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International Markets & Business Affairs

14
Universities within 60-minute drive
5,000
community of healthcare innovators
700
Life sciences companies
50
Digital health companies

Basel Area has strength and leadership in many areas that make it prime ground for healthcare innovation. The Basel Area has become a boasting healthcare innovation ecosystem.

A growing healthcare ecosystem

Basel Area is the place to help shape the future of health. You’ll find numerous established world-leading medtech, biopharma and diagnostics companies as well as leaders in all areas of healthcare from research to consumer applications, including companies such as Roche, Novartis, Genedata, Clinerion and Medgate, and health-tech startups like Lyfegen, docdok.health and Zoundream.

In addition, the ecosystem of universities, academic institutes, hospitals, access to payors and regulators, and support of start-ups.

Strength in life sciences

Basel, long recognized as the leading pharmaceutical and life sciences cluster in Europe, is the most natural place for a thriving healthcare innovation ecosystem.
Novartis, Roche, Actelion and Syngenta were founded and grown in the Basel Area, and in addition to these giants, a number of smaller successful biopharma companies are headquartered here, including Basilea Pharmaceutica, Evolva, Lonza, Polyphor, Santhera Pharmaceuticals and Bachem.  Bayer and Abbott also have significant commercial operations in Basel.

All told, there are over 700 life science companies and more than over 30,000 employees creating a deep talent pool in the region. The intensity of life science employment in the region is unique in the world, with over 7% of the workforce engaged in life sciences. Read about recruiting in Switzerland.

Digitalization leadership

The digitization of the life sciences that started about 25 years ago is now highly evident in the Basel Area. Digital technology is increasingly used in existing processes such as biomarker discovery, imaging, and clinical trials, and central to new technologies that treat or monitor disease in different settings, along with an expanding use of data analytics in development and production processes.

In fact more than 20% of Basel Area life science employees now refer to IT or digital in their LinkedIn profiles.

The Basel Area is well represented in the field of bioinformatics, as well, with companies such as Genedata, Clinerion and more than 30 others.  A number of startups in fields ranging from digital knowledge to visualization to implants are also located in the Basel Area. In addition, the region is home to The Personalized Health Informatics Group of the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN), a Swiss government initiative to promote the development of personalized medicine.

Strong academic and research hub

The Basel Area is well supported by academia with over 6,000 students and researchers in the fields of medicine and science at both the FHNW (The University of Applies Sciences and Arts) and the University of Basel. This includes the dedicated Center for Life Sciences, Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Biomedicine – a joint venture with four other institutes in the areas of chemistry, bioanalytics, pharma, environmental technologies, biomedical engineering and medical informatics. Here you’ll find a strong talent pool for future innovation.

In applied research, Basel Area also houses a world-leading research and technology organization, the Swiss Centre of Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM), focused on wearable technologies and Internet of Things (IoT), with the mission to transfer its IP and (micro-) technologies to the precision medicine industry cluster.

Plus, the Basel Area is close to other top 20 globally ranked research universities in Zurich and Lausanne.

Academic institutes in the Basel Area

  • University of Basel
  • The Swiss Tropical Health Institute
  • ETH-Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering
  • Friedrich Mischer Institute for Medical Research
  • University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwest Switzerland
  • Swiss Centre of Electronics and Microtechnology
  • Botnar Research Centre for Child Health

Talk to our expert

Valentina Francia

Manager Ecosystems

Email Valentina

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