As the new year starts, I am pleased to introduce myself as the new Director of Healthcare Innovation – DayOne at Basel Area Business & Innovation- wishing you a very happy new year. Having worked in health systems around the world and for the World Health Organization and World Economic Forum, I am very happy to join the team at this exciting time for healthcare innovation.
In the past year, the health and healthcare industries have undergone unprecedented digital transformation and the pace of innovation achieved to successfully secure viable vaccines for COVID-19 has buoyed confidence in biopharma. As we look forward, the Basel Area and DayOne find themselves uniquely positioned to act as force multipliers of the collective disruption and open innovation required to recover and build back better. DayOne is perfectly placed to act as a vital and trusted partner for healthcare’s digital transformation which has been galvanized by recent events. To do this, we are pleased to introduce to you our plans for the year ahead in this newsletter.
Our 2021 startup acceleration efforts are already under way with our DayOne Accelerator in the middle of its Boot Camp. This year we will launch a brand new DayOne Accelerator 2.0 to bring our ability to fund and grow successful companies to the next level. Thanks to Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area, we now have 15 start-ups in the innovation space at Novartis Campus with plans to expand and 1200m2 of innovation space in the Jura site. Please visit our DayOne teams which are based at these sites at any time. As we move forward, our catalyst projects on Health Data Scenarios, Value-Based Healthcare and Hospital Innovation will mature this year and continue to provide enormous value as catalysts of healthcare innovation in our region and beyond.
The success of our startup and innovation hub hinges on the activation of the local ecosystem but also on its attractiveness to innovators to open business in our region. For healthcare innovation and digital health, we believe that the Basel Area, with its high density of life sciences players in digital transformation and its strong ecosystem of healthcare innovation is the best environment for companies from abroad to open business and participate in our success. We’ll work closely with colleagues from International Markets to offer a seamless relocation journey into our area.
With this newsletter, we are also pleased to launch our carefully designed events program which continues to build a network and world leading ecosystem, this year focusing on health data, femtech, patient reported outcomes measures and clinical decision support. With these activities, I am confident that DayOne can succeed in its goal to establish the Basel Area as a globally recognized destination for digital health and healthcare innovation and position itself at the cente of healthcare’s digital revolution.
To achieve this, we will have to overcome difficult challenges faced by COVID-19 and embody the spirit of DayOne by working together in innovative new ways across borders, industry verticals and even screens- but always with the patient at the center of what we do. Finally, I hope that our 6th Annual DayOne Conference in 2021 will be an opportunity to celebrate working together at the end of the great year. Until then, I look forward to collaborating this year as we embark on our ambitious journey of bringing DayOne into its next iteration.
Happy New Year! Frohes neues Jahr! Bonne Annee !
Director, Healthcare Innovation – DayOne
