2025-04-30
Abarceo Pharma Accelerates
By hiring key leadership personnel and establishing offices and laboratories at Medeon, the company is making a long-term investment in its innovation, which could lead to treatments for several diseases.
During the autumn, Abarceo has strengthened its team with three key hires: Chief Scientific Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Chief Financial Officer. In addition, recruitment of a new chairman of the board is underway, with the name to be announced shortly. At the same time, the company has decided to conduct its research and development work in-house – in established laboratory facilities at Medeon in Malmö.
“The expertise we are building in the lab, we want to keep within the company. This is crucial for our long-term goal of developing a new drug while simultaneously building a sustainable pharmaceutical company,” says Adam Bruce, CEO of Abarceo Pharma.
Medeon: The Right Choice for Growth
Choosing Medeon as the base for the company’s expansion was no coincidence. Besides modern laboratories, Medeon offers a dynamic network of other life science companies and a supportive environment.
“Medeon is not just about the premises; it’s an ecosystem. There is heart and commitment here. Renting lab space at Medeon is an amazing opportunity for companies, especially for a startup that has moved out of academia and needs new functional labs for product development. The alternative would be to outsource this to an external contract research organization – but then you don’t build experience within your own company,” explains Adam Bruce.
Abarceo has four PhD researchers from CRC (Clinical Research Center in Malmö) working on the company’s projects in the Medeon labs.
A New Approach to Diabetes
Abarceo is developing a new oral drug aimed at restoring the function of beta cells – the insulin-producing cells in the body that stop working in certain forms of diabetes. The project is based on groundbreaking research by Professor Claes Wollheim and Dr. Albert Salehi at Lund University Diabetes Centre (LUDC).
The research focuses on a previously unknown mechanism in the beta cells’ mitochondria – the body’s own energy factories. When this mechanism fails, the cells stop producing insulin. Abarceo has demonstrated that this can be reversed using substances in its development portfolio.
“The researchers have found an incredibly exciting mechanism. We have seen in both human cells and animal models that the function can be restored, opening up entirely new treatment possibilities for diabetes,” says Adam Bruce.
What makes this especially exciting is that the mechanism is not only relevant for diabetes but potentially also for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular diseases.
Abarceo has already attracted attention from pharmaceutical giants: both Eli Lilly and Biogen are collaborating with the company on various development projects.
Advocating for Better Funding Structures in Sweden
Recently, Abarceo Pharma represented Medeon at the Bioscience Fair in Gothenburg, a meeting place for companies, researchers, and investors within life science. There, Adam Bruce highlighted the need for better capital-raising opportunities for Swedish pharmaceutical companies.
“To encourage the emergence of new large pharmaceutical companies that remain in Sweden, we need to support capital raising in the later growth phases. This will enable more companies to commercialize their development from Sweden. Many other countries have structural and government-funded support for pharmaceutical development in cooperation with venture capital – Sweden should expand this to retain knowledge and jobs in the country,” he says.
