In this interview, Jon Heimer, co‑founder and CEO of Olink Proteomics, explains the company’s mission to advance precision medicine by measuring thousands of proteins simultaneously in blood, offering a dynamic, longitudinal view that complements static genomics. He describes Olink’s customer base—major biopharma firms and leading academic/clinical research institutions—and highlights applications such as predictive diagnostics for multiple sclerosis and novel drug target discovery. He outlines why the United States, especially Boston, was targeted from day one, detailing market research, organic growth, and the decision to establish a local sales force. He discusses the challenges and strategies of operating across Sweden, the US, and Asia, emphasizing the value of Swedish heritage as a differentiator in recruitment and brand perception. He recounts the 2021 NASDAQ IPO, explaining the need for capital to fuel rapid growth, the favorable market window, and the advantage of US investors who are more familiar with scientific businesses. Finally, Heimer shares his wish list for the Uppsala region’s life‑science ecosystem, calling for expanded education pipelines, housing, and transportation infrastructure to sustain talent and growth.
Chapters
And our next guest is joining us digitally, Jun Hamer from Olink Proteomics.
Yes, hello, how are you?
Hi, Jun. Good, how are you?
Very good, thanks. Happy to be here.
Yeah, thank you for joining us. You're the CEO of Olink Proteomics and also one of the founders. And could you start telling us a little bit more about Oolink and who are your customers and what are the solutions that you solve for them?
Absolutely, very happy to. Yeah, so we are a research tools company in the precision medicine space. So I think everyone knows what that is, but for me it's treat the right patient at the right time with the right treatment. So, and maybe a little background to make it easier as well. So we've spent the past decade extremely intensively focused on genomics in our industry. And genomics has for sure helped us come a long way, but not all the way, and we've learned a lot. And unfortunately, genomics is very static, so you will get a view at a certain time point on an individual. What we lack is the dynamic or longitudinal perspective, which we believe we can get from proteins. So proteins is obviously closest to our phenotype and also very dynamic between health and disease in real time. So we as a company, I would claim, are world champions at looking at many, many proteins, thousands of proteins simultaneously in blood. And so our customer base is— I mean, we are in a short period of time as a company, we are extremely Proud and humbled to be able to cater to basically all of the major biopharma companies and the most prestigious academic and clinical research institutions across the world. So, um, and, and what they're really trying to accomplish, um, I think that if we look at disease today, we have, um, or diagnosis, that we have very broad perspectives. Um, our most advanced customer is using our technology in clinical decision-making in multiple sclerosis, which I also think is a great example where we see a lot of heterogeneity in how we define patients with MS today. So it's very likely that MS as an umbrella diagnosis consists of many, many subgroups of patients that would be more homogeneous and would need different treatments. And also over time, since MS presents with episodes. So what I think we're trying to accomplish is also as next steps, really move from treating symptoms to be much more predictive. So predictive diagnostics for much more precise treatments. So what I think in the longer run where our technology and products will be used is in those predictive diagnostics where we can be much more proactive to try to circumvent disease. But if disease is developed, also to be much more precise. So the technology is also used to identify novel and causal drug targets and to be much, much more targeted to the disease condition that you're trying to develop a drug for.
Okay, thank you, Joon, for, for that overview. And you founded Oolink in 2016. Was the US a prioritized market from the start?
Absolutely. In our market research, similar to what Pia mentioned here before me, we know that today that US represents roughly 50% of the world market. And it actually roughly represents 50% of our revenues today. So it was a very, very important market. And we did, I would also say, the majority of our market analysis in the U.S. before kicking the company off. And when we kicked the company off, I also decided personally to relocate there and and work out of Boston. So Boston was also a natural choice. I believe that Boston is sort of a major biotech hub of the world today, and it's also on the East Coast, which obviously is friendly when you have a lot of colleagues in Sweden. So for us, it was critical to, I think, be very locally present in the US and really drive and lead the market ourselves. So what we did, a little bit comparing here to PIA, we decided to go to market ourselves. So we have our own global sales force today. We did that from day one and built the company organically, basically. As we increased revenues, made a dollar, we could invest a dollar. So the US has absolutely been super important, where, yeah, representing basically half of our business today.
And you mentioned here that you relocated to Boston as well and lived there for a while. So you've spent a large part of your professional life, I understand, working from the United States. And now you run a growing company with a head office and operation in Uppsala. What's your advice in getting the corporate cultures to work when running a company with a presence both in Sweden and the US?
Yeah, it's a great and very important question. We also have a team in Asia these days, so we really need to think about all three continents. So I don't think it's a super easy answer. I don't think you can export Swedish culture. I think we have to be quite Listen closely to where you're present. Obviously, the culture in Beijing or Tokyo is quite different from Boston and San Francisco or Uppsala. But still, the roots of the companies are Swedish. So we are quite appreciated abroad as well for being a Swedish company and standing out a bit in our values and company culture. So we try to hold on to those. But also adapt to local needs and cultures. I honestly think, as we've grown as a company, that you have to adjust a bit over time and be quite sensitive to local needs, but also very proud of your roots.
Thank you. I can recognize that from— I worked in Australia for a number of years, and speaking with companies there, it was a little bit of a mix as well. And they benefited from the— Swedish heritage that they had as well, which was— some found that it helped them attract people as well. I don't know if you feel that it's— when you look for new people, are they interested in working for a Swedish company, or what's your feeling on that?
Yes, I actually really think so. It's also Interesting, we— most of our competitors are American, so we stand out as a Swedish company and a Swedish technology. We have great invention in our space, right? Basically, in protein research, all major inventions throughout the history has been actually from Sweden, starting off with ELISA in the '70s. So we have an extremely strong tradition in being very innovative in our space. So both competitively, I think we stand out as being Swedish. When we are at conferences, we always have our little Swedish flag on the table, and people sort of recognize that and think it's fun. And you have those Swedish fish, right? But also definitely when we recruit. And I think if you would ask many of my US or international colleagues that But yes, they appreciate the vast majority of a Swedish company. Maybe they have some thoughts about certain things of how we are and act. But yes, overall, I definitely think it's actually a competitive advantage.
Excellent. That's good to remember. And I understood that 2021 was a transformational year for Oolink, and it also included an IPO in the US. What were the reasons behind listing in the US?
Yes, good question. So what happened— so as you noted earlier, we started the company in, in 2016, and we grew very rapidly. We basically doubled our revenues every year. And basically, the company went from clarity to clarity. The market research we had done was really cemented, I would say. And we felt very encouraged over time that both the market is developing in a very positive and nice way, as well as our performance and our, say, confidence on the the technology and the set of products that we are developing and selling. So hence, we really thought that— and as I mentioned earlier, we built the company organically from the start. But with the great opportunities we saw on the market that we really wanted to invest, and we thought it was the best thing to do to put, so to say, more fuel on the fire. So we presented a strategic plan to the board towards the fall of 2020 where we proposed to invest in the business. And the board approved the plan. And we set out with basically 3 different venues or paths to raise the capital that we needed. So we drove those in parallel. And the IPO was one of them. It's obviously a pretty significant project. And the window was definitely open for IPOs at the time, and valuations were good. So that led us to go down that path and do the IPO. And why we chose NASDAQ New York— we are in a very technical and scientific space. And we thought that U.S. investors were quite educated on these type of topics and hence more receptive to business ideas and propositions than, for example, here in Sweden. I'm not saying Sweden is bad in any way, shape, or form, but at least that the, say, the education or insights and appetite and appreciation for value were higher in the US, which in combination led us to do the IPO in New York.
And did you have US investors on board before you did the IPO?
No, we didn't.
Oh, okay. Do you think it's valuable for you to have US investors in the company also from a sales or a reputational perspective in the US, or has it purely been for getting capital to the company?
No, I think it has value. I actually, in our industry, that there were a few proteomics companies that went to the market on Wall Street last year. So one thing for sure that happened was that the awareness of our industry and the space and the importance of this area to science greatly improved. So I think that definitely provided with a lot of headwinds for us. And I also think that our current investor base can definitely help open up doors, not only in the U.S., but actually across the globe. So just as an example, I had an investor call yesterday, and they had some really good contacts into China, so introduced us into opportunities there. So for sure that a more diverse international investor base can be really fruitful for the business operation as well.
Okay, and thank you, you. And then finally, I wanted to ask you, we all wanted to develop the life science sector in, in the Uppsala region even further, and we've heard a lot about it today as well. From your perspective as a growing life science company, What would be on your wish list to support your further growth here in the Uppsala region?
Yeah, Pia mentioned it as well, and I mean, it's amazing to see the growth of so many local companies and how successful we are in our industry. But obviously it's a lot of competition for, for great competence, so we really need to invest and expand on education to continue to feed the great appetite we see from, from us and our peers in our industry. And obviously, you know, infrastructure such as housing and transportation. I honestly, I look at the Uppsala-Stockholm region. I don't think we can just look at the Uppsala. So transportation and housing throughout our region, I think all of those three things are super important that we that we are really front-footed on and not lose pace.
Thank you very much for sharing that. And thank you for joining us today and sharing about Oolink and your journey in the US. It's been a pleasure talking to you.
Great. Thank you very much. And thanks for having me.
