In April this year, Jeroen Dijsselbloem (Chairman of the NGF committee) and minister Micky Adriaansens (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy) announced that the NGF will invest 325 million euros in the Oncode-PACT plan to accelerate the preclinical development process of cancer drugs. The approval of Parliament is still needed for this decision, this is expected to finalize after the summer period.

With this investment, Oncode-PACT aims to develop valuable new drug candidates faster and cheaper, thereby improving the quality of life for cancer patients while simultaneously strengthening the future economic earning capacity of the Netherlands.

The Oncode-PACT foundation has been established to ensure that in the coming months all formal obligations will be fulfilled to receive the subsidy and start the program in January 2023. Tale Sliedrecht (currently Head of Strategy at Oncode Institute & Senior Programme Manager at Lygature) and Friso Smit (currently New Business Development Manager at Utrecht Science Park) will act as directors of the foundation. Together with a small team, they will be responsible to establish a detailed operational workplan for the Oncode-PACT program. They will coordinate the set-up of the Oncode-PACT structures and processes required to build the Oncode-PACT infrastructure and execute preclinical drug development projects for innovative cancer treatments.

Friso Smit says: “As co-initiator of Oncode-PACT, I am very proud of the team that started preparations about a year ago and can now really start optimizing the development process for new cancer drugs. Together with many top scientists and companies, we can make a significant contribution to this ambitious goal.”

Tale Sliedrecht adds: “I’m very excited to be part of this wonderful initiative and to work with so many different stakeholders to collectively make a valuable contribution to combat cancer while simultaneously creating an economic impact.”