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

contact@synapse-connect.org

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-

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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

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Int ernships at Bost on Consult ing Group ? An unparalleled learning exper ience

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29

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? 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