Nordic Life Science 1
The Nordic House in the Faroe Islands boost the a
ttractiveness of the Nordic countries as partners in research. Such activities will also promote knowledge transfer, as well as increased efficiency and research output,” says Maria Nilsson, Special Adviser, Nordic Programme on Health and Welfare, NordForsk. “This has shown to be increasingly important in times such as these, where the Nordic countries have rapidly responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and have participated in international trials, sharing protocols etc. NTA also quickly opened a small call for proposals targeting COVID-19 to meet the demand for increased joint Nordic activities within its target area,” she says. As for the future of Nordic life sciences, Arne Flåøyen and his colleagues at NordForsk see an already strong 32 NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG industry and they look forward to further developing improved diagnostics, targeted treatments and research and development within precision medicine. “The Nordic life science industry has a high innovation capacity with many, and strong, SMEs. In addition, big pharma industry recognizes the high Nordic potential with its state of the art research infrastructure, including its high quality health data,” says Flåøyen. He also says that there is a willingness both at the political and the professional level to establish strong collaboration between the health care system, academia and industry. “These initiatives are ongoing at national levels, but as the Nordic countries are culturally alike and have similar views on health care, an overarching Nordic life science approach would secure a larger population within small therapeutic areas as well as accumulation of knowledge.” NLS