Continues its growth journey with a strong focus on quality

APNC Sweden specializes in high-quality medical statistics for life science research as well as the development of predictive models for evidence-based medical and clinical research.

– We support both academia and the pharmaceutical industry with tailored statistical solutions across four key areas: biostatistics, bioinformatics, education, and predictive modeling using machine learning methodologies, says Aldina Pivodic, CEO and founder of APNC Sweden.

The growth journey at GoCo Health Innovation City in Mölndal over the past two years has been both striking and impressive. Aldina Pivodic has gone from being a sole entrepreneur to leading a consultancy company with 14 employees. The company is now continuing its expansion by establishing a presence at Medicon Village in Lund, to be closer to clients in southern Sweden.

– The establishment is a natural step. We already have several clients in southern Sweden, and by being on site a few times per month we become more visible, especially to smaller companies. It also makes networking easier with academic research groups as well as small and medium-sized enterprises, which are our primary clients, Aldina Pivodic continues.

Despite being a smaller company, APNC Sweden has placed great emphasis on building a solid organization and clear structure, typically found only in larger firms. Through a combination of in-house staff and consultants, APNC Sweden has developed an organizational framework covering functions from HR and Financial Advisor to Data Protection Officer (DPO). To further strengthen quality management and ensure the highest standards across its services, the company has, over the past year, initiated extensive work on establishing a Quality Management System (QMS).

– A QMS is built on Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) – documented step-by-step instructions – that standardize workflows and ensure tasks are performed consistently, thereby maintaining and continuously improving quality, explains Aldina Pivodic.

– Our clients should feel confident in our way of working. Regardless of who at APNC is responsible for a project, the process, execution, and outcome must always meet the same high standard.

Appointing a QA Manager

Leading the company’s QMS efforts is Annika Wennersten, QA & Operational Support Manager, with over 25 years of experience from the tech and pharmaceutical industries, including clinical trials, database management, and programming.

– During our first two years, the majority of our clients came from academia. But now, as we are taking on more assignments from the pharmaceutical industry and the tech sector, we need to demonstrate that we meet the high quality and compliance standards required by industry, says Annika.

Together with APNC Sweden’s employees and the company’s DPO, Annika has developed SOPs that cover all aspects of the organization’s work – from planning, programming, and statistical analyses to data management, regulatory processes, and HR.

– We now have SOPs down to the detail level of how we should perform our tasks, all to make our work as consistent, efficient, and secure as possible. For example, we have an SOP for handling data and ensuring it is transferred in a safe and standardized way. As part of this, we have also introduced control routines for workflows and deliverables sent to clients, says Annika, who in her operational role maintains ongoing dialogue with colleagues.

Assignments within the pharmaceutical industry generally require more documentation – particularly regarding regulatory processes – than projects in academia, though they often involve less complex statistics.

– In academic projects, we are frequently engaged from the very start all the way through to publication, which requires highly skilled statisticians. By contrast, projects in industry demand greater knowledge of regulatory requirements for study design, execution, and documentation, as well as for data reporting.

ISO 27001

The next step in APNC Sweden’s quality management efforts is certification under ISO 27001, the international standard for information security management systems (ISMS), which provides a framework for systematically managing, protecting, and continuously improving information security.

– When we began the certification process in 2025, we were told it is uncommon for companies specializing in statistics to pursue ISO 27001, but we see it as a natural step to ensure the quality of our work. Quality is one of our two guiding principles that permeates everything we do, says Aldina Pivodic.

– The other guiding principle is wellbeing. To achieve quality, our employees must feel well and have the right conditions to perform their work to the highest standard.