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Ensuring the success of PERSIST-SEQ through effective partnership management and targeted communication
PERSIST-SEQ’s partner Lygature supports the consortium by providing partnership management as well as communication and dissemination expertise. Lygature was instrumental in the set-up phase of the consortium. In close collaboration with the Oncode Institute, Lygature coordinated and supported the entire two-stage application process, followed by the preparation of the final PERSIST-SEQ agreement. PERSIST-SEQ PI Herman Verheij explains Lygature’s added value in the project and its role on a day-to-day basis.
About Lygature
Lygature is a not-for-profit organization based in the Netherlands. Lygature drives the development of new medical solutions for patients by managing public-private partnerships involving academia, industry and society. Lygature has 15 years of experience in starting and managing large multistakeholder partnerships in the life sciences. Lygature brings together people in many different disciplines and organizations – to pioneer solutions in medical technology and pharmacotherapy, and to serve patients worldwide.
What is the unique contribution of Lygature in PERSIST-SEQ?
Overall, Lygature provides Program Management and Communication services to the project, and financial support to the coordinator (Oncode). No other partner in PERSIST-SEQ could provide these services.
Together with AstraZeneca and the Oncode Institute, Lygature coordinates and manages this multi-stakeholder program on a day-to-day basis. Among others, Lygature is responsible for facilitating internal communication and information distribution within the consortium. Moreover, Lygature ensures transparency, stimulates collaboration between partners and monitors the effective execution of the work plan and its progress. Other activities include creation and alignment of work processes, resource management and timely reporting of project deliverables and activities. In addition, Lygature provides to the consortium its specifically developed IT platform (on Sharepoint), which will include a publication approval system to safeguard partners’ IP and legitimate rights, and enable smooth dissemination of consortium results.
What is more, Lygature leads the Communication and Dissemination work on PERSIST-SEQ. This work starts with the development of the project communication and dissemination strategy. The goal of this strategy is to raise the public and scientific awareness of the project and communicate its progress to its target audiences as well as to disseminate PERSIST-SEQ’s results to the scientific community and the general public in the most efficient way. Lygature will achieve these goals through regular communication on PERSIST-SEQ’s website and social media channels, and public outreach through targeted communication campaigns on the project online channels as well as through presentations about PERSIST-SEQ on scientific and non-scientific events.
Why is Lygature’s role important in this project?
Herman Verheij, Lygature, PERSIST-SEQ PI, Lead WP1Our role is important because such a public-private consortium needs an independent and neutral party that helps the consortium reach its goals.
What is the most challenging aspect of the PERSIST-SEQ goals, in your opinion?
By now it’s clear that getting enough samples sequenced might be a big challenge, although we are working very hard to get this sorted.
What is your opinion of these large collaborations with industry partners, academia and other stakeholders?
In my vast experience working for public-private partnerships, I have always seen that there’s a win-win situation w.r.t. such collaborations. By working together, all partners can achieve much more than they could when working in isolation or in small collaborations.
What do you enjoy the most about your work on PERSIST-SEQ?
As always: working with all these people from different backgrounds, and different companies and institutions. Each and every one of them has a different and interesting story to tell!
What is challenging about your work?
Keeping an eye on the project goals and timelines, and alerting people when adjustments need to be made is always a challenge. Managing all the administrative work for the project, which nowadays is quite a lot for Innovative Medicines Initiative projects, can also be quite a challenge!
What is the importance of the project for the wider field of cancer research?
Therapeutic resistance has always been a major problem in the field of cancer research – the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. PERSIST-SEQ could help elucidate these mechanisms, and hence lead to new therapeutics that would minimize the chance of resistance.