Hi Ole! Could you start by briefly introducing yourself?
My name is Ole Henriksen. I’m – hmm, when you say introduce yourself, do you mean personally or professionally? I’m an economist – a national economist, and I started my career in the public sector. Working in the public sector was initially essential – being a civil servant felt like an honourable role. I liked the advisory aspect, figuring things out, and making decisions – or rather, the fact that it was the minister or, when I worked at the European Commission, the commissioner who made the decisions.
I was a civil servant for seven years, and after a while, I started to get a bit tired of it – and then I ended up at Novo Nordisk.
Why did you leave the public sector for Novo Nordisk? That seems like quite a shift.
I’ve always worked with healthcare – on many different levels. I started at the Danish Ministry of Health and later joined the European Commission, where I worked at the “top-level” of healthcare. We had meetings with WHO, the Council of Europe, the OECD, and other significant organizations far removed from patients but who believe they considerably influence health. I came to the opposite conclusion – if you want to have an impact on health, it’s the companies working with molecules and things that are injected into people that have the most influence. So, if I wanted to have a real impact, that was the direction I needed to go rather than climbing further up.
When I joined Novo Nordisk, it was in the Public Affairs department, so I was still working with policy. I was responsible for creating the evidence side of it, the socioeconomic models for what various diseases meant for different countries and regions. At Novo, if you had a good idea, it always went somewhere because there were plenty of resources and people who thought what you brought forward was interesting. In the political sphere, the focus was more on what was on the agenda than what was the smartest thing to do.
And then I turned 40.
I had this understanding that at some point, ideally around or before 40, you should have tried being self-employed. So, the day before my 41st birthday, I started a company called Last Mile, which brought research findings that final mile into real life – because we all know there’s much fantastic research out there on improving public health, but very little gets implemented. We know what’s needed, but somehow, we’re not making the right decisions.
A partner and I started the company. He was a PR guy, very skilled at writing, making printed materials, websites, and communication, while I had the evidence part, so we combined our strengths. We were the consultancy that could bring together both aspects with the aim of helping ensure the things we know need to be done actually get done. The issue is that these things aren’t always communicated or understood correctly.
I thought the problem at Novo Nordisk was that I was travelling too much, but with the new business, I travelled even more—it was worldwide. This was fascinating, but the issue was that I had small kids and was away too much, working too much. It was a small business, so I had to pick up the slack and work double every time we lost an employee.
Then, I got offered a job at my most agreeable client, an American pharmaceutical company, AbbVie, where I worked with market access. This coincided with the implementation of the Danish Medicines Council, which made health economics documentation for drug effectiveness very relevant. So, everything within HTA (Health Technology Assessment) became huge in Denmark, and I had already worked with that from the start. So, the timing was quite good – until our most significant drug went off-patent, and I became self-employed again, after which I joined the biotech company Seagen for a few years. There, I was offered a fantastic job as Market Access Manager for the UK, Ireland, and the Nordic region. It was great fun, but I was laid off three years later, and now I’m here at Nordic Healthcare Group.
I’m working on many of the same things I’ve been doing for years. I’ve always worked with registry research. At the European Commission, I helped create what today is called the European Health Data Space, where you can compare and benchmark all sorts of things – so I’ve always worked with data and health data, which I’m still doing a lot of now. I’m happy that all these fantastic registries are being used globally now to reveal all sorts of health insights I’d never imagined would be possible at such a detailed level. It’s a privilege to work with something like that.
I’ve also worked extensively with HTA, where we blend data and RWE (Real World Evidence) with the methods we’ve used in economics over the years.
Throughout my career, I’ve been – I’m very much a team player, actually – when I’m part of a company, I’m part of the company and the team. But being on the team can sometimes be frustrating in a larger organization with internal bureaucracy and meeting structures – so being an associate here lets me take things with a grain of salt. I don’t get frustrated in the same way. It’s the same for the clients I work with – I’m exposed to many internal meetings, but since they’re clients and I have my own little business, it doesn’t frustrate me as much.
Will this interview be translated into English, or will it just be published in Danish?
Hmm, I’m not actually sure.
It’s funny. Here in our business, we have both public and private clients – the private ones are very international, while the public ones are very national and local. Operating in both markets offers many advantages. There are synergies we can leverage because we have extensive knowledge of the public healthcare system in Denmark, which we can use on the private life-sciences side. The international perspective we get from the private market also helps us develop methods in the public sector. So, I think there’s a significant advantage in working in both markets in a company that focuses solely on healthcare.
Speaking of – How did you get into the healthcare field? When did it start?
You could choose health economics in school, but the problem was that the curriculum was in French. I mean, the University of Copenhagen in the 90s.. It scared many people away. So, I focused more on finance – lots of statistics, monetary policy, that sort of thing – and my thesis was on economic policy. One of the directors of the National Bank of Denmark was an examiner on my thesis, so I was invited for an interview for a job – it didn’t go very well; it was a bit embarrassing. I thought it had gone fine and all that, but anyway. Then I saw an ad in the DJØF magazine (a member’s publication for the Danish Union of Economists and Lawyers), and the next job that caught my interest was at the Ministry of Health, so I applied, interviewed, and got the job. When I started, I realized we had all these registries, and if you ever wanted to do something with statistics, this was the place to be. Even back then, we had so much data. So what started as a “well, I’ll see if I can get the job” thing turned into me feeling privileged to work there. We changed ministers almost every three months – I think I had four in two years. And then there was the 2001 election campaign, which was almost entirely about healthcare waiting times. That’s when the whole system of waiting-time guarantees and free hospital choice came about. And then Lars Løkke Rasmussen led the major reform that abolished counties and introduced regions. It was fascinating.
If we look at your work today, is there a specific area or topic you’re particularly happy to work on?
There are actually many things I find interesting, but the data part is still the most exciting. We’re now doing much more complicated analyses and exciting study designs, partly because we now have the National Hospital Medicines Register, which lets us see what people are actually treated with.
We have a specific project in a rare disease that we’re analyzing to support a drug’s approval at the EMA (European Medicines Agency), allowing it to be used. That we can provide data that helps an authority like EMA make decisions about a drug, especially for a rare disease, is extremely rewarding. It’s a privilege to work on something like that.
Our approach to data access is crucial in the rare disease area because everything we do is population-based. We have information on an entire population going back to 1977, which means we can trace the natural history of certain rare diseases, something not commonly possible because they’re so rare. But with such extensive data, we have significantly more cases than would normally be found. That makes it really fascinating.
Now, this question sounds like you’re about to retire, but looking back over everything you’ve worked on, what’s been your most important takeaway from working in healthcare?
That everyone is good at something. Everyone can contribute. I’ve never worked with anyone who hasn’t brought something to the table. That’s what it’s all about. And it surprises me – sometimes I think, “We’ll probably never manage this,” but then we do because we all have something to contribute.
Working in healthcare has always felt meaningful to me. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what feels most meaningful. I’ve been part of some tremendous things, like the tobacco convention and putting warning labels on cigarette packs, but it’s also huge to do something with a rare disease that helps maybe 50 people in Denmark. It feels significant when it’s that direct – “this treatment is for YOU.”
Ole, I’ve heard that you’re heading to the ISPOR conference soon. Can you tell me a bit about why you’re excited to attend?
ISPOR is very interesting because it’s a small world – it’s the International Health Economics Conference. Still, it’s a relatively small world that travels around to these conferences, so you know quite a few people there. I think I went to the first one in 2007 in Dublin – and since then, it has grown. It was a small conference back then, but it’s not tiny anymore. I’ve worked with many people from all over the world, so I know colleagues from Hungary or China, for example, who’ll also attend.
It’s also exciting to see how the field is evolving. There are many methods I’ve learned through ISPOR, such as “now we’re doing it this way,” and then I go home and explore how it’s done, so it’s also professionally interesting to attend. But it’s mainly in the corners of ISPOR where you learn something because sometimes, the main sessions feel a bit overwhelming – 10,000 people, and then there’s another panel discussion with people talking to each other. But the courses around it, the small sessions about specific disease areas, and the poster and oral presentations are fantastic to attend.
What do you hope to get out of it this year?
I always aim to meet new people whenever I go to a conference, so I hope for that this year as well. Every time I’ve attended, I’ve met new people, and they’re typically connections that last many years, so I’m definitely hoping for that and looking forward to it. It’s also quite lovely to go to Barcelona in November instead of staying in Copenhagen.
What advice would you give to young or less experienced consultants attending the conference?
That’s a tricky question – it’s one of those questions that makes me sound like an old person, no matter how I answer it. I can only say they should do as I do, which makes me sound so old. For young people, it’s also about building relationships and learning something new. Especially for young people, it’s about learning something new every day. But that also applies to me, so in that sense, I’m actually quite young.
So, the best advice I can give is to be as open and outgoing as possible. That’s the only way you’ll talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to.
Participating in discussions also helps you learn a lot. I could have been better at engaging in debates initially, so that’s another good tip: you get much more out of it if you join in; it becomes more engaging for both yourself and others.
Any tips and tricks on how to get the most out of a big conference like ISPOR?
Have a beer with some people, for heaven’s sake. That’s what it’s all about – relationships. Follow your interest. You can only excel in what you’re interested in – so stick with that.
Okay, let’s move back to the general topic of healthcare. Where do you see the biggest potential for healthcare in Denmark – if you had to sum it up briefly?
Well, I am very brief… Just kidding. Do you mean cost-saving potentials?
No, just potential in general.
Our biggest advantage is universal healthcare coverage. If someone has a health problem, no one in Denmark doubts they can go to the hospital.
There’s enormous potential in thinking holistically, focusing on public health and the whole population. It’s huge. When I go abroad, people ask about it. What it’s really like to live in a country where you can figure things out and where people trust each other.
But I think our healthcare system has become over-bureaucratized, and there’s some potential if we sit down – or stand up – and figure out our core mission. How do we organize our healthcare system so that we’re not doing unnecessary things, all sorts of things that aren’t core tasks, which is to ensure that sick people get well.
What do you see as the biggest challenge for the healthcare system?
We’ve lost sight of the core mission – we say that we’re short of hands, but we forget that we’ve added many hands, so where did they go? And I don’t think they’re always focused on the core mission.
If you could choose, and just create a project from scratch – what would your dream project be?
These projects likely involve helping bring technology to the market with what we can do here at NHG. Every time we get new technology to a new patient group that we know will benefit from it, it’s a dream project—it’s very concrete, and it’s not just one dream project; it’s many.
It’s very motivating for me. Fortunately, I do this quite often for many different clients, so it’s hard to pinpoint the dream project in that sense. But definitely, it has to be challenging.
Challenging?
The ones where data is lacking and where the documentation is challenging, such as with rare diseases where it’s difficult to conduct clinical trials that include enough people to have sufficient power to say what’s right—that’s where we can help, and that’s very motivating.
Okay, finishing off with another question about you. How do you think your colleagues at NHG would describe you?
Hmm. Yeah. I don’t know. I hope – no, I think – no, they can see I have a bit of humour. And that I don’t always take things so seriously. But it sometimes surprises people that I do take some things very seriously and can be pretty firm, so it’s a bit ambivalent in that way. I hope they see that I’m optimistic and try to stay positive, and don’t just stand around the coffee machine complaining. But at the same time, I only think it’s amusing if we’re producing something substantial. Something of quality. I think that’s how I’m perceived.
I’m a bit of a performance junkie; I like it when we do something well. I’m the type who celebrates the little solutions, the small wins with myself, thinking about how good a solution it was. Terrible.
Do you have anything else you want to add?
No, not really.
Okay, then. Well, thank you for the chat.
Well, thank you.