Life Science Talent Talks

Jeppe Dørup Olesen, Head of Innovation at Aarhus University, leads The Kitchen — an incubator that has grown from a handful of cases to over 450 active startups and 350 protected technologies in five years. In this conversation, he unpacks what it takes to turn university research into companies, why early-stage risk capital remains Europe's biggest bottleneck, and how Aarhus is building an ecosystem — from an Entrepreneur in Residence program to a university-backed venture fund — to keep promising deep tech companies from moving abroad.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS(09:09) The Kitchen now supports 450 active startup cases and protects 350 technologies, a sharp jump from five years ago(10:25) High-risk, early-stage capital — not talent or ideas — is named as Europe's real innovation bottleneck compared to the US(23:53) The Entrepreneur in Residence program pairs commercial hires with research teams as potential co-founders; one resulting company raised a €10 million round(26:41) Sunstones, a CO2-in-minerals startup spun out of the Department of Geoscience, is highlighted as a flagship success story now moving to demonstration scale(30:29) Aarhus University's Research Foundation, Salling Foundations, Norlys, and Heartland jointly launched an evergreen VC fund that has closed ten pre-seed investments since opening(47:18) A broader EU policy push — citing the Draghi report — is set to pull universities further into innovation and commercialization over the next decadeGuest Bio Experienced Leader with a demonstrated history of working in international collaboration, Innovation, advocacy and public affairs. Skilled in International Relations, leadership, program development and Politics. Strong professional with leadership education from INSEAD, Harvard University and UC Berkeley.Resources MentionedThe Kitchen (Aarhus University incubator)Aarhus University Research FoundationPreSeed VenturesBioInnovation InstituteSunstonesStartup AarhusSMIL startup festivalVenture Connect investor meetupsThe Draghi reportIdeas for future podcast guests or themes? 💡We want to co-create this podcast with you. We’d therefore love to hear your suggestions for future podcast guests, ecosystem builders, or deep tech themes.Feel free to share in a private message or leave a comment below 🙏🏼(It's also ok to invite yourself 😉)Call to ActionIf this episode sparked your interest:Share it with someone working in science, startups, or innovationFollow the miniseries for more conversations with ecosystem builders

In this podcast episode on turning research into societal value, host Søren Spanner Bach is joined by co-host Per Christensen of Black Swans Exist and guests Lasse Rosendahl, Director of CORC, and Alexia Jacobsen, Head of Innovation at CORC - the Novo Nordisk Foundation CO2 Research Center, headquartered in Aarhus with partner institutions across Europe and the US. The conversation centres on a deceptively simple question: what does it actually take to translate CO2 research into real-world impact when the value chain you need doesn't yet exist?Lasse and Alexia walk through the full journey - from TRL 1 microbe experiments exploring how to transform CO2 into methane, to a 200x scale-up pilot facility at Campus Viborg that is already testing market viability by exploring the sale of carbon credits and offtake products at pilot scale. A key theme throughout is that the TRL ladder is not linear: scaling up consistently surfaces new fundamental questions, sending research back down before moving forward again. Iteration is the design, not the exception. The bottleneck in commercializing carbon utilization is less about technology maturity and more about the near-complete absence of governmental verification frameworks for CCU and CCC in Europe - and the missing value chains that spin-outs need to survive. Alexia also introduces CORC's approach to impact measurement: rather than imposing performance indicators that produce what you measure rather than what you want, the team is developing key value measures in direct dialogue with researchers. And critically, the innovation team's role is to remove the administrative and legal obstacles from the researcher's path - so that scientists can stay focused on the science while still contributing to real-world impact.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS01:26 What Is CORC? — Mission, Funding and International Scope04:11 Why CO₂ Research Matters — And What TRL Actually Means06:45 TRL in Practice — From Lab-Scale Microbes to Pilot Reactors10:42 The Real Bottleneck — Value Chains That Don’t Exist Yet17:13 What Can Industry Do? — Spin-Ins, De-Risking and Ecosystem Building21:57 Researcher KPIs vs Real-World Impact — How to Navigate Both25:20 CORC’s Four Mission Streams — Interdisciplinary Design29:01 Keeping Researchers Mission-Aligned — Annual Meetings and Shared Direction35:00 What Europe Can Learn from the US — Entrepreneurship and Failure Culture38:21 Coalition on Advancing Research Assessment — Rethinking Researcher Metrics41:46 Selling Credits at Pilot Scale — Testing the Market Before It Exists43:15 Excel ERIC — Sharing Infrastructure Across Europe45:29 Why Aarhus? — Location, Ecosystem and Production Pipeline46:41 Impact by 2028 — Technologies Out, Value Chains Built, Knowledge Compounded50:14 Target Industries and Products — What CORC Is Looking For💡 QUOTES"If we are not successful in bringing down atmospheric CO2 levels, it will have consequences — not for the planet, which will survive — but for the way we as humans inhabit the Earth." — Lasse"If the value chain is not there, we set spin-outs up to fail. That's essentially what we're doing." — AlexiaIdeas for future podcast guests or themes? 💡We want to co-create this podcast with you. We’d therefore love to hear your suggestions for future podcast guests, ecosystem builders, or deep tech themes.Feel free to share in a private message or leave a comment below 🙏🏼(It's also ok to invite yourself 😉)Call to ActionIf this episode sparked your interest:Share it with someone working in science, startups, or innovationFollow the miniseries for more conversations with ecosystem builders

Jacob Doktor Mogensen, CEO of Incuba, joins the show to unpack how Aarhus's science park model turns university research into scaled companies. The conversation moves from Incuba's problem-first, hands-on approach to acceleration, through real cases like Coana and CrowdStrike/Humio, to the harder question of why Danish companies sell out to international capital - and what "spinning in" corporate innovation could change. Listeners get a grounded look at what actually moves a startup from idea to exit.Episode Timestamps(09:37) Concrete support: financing, applications, introductions(10:49) The Investor Hub: proximity that closes deals(27:26) Success story: Quana's journey and US sale(41:39) Defining "spin-in" innovation(46:14) Spin-in success story: CrowdStrike and Humio(50:01) Turning company problems into student projects(55:00) Aarhus' innovation ecosystem over the next 10 yearsGuest BioJacob Doktor Mogensen is CEO of Incuba, the Aarhus-based science park connecting university spin-outs, established companies, and investors across three hubs. Before Incuba, he spent fifteen years in Danish innovation clusters and science parks, including time in the food industry.Resources MentionedIncuba (Incuba.dk) — science park hubs at Katrinebjerg, Navitas, and SkejbyIncuba on LinkedInCoana — Aarhus University spin-out and EU Horizon-funded case studyCrowdStrike / Humio acquisitionDelfinus Venture CapitalInnoFonden, InnoBooster, Horizon Europe funding programsStartup AarhusAarhus Investor Summit (October 8)Ideas for future podcast guests or themes? 💡We want to co-create this podcast with you. We’d therefore love to hear your suggestions for future podcast guests, ecosystem builders, or deep tech themes.Feel free to share in a private message or leave a comment below 🙏🏼(It's also ok to invite yourself 😉)

In this podcast episode on turning fragmented world-class research into a connected biosolutions ecosystem, host Søren Spanner Bach is joined by guest Andreas Worberg, the driving force behind the new Center for Biosolutions at DTU (Technical University of Denmark) - a cross-departmental initiative uniting eight departments and close to 2,000 researchers under DTU's non-medical biotechnology efforts. Andreas shares candid reflections on why DTU, despite ranking as Europe's best engineering university and fifth in the world for biotech, has struggled to make that strength visible and legible to industry, policymakers, and the public - and what the new center is doing to fix it.Key structural challenges discussed include the internal fragmentation of a large polytechnical university where departments rarely know what their neighbours are working on, a publication-driven incentive structure that pushes researchers toward papers over spin-outs, and years of specialised equipment sitting underused in campus vaults due to legal and liability hurdles around sharing it. Andreas also reflects on the trust-building work required to make collaboration feel like an opportunity rather than a threat to a researcher's own career and turf.Andreas draws a striking comparison to the arrival of ChatGPT, arguing biotechnology is nearing its own inflection point as AI, quantum computing, and biotech converge - and cautions that businesses investing heavily in AI and quantum while overlooking biotech may be missing where the next wave of disruption actually lands. His closing message: DTU has been playing the long game in biosolutions for years, and now, with a center to make that work visible, Denmark's biosolutions ecosystem is ready to be discovered.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS04:26 Why Biology Is the Next Manufacturing Platform10:11 Why Commercialization Boosts a Researcher's Academic Footprint28:06 Closing the Non-Medical Biotech Innovation Gap32:57 Papers vs. Spin-Outs: You Get What You Measure34:28 The Biosustain Lesson: Freedom Breeds Entrepreneurs53:00 The Innovation Pillar: Learning From MIT's Playbook57:06 Student-Driven Startups vs. Top-Down Innovation💡 QUOTES"Large diverse universities... have the challenge that often the right hand does not necessarily know what the left hand is doing." — AndreasLinks:https://biosolutions.dtu.dk/Guest BioAndreas trained as a biologist, with a doctorate in Germany spanning botany and molecular biology. He spent ten years at a large German engineering company, where he helped design, build, and operate large-scale biochemical plants as its first biologist. He joined DTU in 2017, spending eight years at DTU Biosustain, and today also connects non-medical biotech to defense applications through NATO.Ideas for future podcast guests or themes? 💡We want to co-create this podcast with you. We’d therefore love to hear your suggestions for future podcast guests, ecosystem builders, or deep tech themes.

In this podcast episode on turning research into societal value, host Søren Spanner Bach is joined by co-host Per Christensen of Black Swans Exist and guest Morten Engsbye, CEO of Danish BIO (Dansk Biotek) - the industry association representing over 190 pharmaceutical and industrial biotech companies in Denmark. Morten shares candid reflections on why Denmark, despite being Europe's #2 nation for per-capita life sciences publications, consistently underperforms at translating that world-class research into new companies - and what it will take to fix it.Key structural challenges discussed include the cultural gap between academic excellence and entrepreneurial ambition, the scarcity of early-stage capital as late-stage companies attract the lion's share of investment, and Denmark's 42% capital gains tax making biotech investment unattractive compared to property or neighbouring Sweden. In a world premiere, Morten also unveils Danish BIO's proposal for direct cash grants to university departments that successfully spin out companies - a mechanism designed to make innovation a leadership priority at department level, not just an individual pursuit.Morten also sounds the alarm on Denmark's GDP dependency on a small number of blockbuster drugs - life sciences now accounts for approximately 60% of all Danish GDP growth - and makes a compelling case for unlocking the country's 4.5 trillion DKK in pension fund assets, currently investing just 0.018% into venture compared to 1.9% in the US. His closing message: Denmark is a life sciences nation in every metric that matters. It just hasn't realised it yet.TIMESTAMP00:00 Morten Engsbye and Danish BIO02:00 The Translation Gap: World-Class Research, Not Enough Companies03:00 Why Other Countries Are Better at Spinning Out Science06:00 World Premiere: Danish BIO's Department-Level Spin-Out Incentive Proposal09:00 Freedom vs Mandates: Why Incentives Beat Obligations11:00 Genmab, Myelomatosis & What Biotech Success Really Looks Like13:00 The GDP Time Bomb: When Patents Expire, Markets Collapse17:00 The Capital Crisis: $2.1 Billion to Bring a Drug to Market19:00 A Schizophrenic Capital Market: Late-Stage Flush, Early-Stage Starved20:00 Where Should the Capital Come From? The Draghi & Letta Reports21:00 Capital Gains Tax: 42% in Denmark vs 27% in Sweden23:00 Pension Funds: 4.5 Trillion DKK Doing Very Little for Denmark24:00 The 100x Gap: US vs European Pension Funds in Venture26:00 Ferrari vs Denmark: One Fund's Investment Priorities29:00 Forcing vs Incentivising Pension Funds: The Italian Model30:00 Why It Should Be a Slam Dunk — Jobs, Patients, Returns34:00 Denmark as a Life Sciences Nation — and Why Politicians Don't See It36:00 Call to Action for Academics and Department Leaders40:00 Brain Drain: How Danish Taxpayer-Funded Research Ends Up in BostonQuote:"We pay for the research. They build the company here. Then, because there's no capital market, they leave for Boston — pay their taxes there, create all the jobs there. And we sit back holding the bill." — Morten EngsbyeIdeas for future podcast guests or themes? 💡We want to co-create this podcast with you. We’d therefore love to hear your suggestions for future podcast guests, ecosystem builders, or deep tech themes.Feel free to share in a private message or leave a comment below 🙏🏼(It's also ok to invite yourself 😉)Call to ActionIf this episode sparked your interest:Share it with someone working in science, startups, or innovationFollow the miniseries for more conversations with ecosystem builders