125 Dutch entrepreneurs and representatives from the sector joined our delegation, a good reflection of the top biotech companies in our country. Due to the eye-catching orange key cords you could clearly identify the Dutch everywhere.

During the welcome drinks in a packed bar in San Diego, organised by HollandBIO, the starting shot  to a successful edition of the conference was given. Once again, the Netherlands was clearly represented at the orange Health~Holland Pavilion on the BIO exhibition floor. The eye-catching pavilion decorated with tulips and the canals of Amsterdam served as an information point for the Dutch life sciences sector and a hospitable living room for busy Dutch conference delegates. People from around the world came together during the nations drinks in the hope of winning the coveted orange Xendo bike, which was eventually won by a very happy biotech entrepreneur from Florida. This was also considerable interest in tickets for the BIO-Europe Spring 2018 in Amsterdam: many international guests could not wait to travel to this prominent biotech event in the Netherlands!

During the kick-off meeting which took place at the office of Loyens & Loeff in Rotterdam various committed investors, serial entrepreneurs and experts were present to listen to the pitches of the young entrepreneurs, give feedback and coach them individually. Keynote speaker Ton Logtenberg of Merus advices: “Americans have a different way of perceiving entrepreneurs, you’ve got to put more energy in your pitch and pump it up.”

This programme, organised by Top Sector LSH and Hyphen Projects under the enthusing leadership of professor Marianne van der Steen of Maastricht University, is designed to help start-ups and scale-ups to make the next leap in their development. It’s a unique combination of a global investment journey, training and mentoring that helps the companies truly learn in a pressure-cooker setting and apply their learning to their global business strategy.

There is room for one or two more companies to join the US programme from 23-25 October in Boston & New York and/or from 26-31 October in California. For more info: contact Chretien Herben of Health~Holland or Haifen Hu of Hyphen Projects.

The second module of the Global Scale-up Program will take place in the Netherlands, on 31 January and 1 February 2018 during Innovation for Health and will focus on Leadership and Finance. More info can be found on the website.

All stakeholders must be considered during the development of healthcare innovations. The end user must occupy a central position to ensure fast adoption of the innovation. Besides patients, healthcare professionals are major end users of such innovations. To facilitate and stimulate more intensive contact and interactions both parties met during the Meet~Up on 6 July 2017.

During this Meet~Up in Amsterdam, a medical board judged five ambitious startups that work on healthcare innovations with a focus on self-reliance; an important theme in the growing elderly population worldwide. One of those startups is Medicine Men, which has developed a support system for the right therapy and medication usage of young adults with HIV. Or the startup Wolk, which provides an ‘airbag’ for elderly people with stability problems. Furthermore, a medical board was specifically compiled for this meeting. From 46 applications, 12 healthcare professionals were carefully selected: from medical specialist to physiotherapist and from general practitioner to rehabilitation specialist.

All startups pitched their innovation in five minutes, followed by fifteen minutes of questions and discussions with the medical board. Besides critical questions about implementation and workability, possible collaborations arose during the meeting and the network drinks. A perfect outcome for both Mobile Doctors and Health~Holland. So stay in touch to receive more information soon about the second edition of this Meet~Up.

Source: Mobile Doctors

From fast and cheap to sustainable and slow, many consumers have a growing interest in pursuing a healthy lifestyle. However obesity is a growing problem, especially amongst children and adolescents. Unhealthy food is widely available at rock-bottom prices and an active membership of a sports club costs a lot of money. The gap between educated and privileged citizens and less fortunate members of society is growing. This is unacceptable, according to executive councillor Victor Everhardt from Utrecht. He and other opinion leaders, such as Machteld Huber (Institute Positive Health), discussed this dilemma and its possible solutions with the audience during the first session of a five-evening series on healthcare innovations, organised by NRC Live and powered by Health~Holland.

The second NRC Live session addressed the technological branch of the sector. Technological developments and capabilities in healthcare have evolved considerably. The advance of medical technology offers opportunities to not only improve healthcare, but to make it more efficient and cheaper as well. However, paving the way for innovation and building a healthy society requires the collaboration of all parties according to Martijn de Bie (Verscentrum Nederland). During this session the cross-compliances and challenges for the development and implementation of eHealth were discussed. One important conclusion was drawn: to further pave the way for technological innovation in healthcare, we must co-create with the patients. Innovations must be realised not from a medical perspective but from a patient perspective.

Some lessons on patient participation can be found in the report of the PatientTOP.

The debate of the second evening was picked up during the third evening on ‘organising smarter and better’ as the implementation of new technologies is not an aim in itself. The art is to organise the services in such a way that technology not only leads to a more efficient healthcare system, but is also closer to the individual patient. However, there are two obstacles: the shift in mentality and the collaboration between different parties. Nevertheless, during this evening great examples of organising smarter and better were discussed: e.g. Elien Phernambucq on the app Fello, developed in collaboration with care consumers and Dieger ten Berge on the program Vitaal Vechtdaal. How can we go from great examples to a new standard? The organisations must be tilted: do not think from the perspective of specialisations, but from the patient’s integral need for care. Technology is a valuable tool as it enables healthcare providers to provide tailored services in an economically acceptable manner.

Two more inspiring sessions on ‘New business models and finance’ and ‘The Great Care Debate’ will follow. During these Thursday night sessions, innovators, visionaries and leaders will engage in a debate about important decisions, obstructions and opportunities. Sign up and participate! Top Sector LSH hopes to meet you there.