The field of cognitive disease such as Alzheimer's is one of the largest disease areas. 50 million people globally are living with dementia, but also their families are highly affected as an extension of these diseases.

Written & produced by Keyvan Bamdej

Dec. 7, 2021 / 5 min. read

Meet the "Life Science Pitch Battle 2021" winner:

An in-depth interview with CEO of
Geras Solutions, Rickard Forsman

Geras Solutions detect cognitive diseases and improve healthcare with digital tools

“

The field of cognitive disease such as Alzheimer's is one of the largest disease areas. 50 million people globally are living with dementia, but also their families are highly affected as an extension of these diseases.

— Rickard Forsman

CEO, Geras Solutions

What is the "Life Science Pitch Competition" all about?


Project Manager,

Christopher Macias Escalona

will explain the context:

What is the "Life Science Pitch Competition" all about?

TechBBQ has been working with the Life Science industry for the past three years based on our fruitful partnership with NOVO Nordisk Foundation.

Novo Nordisk Foundation support the Life Science ecosystem, startups, investors, corporates, and that sort of the like, and tries to connect the ties between Biotech, MedTech and HealthTech.

Our role has been to bridge the connections across the ecosystem, not only in Denmark, but also in the Nordics.

At our yearly Summit, we host a Life Science Pitch Competition, where startup companies who work within the space of digital health technologies and/or provide products or services related to HealthTech/MedTech can participate and compete for a prize money worth 10.000 Euros and tickets for the team to Düsseldorf MEDICA Trade Fair.

We did this with our partner Venture Cup Denmark and Innovation World Cup Series. We had eight participating startups, who all originated from the Nordic countries. So, we had full representation - and my role as the Project Manager was to make sure that everything in the process worked smoothly.

This year's winner was Geras Solutions from Sweden.

The jury kind of single-handedly agreed that they were the best case with the best pitch.

So, we've actually met up with the Rickard Forsman, who is the CEO from Geras Solutions, to do a short interview.

You can see the video and read the blog to learn more below.

I hope that you will enjoy!"


CEO of Geras Solutions,

Rickard Forsman, on how it

was winning the competition:

How has it been to win the "Life Science Pitch Competition"?​

"Coming to TECHBBQ was first of all what felt like really coming out of the pandemic, actually meeting people for the first time in a long time was a fantastic experience.

That alone was worthwhile coming then winning the pitch competition on top was of course fantastic and a really nice energy boost for me personally, and the team to get that recognition and appreciation for what we're working on to achieve.

What came out as a result in terms of good interests from investors, that we're also now moving ahead with is of course a very positive thing as well.

What is the short story behind Geras Solutions?

"Geras Solutions was spun out as an idea at Swedish Care International, a company that is tied to Silviahemmet, the Swedish Queen's foundation that is working with education of healthcare professionals in the area of dementia care.

The core of Geras Solutions is to leverage new technology from other areas to modernize the diagnostics and care of cognitive disease, that is causing dementia. We have shown that there are significant benefits for both patient, providers and payers to digitalize this area that is having massive challenges that are only growing with an aligning population."

What is your own background?

""By training, I'm an engineer. I started Mechanical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, where I also took a degree in economics.

I started my career in Management Consulting working with several of the healthcare regions with organizational development, etc., which has been really valuable in terms of experiences to what we actually do now.

I also spent a few years in Switzerland, working in consulting and focused a lot on digitalization. At this time, I had the opportunity to work with many of the larger Pharma companies which also lead me to join Novartis where I worked globally with digitalization.

Joining Geras Solutions in 2020 was a fantastic way to continue with these areas that I enjoy a lot. Doing this as an entrepreneur instead, is a great opportunity to create more impact to make a difference, which I find very motivating."

What are you and Geras Solutions trying to solve?

"What we're working to solve is mainly three different, large challenges that are related to the field of initial care and diagnostics.

The first one is access for patients. We know that 75 % globally of the ones that are affected by cognitive disease never get diagnosed at all.

Another side of poor patient access is that it is also leading to a lots of late diagnosis. People have gone quite far in their disease before they get the right care and support.

The challenge in the healthcare system is really availability of the right competencies to provide the right medical assessments. It's a complicated disease area, but also with very limited resource availability.

We have a solution that help with these challenges, so that we can enable better patient outcomes."

Watch the full interview here:


To learn more about Geras Solutions, go to: 

gerassolutions.com

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