Niklas’s story on… how a life immersed in pharmacy grew into a vision for the future of personalized medicine
A childhood entrenched in healthcare, his father a doctor and mother a hospital pharmacist, Niklas knew the industry long before he ever worked in it. He grew up watching his mother compound medications, giving him a front-row seat to the craft, yet nothing could have prepared him for the realisation that he would one day dedicate his career to solving the exact problems she encountered with manual compounding.
From early on, two things were clear to Niklas: pharmaceuticals had his attention, and technology had his imagination. It was no surprise then that he was drawn to the department of Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Helsinki, where he would go on to earn his PhD.
"I was never just interested in the finished product. I wanted to understand what happened before. Pharmaceutical technology gave me that: how raw materials behave, how processes shape them, and how everything comes together to form the drug at the end."
A post at a pharmaceutical manufacturer came next, and with it, a grounding that no degree could fully provide. Product development pulled him deep into the realities of how corporations actually operate, the missing bridge between academic theory and real-life practice. After getting to grips with the realities of how industry truly functioned, a professorship at Åbo Akademi University came calling, pulling him back to academia and offering a rare chance to build a faculty from scratch. To do this, Niklas was determined not to simply follow what had traditionally been done before and chose to cast a wider net, drawing inspiration from faculties outside of his own. What he didn't expect was what he would find along the way. It was through this exploration that he stumbled upon printed electronics, a discovery that blew open his perspective on the thing he cared about most: rethinking how products are made.
“The moment I saw what 3D printers could do, something clicked. The accuracy, the precision, it made me ask a question I couldn't let go of: what if we could bring this into drug manufacturing? From the very start, it was evident that this had the potential to change everything about how we personalise medicine.”
Over the years that followed, Niklas built a research team and orchestrated a series of collaborations, including industrial partnerships exploring printing technology. It was becoming increasingly clear that his idea was edging closer to real world application, but the market wasn't ready, and the concept was dismissed by many as too far-fetched for its time. Frustration with academia crept in. The work was promising, but real-world impact always seemed just out of reach with research stalling at proof of concept and commercial interest hard to come by.
So Niklas made his move. A former professor colleague had launched his own venture in nanoparticle technology, and Niklas joined as CTO. His first real taste of the startup world, learning to build a company was exciting! Over the six years that followed, what proved most transformative was one connection: Charlotta. She was sharp, business-minded, and perceptive enough to later surface something Niklas had been quietly wrestling with for the longest time: he had walked away from his life's work in 3D drug manufacturing to build someone else's dream. She helped him see what was possible and together they went on to co-found CurifyLabs, building solutions for automated compounding of personalised medicines in pharmacies and hospitals.
“This isn't just about 3D printing. CurifyLabs is a fully integrated solution, combining hardware, software and formulations, that gives compounding pharmacies everything they need to deliver truly personalised medicine, without the manual, outdated processes that have held the industry back.”
CurifyLabs was built on a simple but powerful premise: evolution is a constant, even when an industry refuses to move with change. Where compounding pharmaceuticals have stood still, Niklas has intentionally built an innovations company that is at the forefront of where medicine is going. Industrial level quality for small scale pharmaceutical compounding is just the start, the future is practical solutions to personalized medicine in its entirety and the potential is vast.
Calm and deeply knowledgeable, Niklas is the kind of visionary who lets the work speak for itself, practical enough to build it, and patient enough to see it through. A journey that started with his mother at a pharmacy bench, doing things the hard way because there was no other way. He is not just solving a problem but reshaping an industry that has gone unchanged for too long, building something that moves with the times, so that personalised medicine never again has to wait a generation to become a reality.