Testa Challenge 2026
Verify your technical or digital innovation in an industrial biomanufacturing innovation challenge!
* * * THE APPLICAITON PERIOD IS NOW CLOSED. * * *
About
What is Testa Challenge?
Testa Challenge is an open innovation challenge open to startups, academic research groups, companies, and institutes globally in the technology/digital/data/IT sector to test and verify their technology in a fully funded standard bioprocess at Testa Center, Uppsala, Sweden. The provided bioprocess, facilities and expertise at Testa Center will allow an early evaluation of whether your innovation is applicable and successful for the bioprocessing industry. In addition to verifying your product in the manufacturing of a biopharmaceutical, you will:
- Learn more about bioprocessing through hands-on experience and meetings with experts in the field
- Get access to real-world process data
- Create valuable documentation for your technology in a real-world biopharmaceutical production
- Listen to inspiring seminars
- Make connections with the Uppsala life science community
"This concept is inspired by hackathons and open innovation concepts but applied in a bioprocess. We are inviting companies from the technology digital, and data segment to integrate, test and verify their innovations in a fully funded standard bioprocess workflow.“- Jesper Hedberg, CEO of Testa Center
Why was Testa Challenge created?
Testa Challenge is designed to accelerate the industrialization of innovative technologies with the potential to improve the lives of billions of people worldwide. As the global market for biological products such as antibody-based therapeutics, advanced biologics, and vaccines continues to expand, there is an increasing demand for new technologies that can enhance efficiency, scalability, and reliability in production processes.
Despite this need, the development, testing, and validation of digital and technological solutions in the bioprocessing domain are often constrained by significant barriers. High costs associated with operating full-scale biological production environments make experimentation and iteration difficult. In addition, the strong focus on protecting intellectual property can limit collaboration between organizations, reducing opportunities for shared learning and slowing innovation across the industry.
To address these challenges, Testa Challenge provides access to a full-scale bioprocessing environment combined with deep domain expertise. This setup enables companies to test, validate, and refine their technologies under realistic conditions without the usual financial and operational constraints. By fostering a more open and collaborative ecosystem, the initiative supports the exploration of new solutions, helping organizations meet future technological demands and overcome critical bottlenecks in the bioprocessing industry.
.jpg?etag=%2259e4c-65e9b965%22&sourceContentType=image%2Fjpeg&ignoreAspectRatio&resize=760%2B543&extract=218%2B0%2B504%2B543&quality=85 "Testa Center")
Organized by
Testa Center is a non-profit company owned by Cytiva and represents a pivotal partnership between the Swedish government and Cytiva to secure the growth of the life science industry and its manufacturing capabilities.
At its core, Testa Center is a groundbreaking initiative designed to bridge the gap from discovery to industrialization. The mission of the center is to provide businesses and academia globally a modern, pilot-scale testbed for projects and education in the production of biological products e.g. mRNA, monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, and viral vectors. In this adaptable facility, users get access to industry standard labs equipped with pilot-scale biomanufacturing platforms and cutting-edge equipment for cell cultivation, harvest and purification unit operations in a controlled non-GMP environment, as well as state-of-the-art infrastructure and expertise.
At Cytiva, our mission is to advance and accelerate the development of therapeutics. With nearly 15 000 associates in more than 40 countries, we’re driven to use our expertise and talent to achieve better flexibility, capacity, and efficiency for our customers.
Our broad and deep portfolio of tools and technologies, global scale, and best-in-class service provides critical support from discovery to delivery, for customers spanning researchers, emerging biotech, large-scale biopharma and contract manufacturers.
