This November the Netherlands hosted a small but crowdy Health~Holland Pavilion at the BIO-Europe in Berlin. This leading partnering event turned Berlin into a global biotech hotspot for a week. Thanks to the striking Health~Holland Pavilion and more than 100 Dutch participants who wore eye-catching orange key-cords, the Dutch presence did not go unnoticed. At the Pavilion, the Netherlands presented itself as an attractive country for establishing a biotech company, as an innovative business partner, and as a successful location for R&D.

At the “Biotech in the Spotlight Corner” divers Dutch companies got the chance to present themselves to the diverse audience. On Tuesday the Top Sector LSH and HollandBIO organised a well visited reception at the pavilion. And as always, the pavilion served as a living room away from home for all Dutch delegates. Next stop: BIO-Europe Spring 2018 in Amsterdam!

As main partner of the DLSC, Health~Holland wanted to provide a way to highlight the different life sciences regions: the Netherlands harbours. Together with the DLSC, a short movie has been developed with stories from throughout the country: from the Chemelot-InScite ecosystem in Limburg to the Healthy Aging Network in the Northern Netherlands. Life sciences regions and science parks are extremely important for the Dutch innovative character, but have to work together to be of interest internationally. Or as Edward van der Meer, Managing Director of the HANNN, puts it: “Through national collaboration this regional initiative will create worldwide impact”.

Watch the video and get inspired: Join the Dutch regions and discover more!

Biotech innovation is facilitated by new start-up initiatives. At the DLSC, start-ups can showcase their innovations. All six teams of the Venture Challenge Fall 2017 pitched their ventures to the public after which Chrétien Herben, director of the LifeSciences@Work Accelerator, announced Cyclomics as the winner. Cyclomics was awarded with 25,000 euros to develop their company further. Additionally, ten start-ups attended the investors' forum, where they discussed their business strategy, technology direction and capital-raising plan. Annemiek Verkamman, director of HollandBIO, announced Hemics as winner of the investors' forum. Hemics has developed a non-invasive, fast and objective method that supports rheumatologists in the quantification of inflammation, which is a key parameter in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. In total, it was great to see the innovative power of the Dutch Life Sciences organisations. 

Next year the Dutch Life Sciences conference will be held in Leiden. Keep an eye on the website.

The national Health-RI initiative aims to establish an interconnected infrastructure for Dutch personalised health research. The initiative is endorsed by more than 70 organisations, including research institutions, patient organisations, companies, governmental organisations, and research funders. Health-RI co-chair Gerrit Meijer (Netherlands Cancer Institute): “A lot of great health research is being done, but it is a challenge to bring the results to patients and improve healthcare. This innovation gap is caused by fragmentation of data, sample collections, image collections, and more. Health-RI can provide the solution to this problem.” Meijer presented the Health-RI business plan at the conference.
 

The Health-RI business plan is an ambitious yet realistic plan to assemble all stakeholders and create a sustainable infrastructure that will facilitate world-class personalised health research in the Netherlands. It will build on existing infrastructures and attract new partners. In 2018, the current temporary governance will evolve into a permanent governance as described in the plan. Meijer: “Importantly, Health-RI governance will be inclusive, i.e., all ten chambers of stakeholders will be present in the general assembly and each chamber appoints a representative in the strategic committee. Building on the current strength of public-private partnership research in the Netherlands, Health-RI will bring together the best of the country’s expertise and resources for open-science health research. It will make these accessible to researchers by connecting activities and shared services, and it will act as a collective national and international voice for the sector.” To conclude the session, several Health-RI partners introduced themselves and symbolically placed a building block on a Health-RI wall, amongst them Top Sector Life Sciences & Health.

Many Health-RI partners offer services and resources to support researchers. Martijntje Bakker (ZonMw): “However, it is very complex for researchers to find their way to such research infrastructure, for instance to find out how to gain access. Health-RI can help to improve this.” An overview of several key services and resources is already available on the Health-RI website.

Photography: Thijs Rooimans