Yesterday, a vibrant room full of scientists, entrepreneurs, government officials, knowledge institutes and companies kicked off the first national Biotech Booster event in Utrecht.
After an opening speech by Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, who highlighted all the opportunities that biotech can bring to society, Biotech Booster director Nettie Buitelaar and Constantijn Van Oranje-Nassau discussed how we can turn the excellent biotech knowledge we have in the Netherlands into companies and innovations that reach society. After that, Dan Jing Wu (VivArt-X) and Linda Dijkshoorn (EV Biotech) shared their stories and experiences of the long and bumpy road from science to entrepreneurship, capped off by Jan De Kerpel (Van Lanschot Kempen) on how the road ahead looks like for biotech companies trying to scale and reach the market and their full potential.
For the Netherlands, there are enormous possibilities of making more of our excellent biotech knowledge position and turning that into valuable businesses and products, so that society at large can benefit. That is also exactly the reason for Nationaal Groeifonds project Biotech Booster to see the light, which hollandbio has helped set up in close and unique collaboration with Universiteiten van Nederland, Vereniging Hogescholen, DSM and J&J Innovative Medicine Nederland.
We look forward to Biotech Booster officially kicking off its program and activities in April and cannot wait to contribute and work together to make it a longlasting success with our founding partners and the team of Nettie Buitelaar, Rein Strijker, Keshen Mathura, Dorus Velema, Rachel van Beem, Cornelis Mijnders, Stefan Ellenbroek, Maurits J.M. Burgering, Alexander Jones and many others in the coming years.
#biotech #innovation #entrepreneurship #science #techtransfer #valorisation
