The success of their endeavors created a solid foundation for many of the initiatives we see today, such as the Oncode Institute for cancer research, the RegMed XB program in regenerative medicine, and similar initiatives in cardiology.

What has impressed me most is the life science community’s determination to continue with this collaborative model by finding new partners and creating new consortia, despite the roller-coaster of funding over the last few years. I am convinced that CTMM contributed substantially to this process, and on behalf of the entire CTMM team, it is something I am extremely proud of.

One of the things we learned in CTMM, and I am sure the same applies to TI Pharma and BMM, is that collaboration is easily said but significantly harder to put into practice. Sometimes we learned the hard way, but we learned the lessons well. As a result, the knowledge and experience acquired by the program managers in all three Top Institutes is second to none. Fortunately, it has not been lost. With the careers of many of these program managers now embedded within the Lygature organisation or, for example, the Netherlands’ university medical centers, I think it’s safe to say that the collaborative model is here to stay. These people have seen what it can achieve and know that it’s the way forward.

Without a doubt, the merger of CTMM and TI Pharma to create Lygature was crucial to capturing everything that had been built up. With just a little investment from the government, Lygature helped to optimally position many of the research collaborations established during the CTMM and TI Pharma programs in wider European funding initiatives. For example, we have been extremely successful in the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). On the public-private partnership side it has helped us create new consortia, and on the executive side it has allowed us to play an instrumental role in contributing to and shaping new research frameworks like Health-RI and new research agendas such as the National Research Agenda (Nederlandse Wetenschaps Agenda). In that respect, Lygature has successfully built a bridge from the past to the future – one that promises to pay even greater dividends as funding restrictions begin to ease.

Like all collaborations, success depends on individuals being able to find others who share their goals and vision of the future, which is why Lygature’s annual Partnerships MeetUp is so important. By providing an informal atmosphere in which people can share ideas, they have become a breeding ground for new initiatives and new consortia, not just for the academic partners but for the vital SMEs, industry players, health foundations, etc. that are needed to take fundamental research through to clinical practice. The pipeline is vibrant with ideas, which means the future is looking good.