New honorary doctor at the Faculty of Pharmacy

Bo Öberg started his career at Uppsala University’s Department of Biochemistry, previously Nobel Prize laureate Arne Tiselius’s department, where he carried out research on separation methods. Thereafter, his research was oriented towards, for example, studying polio virus replication and adenovirus mRNA translation with Lennart Philipson. His work on inhibitors of viral polymerases and discovery of foscarnet as an agent against herpes aroused immense interest, and Öberg became a very busy consultant at Astra Läkemedel, a pharmaceutical company in the Astra Group, in Södertälje.

Öberg was recruited to Astra Läkemedel in 1978 and became head of the biology group in the ongoing antiviral project. In the years 1982–88, he headed Antiviral Therapy at Astra. In 1984 he was appointed adjunct professor at the Department of Virology, Karolinska Institute.

Bo Öberg was one of the founders of Medivir AB in 1988, and the company’s head of research until 1999. Since then he has held numerous key positions, including CEO, in Medivir and other companies that have been and are connected with Medivir in various ways. He has been a member of the Swedish Medical Research Council and chaired programmes at the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra). He has published a great number of scientific articles in respected journals, and has been granted numerous patents.

Bo Öberg’s highly meritorious work at the interface between industry and academia has benefited the Faculty of Pharmacy’s education and research in the area of pharmaceutical drugs. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Elion Award for his ‘outstanding research in the field of antiviral research’.

The Degree Conferment ceremony, when the new honorary doctorates will be awarded, is to take place in January 2015.