Karolina Karl

Head of Life Sciences team 
Invest Lithuania
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Mrs. Karolina Karl – Head of Life Sciences team, Invest Lithuania
 
Strategy consultant at Invest Lithuania with over 5 years of experience in working with complex foreign direct investment projects in the Manufacturing and Life Sciences fields.
 
Mrs. Karl has joined Invest Lithuania’s manufacturing team in 2017 as an intern and since then she climbed the career ladder and changed 5 positions. In 2019, based on the Government's ambitious goal to strengthen the Life Sciences industry in Lithuania, a separate Life Sciences team at Invest Lithuania was formed. Karolina took charge of consulting global biotech&pharma companies on their expansion projects. She worked with companies that successfully expanded their human tissue engineering R&D functions and injectables manufacturing in Lithuania, with an average FDI project CAPEX of about $50 M.
 
In addition to that, Karolina contributed significantly to Lithuania's Life Sciences sector strategy and its value proposition development. Together with the team, she was leading Lithuania's feasibility study, conducted with global consultant support. The aim of the study was to identify Lithuania’s key competencies and strengths as well as to develop the country's ecosystem improvement plan. After successfully redefining Lithuania’s Life Sciences strategy, Karolina became the Head of the Life Sciences team in 2021 November and she is now responsible for the efficient implementation of the national investment attraction strategy in key sectors: biotech&pharma and medical devices.

Speech title & Synopsis

Lithuania – your gateway to Europe

Lithuania, a small Baltic nation with a population of around 2.8 million people, has shifted its focus to Life Sciences. In this session, governmental agency responsible for attracting foreign direct investment to the country - Invest Lithuania’s, Head of Life Sciences team Karolina Karl will discuss Lithuania’s journey to becoming an independent state driven by innovation and how Life Sciences are seen as a key part of the national strategy for future economic growth. With this aim, the government set an ambitious goal to increase the GDP contribution of the Life Sciences industry from 2.5% to 5% by 2030.
 
To date, Lithuania has built a well-functioning business ecosystem where it takes only a few days to register a biotech company or get construction permits, all through digitalized systems aligned with EU regulations and norms. The Baltic champion also offers some of the most competitive FDI tax incentives in Europe, including one of the lowest patent box tax as well as 20 years corporate profit tax release for large scale investments. Multinational companies including Thermo Fisher, Hollister, Dexcom, Esco, Teva and others have already taken advantage of the unbeatable conditions and world-class talent pool available locally.
 
This session will illustrate what Lithuania can offer through stories covering the research of a local Vilnius University Professor Virginijus Siksnys, who was one of the co-founders of the CRISPR Cas9 technology, alongside Nobel Prize winners Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna. In addition to that, you will get to know what drug was developed by Teva’s Lithuanian team and how Thermo Fisher has been growing in the market for the last 20 years.
 
Come and explore a new gateway to Europe!