Iris Friedli

Imaging Director, and newcomer to Sweden

I came to Antaros Medical after my PhD in MRI Physics , so I didn’t have a background in the pharma industry – like many of my colleagues here have. But they gave me the trust and freedom I needed to get off to a flying start.

When meeting Antaros Medical’s cofounder Joel and two of the Senior Imaging Directors at Antaros Medical, Paul and Edvin, at a scientific congress in Paris, we started talking about MRI and I found them really open-minded and easy to talk to. So even though I was doing my post doc at Geneva University Hospital at the time, I decided to apply for the role as Imaging Director. A couple of months later, I came to Uppsala for the job interview. I moved to Sweden specifically to work at Antaros Medical, and I have no regrets. It’s a great place to work and Uppsala is a nice town, only 40 minutes by train from Stockholm.

A non-hierarchical organisation
One of my first impressions was that Antaros Medical has a very non-hierarchical organisation. I was, for example, surprised to find the bosses so accessible to us co-workers. Also, Antaros Medical has a truly diverse workforce. We come from so many different backgrounds, and everyone has an expertise to share and all voices count. I really like this culture of openness.

“I really like the culture of openness”

Working with innovation that requires uncompromised quality
I kind of stumbled into MRI technology when working on my PhD thesis. It’s an interesting field, in a continuous cycle of innovation, so it keeps me on my toes. And now, with the introduction of AI, things are evolving even faster – every day, we learn more about how the human body works.

The fact that we are in the field of pharmaceutical development does add to the complexity. We need to operate in a way that always guarantees that we follow the regulations and deliver top quality ensuring the reproducibility and the precision required for drug development.

In some of our studies, we are doing on-site training – another part of my job. So I get to travel and meet a lot of people, which is something I really appreciate, plus I get to see how the technology works in real life. In times of Covid-19 it was fascinating to see how fast the company adapted to a new way of working. In a few weeks’ time we increased our on-line training drastically. But I really look forward to be able to travel again and meet with imaging specialists all over the world.