A Successful Year of Collaboration: AbbVie Golden Ticket Comes to a Close
AbbVie Golden Ticket ceremony at SmiLe Venture Hub.Lund, Sweden – The one-year AbbVie Golden Ticket program has officially concluded – marking the end of a highly successful collaboration between AbbVie, SmiLe Venture Hub, and AAX Biotech, the winning startup of 2024.
Throughout the year, AAX Biotech received tailored coaching, strategic mentoring, and access to state-of-the-art lab facilities by SmiLe and AbbVie Scandinavia. The collaboration has helped accelerate AAX’s development and increase the value of its platform.
“We’ve received support from AbbVie Ventures on how to think strategically, and coaching from SmiLe’s expert network has been an immense asset,” says Maria L. Knudsen, CEO of AAX Biotech. “Winning the Golden Ticket has also given us traction, validation, and opened doors to new partnerships and investors.”
AbbVie reflects on the program as a meaningful contribution to early-stage innovation:
“The Golden Ticket is a great opportunity to collaborate with key players to support health and well-being, while also showing our commitment to a vibrant life science industry in Sweden,” says Matthew Iles, general manager AbbVie Scandinavia. “The whole process with SmiLe, from idea to selection of winners and the incubator year has been very creative, solution-oriented and fun. AAX Biotech has proven to be just as good and interesting as we hoped when we selected them as winners of AbbVie Golden Ticket. AAX Biotech has proven to be exactly as promising as we hoped. We will continue to follow their journey with great interest.”
SmiLe also emphasizes the value of the partnership:
“The collaboration with AbbVie has been very smooth and inspiring. It’s given us valuable insight into how big pharma evaluates innovation. This helps us in our work of coaching future companies,” says Ulrika Ringdahl, CEO of SmiLe Venture Hub.
“We have developed a close partnership with several parts of their organization – both business development, R&D, search & evaluation, and corporate venture. The initial work where we evaluated a large number of startups together with AbbVie provided us with important insights into how big pharma thinks about early-stage innovation,” says Thomas Areschoug, Business Coach & Head of Industry Relations at SmiLe Venture Hub.
For more information, please contact:
Thomas Areschoug, Business Coach & Head of Industry Relations at SmiLe Venture Hub, +46 (0)730-254230, thomas.areschoug@smileincubator.life
About SmiLe Venture Hub – Pioneering Life Science and Foodtech Innovations
SmiLe is a leading venture hub that specializes in advancing life science and foodtech startups from concept to commercialization. We offer comprehensive support through every stage of entrepreneurship, including tailored incubation and acceleration programs, a variety of educational courses, and access to top-tier lab facilities. To date, our flagship incubator program has supported over 110 startups, facilitating their collective acquisition of more than EUR 1.05 billion in venture capital and contributing to 21 successful IPOs. Recognized as one of Europe’s leading startup hubs in 2024 by the Financial Times and Statista, SmiLe continues to be a catalyst for innovation in the life sciences sector. As a non-profit entity based in Lund, Sweden, SmiLe is supported by Region Skåne, Lund Municipality, Lund University, and Medicon Village. We are also backed by our partners Agilent, Sparbanken Skåne, Høiberg, Setterwalls, Zacco, Key2Compliance, Phase Holographic Imaging, ChemoMetec, Samplix, Qiagen, Merck, Bio-Rad, Zeiss, SmartStone Nordics, and AbbVie Scandinavia. For more information: www.smileventurehub.com
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