“We agree on the diagnosis, but not on the treatment”

“Today’s tools to commercialize new inventions in the life sciences are too small, slow and ineffective,” says managing director Ole Kristian Hjelstuen of Inven2 to HealthTalk.

We agree on the diagnosis, but not on the treatment. The development of a strong healthcare industry requires an expanded toolbox and a healthcare system that takes responsibility for developing a Norwegian supplier industry.

The government recently launched health technology and life sciences as one of five investments in future export industries and has set an ambitious goal of doubling health exports from NOK 25 to 50 billion by 2030. The launch came after the government launched a “Roadmap for the health industry” last autumn.

This confirms a political will to invest in this industry. Innovation Norway has been given responsibility for implementing the Government’s export investment in health, and will work closely with the business community to solve this in the best possible way, by the business community matching the funds for the investment with its own funds and working together to make the Norwegian health industry visible on the global arena.

If we are to succeed in developing a strong Norwegian health export industry, there is a need for a strengthening of the domestic market and risk relief.

It is said that exports start at home. However, health innovations often have to go abroad to get their first customer as a result of complicated purchasing processes here at home. With increasing personnel challenges in the health sector, technology will be the solution, and we must ensure that Norwegian solutions that have already been developed can be tested and validated in Norwegian hospitals and municipalities. We must also ensure that the tendering processes in the healthcare institutions allow for the same solutions to be bought in and benefit the patients and users, and healthcare personnel are freed up to do their most important tasks.

Hjelstuen points out that the support apparatus to realize the potential of health innovations does not work well enough. We can agree on this. There are many good helpers to commercialize inventions in health technology and life sciences today, but the support apparatus is too fragmented. The Norwegian Research Council, SIVA, Investinor and Innovation Norway all offer funding for health projects, but none of the players ensure funding throughout the entire journey from research idea to market. This explains why “little comes out the other end”.

Innovation Norway lacks dedicated schemes for companies that have such a high capital requirement, such a long road to market and such a high risk as medical innovations often have. We would like to have that. The companies in this sector experience a larger financial gap in the transition from public financing to private capital than other sectors. This makes it difficult to commercialize research and scale health innovation. The gap is also reinforced by the fact that there are few investors who know the health industry well in Norway.

Norway has the best conditions for increased health exports: We have high competence, leading technology and solutions, a good healthcare system, good health data and a digital population. Innovation Norway looks forward to contributing to the implementation of the export venture with what we hope will be an expanded toolbox with opportunities for financial risk relief and increased capacity to assist Norwegian companies at our offices in Norway and abroad.

Innovation Norway states that in 2023 they allocated NOK 82 million for scaling and commercialization grants for healthcare companies. This accounted for approximately 20 per cent of the total grants for innovation, including start-up grants and innovation contracts. NOK 22 million was awarded to companies in the Oslo and Viken region, which is an important hub for health innovation in Norway. In addition, Innovation Norway awarded NOK 120 million in loans to healthcare companies in 2023.