This year’s applications were evaluated by a Selection Committee of senior leaders from pharma and diagnostics, investors and innovation partners, combining scientific, commercial and investment expertise. 

Following an initial review, 33 startups were invited to Selection Days, where founders presented their technologies, answered questions from the committee and explored how their solutions could advance Pharma R&D. 

After two days of presentations, interviews and deliberation, the committee selected a diverse cohort of founders from across Switzerland and Europe developing technologies across the Pharma R&D value chain. 

The cohort will begin their three-month acceleration journey with the in-person Kickoff Bootcamp in Basel in September. Thanks to weekly cohort and 1:1 sessions, they will then keep working with mentors, pharmaceutical partners and industry experts to shape their value proposition, strengthen their technologies, validate use cases and explore collaboration opportunities. 

The program will conclude with the Innovation Showcase in early December, where the startups will present their progress to the Basel innovation ecosystem. 

Up to three startups will then be selected for DayOne NEXT, the post-accelerator support program providing up to CHF 100,000 in funding and in-kind services, as well as 12 months’ desk space at Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area.

Interested in joining the next cohort? 

If you’re an early-stage TechBio or HealthTech startup developing solutions for Pharma R&D, we’d love to hear from you. The next Call for Applications opens in March 2027. Learn more about the DayOne Accelerator and express your interest here. 

Many organizations are already experimenting with AI. That is not the issue.

The issue is that too many of these experiments sit in isolation. Individual teams launch promising pilots. Technical groups test new tools. Business units look for quick wins. But the initiatives often remain disconnected from each other and from the strategic outcomes that matter most.

Petra described this as the “thousand flowers bloom” stage of AI adoption. It creates activity, but not necessarily impact.

For pharma and healthtech leaders, a pivotal question is “Which part of the value chain should we start to reinvent?”

That shift matters because clinical development is not held back by one single bottleneck. Delays come from handoffs, rework, fragmented data, sequential decision-making and limited visibility across the full development lifecycle. Automating one task can help. Connecting the system can change the performance of the whole process.

Petra made a sharp distinction between optimization and reinvention. 

Optimization improves the current process. Reinvention asks whether the process would look the same if it were designed today with AI, data and digital orchestration built in from the start. 

In clinical R&D, that distinction is critical. Industry pressure is rising through patent expirations, productivity challenges and more complex trials. Incremental improvements alone are unlikely to close the gap. 

For Petra, the answer sits across three dimensions: work, workforce and workbench. 

Work means moving from siloed tasks to end-to-end intelligent workflows. Workforce means preparing teams to work with AI agents, not just digital tools. Workbench means building the secure, interoperable digital backbone that allows people, agents, systems and data to operate together. 

Without all three, companies risk applying advanced technology to broken workflows. The result may be a faster version of the same problem. 

One of the clearest examples is the journey from IND to first in-human dose.

Today, this phase is heavily coordination driven. Feasibility, protocol design, site selection, vendor setup, contracting and activation often happen sequentially. Each handoff creates room for delay, rework and misalignment.

AI orchestration could change that pattern. Instead of waiting for one step to finish before the next begins, clinical teams could move toward parallel execution, continuous evidence feedback, adaptive protocol refinement and real-time visibility.

The benefit is not only speed. It is adaptability.

If a site drops out, patient recruitment slows, or a regulatory requirement changes, an AI-orchestrated workflow could support faster replanning and better decision-making. The system becomes less brittle because it is continuously learning and adjusting.

Petra also shared a concrete example of reinvention through AI: the idea of designing a study in one day. 

The concept brings together complementary AI capabilities. One solution supports evidence-based protocol generation. Another adds simulation, using computational models to test scenarios before a protocol is finalized. 

Together, these capabilities could create a closed protocol optimization loop: design, simulate, refine, generate, monitor against actuals and amend only when the evidence demands it. 

The potential gains are tangible. Petra pointed to examples including faster protocol development, faster implementation in systems such as EDC and eTMF, fewer amendments and scenario analyses that can be run in minutes rather than days. 

For clinical teams, this is more than a productivity story. Better upfront design can reduce downstream friction. Simulation can expose risks before patients are enrolled. Connected workflows can help teams make decisions with stronger evidence and less guesswork. 

The hard part regarding AI adoption is not just the technology.

Petra emphasized that agentic AI requires clear business alignment from the start. Business teams need to define the outcomes and decision boundaries. Technology teams need to build for real workflows, not abstract capability. Governance must clarify accountability, oversight and trust when agents support or take decisions.

Architecture also matters. Multi-agent orchestration and enterprise system integration are complex. They need to be designed deliberately, especially in regulated environments where data quality, traceability and human oversight are essential.

And then comes the practical test: will people use it?

For pharma and healthtech innovators, that may be the most important takeaway. Agentic AI will not transform clinical trials because the technology is impressive. It will transform clinical trials when it is connected to the right workflows, trusted by the right users and measured against the right outcomes. 

The next wave of clinical innovation will not be powered by pilots alone. It will come from clinical systems that learn, adapt and improve with every decision. 

Find about our upcoming Open Mics and other DayOne events by signing up to our newsletter here. 

About the expert

Dr. Petra Jantzer is Senior Managing Director and Global Client Account Partner at Accenture, where she advises CEOs and senior leaders across life sciences, medical technology and digital health. With more than 20 years of experience in consulting and life sciences, she focuses on digital transformation, growth strategy and innovation across the full life sciences value chain.  

Petra holds a Ph.D. in immunology and an honors degree in molecular biology. She is also President and Co-Founder of Advance, a cross-industry association in Switzerland focused on advancing gender equality in business, and represents Switzerland in the G20 EMPOWER initiative. 

On 7 May 2026, DayOne hosted a “Ask Me Anything” webinar to answer your most pressing questions regarding the DayOne Accelerator program, including what the program entails, which ventures are in scope and how the selection process works. 

In case you missed it, please find the top questions and answers below. 

Q1: What types of startups are eligible for the program? How many get selected? 

A: The program supports startups developing tech solutions for pharma companies across areas such as software platforms for drug discovery, clinical trials optimization, data collection, digital or imaging biomarkers, remote patient monitoring in decentralized clinical trials, and companion diagnostics for patient identification and stratification. The main criterion is whether the solution addresses a meaningful pharma R&D challenge or fits into pharma R&D workflows and operations. 

Companies working on enabling technologies, patient coordination or pharma-facing platforms may be eligible depending on their use case and value proposition in the context of pharma R&D. 

Among all applications submitted, 15 startups will get selected to join the 2026 cohort. 

Q2: What stage should startups be at to apply? 

A: The program is designed primarily for early-stage startups (pre-Seed to pre-Series A). Each year, applicants successfully selected for the cohort are a mix of companies that range from university spin-offs with strong scientific validation to more mature ventures with pilots, partnerships, customers or revenue. Startups already collaborating with pharma companies are often a particularly strong fit, especially if they are looking to refine their strategy, positioning, commercialization approach, or scale beyond initial pilots. 

Both incorporated startups and non-incorporated spin-offs are eligible, as long as they have enough operational runway and team bandwidth to actively participate in the program. 

Q3: Is there specific focus/theme or are there funding requirements? 

A: The program does not focus on specific therapeutic areas and does not require a particular funding background or institutional support. Instead, it looks for startups solving relevant challenges for pharma companies in R&D, across different technologies and domains. 

The program is generally best suited for companies that still benefit from mentoring, ecosystem access and early-stage investor exposure, rather than later-stage ventures focused primarily on fundraising or business development. 

Q4: What activities and topics are included in the program? 

A: The program combines three main elements: personalized mentoring, industry insights sessions, and networking opportunities.  

The program includes two mandatory in-person events in Basel, Switzerland, to kick off the acceleration (Kickoff Bootcamp on 7-8 September 2026) and close the program (Innovation Showcase in early December 2026). 

Each startup gets paired with a dedicated mentor to receive 1:1 support primarily to help them shape or refine their value proposition to pharma companies, and can also cover other topics such as strategy, business model development, product positioning, etc. 

The program also includes webinars, founder exchanges and sessions with pharma professionals covering topics such as: 

Topics above are illustrative only, as the program is specifically tailored each year to match the major needs of each annual cohort. 

In addition, startups gain access to multiple networking opportunities and the chance to connect with pharma stakeholders, investors, expand industry networks, and build meaningful relationships within the Basel life sciences ecosystem. 

To support startups’ participation in the in-person events (Kickoff Bootcamp and Innovation Showcase) held in Basel during the program period, DayOne provides a travel grant for each team.

Travel grant amount depends on the country or region: 

Note: the program does not provide direct “warm introductions” or mass contact lists. Instead, startups are expected to actively engage with the network opportunities provided. 

Q5: Does the program help startups find pilots with pharma companies? 

A: The program helps startups refine their strategy, positioning and understanding of how to work effectively with pharma companies.  

The program does not directly arrange pilot projects or perform matchmaking. That said, startups do pitch to pharma executives during the program, which can naturally lead to further discussions if there is strong alignment. 

Q6: How intensive is the program, and who should participate? 

A: The program includes 1:1 mentoring sessions, expert interactive sessions, kick-off bootcamp, closing innovation showcase and networking opportunities, but the overall intensity depends on how actively each startup engages. Teams that invest time, actively contribute to sessions, and apply the feedback received tend to gain the most value. 

The program is designed to work well even for small teams, including startups with only 3–4 people. At least one senior team member should participate consistently throughout the program, while additional team members can join sessions relevant to their expertise, such as sales, product, regulatory or technical topics. 

Q7: How does the tailored mentoring work? 

A: Each of the 15 startups from the cohort gets matched with a mentor for the duration of the program. Matchmaking is done by the DayOne team and takes into consideration both startups and mentors’ preferences. Mentors and startups are carefully paired based on the startup’s stage, goals and specific needs, with expertise ranging from technical and regulatory topics to medical and commercialization. 

Startups typically schedule one mentoring session per week, totalling around 12–15 hours of mentoring throughout the program. The mentoring format and pace are flexible and mutually agreed between the startup and their mentor, ranging from short weekly check-ins to deeper strategy sessions.  

Upon discussion with the program manager, if similar needs arise from the cohort, additional cohort expert sessions can also be added during the program. 

Q8: Does the program arrange NDAs between mentors and startups? 

A: Not directly. DayOne’s contract with mentors includes a confidentiality clause. However, startups may independently establish NDAs with their mentor, pharma companies, investors, experts or partners involved in the program if needed. DayOne signs an NDA with participating ventures during DayOne NEXT, the hands-on post-acceleration phase (open to up to 3 startups following the initial accelerator program). However, because the program involves multiple startups sharing common spaces and activities, startups are encouraged not to disclose highly confidential information during open sessions. 

Q9: Is AI used in the selection process? 

A: AI may be used internally to support administrative tasks such as summarizing applications or improving review processes, but all applications are pre-screened by a human, then reviewed in-depth by human reviewers and Selection Committee members. Selection decisions are not made by AI. 

Q10: How are startups selected for the post-accelerator program, DayOne NEXT? 

A: Selection is based on each startup’s performance and engagement throughout the 3-month program, including progress made, responsiveness to feedback, mentor and industry evaluations, and overall growth potential. The program also considers whether establishing a presence in Basel aligns strategically with the company’s stage and goals. To unlock the non-dilutive cash grant (up to 50,000 CHF) and further funding (such as R&D incentives from the Basel-Stadt canton), some R&D activities should be performed in Basel. 

We hope this answers your questions and you are ready to apply to the Accelerator. You can also check out the FAQ here. The deadline is 31 May 2026. Apply here.  

We are excited to announce that Lemna Bio, a standout company from the DayOne Accelerator 2025 cohort, is the first startup selected to join DayOne NEXT, our long-term support program for the most promising DayOne founders. 

DayOne NEXT reflects a simple belief: the journey doesn’t end with the accelerator – it’s just the beginning. Designed as a hands-on, long-term venture builder, the program supports a small number of exceptional startups as they build, scale and anchor their R&D in the Basel Area. Participants receive a non-dilutive CHF 50,000 grant, up to 12 months of tailored operational and strategic support (valued at up to CHF 50,000), workspace at the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area, and deep integration into the region’s world-leading life sciences ecosystem.  

By working side-by-side with founders, DayOne NEXT provides not just resources, but sustained, highly personalized support – from fractional expertise and mentorship to ecosystem access and visibility opportunities – helping startups transition from early traction to long-term impact.  

Lemna Bio is a techbio company building a structural AI platform to decode and validate hard intracellular targets. While advances in chemistry are unlocking new ways to engage biological targets, failures in drug discovery are still largely driven by incorrect target selection or an incomplete understanding of how to engage them in a disease context. Lemna Bio develops the tools, intelligence and experimental data to help drug discovery teams de-risk target biology and disease mechanisms early – before committing to costly chemistry efforts. 

Commenting on the milestone, Moustafa Houmani, Co-founder & CEO of Lemna Bio, said, “DayOne provided us with rare, first-hand insights into how pharmaceutical companies operate – insights that typically take years to acquire. Being selected for DayOne NEXT is an exciting opportunity to continue building with the right support and ecosystem around us.”  

With Lemna Bio as the first company in DayOne NEXT, we are proud to deepen our commitment to the most promising founders in our community and to support them as they scale breakthrough innovations at the intersection of technology and pharma R&D. 

In March, the global healthtech community gathered in Basel for the inaugural health.tech global summit, bringing together leaders from across healthcare, technology, investment and policy. Over three days, the summit positioned itself as a new international meeting point for the rapidly evolving healthtech ecosystem. 

With around 6,000 participants from more than 60 countries, the event brought together startups, pharma companies, hospital leaders, policymakers and investors to explore how technology is reshaping healthcare. 

As a proud partner of the event, DayOne played an active role throughout the event – powering the startup competition, supporting the investor speed dating and hosting a booth on the exhibition floor. DayOne also led several panel discussions on relevant topics, including early-stage healthtech fundamentals, Basel as a healthtech hub, and investment in tech-enabled pharma R&D.

Hosted in one of the world’s most important life-science hubs, the summit leveraged Basel’s unique ecosystem – home to major pharmaceutical companies, research institutions and health startups. 

The goal of the event was clear: create a cross-industry platform where healthcare and technology leaders can collaborate to solve some of the most pressing challenges in medicine. 

Over the course of the summit, attendees engaged in: 

More than 200 exhibitors and more than 150 startups participated, while hundreds of investors explored emerging healthtech opportunities. 

A recurring theme across the conference was the growing role of artificial intelligence as core healthcare infrastructure rather than an experimental tool. 

Discussions highlighted how AI is already transforming multiple parts of the healthcare value chain, including: 

Speakers emphasized that the next major challenge is not building AI tools but integrating them safely into real clinical workflows. 

As healthcare becomes more digital, conversations at the summit also focused heavily on data governance and regulatory frameworks. 

Experts debated how policymakers and innovators can balance innovation with patient safety, privacy and transparency. With new regulatory initiatives emerging globally, many sessions examined how healthcare systems can build trusted digital infrastructures that enable responsible data sharing. 

The consensus: interoperable data systems will be essential for unlocking the full potential of AI in healthcare. 

Another major theme was the shift toward predictive and preventive healthcare. Advances in digital health tools – such as wearable devices, remote monitoring technologies and AI-driven risk modeling – are enabling healthcare providers to move beyond treating illness to identifying health risks earlier and intervening sooner.  

This shift could fundamentally reshape healthcare systems by improving outcomes while reducing long-term costs. 

The summit also served as a major platform for healthtech startups and investors. 

More than 150 startups, including many DayOne alumni startups, showcased innovations ranging from AI diagnostics to digital therapeutics and healthcare infrastructure software. The startup competition, powered by DayOne, highlighted several emerging companies, with finalists pitching their solutions to a panel of global investors and industry leaders. The competition concluded with PulseMedica taking home the CHF 10,000 cash prize from University Hospital Basel. 

DayOne also supported the investor speed dating, including short, focused four-minute conversations with fast switching between participants. 

Investor interest was particularly strong in areas such as AI-powered diagnostics, remote patient monitoring, digital therapeutics and healthcare data platforms. The event reinforced the sense that healthtech remains one of the most active areas for venture investment in the life sciences sector.  

The summit featured a diverse range of voices from medicine, science, technology and global policy. Among the notable speakers was Anthony Fauci, who shared insights on global health challenges and the future of biomedical innovation. 

Former astronaut Tim Peake delivered a session on innovation, human performance and the future of health in space and on Earth, highlighting how research conducted aboard the International Space Station is driving advances in human performance monitoring and healthcare technologies on Earth. 

In another session, Amal Clooney explored how AI can serve as a powerful equaliser – expanding access to justice, protecting human rights and empowering women worldwide. 

Other sessions examined topics such as the ethics of AI in healthcare, digital transformation in hospitals and the future of pharmaceutical research. 

The debut of the health.tech global summit demonstrated strong momentum for a new international platform dedicated to the intersection of healthcare and technology. 

More importantly, the conversations in Basel highlighted a clear transition for the industry: digital health is moving beyond experimentation and toward large-scale implementation. As AI, data platforms and connected health tools mature, the next challenge will be turning innovation into real-world impact – improving care delivery, expanding access and ultimately building more resilient healthcare systems. 

If the energy and collaboration seen in Basel are any indication, the future of healthtech is already taking shape. 

The dates are set for health.tech | global summit 2027. Find out more details here. 

Drug discovery rarely moves at the speed of human needs. Between ballooning trial costs, brittle data pipelines and the sheer biological complexity of diseases, pharmaceutical R&D has long been a slow, expensive and high-risk endeavor. Yet over the past few months, a new cohort of healthtech startups has been quietly working on changing that – not on their own, but together inside a 3-month hybrid healthtech accelerator program in the heart of Basel’s life sciences innovation hub.

In 2025, 14 Swiss and international startups completed the DayOne Accelerator program.  As the program’s culmination at the Innovation Showcase in December made clear, the breakthrough wasn’t just the technology on display, but the shared conviction that collaboration can compress timelines that are currently still stretching over a decade.

The testimonials below illustrate how these startups are reshaping what’s possible in pharma R&D – and how accelerator programs like DayOne can play a critical role in supporting and speeding up their growth and impact. Together, these perspectives point to a broader transformation underway across the pharma industry: a move away from fragmented, linear models of research toward faster, more interconnected and more collaborative ways of working. 

“The DayOne accelerator was an excellent experience that significantly accelerated our entry into the Basel life sciences ecosystem. It provided us with rare, first-hand insights into how pharmaceutical companies operate – insights that typically take years to acquire,” shared Moustafa Houmani, Co-founder and CEO of Lemna Bio, a startup building AI models that explain how molecules interact, from atomic-level interfaces to biological networks. “I would strongly recommend DayOne to startups that are serious about building the next generation of drug discovery companies. Importantly, the program is both fee-free and equity-free.” 

“DayOne is a fantastic accelerator for any company operating at the intersection of tech and biopharma R&D. The DayOne accelerator provided us with high-quality mentorship, as well as connections with a very large network of executives and pharma experts,” said Nives Rombini, Co-founder and CEO of Navis Bio, a startup up developing AI and quantitative methods to analyze scientific and clinical evidence supporting biopharma strategic decisions. “DayOne is also a very well-known brand in the Basel pharma ecosystem which was of great help for us to expand the presence of Navis Bio in Basel.” 

“Joining the DayOne program has been one of the best decisions for our startup. The program offers truly hands-on, founder-focused support, with deep industry insight and a strong ecosystem. The coaching, mentorship and network helped us sharpen our strategy and move forward with much greater clarity and confidence,” noted Yanan Zhang, Co-founder of ZuriEV, a startup developing a blood-based liquid biopsy test enabling earlier, non-invasive brain cancer diagnosis. “DayOne feels less like an accelerator and more like a long-term partner in our journey.” 

“DayOne has been a great partner for Octozi to build relationships within the Swiss pharma ecosystem. Their understanding of the local life sciences landscape and ability to connect us with the right sponsors and stakeholders has meaningfully accelerated our progress,” shared Amit Patel, Co-founder and CEO of Octozi, a startup developing an AI platform that helps biopharma sponsors automate clinical development processes for data cleaning and review. “DayOne has played a key role in helping us establish credibility and long-term partnerships in Switzerland.” 

“DayOne is the premier hub for any startup serious about bridging the gap with the pharmaceutical industry,” said Edoardo Giudice, Co-founder of Virtuosis AI, a startup developing AI models analyzing vocal biomarkers for NCS, cardiometabolic and respiratory disorders. 

“An incredibly impactful experience, highly practical, thoughtfully structured, and supported by exceptional mentors and experts,” noted Anna Cichonska, Co-founder and COO of Harmonic Discovery, a startup developing a machine learning-driven drug discovery platform designing multi-target kinase therapeutics with precision pharmacology. “The DayOne team and the startup cohort created an environment that made learning and progress feel both focused and collaborative.” 

“The DayOne programme has been a real accelerator for us, helping pave the way for partnerships with pharma. It allowed us to fast-track our understanding of the ecosystem, the various stakeholders, their roles and challenges, and enabled us to fine-tune our value proposition. The program also created unique opportunities for us to meet and engage with people at the heart of the Basel life sciences and tech ecosystem,” shared Lea Pignier, Co-founder and CEO of Areltys, a startup developing a digital platform connecting cancer patients to innovative treatments, especially radioligand therapies worldwide. “The DayOne team, along with the experts they bring together, have immense experience, a keen understanding of startup challenges, and a genuine commitment to supporting startups and founders. The DayOne programme is truly unique, full of energy and has been extremely valuable for us.” 

“DayOne provided great value through their mentorship and the doors they opened for us, as well as all the insights we could gather from top pharma executives,” said Antoine Herzog, Co-founder and CEO of Parithera, a startup developing a next-generation CTC liquid biopsy platform to detect treatment resistance and guide precision oncology. 

“I would highly recommend the DayOne Accelerator for any healthtech startup. The insights, expert access and real-world feedback were incredibly valuable. If you’re building in this space, this is where you want to be,” noted Anna-Liisa Parts, Co-founder and COO of Menken Trials, a startup developing an AI-enabled clinical trial platform automating monitoring, compliance checks and essential document management. 

Applications for the 2026 edition of the DayOne Accelerator open at the end of March. If you’re building a venture at the intersection of technology and pharma R&D – or know someone who is – stay tuned for more information on how to apply, what we look for and what to expect from the program. More details coming soon! 

Sign up to our newsletter to be the first to know! 

The journey doesn’t end with the accelerator – in many ways, it’s just the beginning. 

We are proud to announce the launch of DayOne NEXT, a long-term support program designed to help the most promising startups from the DayOne accelerator cohort build, scale and anchor their R&D in the Basel Area. It is a hands-on, non-profit venture builder for exceptional early-stage teams, where we provide capital (no equity, no fees), workspace and deeply embedded operational support – and we stay for the long term. 

Each year, up to three startups from the accelerator cohort will be selected to join DayOne NEXT and receive tailored, long-term backing to transform breakthrough science and technology into real-world impact. 

DayOne NEXT is designed around a simple idea: early-stage healthtech, techbio and pharma-enabling ventures need more than short-term momentum. They need time, focus, ecosystem integration and highly tailored support. We will work side-by-side with a small number of exceptional founders and actively help build the company.

What this means in practice…

For the startups we back, this isn’t just “access to benefits.” It’s real involvement. We embed ourselves within the team – working on strategy, fundraising, hiring, positioning and whatever is mission-critical. 

The program is intentionally selective. We select top ventures from the DayOne accelerator program with strong scientific foundations and a robust intellectual property position – or a clear path to defensibility. Companies should have an active R&D component, require technical, regulatory or clinical support beyond business development, and have raised limited external funding so that the grant delivers meaningful impact.

We also prioritize engaged, collaborative teams with a clear strategic rationale for locating R&D in the Basel Area and strong alignment with the region’s ecosystem.  

We deliberately work with very few startups so we can go deep. This is high-conviction, long-term venture building. 

DayOne NEXT represents a new chapter in our mission: not just to accelerate innovation, but to anchor it, nurture it and help it scale sustainably within the Basel ecosystem.

It is more than just follow-on funding. It is a long-term partnership – aligning capital, expertise and ecosystem access to help exceptional founders build enduring, globally impactful health innovation. 

Learn more about the DayOne accelerator program here.  

A recurring theme was that Basel compresses the essential ingredients of healthtech into a small geography. This density is one of the defining features of the Basel Area Life Sciences Supercluster: from pharma to clinical care to academia, the distance to collaboration is short.

As Astrid Kiermaier put it, “in the healthcare ecosystem … we have in a very close proximity every player around, and it’s easy to connect.” Bram Stieltjes described arriving in Basel and seeing “the hospital, two big pharma companies … all in such a small place.”

Basel also benefits from being a trinational region with natural connectivity across borders, which expands the partner and talent surface area beyond city limits.

The discussion emphasized that collaboration is not an ecosystem nice-to-have – it is a requirement driven by how modern pharma innovation works.

Astrid Kiermaier highlighted that clinical trials generate only a small slice of the data needed for a comprehensive patient picture. If you want to understand patients holistically, you must learn from the much larger share of patients who are not in trials and the data that sits outside trial datasets.

This is where the structure of the Basel Supercluster matters. Collaboration happens across pharma, hospitals, startups and the public sector because proximity makes it easier to align around shared problems, not only shared events.

Basel’s healthtech opportunity is tightly linked to a shift in what “infrastructure” means. Buildings and labs still matter, but the panel argued that data frameworks and standards will increasingly determine the speed at which innovation can move.

A practical example is University Hospital Basel’s move toward openEHR, an open standard that enables structured clinical data capture and reuse.

Bram Stieltjes framed this as ecosystem design, not just a technical upgrade: creating a foundation that supports a regional health data environment, not a single institution’s database. He stressed that “a hospital alone is not good enough. You need to have data on a regional basis.” He also highlighted why openness matters: if software providers sit in the middle, they can control data definitions and access, centralizing power and reducing collaboration. Open standards help avoid that dynamic.

Basel’s advantage is not only that stakeholders want to collaborate. It is that they are actively working to remove the operational friction that makes collaboration hard at scale.

One challenge discussed is the request cycle problem: repeated back and forth to find out whether relevant patient cohorts exist, how many there are, or whether a hypothesis is feasible. Bram Stieltjes described why this does not scale if every enquiry requires manual processing.

The direction described is to enable more self-service feasibility exploration, so users can explore parameters without exposing patient-level data. Astrid Kiermaier also pointed to privacy preserving approaches such as synthetic data as one way to reduce governance overhead and cut rounds of paperwork that slow collaboration.

A key forward-looking note from Astrid Kiermaier was that constraints on medical data use are likely to increase, making it even more important to invest in ways of working that enable innovation under tighter rules, rather than defaulting to slower contracting cycles.

The canton’s role was framed as enabling conditions: infrastructure, innovation promotion programs and legal frameworks that make collaboration easier and keep the region competitive.

Karin Sartorius described Basel-Stadt’s latest response to increased global competition: the creation of the Basel Incentive Programme, also referred to as the Basler-Standortpaket, with up to CHF 400m annual resources allocated to support spending for R&D and high-tech production in Basel-Stadt companies.

She also pointed to a specific gap many ecosystems struggle with: funding mechanisms that directly encourage collaboration between startups, hospitals, universities and industry. Basel is explicitly planning support in this direction effective from late 2026.

The audience Q&A sharpened the future agenda. A recurring question was whether Switzerland’s federal structure creates inevitable fragmentation for health data and research collaboration. The response was nuanced: federalism does not have to mean a fragmented data space if standards and intent are aligned.

Two constraints stood out. First is standardization and harmonization: the more clinical and research participation models can be standardized, the less organizations need to navigate “20 different” approaches. Second is willingness to share: progress depends on shared intent, clear benefits and mechanisms that make collaboration feel safe and worthwhile.

Beyond Switzerland, the panel also pointed to emerging requirements for understanding the full patient journey. Astrid Kiermaier noted that this often starts with registries and cohorts, with approaches like tokenization offering potential but facing regulatory and legislative hurdles in Europe.

Basel’s story is not that the region has “lots going on.” It is that the ecosystem has built a practical advantage by reducing the distance between discovery, clinical reality, industry capability and public sector enablement. For pharma innovation leaders, that density is valuable because it makes collaboration easier to initiate, easier to govern and more likely to translate into outcomes.

The panel’s most consistent message is that modern innovation depends on combining complementary capabilities and datasets. In practice, that means building partnership models that can connect clinical trial insights with real-world clinical data, while staying compliant and earning trust. Basel’s trajectory is also a reminder that infrastructure is increasingly defined by data standards and interoperable foundations. Open approaches like openEHR matter because they reduce lock-in, encourage reuse and make it more feasible to think beyond single-institution datasets.

Finally, the discussion highlighted that ecosystem competitiveness is not only a private sector concern. Policy tools such as the Basel innovation promotion programs and the Basel Incentive Programme, plus targeted support for collaboration, can create the conditions for faster experimentation, stronger partnerships and long-term resilience in the face of tightening constraints around medical data use.

Visit our Contact us page and tell us what you are trying to achieve via the form. Whether you are exploring innovation partnerships, looking for validation environments, or assessing where to build your next healthtech initiative, the DayOne team will follow up with relevant pathways and connections.

The 2025 edition of our DayOne Accelerator program culminated on 10-11 December at our sold-out Innovation Showcase event, held in Roche Building 1 in Basel. Over 300 startup founders, pharma industry leaders, investors and regional ecosystem stakeholders came together to watch two pitching competitions, learn from expert plenary presentations and panel discussions, and to network. 

After completing their 3-month program involving expert mentorship, webinars, hands-on “pitch to pharma” practice sessions, networking events, and more, 10 of this year’s cohort of 14 healthtech and techbio startups pitched on stage during the event. 

Nives Rombini, CEO & Co-founder, Navis Bio; Anna Cichońska, COO & Co-founder, Harmonic Discovery; Cécile Tardy-Srinivasan, Portfolio & Acceleration Lead, DayOne; Angela Holmes, CEO, OmniScience

A jury of investors and industry experts in digital health and pharma chose Harmonic Discovery as the competition winner, who got rewarded with a cash prize of CHF 16,200 representing the total ticket sales for the event. Navis Bio and OmniScience deservedly took the runner-up spots and were awarded startup packages for health.tech global summit (valued at CHF 3,500 each). The jury included representatives from Debiopharm, Redalpine, Kurma Partners, Vi Partners, Cathay Innovation, Asabys, Kadmos Capital, CSL Behring, Novartis, Novo Nordisk and Roche. 

Feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive, and the event also received some media coverage – notably in an article published in the Basler Zeitung (German). 

Thank you to Roche for hosting the event, and to Canton Basel-Stadt and our event partners for helping make this event happen! 

Before the dust has finished settling from the Showcase, the DayOne team is already preparing for key activities in the coming year. 

First up is the selection of those accelerator cohort members who will move to our long-term support program, DayOne Next, where they will receive a CHF 50k non-dilutive grant, 12 months of high-touch mentoring and in-kind services, plus office and lab space, and investment opportunities from our partners. 

Second is the startup pitching competition that DayOne will be running at the health.tech global summit, taking place in Basel on 3-5 March. 15 startup founders will have the chance to pitch directly to investors on the main conference stage. 

And of course, at the end of March we will be opening the Call for Applications for the 2026 edition of the DayOne Accelerator. Watch this space for details!