Insights

Allergies and asthma affect at least a quarter of the population. While often harmless, an increasing number of people suffer from severe allergies, resulting in more than 300.000 avoidable deaths per year. The WHO therefore declared allergy a major health problem of the 21st century. Currently, medical practitioners must pre-select very few allergens for in-vitro testing, based on prior anamnesis, which often results in false or incomplete diagnosis. There is no cost-efficient technology to improve the quality of diagnosis to an optimal level for patient-tailored and evidence-based treatment. The fast-growing segment of molecular diagnostic tests requires a new generation of assays and laboratory automation.

MetGen's CTO, Matti Heikkilä, and Laura Koponen, Managing Director of Spinverse were on Finnish national tv, Huomenta Suomi, discussing the grand vision: wood to replace oil. In practice wood will be used to produced products, which are currently made from oil, starting with packaging materials. Moreover, the SWEETWOODS project, a consortium of nice European companies,  has received 21M€  of EU-funding with the aim of producing wood-based biomaterials for the first time on an industrial scale. These wood-based materials can be used to replace plastic in various everyday applications.

Niklas Weckström started working at Spinverse almost three years ago.

SWEETWOODS is a 43-million-euro joint pilot project that was recently granted 21 million euros in funding under the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme’s Bio-Based Industries financial instrument. Horizon 2020 is the biggest research and innovation programme in the world, supporting the development and introduction of new technologies. SWEETWOODS represented the only flagship project in the bioeconomy sector. The project is implemented through collaborative efforts of nine partner companies.

Innovation is proven to be the single most efficient way to encourage growth and renewal. Should Finland once again be made the spearhead of innovation all others compare themselves to?

The bi-annual CTO Forum spring event was held on 19th of March at restaurant Palace. This time the focus of the event was on Finland 4.0 - how to increase the R&D expenditure of GDP to 4.0%.

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