Coloplast wound care is entering a new era, led by the man who sold the Danish medical device giant his company for nine billion kroner. The faint smell of fresh cod in a sterile meeting room at Coloplast’s Humlebæk headquarters signals the arrival of Fertram Sigurjonsson, the company’s new Executive Vice President for Wound & Skin Care, and his revolutionary fish skin technology.
Sigurjonsson demonstrates his product, carefully pulling a white burn dressing from a glass of water. The distinct marine scent fills the air, a tangible link to the product’s origin. This is not a scene from a North Sea fishing auction but the heart of a strategic shift for one of Denmark’s most successful healthcare exporters. Sigurjonsson’s journey from entrepreneur to corporate leader inside the company that acquired his life’s work represents a high-stakes bet on innovation.
From Icelandic Startup to Danish Corporate Power
Fertram Sigurjonsson founded his biotech company, Kerecis, based on a unique discovery: using the intact extracellular matrix of cod skin to heal severe wounds and burns. The fish skin acts as a scaffold, encouraging the body’s own cells to regenerate tissue. After building the company into a promising innovator, Sigurjonsson sold Kerecis to Coloplast in a landmark deal valued at approximately $1.3 billion (9.1 billion DKK) in late 2023.
The acquisition was one of the largest in Coloplast’s history. Instead of departing, Sigurjonsson accepted a top executive role, tasked with integrating his technology and driving growth for Coloplast’s entire wound care division. This move is unusual in the mergers and acquisitions landscape, where founders often cash out and leave. Coloplast’s leadership explicitly sought to retain his entrepreneurial drive and deep product knowledge.
“Bringing Fertram and his team onboard was a critical part of the transaction,” said Coloplast CEO Kristian Villumsen in a recent statement. “We are not just acquiring assets; we are acquiring deep expertise and a proven ability to innovate in a complex field.”
A Strategic Shift for a Copenhagen Stalwart
Coloplast, founded in 1957, is a pillar of the Danish medical device industry. Listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, it is a global leader in ostomy, continence, and urology care. Its wound care business, while significant, has faced intense competition. The integration of Kerecis’s fish skin technology represents a bold attempt to secure a dominant position in the advanced wound care market, a segment with higher growth margins.
Analysts view this as a strategic masterstroke. “Coloplast has a history of smart, targeted acquisitions,” said Anette Højgaard, a senior medtech analyst at Danske Bank. “The Kerecis deal, and bringing Sigurjonsson in-house, is about buying growth and securing a technological edge. They’re betting that this biologic material can capture significant market share from traditional synthetic wound dressings.”
The financial implications are substantial for Coloplast’s revenue streams. The company reported total revenue of 22.5 billion DKK last year. The wound care segment, now supercharged by Sigurjonsson’s technology, is expected to contribute increasingly to the top line, potentially boosting Denmark’s medical export figures.
The Entrepreneur Inside the Machine
The key question is whether an entrepreneur like Sigurjonsson can thrive within the structured environment of a multinational corporation like Coloplast. In interviews, Sigurjonsson emphasizes the opportunity for greater impact. “At Kerecis, we reached many patients,” he noted. “But with Coloplast’s global commercial engine, its regulatory expertise, and its direct reach into clinics and hospitals worldwide, we can help ten times, a hundred times more people. That is the real prize.”
His role involves more than just overseeing his former company’s products. He is now responsible for Coloplast’s entire wound and skin care portfolio, requiring him to manage legacy products and teams while injecting a startup mentality. Coloplast hopes his presence will catalyze innovation across the division, encouraging faster development cycles and a more aggressive market approach.
This model—acquiring a breakthrough innovator and installing its founder as a change agent—is being watched closely in Copenhagen’s business circles. It offers a blueprint for other established Danish firms in sectors like cleantech and pharmaceuticals seeking to renew their innovation pipelines.
Challenges and the Road Ahead
The integration is not without risks. Cultural clashes between a nimble startup team and a corporate giant are common. There is also the commercial challenge of convincing a broader range of healthcare providers to adopt a premium, biologic product like fish skin dressings, which are more expensive than standard options.
Furthermore, Coloplast must successfully scale up the complex manufacturing process for the fish skin material to meet anticipated global demand. This involves securing a sustainable, traceable supply of cod skin, primarily from Icelandic fisheries, linking Danish medical innovation directly to Nordic natural resources.
Sigurjonsson appears undaunted. He speaks of a “shared Nordic ethos” of practical problem-solving that aligns Coloplast’s history with Kerecis’s origins. The goal is clear: to make Coloplast the undisputed leader in advanced wound care. Success would mean significant job creation and research investment in Denmark, strengthening the Øresund region’s medtech cluster.
A New Chapter for Danish Medtech
The story of Fertram Sigurjonsson and Coloplast is more than a simple corporate acquisition. It is a test case for corporate renewal. Can a large, successful company effectively buy and internalize a disruptive innovation without stifling it? Coloplast’s answer is to put the disruptor in charge.
As the fish skin dressings move from a clinical novelty to a mainstream treatment, the industry will judge whether this $1.3 billion bet pays off. For now, the unusual scent in Humlebæk’s hallways is the smell of change—a reminder that Denmark’s corporate future may depend on its ability to let entrepreneurs reshape its proudest institutions from within. The success or failure of this experiment will resonate far beyond the meeting rooms of Humlebæk, influencing investment and innovation strategies across Scandinavia.