Meet the nextGEN
Mikkel Precht - Alcolase
Who or what called you to lead?
When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a brain surgeon. I thought the brain was fascinating—the most complex thing in the universe. It holds our consciousness and allows us to have free will. Without that, we’re just shells acting on instinct. So, that fascination drew me to life science early on and through high school.
I eventually realised that maybe becoming a brain surgeon wasn’t right for me, but I still wanted to help people and do some good in the world.
In high school, an influential chemistry teacher encouraged me to play with the science of chemistry and explore how it relates to biology. Although maybe he regrets it after we blew up the lab trying to make a cinnamon-smelling compound!
Even though he wasn’t a biochemist, he let me do a whole project on proteins and connected me with people at the university to help me learn more—like how chemistry relates to all the molecules and proteins in food and living organisms. That put me on a path towards research and wanting to understand life.
The idea for a business came about after one of my co-founders completed a bio business summer school here in Copenhagen. We were out for a beer with our other co-founder who recently graduated and we were intrigued by the independence that comes with starting a company.
It took a few months of brainstorming sessions—talking about how to use biotechnology to improve people’s lives—before we settled on targeting alcohol intolerance. We decided against making a drug because we wanted to create something ourselves, so we decided on a supplement-based approach.
Mikkel’s full profile is available for our members inside the community.