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Fertile ground

DayOne supports collaboration by creating opportunities for healthcare innovators and stakeholders to be active in shaping the future of health. Through a neutral platform of events, catalyst projects, an accelerator and innovation workspaces, DayOne helps spark conversation and promote action within the Basel Life Science community.

An ecosystem for innovation based around experience

Shaping the future of health involves breaking down silos and harnessing innovation across specialties and industries in order to create a more sustainable approach to healthcare. There exists a need to innovate collaboratively, not only through technology, but platforms, business models, and thinking, in order to shift the focus from healthcare to sick-care and put the patient at the center. We are helping build this at the center of the Basel life science and technology community.

Infrastructure makes innovation possible

The value of a cluster comes not from simply having the pieces in the same geographic region but also in the process of collaboration between the institutions and individuals, and structural and financial support to grow. Focused government support is available through the area’s three cantons as well as Basel Area Business & Innovation, which is working to break down silos and promote collaboration through events and collaborative projects amongst stakeholders in the region.

A strong healthcare system

The key to transferring an invention to an innovation is a strong healthcare system. You’ll find that in the Basel Area, with the University Hospital Basel, a number of other specialty and regional hospitals, and world-leading telemedicine innovators, such as Medgate.

Medgate, one of the global leaders in telemedicine, was founded in Basel in 1999 and now has partners and offices throughout Switzerland, and in Abu Dhabi and Australia. It is an example of the value of collaboration across silos being co-founded by a physician, economist and IT professional. This innovative approach continues with the application of Artificial Intelligence to optimize patient flows today.

Payor support and collaboration

Creating a better alignment of incentives and outcomes is likely to be key to the adoption of value-based healthcare, as it often goes beyond the traditional reimbursement model. A number of insurers, including Sympany, are present in the Basel Area, and the global insurance hub of Zurich is close by when additional knowledge is needed.

Swissmedic, the Swiss Agency for therapeutic products, is the single authority for the approval of both pharmaceuticals and medical devices in Switzerland. They are aligned with but separate to the European Medicines Agency enabling some freedom for more innovative approaches in the future and is located close to Basel in Bern.

Technology collaboration

A number of collaborative projects in the region help advance precision medicine. For example, at the internationally recognized MIRACLE project at the BU Department of Biomedical Engineering, supported by the Werner Siemens Foundation, interdisciplinary teams are working to reduce the negative impacts of surgery. Other leading work is that of the ETH-DBSSE, where the biotechnology and bioengineering group are working across biopharmaceutical manufacturing, gene therapy and tissue engineering.

The Institute for Medical and Analytical Technologies (IMA) at FHNW is a collaboration supporting the local hospitals in the field of reprocessing and medical data analytics. Together, they developed software to visualize patient flows in the hospital and process data across the borders of hospitals and companies. Collaborations like this have previously led to CTI-projects and startups such as Mininavident and MIMEDIS.

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