The Magazine

2018

The Magazine

Hope for a future cure for Alzheimer's is resting on their research

RESEARCH TALENTS 9 DANDRITE 14 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 40

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CONTENT

No pill – but a prize

Scientist, go travelling!

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More money for the original thinkers

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Dedicated dementia researchers win the world's largest brain research prize

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The best research flows from the best ideas. But how do we get them?

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The vision is clear: ALK must become the allergy sufferer’s preferred adviser.

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News Exceptional talents showered with prizes

Good ideas give steady work

Science for the youngest

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TALENTFACTORY FOR NEUROSCIENTISTS

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Artificial intelligence has already reached our emergency services, and it may soon be able to help your GP make the right diagnosis.

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ALK weathers the storm and sets sail for new horizons

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With science and shareholders’ returns top of mind

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Big Brother or better therapies?

News Artificial intelligence is revolutionising health research

“It’s no longer enough to be transparent”

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The Magazine 2018

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NO PILL – BUT A PRIZE

Editors Lene Skole (editor-in-chief), Pernille Thorborg Jasper, Henrik Larsen, Regitze Reeh, Thomas Sinkjær Design Make Cover image: From the left: John Hardy, Michel Goedert, Bart De Strooper, Christian Haass.

Rights Mechanical, photographic or other reproduction of the Lundbeckfonden Magazine 2016-2017, or parts thereof, is permitted with reference to the source. All rights reserved for Lundbeckfonden, Scherfigsvej 7, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, phone +45-39128000.

ISSN 2596-4232 www.lundbeckfonden.com CVR-nr. 11814913

The first signs are minor – you forget names or it may be difficult for you to remember words or find your way.

The symptoms then increase and your personality changes and you can't remember your loved ones.

Few diseases are more dreaded than those which affect our brain. A dementia diagnosis is now a reality for more than 80,000 Danes, and unfortunately this figure seems to be growing – it is expected that 120,000 Danes over the age of 60 will be living with dementia by 2030, and that this will increase to 150,000 by 2040.

And then there are all of the relatives – currently around 400,000.

At present, there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia. The drugs on the market suppress the symptoms but do not provide a cure. If we don’t find an effective treatment, both the human and the socio-economic consequences will be even more marked than they are today.

What can we do? One of the answers is to invest more in brain research. This will require more public and private funding. We also believe it should be possible to take a Masters degree in neuroscience in Denmark. This is not on offer today, even though we need more talented scientists to focus their efforts over a number of years and to investigate the most basic mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative disorders. With these initiatives, we may – with hard work and a bit of luck – find a cure.

The Lundbeck Foundation grants around DKK 500 million every year to biomedical sciences research – over half of these funds go to brain research.

We also award the world's largest brain research prize – The Brain Prize – worth 1 million euros. This year, the prize went to four Alzheimer's researchers from the UK, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg – not because they have found a cure but because their research laid the foundation for the design of all of the Alzheimer's drugs currently being tested.

We believe that it is particularly important to recognise basic scientific research, since it is the foundation on which effective treatment is built.

You can read more about this year’s Brain Prize winners in this magazine, and we explain how the Foundation intends to ensure that the next generation of Danish neuroscientists is among the best in the world. Also featured is the Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience where scientists are attempting to understand the brain at a molecular level.

Happy reading!

Lene Skole CEO Lundbeckfonden

Lundbeck Foundation

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TEXT Henrik Larsen

One of the Lundbeck Foundation’s main priorities is to promote international collaboration in biomedical sciences research. For this reason, the Foundation has several programmes to give talented Danish scientists the opportunity to work with colleagues from abroad.

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here are very good reasons for researchers to think internationally according to Anne-Marie Engel, head of the Lundbeck Foundation's talent and career programmes.

“Giving talented researchers the opportunity to improve their skills by working abroad benefits both the researchers themselves, on a personal level, and Danish research in a broader context, because secondments of this kind provide a wealth of knowledge, good connections and important relations for collaboration in the future,” she says.

One of these programmes is the Lundbeck Foundation's DARE (Danish American Research Exchange).

Every year since 2015, five Danish medical students have been sent to California for ten months for research and study – all expenses paid.

Two of the best universities in the USA, Stanford and UCSF, both situated in the San Francisco area, provide the tuition, and the overall coordination of DARE is handled

by Innovation Centre Denmark.

Applicants must have gained their Bachelors degree to qualify for the much-coveted places on the DARE programme. During their stay in the United States, students are required to complete a research project that must result in at least one publication in an internationally reputed journal and must secure the support of both a Danish and an American mentor.

“In practice, this means Amalie, Ka and form that you need to have a research higher educa project approved before Sør you leave. You then work on this project at the American university where you participate in classes at your study level,” says Anne-Marie Engel.

The five Danish students are also given a thorough introduction to the entrepreneurial environment in Silicon Valley and introduced to the

The Magazine 2018

‘The Ten Dollar Challenge’. The aim of this challenge is to invent a treatment or product that costs no more than ten dollars and then prepare a business plan.

The prize that goes to the winning team is ... ten dollars!

BRAIN RESEARCH PROGRAMMES

Another programme with international focus and Lundbeck Foundation involvement is the NIH BRAIN Initiative, ‘brainchild’ of the American National Institutes of Health. The aim of this programme is to develop research

technologies able to broaden our understanding of the human brain: “In 2016, the Lundbeck Foundation entered into an agreement with NIH, enabling Danish neuroscientists to participate in projects that have already received funding via the NIH BRAIN Initiative. The Lundbeck Foundation can support researchers who are interested in establishing or continuing existing collaborations with international colleagues whose research is based on funding by the NIH BRAIN Initiative,” says Anne-Marie Engel.

NEW INTERNATIONALISATION PROGRAMME IN 2018

The Lundbeck Foundation's third international initiative is called the International Neuroscience Programme. This is a new pilot project aimed at boosting internationalisation of Danish brain research, and the programme will be awarding its first funding in 2018.

The programme funds individual researchers for up to three years with up to 3 million Danish kroner.

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Line, Amalie, Ju lie

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DARE – DANISH AMERICAN RESEARCH EXCHANGE Each year, in late summer, five Danish medical students pack their bags and fly over the Atlantic to participate in the Lundbeck Foundation's research programme at Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco, for ten months.

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Amalie, Mats, Ka trine and Julie

Amalie Bach

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The five talented students receive world-class training in clinical research, they are faced with interdisciplinary challenges and they are introduced to investors who give them a feel for business development and teach them to think untraditionally about research.

From 2017 to 2018, it was the turn of Katrine Feldballe Bernholm, Julie de Fønss Gandrup, Mats Højbjerg Lassen, Amalie Bach Nielsen and Line Heftdal. Here are some pictures of their stay.

jerg Lassen Mats Højb

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More money for the original thinkers The Lundbeck Foundation will combine classic selection strategies with new programmes and ways of applying for funding to help identify research talents.

TEXT Henrik Larsen

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ou need to know a thing or two about getting the best out of scientists – and be familiar with the frameworks that apply to the academic community – when you are in charge of the huge grants awarded by one of Denmark's major research foundations.

You also need to have visions you are able to defend. And you need to have the courage to put your money on people who, at first sight, may seem somewhat eccentric. These very people might just have the approach to new knowledge we so desperately need.

“This is something the Lundbeck Foundation needs to be more aware of when we award research grants in the future,” says Thomas Sinkjær, who joined the Lundbeck Foundation as Director of Research on 1 January 2018. In his new position, he has the overall responsibility for putting the Foundation’s research strategy into practice.

THE ORIGINAL THINKERS

The Lundbeck Foundation awards grants worth around DKK 500 million every year – over half of this funding goes to brain research – and the ambition is to increase total grants to ensure even more focus on this field. However, like other research

foundations, the Lundbeck Foundation finds it a challenge to come up with new ways of identifying, supporting and developing research talents.

“And this takes us back to the original thinkers, or whatever you’d like to call them. An increasing number of studies indicate that the classic method for selecting research projects for funding doesn't always get it right. So-called peer reviews, where experienced scientists sit and look through research applications, certainly have qualities.

But peer reviews show their weakness in the case of projects that are difficult to assess due to the number of ifs and buts,” says Thomas Sinkjær.

Thomas Sinkjær points out that these types of research project – typically characterised by great courageousness and immense energy – can have enormous potential: “And this is where we, as foundations, need to have the courage to take more of a gamble than we do today.

We must do this in the knowledge that, in certain cases, it may lead to nothing, or to something quite different from the original aim – and it’s OK if it doesn't lead to anything because this willingness to take a risk will, in other cases, result in new and extremely valuable knowledge.”

A RESEARCHER HIMSELF

No offence to Thomas Sinkjær, but we can safely say that he’s good at spending money. He has been juggling large sums of money for many years, channelling funds to scientific environments where researchers mull over how to achieve results that will help improve the world.

At the same time, these same researchers have to consider how to acquire the funding they need for equipment, laboratory experiments and salaries.

Thomas Sinkjær is well aware of all of this, and his background and experience give him a considerable advantage in his position as Director of Research at the Lundbeck Foundation. He is a researcher himself, as well as Professor – although currently on sabbatical – at the Department of Health Science and Technology at Aalborg University.

Thomas Sinkjær first graduated in 1983. He then added a Masters degree to his CV, also gained at Aalborg University, and began to research.

When Thomas Sinkjær needed research funding to build up what later became the Centre for Sensory-Motor Interaction at Aalborg University, the Danish National Research Foundation and a number of other foundations stepped in.

THE THREE ‘P’S – THE LUNDBECK FOUNDATION’S OBJECTIVE

The Lundbeck Foundation grants around 500 million Danish kroner to biomedical sciences research every year. Over half of this funding goes to brain research. In the coming years, the Foundation aims to invest even more in turning Denmark into one of the world’s leading brain research nations. This strategy rests on The Three Ps – People, Projects, Prizes.

Five-year interdisciplinary initiatives.

Two-year Lundbeck Foundation Experiments for unique ideas and bold projects.

The Brain Prize, the world's largest brain research prize, and a range of other prizes.

PRIZES

Up to three-year research programme.

Level: Postdoc. No more than 4 years after completion of a PhD

Five-year research programme for scientists to establish themselves as independent researchers.

Level: No more than 8-10 years after completion of a PhD

Four-year research programme for experienced associate professors.

Level: Established researchers. No more than 7-15 years after completion of a PhD

Six-year research programme for development of academic environments around leading international researchers.

Level: Leading international researchers

PROJECTS

PEOPLE

* The dotted line indicates that the priority given to brain research is greater the closer a research programme is to professor level.

PRIZES LF CENTRE AND PROJECTS LF PROFESSORS LF FELLOWS

LF ASCENDING INVESTIGATORS LF TALENTS

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Thomas Sinkjær

Director of Research, Senior Vice President Grants & Prizes Born: 9 March 1958 2018Director of Research, the Lundbeck Foundation 2015-17 Director of Research, Villum Foundation Professor, currently on sabbatical, at the Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University 2007-15 Director of the Danish National Research Foundation 1993-2006 Director of the Centre for Sensory-Motor Interaction, Aalborg University

Between 2007 and 2015, Thomas Sinkjær was Director of the National Research Foundation himself, and from 2015 to 2017 he was Director of Research at the Villum Foundation.

THREE PS IN FOCUS

In his strategic work at the Lundbeck Foundation, Thomas Sinkjær focuses in particular on what he calls “The Three Ps”: People. Projects. Prizes. And, in the

Education MSc 1983 PhD 1988 DMSc 1998 Member of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences and The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters Has been awarded a number of prizes, including The Villum Kann Rasmussen Annual Award for Technical and Scientific Research Residence: Gistrup by Aalborg Thomas Sinkjær is married to physiotherapist Marianne Wilgaard.

They have two children: Sara (born in 1991) and Anders (born in 1994)

future, these areas will play a key role in ongoing adjustments to the Lundbeck Foundation's grant system.

“In general, the process we’re about to initiate is all about focus. And in relation to the first of our three Ps, namely People, we will focus on talent and career paths. Talent is key, and talent appears throughout the research cycle: young talent, more experienced talent and the especially talented senior

scientists whose great creativity, insight and enthusiasm form the next generation of top scientists. As a foundation, we must recognise talent at all levels of the food chain.”

“We’ll try to think holistically – and listen to the needs expressed by the researchers. For example, we want to stimulate career paths by giving more funding to the most talented senior lecturers. We’ll also focus on funding schemes to ensure longer periods of employment for young scientists.

Generally speaking, the research outcome from short terms of employment is not as good as if you have more time to dedicate to your project.”

With regard to the second P – Projects – the Lundbeck Foundation aims to create meaningful, new fields of research through interdisciplinary ventures in the field of neuroscience.

The ideas must come from the scientists themselves, but one example could be an environment combining computer science and studies of the neural networks of the brain to produce new knowledge about the way in which the brain functions.

The Lundbeck Foundation will also intensify its focus on applications.

“Today, applications for the Foundation’s funding are accompanied by references to the scientific articles published by the applicant. These contain important information and we still want to receive these references in the future. But the quantity of published articles doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of the research performed by the individual. On top of this, in general, women publish fewer scientific articles than men, and if we don't bear this in mind we may unintentionally make the research community even more male-dominated than it already is,” says Thomas Sinkjær.

The Foundation also has an ambition – and this is where the third P for Prizes comes in – to create more prizes in addition to the prestigious The Brain Prize, to support particularly innovative projects.

Dedicated dementia researchers win the world's largest brain research prize The Brain Prize is the Lundbeck Foundation's most prominent prize. In 2018 it went to four scientists who have been working uncompromisingly for decades to broaden our understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's dementia.

TEXT Henrik Larsen PHOTO Martin Phelps

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Michel Goedert, one of the international top researchers who was awarded The Brain Prize 2018, is also known as Professor Tau. He discovered that the protein tau is crucial in the development of Alzheimer's.

T

hanks to a range of sophisticated technologies such as scanning techniques, it is now beginning to be possible to delve into the biological machine room that controls Alzheimer's dementia.

This gives us hope that, within a few decades – and in the best case even earlier – science will be able to design drugs to hold Alzheimer's at bay; so much so, in fact, that in many cases patients will be able to live and function with the disease. Just as we can live with a whole range of chronic diseases today if we have the right treatment: “If so, brain research will have travelled a long way as far as Alzheimer's disease is concerned,” says one of the four recipients of the 2018 Brain Prize, Professor Michel Goedert from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. The 2018 Brain Prize was presented in Copenhagen at the beginning of May. Along with the honour – the jewel in

the crown – a monetary award worth one million euros is shared between the recipients: professors John Hardy, Bart De Strooper and Christian Haass in addition to Michel Goedert.

SIGNIFICANT MEDICAL NEEDS

Alzheimer's disease is a tough nut in every respect. Even though it was first described more than 100 years ago, scientists still don’t understand the underlying causes and biological mechanisms in detail.

At present, there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia. The drugs currently on the market merely alleviate the symptoms temporarily and the dementia disorder is often the cause of the patient's death.

At the same time, global incidence of Alzheimer's and other dementia disorders is expected to rise in the coming decades. The overriding explanation for this is that life expectancy

in many areas of the world is increasing – and the older we get, the higher the statistical risk of acquiring dementia.

The need for effective medicine to treat dementia is therefore huge – and if such drugs are not developed, the consequences will be extremely serious in a few years.

MORE DEMENTIA ON THE HORIZON

Around 400,000 Danes are affected by dementia today, because they have a family member who is a sufferer.

Furthermore, a forecast by the Danish Dementia Research Centre indicates that the number of both relatives and dementia patients is expected to increase significantly: • In 2030, we can expect to see up to 123,000 Danes over the age of 60 with dementia • By 2040, this figure may have risen to almost 150,000 If this increase in the number of dementia patients is not accompanied by

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THE BRAIN PRIZE DEMENTIA

Bart De Strooper (f. 1960), Belgium

Almost 87,000 Danes today have a dementia disorder

Professor of Molecular Medicine at KU Leuven, Belgium, and Director at the UK Dementia Research Institute, University College London, UK. Bart De Strooper has investigated the molecular mechanisms behind the formation of beta-amyloid.

He also identified presenilin, the protein necessary for formation and release of beta-amyloid.

Around 50,000 of these are Alzheimer's patients Around 3,000 Danes under the age of 65 have been diagnosed with dementia About 7,700 new cases of dementia are identified in Denmark each year The direct cost of dementia is currently estimated at around 24 billion Danish kroner a year in Denmark

Michel Goedert (f. 1954), Luxembourg

Source: Danish Dementia Research Centre, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen

Professor, Medical Research Council (MRC), Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK. Goedert has proven, among other things, that the tau protein is the main constituent of the so-called neurofibrillary tangles that occur in a brain affected by Alzheimer's disease. Together with other researchers, he has also shown that mutations of the tau gene give rise to various inherited forms of dementia (tauopathies).

Christian Haass (f. 1960), Germany Professor, DZNE (German Centre for Neurodegenerative Disorders), Munich, Germany.

Among other things, Haass has described the enzymes (secretases) behind the formation of the amounts of beta-amyloid protein that accumulate in brains affected by Alzheimer's disease.

Haass’ description of these secretase enzymes is applied to efforts to develop new Alzheimer's drugs.

John Hardy (f. 1954), United Kingdom Professor, Chair of Molecular Biology of Neurological Disease, Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies, University College London, UK. Based on his genetic studies, John Hardy was the driving force behind formulation of the so-called amyloid hypothesis of the cause of Alzheimer's disease.

Hardy also identified the first rare genetic risk factor for development of Alzheimer's disease.

new drugs, the cost of care and treatment will skyrocket. And these socioeconomic aspects give cause for concern in all countries where life expectancy is on the rise.

Each in their own field, the four winners of the 2018 Brain Prize have worked uncompromisingly over decades to broaden our understanding of the biology behind Alzheimer's disease.

As stated in the justification for awarding the prize to these particular four scientists, their joint efforts “have revolutionised our understanding of the harmful changes in the brain that lead to Alzheimer's disease.... (and) their research breakthroughs form the basis for development of the drugs that are tested in therapies for the disease”.

ALZHEIMER AND FISCHER

In 1907, when German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer described the changes in the brain he observed during the post-mortem of a female patient

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DEMENTIA NUMBERS SET TO SKYROCKET

BRAIN RESEARCH MUST BE STEPPED UP TEKST Henrik Larsen

with advanced dementia, he earned his place in the medical history books.

However, Alois Alzheimer was not the only one to describe the clumping of proteins and filaments seen in the brains of many patients with dementia during post-mortem examinations in 1907.

These changes were also the focus of studies in Prague, conducted by Oskar Fischer from the German University in the city.

“We talk about Alzheimer's disease today, but we could easily argue that it has just as much right to be named after Oskar Fischer,” says Michel Goedert.

DOWN IN THE ‘MACHINE ROOM’

Since 1907, technological developments have afforded unprecedented opportunities for studying Alzheimer's.

One of the sophisticated scanning techniques that is beginning to enable us to delve deep into the biological machine room at the heart of Alzheimer's disease is cryo electron microscopy (Cryo-EM).

With this technology, we can study, at extremely low temperatures, the protein structures in the brain tissue of patients who died of Alzheimer's disease.

In Michel Goedert’s opinion, the technology provides a wide range of promising possibilities. He specialises in so-called tau filaments, and problems arise when these need to be studied in the minutest of detail: “These filaments in human brains can’t be dissolved, so how can we study their inner structures? This has not previously been possible, but the latest

The Lundbeck Foundation awards grants worth more than 500 million Danish kroner every year – around half of this funding goes to brain research. And, according to Dr Kim Krogsgaard, Managing Director of The Brain Prize, there is an urgent need to boost and advance brain research: “At the Lundbeck Foundation, brain research is our focus area, and we’re the country’s main provider of funding for brain research.

Our aim is for Denmark to become a magnet for the most talented, international neuroscientists, and for Denmark to become one of the world’s leading brain research nations,” he says.

In Kim Krogsgaard’s opinion there are obvious grounds for investing more in brain research, not least due to the sharp surge in cases of dementia expected over the next 10 to 20 years.

The Lundbeck Foundation has awarded The Brain Prize, the world’s largest prize for brain research, since 2011. And the four scientists who were awarded the prize in 2018 received it for shedding more light on Alzheimer's disease, one of today’s major dementia disorders.

The efforts of the prizewinners have also broadened our understanding of other dementia disorders, and their research “has provided a foundation for the design of drugs to counter the pathogenic processes,” says Professor Anders Björklund, Chair of the Lundbeck Foundation Selection Committee.

“This gives us hope that we’ll be able to slow Alzheimer's disease and, perhaps, even prevent it.”

versions of Cryo-EM are now allowing us to look into these structures.”

“We hope that Cryo-EM will literally give us a picture of some of the mechanisms in play when Alzheimer's disease develops, and prompt new ideas for designing drugs for the disease.

The same applies to Parkinson’s disease.

We see this formation of filaments here, too, but the protein is different,” says Professor Michel Goedert.

The Magazine 2018

School students on the hunt for a new malaria drug TEXT Emilie Demant

Every minute a child dies of malaria. So, there are obviously lots of scientists seeking a cure for this dangerous disease – for example, by studying the properties of various plants in the rain forest.

But, in the future, scientists may not be the only ones to research malaria medicine. A new digital teaching tool, Livets Træ (The Tree of Life), which consists of a documentary film, an online tool and supporting materials, will give upper secondary school students the opportunity to compare DNA sequences of plants and enable them to discuss which species could be used for a malaria drug.

The Lundbeck Foundation has provided Livets Træ with funding worth 1.5 million Danish kroner, and the Natural History Museum of Denmark has prepared the teaching materials.

You can watch the full documentary on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/lundbeckfonden

Scientists are given their own column space TEXT Emilie Demant

Imagine a place where scientists are in direct contact with the general public, where the scientists themselves – not the journalists – decide what should be given column space. ForskerZonen (ResearchZone) is the place.

Scientists upload articles to the website about a broad range of subjects, from fake news and microplastic to prime numbers. The focus is on the scientists’ own angles, but the language is straightforward and easy to understand.

ForskerZonen provides free access to information that is well-written and fact-checked, but it also gives scientists new to the arena the chance to contribute to the public debate and improve their communication skills.

The project is a collaboration between videnskab.dk and the Lundbeck Foundation, which provided funding of 2.5 million Danish kroner.

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TALENTFACTORY FOR NEUROSCIENTISTS

The Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience (DANDRITE) at Aarhus University is one of the Lundbeck Foundation's key ventures. Many aspects of the incredible complexity of the brain are researched at the centre in the hope of designing novel treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

TEXT Henrik Larsen PHOTO Martin Gravgaard GRAPHICS Make®

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DANDRITE is successful in attracting some of the most talented young scientists in the world.

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ow would you best describe DANDRITE? If you ask Thomas Sinkjær, the Lundbeck Foundation's Director of Research, there’s no hesitation: “DANDRITE is a talent factory”.

And there are lots of talented individuals at the centre, which is located at two of the institutes at Aarhus University: the Department of Biomedicine and the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics.

The scientists at DANDRITE investigate the molecular mechanisms that control the many communication networks of the brain. The fact is that the mechanisms affected are the same in both psychiatric disorders and the neurodegenerative diseases – such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s disease – that ultimately cause the brain and its communication to break down.

The better we understand the networks and functions of the brain, the easier it will be to design targeted drugs.

This is main rationale for DANDRITE. The Lundbeck Foundation established the centre in collaboration with Aarhus

University in 2013 and, since then, has injected funds totalling 120 million Danish kroner.

at Aarhus University Hospital and drug designers in the pharmaceutical industry, among others.

SCIENTISTS FROM ALL CORNERS OF THE WORLD

FRUIT FLIES PRODUCE NEW KNOWLEDGE

DANDRITE has scientists from more than 20 different nations – including Japan, Germany, Denmark, Australia and China – and their work covers an extremely broad range of scientific disciplines.

“This collaboration is absolutely necessary if we’re to advance neuroscience research,” Anders Nykjær stresses. Together with his colleagues, Poul Nissen and Poul Henning Jensen, he is responsible for the daily scientific management of DANDRITE. “Neuroscience research has become so very specialised that it’s both logical and necessary to make use of one another’s expertise and resources. And the new generation of scientists is really good at that,” says Anders Nykjær.

This is also the thinking behind DANDRITE’s regular collaboration with scientists outside the centre – clinicians

Laboratory animals are needed for research. These are usually mice or rats that have been genetically manipulated to develop symptoms typical of a broad range of brain disorders. But the DANDRITE scientists also work with genetically manipulated fruit flies. Like the laboratory mice and rats, they are kept in highly controlled surroundings and for scientific use in compliance with special animal testing licences.

Of course, there is a huge difference between fruit flies and human beings, but 75% of all human genes are found in a similar form in the fruit fly. In the field of neuroscience, it is therefore suitable for identifying the neurons involved in certain types of behaviour. For this reason, DANDRITE keeps more than 1,000 different transgenic fruit fly strains.

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TALENT FACTORY FOR NEUROSCIENTISTS

Virus to stop Parkinson's attacks Two new experiments on mice may be of crucial significance for Parkinson's patients. DANDRITE scientists are in the process of testing a substance which could potentially postpone patients’ involuntary movements.

The scientists will also inject a cunning virus into laboratory mice.

TEXT Henrik Larsen PHOTO Martin Gravgaard

Professor Poul Henning Jensen and his team at DANDRITE are specialists in Parkinson’s disease, and they spend much of their time trying to understand a pump.

This pump is a mineral pump located inside the brain cells of mammals, including human beings, and it regulates the calcium in the brain’s nerve cells. When this calcium pump begins to work, it pumps the calcium out of the cell fluid in the neurons of the brain. The reduction in calcium is interesting in terms of understanding Parkinson's, and it is something Poul Henning Jensen and his colleagues have been working on for some years.

“We’ve been able to show that the calcium reduction occurs when there is an accumulation of the alphasynuclein protein in nerve cells in the process of degenerating – before they eventually die. Our hypothesis is that this pumping out of calcium may be one of the very early stages of Parkinson's disease, perhaps the very first,” says Poul Henning Jensen.

SYMPTOMS CAN BE DELAYED

Based on studies of the correlation between reduction in calcium and Parkinson's disease, the DANDRITE team is now performing experiments on mice, the aim being to demonstrate that it is possible to prevent Parkinson's.

Tests have not yet been completed and it is therefore not yet possible to publish the name of the substance the scientists are giving the Parkinson's-programmed laboratory mice.

However, experiments have already shown that the substance is able to delay one of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, namely the involuntary movements.

“When we gave the mice the substance we’re working on, we were able to delay the symptom and postpone the moment when Parkinson's affected mobility,” Professor Poul Henning Jensen explains.

A TARGETED VIRUS

Transgenic mice also play a key part in another of the experiments being conducted by Poul Henning Jensen’s

Laboratory mice and rats are important to the research at DANDRITE, but fruit flies also play a significant role.

team. The aim of this experiment is to identify whether it is possible to inhibit accumulation of the alphasynuclein protein in the nerve cells of the brain.

Postdoc Asad Jan is the driving force behind this experiment, which involves a virus rather than an active substance. And it’s no overstatement to say that this virus is tailor-made.

The virus is injected into the thigh muscles of the laboratory mice, and it is so cunningly constructed that it will then attempt to enter their spinal cords. From here it will invade the nerve cells which will later play a key role in the development of Parkinson's and finally end up in the brains of the animals.

“The idea is for the virus to affect a specific gene in the nerve cells of the spinal cord – a gene we suspect of contributing to the development of Parkinson's,” Poul Henning Jensen explains.

“If this proves to be the case, this discovery could be extremely interesting and a step towards the design of a new drug for Parkinson's,” Poul Henning Jensen believes.

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TALENT FACTORY FOR NEUROSCIENTISTS

Protein family in focus in the fight against Alzheimer's Although it’s more than 100 years since Alzheimer's disease was first described, we are still miles from a cure. But one of the research teams at the Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience (DANDRITE) at Aarhus University is currently investigating five proteins which seem to play a crucial role.

TEXT Henrik Larsen PHOTO Martin Gravgaard

There’s always a long wait for new drugs to combat Alzheimer's dementia. In proof of this point, the most recent product on the market debuted in 2005.

“And if we’re being honest, we must say that none of the Alzheimer's drugs we know today are particularly effective,” says Anders Nykjær, Professor of Biochemistry at Aarhus University and head of one of the research teams at DANDRITE. Anders Nykjær’s team studies receptor biology and the key mechanisms regulating neuron activity in the healthy brain. They also look at what goes wrong in the case of brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, when a patient's brain gradually degenerates.

Over the past few years, the team has recorded a number of important discoveries in the field of Alzheimer's disease – not least that a protein formed in both human beings and other mammals actually protects against development of Alzheimer's.

“The protein is called SorLA, and the reason why it protects against Alzheimer's is that it inhibits the formation of harmful protein fragments in the brain.

And it’s this accumulation of protein fragments encapsulating the neurons in the brain that we see in people with Alzheimer's disease,” says Anders Nykjær, who has studied the disorder for over ten years.

MODIFIED MICE SPILL THE BEANS

When the DANDRITE scientists began to study SorLA in earnest, they discovered that Alzheimer's patients have less of the protein than people who are not affected by this type of dementia. But if SorLA can protect against the formation of harmful protein fragments in animal trials, could it help increase the amount of this protein in Alzheimer's patients?

In addition to funding from the Lundbeck Foundation, Anders Nykjær's team will receive a grant worth 62 million Danish kroner over the next six years from the Danish National Research Foundation. The grant will be used for research into proteins that figure in memory – in both the healthy and the sick brain.

This was what the DANDRITE scientists reasoned and, during their experiments on animals, they eventually managed to identify a substance able to increase the production of SorLA – the so-called BDNF growth factor.

But the question now is how to increase the production of SorLA in human beings without treating them directly with this growth factor. The challenge

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DANDRITE has researchers from 20 different nations, including Japan, Germany, Australia and China.

AN ENTIRE FAMILY OF PROTEINS

SorLA is one of an entire family of proteins produced naturally by humans and other mammals. These proteins are called sortilins and Anders Nykjær and his team have been focusing on them for a number of years.

There are five members of the sortilin family, and the interesting thing is that some of these proteins seem to be able to play a key role in a variety of diseases, for example type 2 diabetes and a number of disorders which affect brain function, including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

IN TYPE 2 DIABETES AND ALZHEIMER'S ALIKE

is therefore to find ways of increasing the body’s own natural production of BDNF. One of these is widely known: taking exercise.

Certain foods also seem to make a positive contribution to BDNF production.

“This has not yet been fully scientifically explored.

But there are preliminary results which indicate that fish oil may be one such food,” says Anders Nykjær.

Professor Anders Nykjær explains that, at one stage, a foreign research team discovered that patients with type 2 diabetes often display changes in the gene that codes for the SorCS-1 protein: “SorCS-1 is another member of the sortilin family – and, strangely enough, there’s also excess incidence of the same gene variant in people with Alzheimer's disease. This is extremely interesting because it’s a well-known fact that Alzheimer's patients have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes – and vice versa.

So SorCS-1 may actually be a common denominator in Alzheimer's disease and type 2 diabetes.”

Taking this as their starting point, Anders Nykjær and his colleagues in the DANDRITE team have now begun a range of experiments using genetically modified mice to explore the relationship between SorCS-1 and Alzheimer's disease.

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Exceptional talents showered with prizes They’re not yet 40 but have already shown outstanding talent for research, and tomorrow’s great breakthrough could very well come from one of their laboratories.

Meet seven of the young scientists honoured by the Lundbeck Foundation with special prizes over the past year.

TEXT Pernille Thorborg Jasper PHOTO Thomas Tolstrup

Mads Emil Jørgensen, MD, PhD student, Gentofte Hospital Andreas Laustsen, MSc in Chemical Engineering, postdoc, Technical University of Denmark Christian Laut Ebbesen, PhD, postdoc, biophysicist, University of Copenhagen Fatima Al-Zahraa Al Atraktchi, MSc in Physics and Nanotechnology, PhD student, Technical University of Denmark Tore Bjerregaard Stage, PhD, pharmacist, Assistant Professor, University of Southern Denmark

Acclaim for five brilliant new research talents “There are many promising young scientists at the Danish universities but we don’t see exceptional talents every day.”

These were the words of the AnneMarie Engel, head of the Lundbeck Foundation's talent and career programmes, when she presented five talent prizes to some of Denmark's most promising scientists under the age of 30.

The prize is accompanied by a monetary award of 100.000 Danish kroner.

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Junior Brain Prize goes to young obesity researcher What happens in the brain when we seek food?

This is one of the key questions we need to answer if we are to be more effective in combatting obesity.

One of the people who has brought us closer to an answer is PhD student Marta Carus-Cadavieco from the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology in Berlin. In optogenetic experiments with mice, she has shown how various parts of the brain work together when we seek food, and this gained her the Lundbeck Foundation Junior Brain Prize in 2017.

This was the justification for the selection of Marta: “Obesity is a global problem, and it’s estimated that 51% of the world’s population will be affected by 2030. It’s crucial that we understand what happens in the brain when we seek food if we are to develop better prevention and treatment strategies. Marta CarusCadavieco’s research sheds new light on this and on how various parts of the brain work together to regulate our behaviour when it comes to food.”

With the prize comes 2.500 euro. Last year the prize went to Eva Meier Carlsen from the University of Copenhagen and her cannabis research.

WHY WE HONOUR YOUNG SCIENTISTS The Lundbeck Foundation has a broad range of career-advancing grants, and young scientists can apply for funds for a PhD, post-doctoral research or a fellowship.

However, we also award special prizes to promising young researchers. We do this for two reasons.

• Firstly, we want to acknowledge our greatest talents and show them that exceptional efforts are rewarded.

• Secondly, it is important to young scientists to be able to add these prizes to their CVs when applying for funding or secondment abroad. Traditionally, this is not something that is important to Danes, but it means a lot in other countries around the world.

Young professor receives the Lundbeck Foundation Research Prize for Young Scientists She has delivered one landmark research outcome after another in the field of cancer and has published her results in the most prominent scientific journals.

For these reasons, Janine Erler, professor and cancer biologist at The University of Copenhagen, was awarded the Lundbeck Foundation Research Prize for Young Scientists at the end of 2017.

“It’s a great honour to be awarded this prestigious prize, particularly as I’m the first woman to receive it.

My goal in life is to reduce the suffering of cancer patients, and it’s a privilege to head the team of talented researchers behind this exciting research that will hopefully help make a difference,” says Janine Erler.

Janine’s research investigates the way in which the tumour microenvironment promotes stimulation of cancer cell growth, invasion and metastasis.

“Janine Erler is one of those scientists who can do almost anything. She’s a great talent, a skilful scientist, a talented research director and an expert communicator who can see the commercial potential in her own research,” says Anne-Marie Engel, head of the Lundbeck Foundation’s talent and career programmes.

The prize is accompanied by a monetary award of 300.000 Danish kroner.

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Good ideas give steady work A number of young and very talented scientists have been appointed Fellows by the Lundbeck Foundation every year since 2007. In 2017, it was the turn of five biomedical science researchers. They each receive a total of 10 million Danish kroner, allowing them five years to work in peace and giving them the opportunity to focus on the inspiring projects that interest them.

But where do the good ideas come from?

TEXT Henrik Larsen PHOTO Thomas Tolstrup and Martin Gravgaard ILLUSTRATION MakeÂŽ

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he ability of human beings to think along new and creative lines is difficult to define, and it’s probably impossible to incorporate it into any kind of formula.

Although, from the outside, even the most brilliant solutions may seem to have a certain simplicity in common – “Oh yeah, of course that’s right, it’s obvious” – it doesn’t tell us how the idea originated.

It may be possible to stimulate the development of good ideas by consciously seeking atmospheres and surroundings with a reputation for facilitating clever and creative thinking. Winston Churchill resorted to long, hot baths when he really needed to put his brain to work.

So, how do the five newly fledged Lundbeck Foundation Fellows actually address the issue of innovative thinking?

We put this question to them.

IDEAS ARRIVE LIKE BUTTERFLIES

In the number ‘Even Flow’, Pearl Jam’s lead singer, Eddie Vedder, sings: “Thoughts arrive like butterflies”.

And, according to Søren Egedal Degn, Assistant Professor at Aarhus University’s Department of Biomedicine, this is an identifiable image.

“In my experience, good ideas can't be forced. Ideas flow and flutter; they’re fragile and fleeting. Of course, you can brainstorm, and I do this often with my research team or partners. But the really good ideas usually come later, when I’m not actively thinking about the subject. For example, while I’m cycling home from work.”

And Søren Egedal Degn stresses that there is another, very important aspect of innovative thinking – temporarily letting go of some of your ideas in order to concentrate whole-heartedly on one specific idea.

“If I hadn’t done this, I would never have crossed the finish line,” he says, referring to his time as a Marie Curie post-doctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School from 2014 to 2015.

Pernille Højman, team leader at the Centre for Active Health, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, is conducting tests in an attempt to prove that exercise can play a positive role in cancer therapy.

For her, the innovative thinking process is very much a ‘physically creative’ process: “I definitely think best, for example, if I draw my idea while I’m thinking.

So, all of my students are now used to taking hand-drawn sketches home from our meetings.”

And, there it is again – sitting on a bike seems to provide excellent inspiration: “The 40-minute ride home on my bike at the end of the day is definitely

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Lundbeck Foundation Fellow, Pernille Højman, gets her best ideas when she's cycling home from work.

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the best time for getting ideas. It’s the time when all of the impressions of the day fall into place and solidify into clear, connected ideas,” says Pernille Højman.

YOU HAVE TO PRACTISE

According to Christoffer Clemmensen, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Section for Metabolic Receptology, where he researches into the interaction between the brain’s reward system and its system for regulating appetite, it is important “that we don’t glorify research and research ideas and turn them into some kind of religion.”

He believes that, in reality, research is not so different from other occupations: “When it comes down to it, there’s a direct correlation between the amount we practise and how clever we become.

The more time we spend considering, writing down, discussing and testing ideas, the bigger the chance that one of these ideas will actually result in new and inspiring knowledge. It makes no sense simply to wait for a ground-breaking

research idea to land in our laps – like some kind of romantic, Eureka moment.”

Christoffer Clemmensen says that, in the field of research, the good idea is “indisputably the Holy Grail”.

“So it surprises me that we scientists spend so little time concentrating on innovative thinking and testing our ideas against theory. It may be romantic fancy, but I believe that innovative thinking retreats – without any unnecessary interruptions from meetings, email and internet – could give innovation a substantial boost. By this, I mean retreats where we focus 100 per cent on making sense of the world and identifying biological issues of actual relevance. As I see it, we’re far too indiscriminate when selecting the research issues we end up working and spending decades of our lives on.”

Rasmus O. Bak, Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, basically believes that it is difficult to structure “true innovative thinking”:

“I’ve mostly had ‘aha moments’ when ideas have come to me out of the blue.

Ideas can also surface while talking to good colleagues. You shouldn’t underestimate the synergy effects that can be achieved by gathering people from different fields of expertise over a cup of coffee.”

In Rasmus O. Bak’s opinion, to a large extent, getting ideas is steady work. If you ask him whether he sometimes gets a good idea in a dream, his answer is short and sweet: “No”.

On the other hand, he gains good inspiration from reading new scientific articles and participating in relevant conferences and symposiums: “It’s important because new research results give good input to the models and methods you yourself can use. It gives a broader and more varied picture of issues or unanswered questions in your own field of research. And that helps form new ideas.”

Aarhus University’s Department of Biomedicine has ‘delivered’ three of the five Fellows appointed by

The five 2017 Lundbeck Foundation Fellows MARTIN ROELSGAARD JAKOBSEN

RASMUS OTKJÆR BAK

Age: 39 Title: Associate Professor, PhD Research institution: Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University

Age: 35 Title: Assistant Professor, PhD Research institution: Department of Biomedicine and Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University

Field of research: When we get an infection, or are infected by a virus, our immune system fights the threat.

In recent years, research has shown that our immune system can also be an excellent co-conspirator in the fight against cancer.

Field of research: Genetic mutations in the blood’s stem cells can lead to a range of serious, and often deadly, blood diseases. But using the CRISPR gene editing tool, we are able to send the stem cells’ genes to the workshop and repair them.

Martin Roelsgaard Jakobsen is investigating how we can put our innate immune system to better use to combat cancer. Among other things, he is examining the STING protein, which acts as a kind of doorbell for our immune system.

Rasmus Otkjær Bak is investigating how we can improve the efficiency of stem cell gene editing.

He also aims to identify a method for skipping the laboratory step and correcting the genes directly in the patient.

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When it comes down to it, there’s a direct correlation between the amount we practise and how clever we become. The more time we spend considering, writing down, discussing and testing ideas, the bigger the chance that one of these ideas will actually result in new and inspiring knowledge.

Christoffer Clemmensen Associate Professor, PhD, Section for Metabolic Receptology, University of Copenhagen

PERNILLE HØJMAN

SØREN EGEDAL DEGN

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the Lundbeck Foundation in 2017.

The final member of the Aarhus trio is Associate Professor Martin Roelsgaard Jakobsen. As far as he is concerned, innovative thinking is often all about seeking exceptional results: “I mean results in a class of their own.

Something that flies in the face of our outlined hypothesis or something else with an unexpected outcome – I often have a tendency to look for this. It doesn't need to be a major innovation. I’m usually digging for the subtle differences. Instead of shelving the ‘data noise’, I spend time considering the significance of the data and I may even design experiments to elucidate things more specifically.”

Martin Roelsgaard Jakobsen admits that these considerations often lead to nothing.

“But in the odd case they fit perfectly into a new model – and then I have an idea for something new.

CHRISTOFFER CLEMMENSEN

Age: 40 Title: Team leader, MSc, PhD Research institution: Centre for Active Health, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen

Age: 36 Title: Assistant Professor, PhD Research institution: Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University

Age: 38 Title: Assistant Professor, PhD Research institution: Section for Metabolic Receptology, University of Copenhagen

Field of research: In mice with cancer, tumour growth is reduced by up to 60% if they exercise. This is shown by research headed by Pernille Højman. Her research investigates whether exercise in itself acts as a kind of cancer drug.

Field of research: Your biology teacher undoubtedly taught you about chromosome-based inheritance – the fact that you inherit eye colour from your parents. You may even have heard that you can inherit mitochondrially and epigenetically. Before long, Søren Egedal Degn may add a fourth type of inheritance to the list.

Field of research: You surely know the feeling – you’ve eaten a huge meal and are full to the top, and if anyone offered you more salad the answer would be “no thanks”. But then a delicious dessert is served and, all of a sudden, you are able to squeeze in just a little more.

The aim is to draw the attention of doctors in cancer departments around the country to the extremely beneficial effect of exercise and to give them the opportunity to prescribe an exercise programme on equal footing with other therapies for treatment of cancer.

Søren has found signs that we are also able to inherit paragenetically. This means that, at the foetal stage, our immune system picks up things from our mother’s immune system.

Christoffer Clemmensen is in the process of investigating precisely what happens in the body when we say no to the salad but yes to the dessert. His research includes investigating the influence of the interaction between the brain’s reward system and its system for regulating appetite.

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I’ve developed a sense for picking up on what DOESN’T fit into a context, and I tend to get new ideas this way rather than by looking at what suits the current story,” he says.

As the process goes on, Martin Roelsgaard Jakobsen is very much driven by visualisation.

“I spend time drawing figures and complex models on little scraps of paper or on the whiteboard. I usually end up with lots of question marks or empty boxes, and when I have an overview I start writing down the ideas that might give me the answer to the unknown,” he says.

“I’ve mostly had ‘aha moments’ when ideas have come to me out of the blue.

Ideas can also surface while talking to good colleagues. You shouldn’t underestimate the synergy effects that can be achieved by gathering people from different fields of expertise over a cup of coffee.”

Rasmus O. Bak Assistant Professor, PhD, Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University

THE BEST IDEA

If you ask the five Fellows whether they can remember what suddenly fell into place when they got their best idea, their memories are not so clear. As Christoffer Clemmensen says, “a REALLY good idea might still be out there, and if I ever get a truly excellent research idea, I promise I’ll write it down and share the process that paved the way for it as well as all of the things that played a prominent role.”

THE LUNDBECK FOUNDATION’S FELLOWSHIPS Every year, the Lundbeck Foundation awards a handful of scholarships to particularly promising young scientists in the process of establishing or developing a research team. We call these scholarships the Lundbeck Foundation Fellowships.

Each Fellow receives 10 million Danish kroner to devote themselves to their research over the following five years.

Research must be either basic or applied, and the field of study must fall within the scope of the Foundation's award strategy.

The Lundbeck Foundation has granted Fellowships since 2007, reaching the 60th Fellowship in 2017.

Martin Roelsgaard Jakobsen says that his best scientific idea to date “turned up in a rather unorthodox manner”.

“Some years ago, we published a study we’d spent years on. Afterwards, I was advised to start on something new because there was nowhere left to go with it. That made me stubborn, and I thought to myself: “No way, we still have a lot to learn about this protein even though others have written it off ”. So, I continued and tried to look at things from a different angle. I don’t know whether it was pure luck but we discovered that the protein worked differently from the way we originally thought it did, and a new idea emerged. Everything just clicked into place at that moment.”

For Søren Egedal Degn, answering the question means accepting that it is necessary to make a “clear distinction” between ideas and discoveries: “ A discovery is more specific and is often more of a coincidence,” he believes.

One of Søren Egedal Degn’s significant memories of a discovery involves the protein – a new protein – he discovered while working on his PhD. “It wasn't planned – it wasn’t directly connected with my original project – but it ended up being the crowning achievement of my PhD.” Later, during his first post-doctoral employment, Søren Egedal Degn discovered how a branch of the immune system is activated – and this wasn’t the result of a grandiose plan either.

Some of his observations did not fit the common perception of how the system worked: “But I pursued my discovery and remained true to my data,” he remembers.

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Science for the youngest TEXT Henrik Larsen PHOTO Anders Drud Jordan

K

ids and teenagers can play football in their spare time – or they can go to Scouts, a drama club or piano lessons. But they can actually also join a science club.

Videnskabsklubben, which has received funding from the Lundbeck Foundation since it was tested as a pilot project in 2014 and 2015, gives young people this opportunity.

The Foundation recently granted almost five million Danish kroner to the project, so Videnskabsklubben has a secure foundation up to 2020.

Videnskabsklubben is a mentor club for children and young people. The practical experiments at the club give them a better understanding of science and teach them to think like a researcher.

It’s the desire to learn more about science and research that counts, so there’s no need to be a mathematical genius to join.

The activities run over a seven-week period from the end of the October school holiday up to Christmas and, so far, Videnskabsklubben has been offered to schools in Gentofte, Lyngby-Taarbæk and Hørsholm.

However, with funding from the Lundbeck Foundation, the initiative will now also be rolled out in Randers, Odense and Copenhagen.

“This will bring the number of participating schools to around 40 and they’ll send about 800 students to Videnskabsklubben,” says Rikke Schmidt Kjærgaard. She holds a PhD in research

communication and was one of the founders of Videnskabsklubben.

Today, she is the director of the club and general manager.

The club is for 9 to 12-year-olds, who participate as mini-researchers, and for 13 to16-year-olds, who act as junior mentors. Students are put into teams and each team has three senior mentors, who are upper-secondary school students.

Videnskabsklubben has a board of directors whose members include some of Denmark's most prominent researchers and science communicators such as Professor Poul Nissen from Aarhus University, Professor Anja C Andersen from the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Dr Peter Lund Madsen.

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ALK WEATHERS THE STORM AND SETS SAIL FOR NEW HORIZONS TEXT Pernille Thorborg Jasper PHOTO Thomas Tolstrup

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ALK was on a steady course. But then came ‘the perfect storm’ and, with a new CEO at the helm, the allergy company was compelled to embark on a major turnaround. The company is still in the midst of this process but this prevents neither the director nor the owner from having ambitions: they want ALK to be an allergy giant.

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arsten Hellmann was appointed new CEO of ALK in May 2016. A mere two months later – before he had even taken his place at the head of the table – the allergy company’s major American partner, Merck, pulled the plug on the cooperation agreement with ALK. This meant that ALK had to find a completely new way of selling its allergy tablets on the key North American market.

At the same time, the company was affected by stricter regulatory requirements for production.

“We were in the midst of a change process and had just welcomed Carsten on board when we were overtaken by events and suddenly had to act faster than expected,” says Lene Skole, CEO of the Lundbeck Foundation which owns a controlling interest in ALK.

Carsten Hellmann himself uses the term ‘the perfect storm’.

“ALK was a company dependent on the achievements of others. There were some important partners whose job it was to ensure earnings, and there were high expectations with respect to what these partners should generate. There wasn't much depending on what ALK itself was doing. The prematurely terminated cooperation agreement with Merck was one of the elements that turned things upside down,” says Carsten Hellmann who, as CEO of ALK, is responsible for the turnaround that is far from complete.

According to Carsten Hellmann, a successful change process requires a change in mindset. People need to understand that things have to be approached differently. This has therefore been his main focus:

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Carsten Hellmann took up his post as CEO of ALK at the beginning of 2017. The first year turned out to be surprisingly turbulent, but the worst of the storm has now passed and the course has been set.

FACTS ABOUT ALK ALK is a global pharmaceutical company that focuses on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of allergies.

The company was founded on 9 June 1923 when pharmacist Peter Barfod and physician Kaj Baagøe from Copenhagen University Hospital registered the first pharmaceutically manufactured allergy preparation.

The product was designed to treat allergic reactions to goose down in bedding.

Today, ALK has a staff of 2,300 and subsidiaries, production facilities and distributors all over the world.

The allergy company has had connections to the Lundbeck Foundation at various stages along the way. Since 2005, the Foundation has owned 40% of the company and, with 67% of the voting rights, has a controlling interest.

“It isn’t the job of the other department, the owners, the shareholders or the partners to ensure that our company is a success in the future – it’s ours,” says Carsten Hellmann.

“One of the criteria for success is trust. ALK has some incredibly talented employees but only happy employees are able to adapt and take responsibility.

So I’ve spent a lot of energy on stressing that I have faith that the employees are doing a good job. I think I can say that the company we have today is much better equipped to tackle the job and take responsibility,” he says.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING A TEAM

Carsten Hellmann’s eye for an efficient organisation was one of the characteristics that drew the Lundbeck Foundation’s attention to his potential as CEO of ALK. “Carsten has three strengths in particular that took my notice: Firstly, he’s able to build a team. A course can never be changed by one person alone.

A good organisation is needed, and Carsten is good at building that up.

Secondly, he’s visionary, and as a long-term owner it’s important to me that the management teams of our subsidiaries think of more than shortterm performance and the next quarter.

Thirdly, Carsten is prepared for the long haul. And it’s this cocktail of qualities that is really good for ALK, and for the Lundbeck Foundation in turn,” says Lene Skole.

ENSURING STABILITY

According to Carsten Hellmann, one of the things that made it easier to restore calm to the organisation is ALK’s ownership – the fact that the Lundbeck Foundation has the controlling interest in the company and has a long-term approach to investment ensures a stable platform for the strategy.

“If I’d had to carry this through with fragmentary ownership and the shareholders at odds, it would have taken much longer and I would have had to alter the dosage of change. It’ll take three years

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to turn ALK around and I can do it with an easy mind. That doesn’t mean that I don't need to create results during the three years, but I won’t need to make constant modifications to the strategy due to some militant shareholder who suddenly wants to change the course,” he explains.

And the Lundbeck Foundation’s CEO, Lene Skole, agrees with him on this point: “When we believe in the strategy, we believe in the management, and we believe in the method of implementation, we create stability,” she says.

“But long-term owners need to be careful not to be TOO patient, because that can curtail performance. That’s why we’re extremely focused on active ownership and being a dedicated sounding board, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with our ambition. Why shouldn’t we be able to build up a much bigger ALK when you consider how many people suffer from allergies worldwide?”

“It isn’t the job of the other department, the owners, the shareholders or the partners to ensure that our company is a success in the future – it’s ours.”

Carsten Hellmann CEO at ALK

THE VISION IS CLEAR

Carsten Hellmann’s vision for ALK is all about size. His aim is for ALK to be just as big as some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Denmark. But this will take many years, and therefore his vision includes another element – one that can be achieved much faster: “We would like to grow from a niche manufacturer of allergy immunotherapy into a broad-based allergy company that helps as many people as possible.

We don't merely want to supply products to treat the sickest patients; we want to become the allergy sufferer’s preferred adviser – from pre-manifestation to full treatment phase. The vision is to reach out and help lots more allergy sufferers,” he says.

Carsten Hellmann

CEO at ALK

Date of birth: 1964 2017CEO at ALK 2013-2017 CEO at Merial and member of Sanofi’s group executive Has previously held management positions at Chr. Hansen and Novo Nordisk

Education BSc in Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School (1989) MSc in Information Management from Lancaster University (1990) INSEAD management training programme Personal details Married with two children

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With science and shareholders’ returns top of mind Since 2012, Lundbeckfonden Emerge has played a role – as investor and active owner – in budding life science companies based on ground-breaking research with commercial potential. The long-term aim is to create a strong Danish life science sector – and to earn money on it at the same time.

TEXT Pernille Thorborg Jasper PHOTO Thomas Tolstrup

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“Our philosophy is to be picky but to be ready to invest heavily when we really see potential.”

Christian Elling Managing Partner, Lundbeckfonden Emerge

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LUNDBECKFONDEN EMERGE Lundbeckfonden Emerge was founded in 2012.

Emerge invests in newly started Danish life science companies with commercial potential.

The aim is to identify and develop the scientific discoveries that could become the basis for Denmark's next successful life science enterprise.

Emerge works closely with the founders and the company to develop the companies.

There are currently six companies in the portfolio – Dermtreat, Folium Food Science, Insusense Therapeutics, IO Biotech, NMD Pharma and SNIPR Biome.

ometimes, these companies float; sometimes, they sink like a stone. These are the conditions when you invest in Danish life science companies at their very earliest stage. The Lundbeck Foundation has been doing this since 2012 when Emerge was established with the aim of investing in, supporting and helping researchers and entrepreneurs to transform their scientific ideas into commercially relevant life science companies.

“As a foundation, we have a unique opportunity to invest in frontline research – where others end up having to pull out because the risk is too high.

We invest in companies that are in the process of developing new treatments for patients with currently unmet needs but which have yet to see a breakthrough.

We have both the muscle and the nerve to handle the fact that these companies sometimes do well but sometimes don't do so well,” says Christian Elling, Managing Partner at Emerge.

But this certainly doesn't mean that he turns his nose up at profit: “We would like to help create successful Danish life science companies, and I definitely consider it part of our job to help professionalise the life science environment in Denmark. But we always keep profit in mind. If we don't make uncompromising efforts to achieve a high rate of return, we won't help anyone,” he says.

ACTIVE OWNERSHIP IS ONE OF THE INGREDIENTS

One of the tools for ensuring a high rate of return is active ownership.

Emerge’s involvement does not stop once the money has been transferred – on the contrary, this is when the serious work begins: “Certainly, we offer capital, but we also make a significant contribution in terms of expertise and access to our network. People often come to us with a convincing scientific idea but limited experience of running a biotech business.

And in several cases, we’ve simply moved in with them for a while and helped them prepare a business plan and build everything from scratch,” he says.

THE PORTFOLIO IS GROWING STEADILY

It is important to Christian Elling that Emerge grows organically. He is not in any rush, and it is a virtue to be picky when adding new companies to the portfolio. Emerge invests when it comes across the right idea – and this happened three times in 2017. Christian Elling expects to invest around DKK 200 million over the next couple of years.

“Our philosophy is to be picky but to be ready to invest heavily when we really see potential. This also applies in the very early phase. There’s a huge difference between investing DKK 2 million for a company to leave the starting blocks and investing DKK 20 million to build serious momentum,” he says.

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WITH SCIENCE AND SHAREHOLDERS’ RETURNS TOP OF MIND

EARLY INVESTMENT IN EDITING BACTERIA’S GENES SNIPR Biome, which will use the well-known CRISPR gene editing technology to edit the genes of bacteria, received Lundbeckfonden Emerge’s first exploratory investment. The funding has helped the company build momentum and the initial data look promising.

TEXT Pernille Thorborg Jasper

It was a major scientific breakthrough when scientists succeeded in designing the CRISPR gene editing tool with the help of a protein in bacteria that is able to edit DNA. The CRISPR technology is perhaps best known as a method for modifying human genes but, in 2017, SNIPR Biome patented a method for turning the CRISPR technology on the bacteria themselves.

“Using the SNIPR technology, we can edit the genes of the bacteria – for instance, if we want to kill them or modify their characteristics and remove antibiotic resistance genes. The SNIPR technology enables us to target the precise bacteria we want to reach so that we avoid any unnecessary damage to the beneficial bacteria we wish to hold onto,” Christian Grøndahl, co-founder and CEO of SNIPR Biome, explains.

with a highly talented team. Using new methods, it has the potential to change the whole way we handle bacteria. We hope to be able to help the company optimise its development so that it can rapidly produce new and effective treatments,” says Christian Elling, Managing Partner at Lundbeckfonden Emerge.

PROMISING DATA

HUGE POTENTIAL

SNIPR Biome has received a so-called exploratory investment from the Lundbeck Foundation to the tune of 2.6 million euros. With this new investment instrument, the Foundation invests in completely new start-ups, which have great potential but highly uncertain returns.

“SNIPR Biome received our first exploratory investment because it’s an extremely promising company

Christian Grøndahl

On the financial side, SNIPR Biome succeeded in producing a sound business plan during its first years of operation.

And on the scientific side, it has produced the first exciting data.

“SNIPR has made a good start, and the initial data look really good, so I feel I can be cautiously optimistic on behalf of our investment,” says Christian Elling.

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On one side of the debate about health data, you will find supporters of our right to our own data.

In the opposite corner, you’ll find advocates of scientists’ rights to access to health data who claim that these data are crucial to research and, as a consequence, to public health.

TEXT Helle Horskjær

hould scientists continue to have free access to health data, or should we give our consent first? This is the dilemma facing politicians in a nutshell. Danes are seeking personalised medicine and customised courses of treatment like never before, but many are also concerned that their health data with their personal details may be used without their knowledge, misused or fall into the wrong hands.

The debate stems from the fact that a Danish interpretation of the EU’s data protection package came into force in May 2018. On the whole, the aim of the data protection package is to increase awareness of how our personal data is used and to protect against identity theft.

In Denmark, we have a long tradition of using health data, and Danish health and register data are quite unique. This is partly due to the systematically collected electronic data on diagnoses, pathological processes and treatment, and partly due to our civil registration (CPR) system, which enables us to connect health data to the life of an individual. For these reasons, the Lundbeck Foundation's Director of Research, Professor Thomas Sinkjær, is in no doubt that there are great benefits to be had from securing scientists’ access to the health data of the Danish public: “It would be a great loss for Danish research if access to health data was restricted. I would go so far as to say that it may block the way for the next major breakthrough in biomedical science.

But, of course, strict security measures are crucial to ensure that personal data are not misused, and it’s vital that there’s

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transparency in the research projects using the data,” he says.

UNIQUE DANISH REGISTERS

The new EU rules prepare the ground for active consent. This has prompted Danish politicians to exercise the option to introduce special national rules to allow scientists access to data about the Danish public’s health and living conditions, without the consent of the individual.

Critics of these special rules believe that the access to personal data – such as hospital admissions, diagnoses, medicine intake and addiction – given by this new law will be too broad. Supporters, on the other hand, question whether we all have the ability to address the issue of active consent, and their fear is that, eventually, our national registers will not reflect the population.

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Did you know... that in Denmark you can decide yourself what should happen to the biopsies you have during treatment by the health service? https://sundhedsdatastyrelsen.dk/ da/borger-og-offentlighed/ vaevsanvendelsesregisteret

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BIG BROTHER OR BETTER THERAPIES?

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No iPSYCH without health data The mammoth psychiatric research project, iPSYCH, which has received 361 million Danish kroner in funding from Lundbeck Foundation, is dependent on health data to pursue answers to psychiatry’s greatest riddles.

TEXT Helle Horskjær

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3 Imagine a teenager without a mobile phone – it would be like someone missing a limb. The scenario is the same if you imagine iPSYCH with no access to health data.

“There wouldn't be a project at all if we didn't have access to health data. The data are the baseline for all of our research activities,” says Professor Anders Børglum from the Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, who is Head of Research at iPSYCH. iPSYCH was set up in 2012 by a number of leading researchers in psychiatry and genetics in Denmark.

Today, it is the world’s largest study of genetic and environmental causes of mental illness, and the scientists behind the initiative would rather prevent the incidence of disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, autism and ADHD altogether. For the purposes of this project, access to the health data of the Danish public is crucial.

“We have unique potential to elucidate the complex interaction between inheritance and environment which, for some, results in development of a psychological disorder,” says Anders Børglum.

A DIAGNOSIS IS A PRIVATE MATTER

Basically, the data iPSYCH uses can be divided into two groups: biological data and registry data.

The biological data usually come from analyses of material from archived heel prick blood tests performed on newborns in Denmark.

Registry data provide information about an individual’s medical conditions, and scientists mostly retrieve this information from the Danish National Register of Patients and the National Register of Psychiatric Patients.

“The genetic data are essentially worthless if we can’t compare them against registry data and identify their impact with regard to development of psychological disorders. Access to information about diagnoses, in particular, is crucial,” explains Anders Børglum, but he stresses that health data also present challenges.

“The data we work with are extremely sensitive personal data.

If you’ve been diagnosed with a disorder such as schizophrenia, it’s a private matter and the information

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is confidential. The same applies to the genetic data. Therefore, we store and process the data under strict safeguards,” he says.

ENCRYPTED DATA

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The scientists typically receive the health data in a so-called pseudonymised format. This means that any information able to identify an individual is replaced by a code, which is stored separately.

“When we compare the genetic data, which we generate from the biological samples, with the individual’s diagnosis, we never have any information that can identify the person in question.

We don't have civil registration (CPR) numbers, and we don't have names or addresses that would tell us precisely who the person we’re examining is. All we scientists can see is that this is an individual with a specific diagnosis code,” Anders Børglum explains.

“We do a lot, even more than we’re required to by law. We’re extremely careful to ensure that data are as inaccessible as possible, and that no results can be exported from the computer without specific consent.”

A TREASURE TROVE OF KNOWLEDGE

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There is a reason why Anders Børglum and his colleagues protect the health data of the Danish public so meticulously. The data are a scientific and healthcare gold mine.

“In Denmark, we have a public health system that basically covers the entire population, and everyone’s health data are registered. We have years of information about the medical conditions of an entire population in the records, and that’s quite unique,” he says. iPSYCH is a nationwide project and has partners at Aarhus University, the University of Copenhagen, Central Denmark Region, the Capital Region of Denmark and the State Serum Institute.

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BIG BROTHER OR BETTER THERAPIES?

NEW LAW ON HEALTH DATA POSES CHALLENGES FOR SCIENTISTS TEXT Pernille Thorborg Jasper

HISTORICALLY LARGE GRANT FOR PERSONALISED MEDICINE TEXT Pernille Thorborg Jasper

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Denmark is renowned for its unique pool of health data and health registers, both of which offer enormous potential for research into diseases and novel drugs. However, the new EU Data Protection Directive imposes new demands on storage and use of the Danish public’s health data, requiring greater resources to gain access to data.

For this reason, the Lundbeck Foundation has granted 4 million Danish kroner to a research project which will chart the new rules and ensure that Danish scientists can continue to use health data to make advances in the field of healthcare.

“The new rules are complicated, and it’s important to elucidate and interpret them fully

to prevent any uncertainty about what we’re actually permitted to do with the health data. One of the project’s clear strengths is the involvement of biomedical science researchers. These are the people who are familiar with the processes and who will ultimately need to collect and use the health data correctly,” says Thomas Sinkjær, Director of Research at the Lundbeck Foundation.

The University of Southern Denmark is heading the project, which numbers leading researchers on healthcare law, personal data law and biomedical sciences from Aarhus University, the University of Copenhagen and the University of Southern Denmark.

The potential for more precise diagnoses and personalised treatment is huge. The Lundbeck Foundation's largest call for grant applications in 2018 is aimed at personalised medicine for diseases of the brain.

Personalised medicine is a therapy whereby health data with genetic details are used to adapt treatment to the individual patient. This means less unnecessary and ineffectual treatment and fewer side effects for the patient.

The grant will be worth 150 million Danish kroner, one of the largest in the Foundation’s history. One of the main

purposes of this grant is to support the strategy of the Danish Ministry of Health in this field. The national strategy for personalised medicine was announced at the end of 2016, and 100 million Danish kroner was earmarked in the Budget to launch the project.

The strategy includes establishment of a national genome centre which will store health data and promote use of gene tests to identify more precisely whether a patient would benefit from a specific drug.

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Science in movies TEXT Regitze Reeh PHOTO Made by us

Do you love great science documentaries?

Then the annual science film festival, CPH:Science, is probably for you.

Each year, the festival spotlights communication of science in moving images and generates novel projects at the intersection between two separate universes: research and documentaries.

CPH:Science is a collaboration between CPH:DOX – one of the world’s biggest documentary film festivals – and the Lundbeck Foundation. The comprehensive programme runs over ten days and acts as a platform for scientists and film-makers, enabling them to meet during the early phases of the process and find common ground so that the film director almost becomes a member of the research team.

“Broadening the range of films about science is a perfect fit for the element of our grant strategy directed at making research accessible to a broader audience.

We have a long tradition of funding the production of documentaries because we regard film as a fantastic medium for communicating science,” says Anne-Marie Engel, head of the Lundbeck Foundation’s talent and career programmes.

One of the most recent documentaries funded by the Lundbeck Foundation was premiered on the CPH:DOX children’s programme in 2018. “Me and my brain” is aimed at 9 to 12-year-olds and gives them an understanding of who we are and the role our fantastic brain plays in our lives.

Follow us!

You can keep track of the Lundbeck Foundation's activities on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, our website and in our newsletter.

Our newsletter describes the research we fund and our work to put the brain on the agenda, and it will keep you up to date with our events.

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Artificial intelligence is revolutionising health research Artificial intelligence could help us make diagnoses, and it’s already being used by the Capital Region of Denmark’s emergency response system.

The technology will eventually have a huge impact on a range of other fields of health research.

TEXT Henrik Larsen DRAWING Jørgen Saabye ILLUSTRATION Make®

The Magazine 2018

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Artificial intelligence is all about getting machines to ‘think’. This means getting them to learn, take decisions and target something specific.

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TIMELINE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

n Phoenix in the United States, you can call a driverless car via an app, night or day, and be driven to wherever you want to go. Google designed the Waymo self-driving car, which is both a hire car and an extremely sophisticated system based on artificial intelligence. And we can expect to see many more examples of this in the coming years.

Thanks to ever more sophisticated algorithms, the transport industry is only one of the areas in which we will see novel technical solutions. According to Thomas Bolander, Associate Professor at DTU Compute, another obvious focus area is the field of health research: “AI is really good at recognising patterns based on visual data. This means that it has immense potential when it comes to diagnosing a variety of types of skin change such as psoriasis and skin cancer. Work is already underway to refine these solutions and there’s obvious potential for enabling systems of this kind to react to verbal statements,” he says.

The diagnosis of rare diseases is one area in which AI has already begun to change health research.

With funding from the Lundbeck Foundation, among others, a team of scientists at DTU developed the FindZebra system. They later

commercialised it and will soon be introducing it to the market in a version that retrieves information from 100,000 anonymised patient journals worldwide.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE PATIENT?

Much of artificial intelligence is based on so-called machine learning – algorithms or computer systems which improve at what they do based on the experience they gain from data.

Scientists disagree on the consequences of artificial intelligence. Some believe it will release humanity’s full potential. Others fear that technological singularity – when humanity is surpassed by intelligent machines – will lead to the downfall of mankind.

Around 7,000 diseases are categorised as rare because they affect less than 1 in 2000 of the population.

For the same reason, these diseases are rarely seen in the doctor’s surgery and can therefore be extremely difficult to diagnose.

“In such situations, doctors could benefit from access to a tool that suggests what may actually be wrong with the patient. This is basically what FindZebra does,” says Ole Winther, who spearheaded development of the system.

He is a professor at DTU Compute and he specialises in machine learning, which is a branch of artificial intelligence.

He is also a researcher at the Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC) at the University of Copenhagen.

The system gets its name from the fact that, in the medical world, ‘zebra’ is slang for a rare disease – as opposed to ‘horse’, which refers to a common disorder.

1940s – The first computers are built

1950 – Alan Turing presents the Turing Test, which shows how intelligent a machine actually is

The doctor plots data about the patient into FindZebra and the system then searches for a match with a rare disease from EU databases, the extensive American National Institutes of Health (NIH) database, Wikipedia and, in the near future, selected descriptions from the international PubMed database.

1955 - The term ‘artificial intelligence’ is used for the first time

1979 - The first computer-controlled vehicle drives across a room full of chairs without hitting one

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The computer creates a picture of the gravity of the situation and gives the 112 on-duty officer an overall assessment, which may include small reminders to ask specific questions.

The system’s assessment will not determine the action to be taken – this decision must be made by the specialist on duty.

MULTI-FACETED CANCER TREATMENT

Cancer treatment is another area in which artificial intelligence will make a difference in the future.

“For example, relapses could be an action area.

We fight the cancer cells with a certain therapy – radiation or medicine – and initially believe that treatment has been completely successful because the cancer seems to have disappeared. Then, after a while, the patient has a relapse because some of the cancer cells haven’t been killed after all. These are the cancer cells that artificial intelligence may be able to help us spot so that we can fight them, too – from the very first day of treatment,” says Professor Ole Winther.

IS CARDIAC ARREST IMMINENT?

“Another example of new AI technology that can make a difference in the health sector is the system designed by a small Danish company called Corti,” Thomas Bolander explains.

This is a tool being tested by the Capital Region of Denmark’s emergency response system, also known as 112. The aim of the system is to ensure fast intervention in the case of cardiac arrest or in situations which may develop into cardiac arrest at short notice.

When an emergency call is received by 112, the AI-based system listens in and assesses the tone of the caller’s voice, breathing pattern and verbal presentation of the situation.

1994 – Two robotic vehicles drive 1,000 km down a motorway at up to 130 km an hour

1997 – IBM’s Deep Blue beats grand master Garry Kasparov at chess

1998 – The Furby toy is the first technology based on artificial intelligence to reach the ordinary consumer

2004 - NASA’s rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, explore Mars

2009 - Google builds its first autonomous car

The Magazine 2018

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS REVOLUTIONISING HEALTH RESEARCH

“Artificial intelligence will release humanity’s full potential”

TEXT Pernille Thorborg Jasper

Some of the world’s most talented neuroscientists were gathered for the Brain Prize Meeting at Hindsgavl Castle. A worldfamous superstar in the field of artificial intelligence, Demis Hassabis, also paid a visit in his private plane and rounded off the meeting with an inspiring talk about the perspectives of AI. As a child, Demis Hassabis was something of a chess genius, and when he was young he helped develop and design a number of popular computer games.

After gaining his PhD from University College London, he founded DeepMind with two colleagues in 2010. The company was later sold to Google. He obviously does not belong to the school that believes technology will be the end of mankind: “There are undoubtedly some risks we need to take seriously, and we need more research into ways of controlling the technology, but I have great confidence that we as a society – with all of our talented scientists – will be able to meet this challenge. So, I mostly see the huge benefits of artificial intelligence and I believe that technology will end up releasing humanity’s full potential,” he says.

ON THE LOWEST RUNG OF THE LADDER

The term ‘artificial intelligence’ has existed for more than 60 years but the past ten years, in particular, have seen a rapid gain in momentum as far as research is concerned: “There’ve been huge developments over the past few years, but there’s still much we don't understand, or can't do, when it comes to artificial intelligence. I usually say we’re on the lowest rung of the ladder, but at least we’re now on the right ladder,” he says.

If you ask Demis Hassabis what the next advance in AI will be, his answer is understanding language.

“We’re still a long way from computers that show deep understanding of language, but there’s no doubt that this is the Holy Grail many of us hope to find soon. If artificial intelligence were able to crack the code of language understanding, it could, for instance, learn from books and Wikipedia. And the potential here is huge,” he says.

BALLS HAVE ZERO TO ME TO ME TO ME TO ME TO ME TO ME TO ME TO ME TO

2011 – IBM’s supercomputer Watson beats two American grand masters at Jeopardy

2011 – Apple introduces Siri

2016 – Google’s computer AlphaGo beats the world champion at the 2,500-year-old Chinese board game Go

2017 - Two robots at Facebook develop their own mutual language.

The experiment stops because the developers can’t keep up

…the next advance in artificial intelligence is expected to be understanding language

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“ It’s no longer enough to be transparent”

A modern foundation is open and transparent because large grants come with a responsibility to tell the world what we do. It’s not merely a question of presenting a foundation’s financial performance and grant allocations. A modern foundation also makes an active effort to explain its objectives, its greatest risks and the strategy on which it bases its activities.

TEXT Pernille Thorborg Jasper PHOTO Thomas Tolstrup

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ince 2013, the Lundbeck Foundation has rubbed shoulders with other foundations at the top of the transparency barometer and has even taken the title of Denmark's Most Transparent Foundation in 2016 and 2017. Transparency is therefore an integral part of our daily activities, but as a modern foundation it is not enough to be transparent and publicly showcase all financial ratios. The Lundbeck Foundation’s CEO believes that it is also necessary to disclose the Foundation’s objectives, the aim of its strategies and the financial and commercial risks.

“We've been saying that foundations should be more open and disclose more details for many years now. The great majority of the large foundations accepted this long ago, and the next step is to talk more about our objectives and strategy,” says Lene Skole.

“For instance, the Lundbeck Foundation has recently adjusted its strategy. We’re now focusing much more on the brain when we allocate grants.

We’re also the main shareholder of

Lundbeck, which as you know develops drugs for the central nervous system.

Naturally, this means that we have a particular obligation to talk openly about our selection processes and our impartiality rules – and to dispel any doubts that our grants may benefit our subsidiaries. Our governance structure ensures this,” she says.

The fact that the Lundbeck Foundation makes an effort to be regarded as open and communicative at all levels means that the Foundation’s Grants & Prizes department is extremely active and visible and engages in dialogue with research and research funding environments. From the outside, the Foundation is therefore perceived as being approachable in terms of easy access to information about invitations for grant applications and application procedures.

The Foundation’s investments are also highly transparent. For instance, all of the Foundation’s shares in Denmark are registered, and the Foundation openly discloses to the companies in which it invests that it is a shareholder and the number of shares it holds.

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About the Lundbeck Foundation BETTER LIVES THROUGH NEW KNOWLEDGE

The Lundbeck Foundation is one of Denmark's largest commercial foundations. We strive to make Denmark one of the world’s leading brain research nations and to raise public awareness of the brain and brain disorders. We do this by awarding a range of grants, primarily to Danishbased biomedical sciences research. Around half of our grants go to brain research.

SUBSIDIARIES H. Lundbeck A/S Global company specialising in psyhicatric and neurological disorders ALK-Abellò A/S Focuses on prevention, diagnose and treatment of allergies Falck A/S World leading ambulance services

INVESTMENT ACTIVITIES Lundbeckfonden Ventures 19 life science companies, 8 in the USA

VALUES

Innovative Respectful Dedicated

Lundbeckfonden Emerge 6 Danish life science companies

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billion Danish kroner

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by Grete Lundbeck

35.4

GROUP TURNOVER IN 2017

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OPERATING PROFIT FINANCIAL INVESTMENTS

Founded in

billion Danish kroner

billion Danish kroner

The Foundation’s net worth at 31 December 2017 was 63.6 billion Danish kroner

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APPLICATIONS We received

2,034

507

GRANTS AWARDED IN 2017

applications.

23% were awarded grants

56%

million Danish kroner

men

went to research projects in biomedical sciences

went to brain research

went to other biomedical sciences research

57 %

went to basic research

43%

went to applied research

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scientists received funding for internationalisation in the form of travel scholarships, international meetings, visiting professors, international post-doctoral scholarships, etc.

women

93 %

74% 26 %

44%

5%

went to grants aimed at stimulating interest in natural sciences

2% went to prizes

974 scientific publications were released as a result of the Foundation’s grants in 2017

731 man years (full-time research posts) were funded by the Foundation’s grants in 2017