Agenda - previous events

Second Health~Holland Regional Meeting

Strengthening national and regional collaboration in Life Sciences & Health.

 

On Tuesday 19 April, the second Health~Holland Regional Meeting took place. The meeting aimed to discuss national and regional collaboration and the role of Top Sector LSH in facilitating this.

The director of Top Sector’s executive office, Nico van Meeteren, started the meeting with a quiz on the Top Sector LSH. Jan Raaijmakers, chairman of Top Sector LSH, presented a short update on the latest activities and developments of the Top Sector. Then the participants engaged in a lively debate based on a number of statements. During the ‘Roundtrip Holland’ regional organisations pitched their regional best practices to inform Top Sector LSH about how it could help their initiatives to gain more momentum.

Nico van Meeteren: 'The Dutch life sciences and health regions were already positioned as the strongholds of the Top Sector. The yearly regional event provides means to demonstrate their elegant position, both national and international, and to make further arrangements to support each other.'

The attending regional organisations and Top Sector LSH are convinced that collaboration is essential for the success of the sector. Key issues addressed during the meeting were topics of regional and national concern, such as access to funding, (inter)national representation, collaboration and how to learn from each other’s experiences. The participants agreed that several activities within the regions overlap and so success stories must be exchanged in order to efficiently stimulate growth.


Currently Top Sector LSH is working on the follow-up of this meeting so that a more structured collaboration between regional and national LSH organisations can be realised.


Looking back at the Innovation Expo


EYE Bus

The Rotterdam Eye Hospital brought two of their Eye buses to the Innovation Expo ground. It is a convenient tool fully equipped with the most modern ophthalmic equipment. With the Eye Bus excellent preventive eye care is brought close to the client, at home or at work. This is unique in the Netherlands. The Eye Bus is a scientifically proven concept that has been in operation for more than six years. Raaijmakers spoke with Kees Sol, CFO at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital, about the implementation of such innovations. Additionally, Raaijmakers took advantage of the opportunity to get his eyes checked.


Personalised Medicine

Top Sector LSH’s chairman Raaijmakers led one of the 25 sessions at the event. This session addressed the future of medicine with three leading speakers on Personalised Medicine. First, professor René Bernards from the Netherlands Cancer Institute illustrated the opportunities and challenges regarding personalised medicine. Dr. Robert Vries, HUB Hubrecht Organoid Technology, showed how organoid technology can change our future healthcare with better and affordable medicines. This can benefit the industry and health insurance companies. Finally professor Bas Bloem, Radboud UMC, elaborated on the future of patient centered healthcare, with an example of ParkinsonNet. Together with chairman Raaijmakers the three speakers discussed the hurdles that need to be overcome in our current system to make way for personalised medicine. The most frequently mentioned aspects were the financial support of the government, the infrastructure possibilities, and the competing health insurers.



Overall, it seems clear that the Netherlands is buzzing with innovative entrepreneurs who want to turn their ideas into action via collaboration with new partners. Their plans for the life sciences and health sector are inspiring and will hopefully become a reality soon. 


Watch the video below to get an impression of the Innovation Expo 216.