“Park Annual is a great forum for bringing the life science community in West Sweden together,” says Malin Andersson, Vice President Wound Care R&D at Mölnlycke, a Gold Sponsor for this year’s Park Annual event.
Publish date:2021-10-08–Text:
Jamie Smith
Hi Malin, the theme of this year 's Park Annual event is Nordic health innovation: From realisation to business. What does that mean to you?
We have a proud history of innovation in the Nordics, and we usually rank highly in global innovation indexes. For me, this stems from our democratic ways of working, flatter organisational structures and a trust and belief to give individuals freedom and responsibility to move ahead and develop new ideas. In my view, these are good foundations for innovation in any sector, not just life science or healthcare.
Based on my experience in the healthcare sector in Sweden, I would say that we also benefit from close collaboration and connections with our customers. These enable us to drive relevant research and innovation forward together towards commercialisation. When I look at some of the groundbreaking innovations that Mölnlycke has delivered into the healthcare setting over the years, I can see they have benefitted from a ”Nordic style” of collaboration with the universities and the healthcare sector to ensure that promising innovations are progressed and translated into commercially relevant products.
Why did Mölnlycke decide to be a gold sponsor of the Park Annual event?
We would like to be even more visible in our home area of Gothenburg and West Sweden. We want to make sure we are plugged into the exciting health innovation ecosystem that is growing here and to ensure we are at the top of people’s lists when it comes to being an attractive employer and collaboration partner.
Park Annual is a great forum for bringing the life science community in West Sweden together. We need to work together more across industry, academia and the healthcare sector to showcase the cool science, research and innovation that is being developed here and to attract talent, entrepreneurs and investments from outside the region.
What cool things are happening at Mölnlycke relevant to the Park Annual audience?
We’re in a very exciting phase right now with Zlatko Richter joining us recently as our new CEO. He is emphasising our strong legacy of patient and customer centricity and is encouraging us to continue to build on that.
In wound care, we’re expanding our horizons and taking a wider view over the full patient journey of living with wounds. We’re focusing even more on the prevention aspects of wound care and how can we help prevent some of these wounds happening or reoccurring. We’re also working more intensively with wound healing rather than just wound management. We have become an industry leader in pressure ulcer prevention. We quite recently also stepped into more active therapies like negative pressure wound therapy and have developed portable negative pressure devices that patients can carry with them instead of needing to stay hooked up to a big pump. This is a big step for us as we’re moving far beyond dressings and starting to integrate embedded technologies, software and electronics into our products.
On the surgical side of our business, we are developing more customised procedure tray solutions to increase efficiency in the operating room. Moreover, during the whole COVID-19 situation, our surgical team part of the business has done a tremendous job in ensuring the supply of personal protective equipment and minimising disruption for our customers.
What's the most fun part of your job?
I have a fantastic job and I love what I'm doing. It's such a dynamic environment working at Mölnlycke. It's in constant evolution as we try to find new and better ways to achieve the best patient, clinical and economic outcomes. I also really enjoy working and interacting with my wonderful colleagues at Mölnlycke. We have this ”Mölnlycke spirit,” with so many great people working with pride, passion and purpose to really make a difference to enhance performance in healthcare.
