Bjørn Klem, general manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, Arild Kristensen, general manager of Smart Care Cluster, and Kathrine Myhre, CEO of Norway Health Tech, look forward to developing the first Norwegian Health Catapult Centre.

Preparing for the first Health Catapult Centre

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Bjørn Klem, general manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, Arild Kristensen, general manager of Smart Care Cluster, and Kathrine Myhre, CEO of Norway Health Tech, look forward to developing the first Norwegian Health Catapult Centre.

Three leading Norwegian health innovation clusters will collaborate on forming a concept for the first Norwegian Health Catapult Centre.

Siva has selected Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, Norway Health Tech and Norwegian Smart Care Cluster to proceed to the next round of the Norwegian Catapult call. The three health clusters are now joining forces to apply for a Health Catapult Centre focusing on precision medicine, patient-centric innovation and health services, medical technology and digital health.

The purpose of a Catapult Centre is to support innovative small to medium-sized companies in Norway on their journey to reach the market. A Catapult Centre helps companies to develop prototypes, test, verify, visualise and simulate – so that ideas can be developed faster, better and with less risk.

By inviting the three health clusters to apply together for a Health Catapult Centre, Siva has shown that health innovation and industrialisation is a crucial part of Norwegian industry and trade. This supports the government’s White Paper on the Health Industry , which calls for the building of a strong Norwegian health industry. The current corona pandemic has also highlighted the importance of local health innovation providers and supporting Norwegian early-stage health companies that can quickly deliver solutions to big societal challenges.

The initial application was submitted last December and deemed successful in February. The main topics of precision medicine, patient-centric innovation and health services, medical technology and digital health will now be discussed further over the next six months in the planning of the final Catapult application. The managers of the three clusters look forward to the opportunity of developing a Health Catapult Centre together.

“By joining forces with two strong complementary Norwegian health clusters, we will strengthen the Catapult application by covering a broader range of services to Norwegian health start-ups and scale-ups. A successful application will enable Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator to support the growth of Norwegian healthcare start-ups together with public healthcare institutions and international industry,” said Bjørn Klem, general manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator.

“One of the future key factors for the health industry in Norway to scale in the Norwegian and global market, will be to get access to tools, solutions, data and competence to develop, simulate, test, verify and produce their health products and solutions. The aim of the Health Catapult Centre will be to provide the health industry with these services and collaborative partners for the industry to scale. With the Health Catapult Centre up and running, Norway will also be an attractive partner to international health industry, that needs testing and clinical trials for them to launch new health products and solutions on the global market,” said Kathrine Myhre, CEO of Norway Health Tech.

“Together we stand, divided we fall. The three clusters now have an unique opportunity to provide the booming health industry in Norway with tools and services that will speed their development with higher quality, thus enabling world class solutions faster,” said Arild Kristensen, general manager of Norwegian Smart Care Cluster.

The final application for the Health Catapult Centre will be submitted this autumn. If successful, Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, Norway Health Tech and Norwegian Smart Care Cluster will jointly become the first Norwegian Health Catapult Centre.

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A kick-off meeting for the collaboration project was held at Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator. In the image (from left to right): Hanna Rickberg and Jeanette Jansson from Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Marie Svendsen from LMI, Bjørn Klem from Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator.

Accelerating learning in Nordic life science milieus

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Nordplus collaboration work group at kick-off in OCC Incubator

A new collaborative project will make life science learning more accessible in the Nordics and give a boost to innovation and medical development.

The Nordic life science industry is booming and medical developments have never been this rapid. Nonetheless, in small countries like the Nordics, educational resources may not always be easy for the life science community to access. Now, five Nordic life science organisations from Sweden, Finland and Norway have joined forces to improve learning across borders.

“Each of us are small countries, through this collaboration we can provide more high-quality learning opportunities for Life Science professionals and for a broader Nordic-Baltic target group, instead of reinventing the wheel,” says Hanna Rickberg, Head of Education at the Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

As part of the Nordplus Horizontal programme, educational events, training workshops and practical courses directed towards the life science industry will be made available online. The life science professionals can participate via a live video stream or pre-recorded material, making learning accessible to those on-site or on remote locations and in other countries.

The five partners in the project are:

“Life science is a global business and cross-border collaboration is important, in particular for small countries in the Nordics,” says Bjørn Klem, General Manager at Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator.

The project has received support from Nordplus to facilitate the sharing of educational resources across national borders in the Nordics. This will act as an innovation boost to Nordic life science environments.

“We are intrigued by the opportunity to explore how we can establish synergies across the Nordic markets when it comes to meeting educational needs within the Life Science sector. The underlying assumption is that the needs are similar. Networking for future collaboration may present as a secondary benefit,” says Dag Larsson, Senior Policy Manager, LIF – the Research Based Pharma Industry in Sweden.

Nordic cooperation will be paramount to make the most of medical advances and to make personalized medicine a reality.

“We see Nordic cooperation as an essential value to the medical development that is now taking place with both personalised medicine and building a life science industry across the Nordic countries,” says Marie Svendsen Aase, Communications Adviser, Legemiddelindustrien (LMI).

The project will run until 30 April 2021 and the five partners will share their courses via their websites and social media channels.

“Nordplus collaboration provides us with an excellent opportunity to expand our training services to the Nordic market and to share knowledge with the other partners,“ says Anja Isoaho, Training Manager at Pharmaceutical Information Centre (Finland).

 

Next upcoming activity in the Nordplus course plan 2020-2021:

The 4th Nordic RWE Conference 2020, 11 February 2020, 09:00-17:00, arranged by LMI in Kaare Norum Auditorium, Oslo Cancer Cluster Innovation Park, Ullernchausseen 64, 0379 Oslo. This event will be streamed.

 

Nordic Life Science Learning logo

 

Partner logos:

Lääketietokeskus logo

LIF logo

 

Läkemedelsakademin logo

 

LMI logo

 

OCC Incubator logo

Thomas Andersson, Business Development Adviser in Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, is one of the health mentors in the new scheme from Innovation Norway to help health startups to grow.

Find your health mentor

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Thomas Andersson, Senior Adviser, Business Development, Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator

Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator has joined a new national health mentor program to help Norwegian startups connect with the right experts.

Are you a health startup? Do you need help to get going? Eight health clusters and incubators have joined forces to provide mentors and specialist knowledge to Norwegian health startups, through the new health mentor program from Innovation Norway. One of them is Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator.

Bjørn Klem, general manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, commented:

“Innovation Norway’s new health mentor program is a good scheme for startups that need help to establish their company. Access to a network of health mentors give the companies the opportunity to get tailor-made guidance in a very challenging development phase.”

This is the first time Innovation Norway offers a mentor program for a specific industry. The scheme is a pilot project for year 2020. Bård Stranheim, responsible for the mentor program in Innovation Norway, said:

“Good mentors are an important key to growth. This scheme will give high-quality mentors. Maybe this pilot project will be the basis of a new model to connect world-class mentors with Norwegian startups to prepare them for international growth.”

 

The health mentor program consists of:

 

Apply on Innovation Norway’s website for a health mentor

 

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From the left: Bjørn Klem, General Manager, and Janne Nestvold, Laboratory Manager, are thrilled that their incubator is among Europe’s top 20 biotech start-up ecosystems.

Among Europe’s finest 

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Björn Klem and Janne Nestvold celebrate that the Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator has been nominated among Europe's 20 best incubators.

OCC Incubator was recently rated among the top 20 European biotech incubators. Here’s why!

Every year, the biotech website Labiotech makes a top 20 list of the best biotech incubators in Europe. Oslo Cancer Cluster (OCC) Incubator is the only Norwegian incubator on the list this year, together with well established incubators in Belgium, Switzerland, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden and other European countries.

Labiotech.eu is the leading digital media covering the European biotech industry, with over 150,000 visitors every month.

Size and relevance matters

We asked Clara Rodríguez Fernández, Senior Reporter in Labiotech, about the selection criteria. She replied:

“We aim to include the most relevant incubators across different European countries. We selected those based on their size and relevance within their country’s biotech ecosystem and also based on feedback from the industry contacts we sent our preliminary list to.”

See the full top 20 list on labiotech.eu.  

Means a lot in Norway

In Norway, the list has attracted attention.

“This means a lot. We have a strong and attractive ecosystem around Oslo Cancer Cluster on research and commercialization of pharmaceuticals. The latest success story is the tech company OncoImmunity that was bought by the tech giant NEC this summer.” Håkon Haugli, CEO Innovation Norway

Read more about NEC OncoImmunity in this news story.

Håkon Haugli continues:

“We also recognize that Norway, through Oslo Cancer Cluster, is positioned very well for the European Union’s next big endeavour, ‘Missions’, which will be launched next year. Cancer is one of five focus areas, which the European Union will channel considerable project resources into, to resolve one of our time’s big societal problems.”

The European Union has defined five research and innovation mission areas, inspired by the Apollo 11 mission to put a man on the moon. The missions aim to deliver solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing our world, such as cancer, climate change, healthy oceans, climate-neutral cities and healthy soil and food.

You can read more about the European research and innovation missions on this official website.

A boost of motivation

For OCC Incubator, being on the top 20 list is a nice boost of motivation. Bjørn Klem, General Manager OCC Incubator, puts it this way: 

“We are excited about being rated among the best biotech incubators in Europe. It motivates us to become the most attractive space for innovations in the field of cancer!” 

 

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