Anki Malmborg Hager – new business coach at SmiLe Incubator

SmiLe Incubator

We are extremely pleased to welcome Anki Malmborg Hager to our group of business coaches for SmiLe’s incubator companies. She has extensive experience in the life sciences, including as a business developer and CEO of the Lund companies Cantargia, Diaprost, Senzagen and PainDrainer. 

Anki Malmborg Hager has had a hand in the development of many of Lund’s most exciting life science companies and has been CEO of four of them. She was also involved at an early stage with Immunovia and Alligator Bioscience, where she subsequently served as Vice President.  

Later, she ran the biotech company Senzagen from a business idea based on an innovation – animal-free testing of suspected allergenic chemicals – to commercial phase, and launched the company on Nasdaq First North in 2017. When she left Senzagen two years later, the company had grown from having no cash on hand to being worth almost SEK 500 million on the stock market. Most recently, she served as CEO of PainDrainer, a company that she ran from startup until the present, when it is ready to launch an AI-based pain management product on the market. 

In addition to business development, Anki Malmborg Hager has worked with investments in promising companies at an early stage as Investment Director at LU Bioscience AB, a holding company that is partially owned by Lund University. Her background includes a Master’s degree in chemical engineering and a PhD in immunotechnology from the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University (LTH). 

“SmiLe has extremely talented people in a professional organization that I am pleased to be part of now. SmiLe has undergone incredible development over the past five years, and truly provides startup companies with the support they need in a structured way — without suffocating them. I’ve personally traveled on the development journey with startup companies a few times and have extensive experience of obtaining funding, which is critical for these companies, so I really look forward to giving back by sharing my experience with SmiLe’s entrepreneurs,” says Anki Malmborg Hager. 

“We’re thrilled to have an entrepreneur as experienced as Anki on our team. She has impressive credentials and unique insight into the challenges that startup companies face. Her background complements our team very well, especially her experience from AI companies and corporate finance, both as an investor and as CEO of startup companies,” says Lina Boreson, Chief Operating Officer for SmiLe Incubator. 

SmiLe’s team has over 350 years of combined industry experience in the life sciences. The coaches have extensive experience from research, business development and commercialization from the business community. Link to team on the website.