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[Vilnius (Lithuania) = Lim Jeong-yeo, Edaily Reporter] Lithuania, located in the very center of Europe, is actively seeking biotechnology collaboration with South Korea. Partnerships so far have largely been at the academic level, but going forward more business opportunities could arise in biologics manufacturing and novel drug development, said Jekaterina Kaliniene, Head of the Biotechnology Department at Innovation Agency Lithuania, in a recent interview with Edaily.

Sitting at a cafe in the beautiful Old Town of Vilnius, Kaliniene said, “Lithuanians are ‘hungry’ for market recognition. To this end, we overdeliver; we’re agile and punctual. Many of our global partners say they are pleasantly surprised by Lithuanian companies’ work quality and attitude.”

Jekaterina Kaliniene, Head of the BioTech Lab Department(Photo=Lim Jeong-yeo, Edaily)

Lithuania as an efficient and proactive European hub

Established in April 2022, Innovation Agency Lithuania is a nonprofit agency under the Lithuanian Ministry of Economy and Innovation. For overseas companies wishing to enter Lithuania, the agency is the first point of contact. True to its name, the agency fosters innovation, providing consulting and funding from the startup phase of tech companies through their growth and maturity.

“Our goal is to double our GDP from life sciences by 2030. This is why we allocate 1% of our GDP to fostering relevant entrepreneurs and companies,” said Kaliniene, explaining the 774 million euros of investment made in a year.

Innovation Agency Lithuania is headquartered in Vilnius, with shared office spaces in 13 cities across Lithuania, enabling balanced regional development.

Kaliniene explained that Korean companies could engage in various activities in Lithuania, including technology collaboration with local biotech firms, clinical trials, contract manufacturing, and establishing a hub for entry into the European market.

She emphasized, “Lithuania can serve as a gateway to Europe. Once you are certified in Lithuania, you can access all 27 EU member states.”

Kaliniene highlighted Lithuania’s unique strengths as agility and punctuality. “There is a saying in Lithuania that you are just two steps away from knowing the President,” she said. “Being a small country, everyone is well connected, which makes it easier to seek help for swift problem-solving.”

This also applies to local clinical trials: provided the documents are in order, it takes only 60 days from submission to approval. Global pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly, MSD, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche, and Novartis are all conducting clinical trials in Lithuania.

Lithuania‘s Presidential office(right) sits next to Vilnius University(left)(Photo=Lim Jeong-yeo, Edaily)

Manufacturing, Personalized Medicine, and AI Diagnostics

According to Kaliniene, Lithuania’s major focus areas in life sciences include drug manufacturing, gene editing, artificial intelligence (AI), and diagnostics.

“Lithuania’s life science capacity didn’t emerge overnight,” she explained. “Our differentiated expertise in enzyme production was recognized long ago, which is why Teva and Thermo Fisher Scientific acquired Sicor Biotech (2004) and Fermentas (2010), respectively.”

Currently, the most prominent domestic contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) is Northway Biotech. The company has capabilities in producing protein-based biologics as well as gene therapies such as viral vectors and plasmid DNA, and it is expanding its facilities.

Personalized medicine is also an area where Lithuania’s gene-editing technology is gaining attention. In 2012, Virginijus Siksnys, a biochemist and professor at Vilnius University, pioneered CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology. This could well have been Lithuania’s first Nobel Prize, but the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to researchers at UC Berkeley and the Max Planck Institute. Professor Siksnys’ breakthrough remains the pride of Lithuania, however, and Kaliniene said, “Siksnys’ work has led to CasZyme, a highly value-adding company developing new gene therapy drugs.”

She further noted, “Lithuania is making significant strategic infrastructure investments to advance life sciences. BioCity, for example, is a private-sector development project valued at $7 billion.”