Backtracking from the Endgame
By Helena Strigård CEO and Founder
September 1, 2026
Patrik Strömberg CEO of AnaCardio
AnaCardio is using its CEO’s experience on both sides of pharma partnering to shape a global Phase 2b for AC01, its oral treatment candidate for heart failure.
An Insights Accelerated conversation with Patrik Strömberg, CEO of AnaCardio.
Patrik Strömberg has spent much of his career thinking about the moment when a promising biotech programme has to convince someone else to carry it forward. At Sobi, where he led Search & Evaluation, he was the person asking the questions. Today, as CEO of AnaCardio, he is building the answers. That experience has led the Stockholm company to work backwards from the decision it ultimately wants a global partner to make. AnaCardio has discussed its programme under confidentiality agreements with more than ten large pharmaceutical companies, using those conversations to understand what evidence will be needed before AC01 can move into Phase 3. “We talk to Big Pharma BD teams early not just to pitch, but to backtrack,” Strömberg says. “We optimize our trial design to answer the exact questions they will need answered to make a Phase 3 partnering decision.”
The opportunity is significant. AnaCardio is developing AC01 for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, an indication where the need for new approaches remains high. Conventional inotropes can make a failing heart contract more strongly, but they also place additional stress on the heart and increase the risk of arrhythmia, ischaemia and mortality. “Heart failure is a beast of an indication,” Strömberg says. “Every traditional drug that stimulates the heart stresses the heart. To find something that safely improves contractility without stressing the cardiac muscle is the holy grail.” AnaCardio was founded around research led by Professor Lars Lund at Karolinska Institutet, whose work showed that ghrelin, better known for its role in appetite and growth hormone release, could also improve cardiac contractility through a different biological pathway. AC01 is an oral, selective agonist of the ghrelin receptor, designed to improve the heart’s pumping capacity without mobilising intracellular calcium in the way associated with traditional inotropes.
AnaCardio accelerated the programme by in-licensing AC01 from the Swiss pharmaceutical company Helsinn in 2022. Instead of spending years taking a molecule from academic discovery through early pharmaceutical development, the company gained an asset that was ready to move towards patients. The decision reflects Strömberg’s broader view of biotech development: time is often more valuable than complete ownership. His background spans a PhD in biochemistry from Karolinska Institutet, fifteen years in research and development at AstraZeneca and Biovitrum/Sobi, an MBA and senior business development roles at Sobi. AnaCardio’s path therefore looks carefully designed. The company began by identifying and bringing in a promising asset, and it is now developing that asset with the requirements of a future global partner in mind.
The first clinical results have strengthened that position. GOAL-HF1 enrolled 58 patients, including 26 in its Phase 2a portion, and was designed primarily to evaluate safety and tolerability. In the 3 mg group, AnaCardio reported a 29.5% numerical increase in cardiac output after one day and a 22% increase after 28 days, without tachyarrhythmias, ischaemia or clinically significant falls in blood pressure. The study provided an encouraging early signal and a clear basis for moving into a larger trial. After being presented as late-breaking science at the Heart Failure Congress in Barcelona, the results were published in The Lancet in June (Lund LH, et al. The Lancet. 2026;408:248–260.). “Publication in The Lancet is the highest level of external validation you can get,” Strömberg says. “It really changed the conversation, giving us an immediate seat at the table with new global stakeholders.”
AnaCardio is now preparing a global Phase 2b study that Strömberg says will enrol approximately 400 patients at 100 sites in 12 countries across Europe and North America. The company received aligned scientific advice from the FDA and EMA before designing the trial, allowing one development programme to support both US and European regulatory pathways. The study is expected to run from 2026 into 2028 and is backed by an investor syndicate that includes Novo Holdings, Industrifonden, Pureos Bioventures, Sound Bioventures and Flerie. The input from potential pharmaceutical partners adds another layer to that preparation. Rather than responding to individual wish lists, AnaCardio is identifying the questions that repeatedly matter to global development teams and ensuring that its study is positioned to answer them.
For a small biotech working in an indication as large as heart failure, the eventual partnership cannot be treated as an afterthought. It has to be part of the development architecture from the beginning. AnaCardio’s progress so far follows a clear sequence: differentiated science, a time-saving in-licensing decision, encouraging clinical data, external validation and a global Phase 2b designed with the next development decision already in view. By 2028, the company aims to arrive not simply with another clinical readout, but with an evidence package built to support a global Phase 3 programme. That is the logic of backtracking from the endgame: define what success will require, then design every step to reach it.
Patrik Strömberg, PhD, MBA, is Chief Executive Officer of AnaCardio AB, a Stockholm-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing AC01 for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. This conversation was recorded by Helena Strigård for Insights Accelerated and has been edited for length and clarity.