Marie Kobro Hanche-Olsen

Doctoral research fellow at University of South-Eastern Norway

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in International Management and a Master’s degree in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. My professional background spans across the health technology and innovation sector, where I have held roles such as Product Manager at a medical health firm and project leader for the Nordic Living Lab Alliance. At Oslo Municipality, I was responsible for testing welfare technology and innovative health solutions. In recent years, before starting my PhD, I worked as CEO of an incubator, supporting numerous startups on their growth journeys. Currently, my doctoral research focuses on scaling strategies in digital health startups, with a particular emphasis on the processes, strategic choices, and business model adaptation involved. Through this work, I aim to generate insights that can support both research and practice in health innovation.

Tell us about your project!

This project explores how digital health startups scale their solutions in a complex and highly regulated sector. The focus is on the strategies these firms employ, how the scaling process unfolds from early piloting to internationalization, and how business models are adapted or replicated along the way. The aim is to understand which strategic choices enable growth and success, and how contextual factors such as regulation, market structure, and technological maturity influence outcomes. Using qualitative case studies combined with quantitative survey data, the project investigates the interplay between strategy, process, and business model dynamics. The study contributes to research on entrepreneurship and innovation in health technology, while offering practical insights for entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers in the healthcare sector.


“The aim is to understand which strategic choices enable growth and success, and how contextual factors such as regulation, market structure, and technological maturity influence outcomes”

— Marie Kobro Hanche-Olsen on her research project “How Healthcare startups navigate business-to-government relationships: Challenges, Strategies, and Scaling Pathways”