Member News: Finnish Drug Discovery Center – First 1,5 Years Completed

The first 1,5 years of the Finnish Drug Discovery Centre has been both busy and promising. By November 2024, the four-person team had launched a project evaluation pipeline that has already processed more than 40 drug discovery proposals. The first investment has been made, and a nationwide collaboration network with research groups has been established.

The Team at Finnish Drug Discovery Centre

“Our activities have started off well. We have evaluated over 40 projects, and one of them has already advanced to an investment stage. We expect that a few others may still progress to agreements,” says CEO Maarit Merla. 

The Center has also launched a new recruitment round, aiming to hire a couple of new scientific experts in early 2026 to broaden its expertise.

Proposals from across Finland

Proposals have come from all six Finnish medical universities (Helsinki, Turku/Åbo Akademi, Tampere, Kuopio, and Oulu), as well as from biotech companies. About half of the projects relate to cancer, with additional proposals focusing on for example central nervous system disorders and immunology.

For the Center, the optimal stage to get involved is when a project has already identified a “hit” – a molecule shown to affect a desired biological mechanism.

“Some proposals have been at too early a stage for us, but that in itself reflects a lively research environment. Optimizing from hit to lead and advancing to the preclinical stage is exactly where our mandate and expertise are strongest,” Merla explains.

Although Finland is a country of only five million people, the Center’s first-year experiences show that the country produces a remarkable number of promising drug discovery ideas relative to its size.

“There are excellent research groups here. Considering the size of the country, there is a great deal of potential,” Merla notes.

First investment: Kohde Pharma

In spring 2025, the Center made its first equity investment in the newly founded Kohde Pharma Oy. The company is developing drugs targeting MTAP-deleted cancers. MTAP deletion is a chromosomal abnormality estimated to occur in 10–15% of all cancers, including several major cancer types such as pancreatic and lung cancers. Kohde Pharma’s approach leverages patient sample–derived data and artificial intelligence to identify new therapeutic targets. The Center’s pre-seed investment also includes close scientific support for planning the development pathway.

“Kohde Pharma was scientifically attractive, with strong patient-derived data. This is a truly unique opportunity,” Merla says.

An especially important aspect was that the company was established in Finland, although other location options were also available.

Next steps: visibility and active scouting

So far, all candidate projects have reached the Center through proposals (research groups, innovation centres, companies). Going forward, the Center plans to increase its own active scouting of new opportunities:

“We want research groups to know us. Our visibility is still low, so we need to work on that,” Merla emphasizes.

At the same time, the consultant network will be expanded to complement the Center’s own expertise, since evaluation work is labor-intensive and partly slow – focusing mainly on scientific assessments (quality of the target, development strategy, competitive landscape).

The Centre’s goal is for more Finnish-origin drug candidates to advance toward clinical development, and for new biotech companies to be established in Finland. The first year has already shown that promising ideas exist, collaboration works, and early-stage risk-taking can lead to concrete progress.