In June Stockholm-based Athera Biotechnologies struck a deal with German pharma Boehringer Ingelheim to co-develop antibodies to treat cardiovascular disease. Boehringer paid an unspecified amount to acquire Athera's antibody program after a phase 1 study is complete. Athera will use the option money plus a recent EU grant to fund early-stage work on its lead compound, a human monoclonal anti-phosphorylcholine (PC) antibody as a therapy for atherosclerosis. Low levels of naturally occurring anti-PC antibodies have been linked to protection the disorder. Athera is one of 26 portfolio companies held by Stockholm-based Karolinska Development (KD). KD wooed Boehringer to the deal with Athera, says Benjamin Nordin, investor relations officer at KD. “We don't aim to build companies,” he says. Instead, their portfolio startups are often founded with innovators and are initially operated as virtual companies with few or no employees. KD works in collaboration with Karolinska Institute Innovations, the technology transfer office of the Karolinska Institute, and other universities in Europe and the US. It functions much like the London-based Imperial Innovations, an investment group that encompasses the UK's four leading research universities, with a few notable differences. KD invests in life sciences only, and many of KD's portfolio companies are located on the same campus as KD management. This enables KD to steer its companies closely, says Jens Lindqvist, director of life sciences at N+1 Singer in London. “KD has the regulatory, drug development and formulation expertise all within the company.” In contrast, Imperial Innovations invests more broadly and might outsource expertise, he says. By diversifying risk at early development stages, this model has proved appealing to institutional investors: the Swedish National Pension Fund owns a 10% stake in KD. Also boosting Stockholm's life sciences appeal, AstraZeneca (AZ) and Karolinska agreed in June to form a new research center on the latter's campus—Karolinska Institute/AZ Integrated Cardio Metabolic Centre—to identify new targets to treat cardio-metabolic disease. AZ will contribute up to $20 million annually during the first five years. AstraZeneca also recently selected ten research projects at Stockholm's Science for Life Laboratory and associated universities to receive $5–10 million a year. Since 2010, AstraZeneca has invested about $81 million in Sweden toward developing a research site in Mölndal, production facilities in Södertälje and new collaborations with academic institutions.