Lars Lannfelt receives Research!Sweden’s Research Award 2023
Professor Emeritus Lars Lannfelt is the recipient of 2023 year's Research!Sweden Research Award. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt
It has been a remarkable year for Lars Lannfelt, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences. His work has acquired significant attention after his extensive research led to the world’s first medication capable of slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The latest in a series of accolades is the Research!Sweden Research Award for 2023.
We are privileged to speak with Lars Lannfelt, who appears both delighted and somewhat overwhelmed. He has recently returned from The Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease Conference in Boston.
On 30 October, it was announced that Lars Lannfelt is the recipient of this year's Research!Sweden Research Award, recognising his "groundbreaking contributions in understanding and treating the underlying factors of Alzheimer’s disease, culminating in the world’s first fully approved disease-modifying treatment.” Lars Lannfelt, in his humble manner, reflects on his feelings about this recognition.
“It was very pleasant and I am, of course, happy and content.”
Groundbreaking contributions
These may seem like modest words for an award that acknowledges something truly unique this year. However, Lars has dedicated 25 years to the groundbreaking achievement of the first-of-its-kind medication, Lecanemab.
“I have had unwavering belief in this throughout, so perhaps that is why I am the least surprised by everything happening now. Even when the medication passed through the Phase 2 study in 2018, we saw that this would work, but it didn't gain much attention then. The significant breakthrough came a year ago with the results from the Phase 3 study,” Lars explains.
One of the world’s most important innovations
In addition to the Research!Sweden accolade, Lars Lannfelt, his research team, and especially BioArctic – the company behind lecanemab – gathered international acclaim a few weeks ago. Lecanemab was recognised as one of the top 200 medical innovations worldwide in the past year by TIME magazine.
“It was a great honor. I hadn’t really thought about that aspect before, the fact that Lecanemab is a significant innovation,” Lars says.
For the launch of Lecanemab, now approved for use as a treatment in the United States and Japan, BioArctic, the company co-founded by Lars and Pär Gellerfors, played a pivotal role. However, Lars’ time as a researcher at Uppsala University has been essential for various reasons.
“My professorship at Uppsala University was crucial for establishing my research. We set up a lab at the Rudbeck Laboratory, and I simultaneously worked at the Memory Clinic at Uppsala University Hospital. During the initial stages with BioArctic, we received assistance with ethical and legal matters from Forskarpatent in Uppsala. Pär Svanström in particular was instrumental in obtaining our patent approval.”
“When we discovered the so-called 'Arctic mutation' responsible for Alzheimer's disease, I realised the best approach was to develop a treatment for early signs of amyloid beta, the substance found in plaques that cause the disease. Uppsala University and my time there has been critical to what is happening now. Notably, individuals with different backgrounds than mine, including those from the pharmaceutical industry, have been vital in this endeavor,” Lars Lannfelt summarizes.
Robin Widing