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discovery and development, she says. “I also work
ed as consultant for different pharma and biotech clients for a few years before I moved to Norway and joined the newly created Oslo Cancer Cluster team in 2008, at first in a consulting role. My role and my tasks are very varied and they have evolved a lot since I started.” Jutta Heix develops and leverages the international network of OCC and its members, both when it comes to business development (scouting and innovation days for pharma companies and investors, dedicated events, partnering conferences and supporting individual member companies), and scientific and translational research (where the annual Cancer Crosslinks is one of OCC’s flagship events). She is also actively working with the Norwegian SPARK Academic Innovation Program led by Morten Egeberg, UiO: Lifescience, University of Oslo. Through the program, mentoring, involvement of industry experts, milestone-based funding and education to further develop ideas are provided. “It is impressive to see how the SPARKees grow during the two-year project period. The program identifies promising academic innovation projects, accelerates and professionalizes the project development aiming to turn good ideas into great products benefitting patients and society. SPARK Norway has also inspired the University of Oslo to launch their new Life Science Growth House and changed the university’s approach towards entrepreneurship, innovation and collaboration with external partners,” says Jutta. Since last year she has also been the project lead for the public-private Norwegian Precision Cancer Medicine Implementation Consortium (CONNECT), one of four national interconnected initiatives in precision cancer medicine (PCMs). “Implementing precision treatment for cancer patients in a public healthcare system is a great opportunity to increase patient care and to use limited resources more effectively. However, this is an extremely complex endeavor and requires a coalition of resources, expertise and partnering that is beyond the capacity and resources of any single organization. CONNECT addresses this by providing an arena/initiatives for all stakeholders – university hospitals, regulators and payors, industry partners and patients via the Norwegian Cancer Society for a balanced and informed approach and debate,” explains Jutta. 34