In April 2006, Søren Klim got his master's degree and since then he has gone on to do an Industrial PhD in collaboration with IMM and Novo Nordisk. He explains:
"During the next three years, I will be at Novo 50 percent of the time and at the university a little less than 50 percent of the time, and I will also be visiting other research environments in the EU. I am developing a tool that is to increase our ability to make predictions that are more accurate by developing or improving medical testing, and thereby avoid a lot of testing and in stead be able to calculate the result. It is estimated that this will be able to considerably reduce costs, because the tests are highly expensive to develop.
Quick response from Novo
IMM has positive experiences with sending students to Novo Nordisk and the other major pharmaceutical companies with a view to doing targeted master projects in the field of applied mathematics. In the case of Søren Klim, Novo was quick to present a project and they already had a PhD from IMM who was working on a similar project. According to Søren Klim, the chance to do an interdisciplinary research project was particularly appealing:
"When you mix chemists, pharmacists and statisticians, you get input from different points of view and with great drive. I requested that it not only be about computer programming, but that I would be able to participate in the physiological work, which is an area I am familiar with through mathematical image analysis."
The large pharmaceutical companies request people from IMM - not least because of the candidates' competencies in computer technology combined with an understanding of mathematics. Søren Klim says:
"The people who work in my department have core statistical competencies, and although it is not my particular area of competence, I have no problem participating in discussions. My competence level is high enough for me to be able to do statistical analyses, but it is also extremely useful to me to sit alongside a statistician that can help me. At the same time, those of us who come from IMM are used to working with computers. If our programs come up with a peculiar result, I am able to understand the underlying algorithms and what it is the computer is trying to calculate for me. For instance, if it is slow to calculate something, and used to be quick, I am able to figure out the reason, and that is an extremely useful ability to have in my work."
Sørens skills greatly needed in the industry
The future looks extremely bright for Søren Klim. He is about to help sophisticate a statistical tool that is greatly needed in the pharmaceutical industry: "I am about to initiate a collaboration with an American professor. It is the continuation of a very large tool that was developed by two researchers many years ago. Unfortunately, they have both passed away within the past two years, and there has not been anyone in the academic environment to take over. All of a sudden the entire industry is missing "its arms", which is why it is going to be exciting to go over there to see if I can help."