathematical approaches, which
creates higher demand on the engineers and is
harder to maintain and understand for the ?uniniti-
ated?. This issue can be seen illustrated in the view
students have on statistics in Figure 2. This is one
reason why deep learning is seen as attractive, be-
cause it is ?just? letting the machine learn by itself.
Dat a, Dat a, Dat a, and More Dat a
Despite the notion that machines are learning by
themselves as illustrated in Figure 3. The machine
learning model is only as good as the data and can
only find features and trends in what is presented.
This puts high requirements on the collection and
cleaning of data. To do this optimally one would
also need to clearly define requirements for ensur-
ing that the data can be used to satisfy the opti-
mization goals. These obstacles have been clear in
Coloplasts initial venture into applying machine
learning in production. That despite large amount
of data only the ?right? data should be used to en-
sure lower training times, higher performance and
Figure 2 What students think about statistics (Grange, 2012).
Figure 3 Illustration of machine learning by itself (Waele, 2015).
31
better features. Nevertheless, the machine learning
model will disregard information that is not rele-
vant, inferring that the distribution of the data is
highly critical. Using deep learning for automatic
tasks in production one needs to have a broader
perspective than just collecting large amounts of
data. It is also important to understand how the sys-
tem can and should be maintained.
Aut om at ing Qualit y Cont rol
For this reason, we have opted to develop machine
learning models internally in Coloplast. This knowl-
edge is seen is business essential and critical for the
future of the production. We have a large and com-
prehensive list of requirements that imposes high
requirements on the quality control. This results in
the need for high quality data and annotations to
train the model in detecting the right things reliably.
We have collected more than 30.000 products, good
and bad. With a large amount of variations. We
have created a model that is able to detect a variety
of product defects in a sub millimetre scale for all
shapes, sizes and product types in the silicone port-
folio. An early version of the neural network results
can be seen in Figure 5. The pilot project is currently
being tested and evaluated in our factory and we
aim for the final implementation during the next
year. These initial investigations have large potential
and Coloplast keeps exploring more applications.
We see many processes that can be improved by
utilising deep learning, such as predictive mainte-
nance, quality control, etc.
Figure 5 An image of Biatain Silicone product on the right side with variety of manufacturing imperfections, including contamination (the black dot). On the right
side ? visualization of the semantic segmentation performed by our deep learning model.
Bibil iography
Boseley, S. (2019, 08 08). Boris Johnson pledges £250m for NHS artificial intelligence. Retrieved from the guardian.com: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/08/boris-johnson-pledges-250m-for-nhs-artificial-intelligence
Grange, J. (2012, 11 07). WHAT DO STUDENTS THINK ABOUT STATISTICS? Retrieved from re-searchutopia.wordpress.com/: https://researchutopia.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/what-do-students-think-about-statistics
Waele, R. d. (2015, 08 19). thefuturesagency. Re-trieved from https:// thefuturesagency.com/: https:// thefuturesagency.com/2015/08/19/machine-learning-and-human-bias-an-uneasy-pair/
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Can you apply for t he Novo Nordisk Graduat e
Program m e w it h a degree in a nat ural science?
Absolut ely.
I want to introduce you to the MARS graduate pro-
gramme, and no, Novo Nordisk doesn?t have a se-
cret space mission. MARS stands for Medical Affairs,
Regulatory and Safety and it?s a pretty large depart-
ment within R&D. Previously, the programme was
called the Regulatory Affairs (RA) graduate pro-
gramme, where you had the opportunity to rotate
through different positions within RA.
Now, in the MARS programme you get the chance to
have a unique rotation in each department. One in
Medical Affairs, where they are responsible for com-
municating with Doctors around the world about
our medication, ensuring they are trained and fully
informed about our products. One in Regulatory Af-
fairs, where they are responsible for filing New Drug
and Clinical Trial Applications, submissions of new
products and for the life cycle management of exist-
ing products, consisting of a lot of strategy and
communication with Health Authorities. And finally,
a rotation in Global Safety.
I started the MARS programme in September and
my first rotation has been in Global Safety. Now, 3
months in, I can safely say I understand what my
role as a Safety Surveillance Adviser entails and in
general what goes on in Global Safety. Particularly,
how important it is to Novo Nordisk and the people
who use our products. But when my manager told
me in August that I would be in Global Safety, I
wasn?t completely sure what they did. If you ask a
lot of people in the pharmaceutical industry, they
don?t even know exactly what goes on within the
walls of Safety. I wanted to dive a litt le deeper into
it, so you have a better idea what you are applying
for when you are looking into the MARS pro-
gramme.
The responsibility of a pharmaceutical company
does not end once a drug reaches the market. In
fact, it is their legal responsibility to continuously
monitor the use of their product long after market-
ing authorisation. If you are from a science or phar-
macy background, in University there?s a high likeli-
hood you had a couple lectures on thalidomide. A
drug prescribed as anti- nausea medication for
women who suffered from morning sickness, that
ultimately was the cause of 1000s of birth defects
and subsequently the deaths of 1000s of new-born
babies. In the 60s, when this was discovered there
were no extra precautions in place to monitor these
long- term potential risks. There was no way of
knowing about these fatal side effects before they
happened. What followed, was the birth of modern
pharmacovigilance; the science relating to the de-
tection, understanding and prevention of unwanted
drug side effects.
Fast forward 60 years or so, and pharmacovigilance
is a mandatory in every pharma company and it is
highly regulated and monitored department. Safety
is involved in almost the entire drug development
process from phase 1 clinical trials all the way to
post marketing.
What I work on, as a Safety Surveillance adviser, are
post- marketed products which is unique because
we rely mostly on data reported from patients using
and/or health care professionals prescribing our
medicines. If they have experienced an adverse
event which they believe to be due to the product,
they will report it to the company of origin. All of
these events are recorded so that the aggregate
data can be analysed. It is important to look at the
data with a wide lens to ensure that any curious
pattern or trend is not missed. But even a single
event can be enough to create a safety concern.
The role of a Safety Surveillance Adviser is likened
to both a detective and a police officer. Not only do
they have to carefully investigate all the data avail-
able to find out what is critical to the safety profile
of the product but also, they have to patrol all of the
adverse events and know when to act when pa-
tients may be in danger. Safety is kind of like the
silent superhero of the pharmaceutical industry,
constantly surveying their data and rapid to act
when they are needed with the sole purpose of pro-
tecting their patients.
So far in my rotation, I have learnt a lot and have
been exposed to a lot of different aspects of Safety.
It is a very regulated department, which is to be ex-
pected, with strict procedures and protocols. With
only a Masters in Chemistry it is actually pretty spe-
cial to get a rotation here working with mainly Doc-
tors, Pharmacists and PhDs. I am really enjoying be-
ing close to the science and being part of a depart-
ment that has such a big impact on the wellbeing of
patients.
So those of you finishing up your Masters or PhDs
in a natural science and are thinking about seeing
what life is like outside of the lab, I urge you to
check out the MARS graduate programme at Novo
Nordisk.
Thanks t o all our par t ners and collaborat ors
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2019 partners and collaborators