For a tiny Alpine nation nestled deep in the interior of continental Europe, Switzerland boasts a spectacularly vibrant biotech scene. This is because “the country manages to leverage its compact geography to achieve unprecedented levels of collaboration across key innovation hubs, rendering it possible to forge strong networks and partnerships with minimal friction,” observes Christian Leisner, CEO of tumour-focused biotech turned platform-centric antibody engineering specialist, CDR-Life.
According to him, “the proximity and connectivity of Swiss centres of excellence in Zurich, Basel, and Geneva to other European life science hubs – from Lyon and Grenoble to Munich and Heidelberg – generates a sense of combined accessibility, international openness, and collective scientific excellence that is uniquely conducive to building and scaling a high-performance biotech company.”
Indeed, “in an era when isolationist policies and me-first approaches have gained traction and increasingly dominate the global political scene, Switzerland’s collaborative model offers a compelling counterproposal,” conjectures Michael Altorfer of the Swiss Biotech Association, noting that, “by fostering a culture of open innovation and shared international knowledge, the country’s medtech and drug development sectors are consistently pushing the boundaries of what alliances can achieve.”
Critical Mass
Part of Switzerland’s allure to biotech entrepreneurs clearly relates to the sheer volume and critical mass of pharma, medtech, and digital health entities present. “We often refer to what’s known as the ‘Swiss Health Valley’ which, while not literally a valley, geographically follows the Rhône River from the glaciers, through Lake Geneva, and into France and is densely populated with life sciences organisations,” points out Professor Antoine Geissbühler, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and President of BioAlps, an association representing Western Switzerland’s life science cluster.
“It’s actually one of the most concentrated ecosystems of its kind on the planet comprising about 70 research and academic institutions, including universities and university hospitals, and home to over a thousand health-related companies ranging from fledgling start-ups to larger biotech players,” he enthuses.
Meanwhile, Lausanne’s Biopôle alone groups together approximately 3,000 life science professionals and 200 companies spanning the full spectrum of life sciences, from wellness to illness; from prevention through nutrition, sports health, diagnostics, and therapeutics. “While you might conceivably come across larger science parks elsewhere, such as Milton Park in the UK for instance, those are all multidisciplinary, whereas we specialise purely in life sciences, which is pretty unique,” contends the campus’ CEO, Nasri Nahas. “With us, you’ll encounter global players such as Roche Diagnostics and CSL Behring, mid‑caps like DistalMotion and Ichnos Glenmark Innovation, as well early‑stage startups in our incubator,” he argues“In other words, a perfect co‑location of academia, clinical research, and industry into a single, rich, harmonious community.”
Breadth
Such an intense diversity of actors is undoubtedly a distinguishing hallmark of Switzerland’s biotech scene: with multiple therapeutic areas represented across practically all stages of the value chain. “Each canton tends to display very distinct strengths that contribute to a whole that is considerably greater than just the sum of its parts,” reasons Nicolas Durand, CEO of Fondation Campus Biotech, a research hub established upon a former Merck Serono site that now plays host to scientists from, among others, UNIGE, the Ecole Politechnique Federal de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), and the Wyss Center.
“In Lausanne, EPFL drives deep‑tech innovation, whereas Basel acts as the world’s pharmaceutical capital and Neuchâtel specialises in microengineering thanks to its watchmaking heritage. Geneva meanwhile delivers expertise across neuroscience, neurotechnology and digital health,” he elaborates. Thus, by developing their own distinct spheres of competitive advantage, the inefficiency of duplication tends to be eliminated and the work of each canton ends up complementing those of the others.
“Having such breadth of resources and infrastructure close at hand is absolutely invaluable when you’re trying to establish, get off the ground, and mature a young biotech,” confirms Dragan Grabulovski, CEO and co-founder of Araris Biotech AG, a spin-off from the Paul Scherrer Institute and ETH Zurich pioneering the development of novel antibody drug conjugate (ADC) technology.
“The embeddedness of a long-established local pharmaceutical industry creates ready access to a deep talent pool of relevant expertise as well as a comprehensive network of suppliers, service providers, and advisory resources, while the simultaneous existence of so many elite research organizations exposes us to the very latest scientific thinking and unlocks a multitude of collaborative opportunities,” he explains. “Naturally this can all significantly accelerate your start-up development timelines and reduce your operational complexity.”
Cross-Sectional
Interestingly, Switzerland’s fertile enabling ecosystem additionally includes auxiliary industry sectors that are becoming ever more important to the development of next-generation advanced therapeutics such as cell and gene technologies. “The fact that Swiss policymakers are deliberately facilitating the emergence of new clusters in emergent disciplines like quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning is contributing significantly to the current momentum underpinning the local biotech community,” opines Christoph Schäfer, CEO of CIS Biopharma. “After all, disruptive digital technologies are fast becoming fundamental to future drug discovery and development, and their early integration into our local ecosystem is serving to accelerate both innovation and execution across the board,” he insists.
Indeed, Switzerland is swiftly becoming the preferred destination for some of the world’s most radical and avant-garde life science outfits precisely for this reason. Limula, which has developed an all-in-one automated cell and gene therapy manufacturing platform across scales, serves as a salient illustration. “We define ourselves as a life science tools developer. When there is no clear category, people tend to misclassify you as either conventional biotech, medtech, or diagnostics. But we are actually none of those. Our infrastructure needs are rather different to a typical biotech as we require both engineering workshops and cell culture or molecular biology laboratories: a combination that is hard to find in a single location. However, in Lausanne, the Biopôle ecosystem recognises that many companies like ours exist, merging precision engineering and life science applications,” explains the company’s CEO, Luc Henry.
“Switzerland is imbued with a long-standing culture of interdisciplinary collaboration especially in Lausanne and Zurich. The vision of institutions here, even 20 years ago, was to foster convergence between life sciences and engineering and now we are also seeing the inclusion of robotics, computer vision, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies as well. The country has been frankly visionary in this regard, and it is a uniquely supportive environment for innovation in our space,” he continues.
Likewise, CUTISS, a developer of skin tissue therapeutics through bioengineering, has found Switzerland to be an excellent base for their rather unconventional activities. “Our approach is autologous: we extract stem cells from a patient’s skin and bioengineer skin tissue in the lab which is subsequently regrafted. We are neither traditional pharma, nor biotech or medtech, but rather regenerative medicine in its purest form: moving beyond healing and scarring, toward true restoration of structure and function in an accessible way,” says Daniela Marino, the outfit’s CEO and co-founder.
“We are entering a new era of what one might best describe as tech-bio – where engineering meets biology and where industrial partners have become the key collaborators – and we identify Switzerland as possessing some of the best enabling conditions for this nascent new discipline to take hold,” she affirms.
A handful of biotech-adjacent service providers has also sprung up in Switzerland. These CRO-type firms serve both local and global biotech clients, leveraging deep expertise in highly technical niches.
For instance, SpiroChem, an ETH Zurich spinout, has grown into a premium discovery chemistry partner, distinguished by its ability to solve the toughest molecular design problems. Spirochem’s evolution since its founding in 2012 is a case study in how a CRO-type model – often seen primarily as a cost-saving exercise for global sponsors – can succeed in a relatively expensive country like Switzerland. “We founded SpiroChem based on the conviction that true value in discovery comes from quality rather than cost,” explains CEO Thomas Fessard.
“At that time, much of the industry was outsourcing chemistry to India and China to reduce expenses, but we chose to move against that current by focusing on a niche area – spirocycles, which gave us our name – and by creating a service organisation in one of the world’s highest-cost countries. “Many peers doubted the sustainability of this model, yet our catalogue of highly distinctive molecules quickly attracted interest, and within a short period we were supplying leading pharma and biotech companies in 30 countries.”
And Spirochem is not alone. evitria, a Zurich-based CRO, has also dialled in on a highly technical niche – complex and engineered antibody development – with a focus on bispecific formats and rapid transient expression systems. Their operations also supersede the traditional CRO model. “As a specialised CRO, we have become an essential link in the development chain,” proclaims CEO Stefan Schmidt. “For many clients, we act as their primary scientific partner; not just a vendor.”
Strategic Depth
Not only is Switzerland’s biotech ecosystem impressively broad, however, but it is equally endowed with significant strategic depth. Campus Biotech, with is singular emphasis on neuroscience and digital health serves as a case in point. “Unlike most innovation hubs, this Campus is not a generalist platform,” confides Nicolas Durand. “It constitutes a highly focused ecosystem operating at the intersection of brain science, engineering, and health, systematically aligning industry actors, academia, patients, clinicians, translational research and fundamental science in pursuit of advancing our understanding of the human brain,” he reveals.
The benefits of such an approach are immediately apparent. “Having proved able to unite more than 60 principal investigators in this field and over 1,200 associated staff together under a single roof, we are creating unprecedented opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas and collective endeavour. Meanwhile, we now operate no less than eight shared scientific platforms that pool high‑cost equipment — such as a world‑class MRI system and Switzerland’s only magnetoencephalography facility — meaning that academic groups, start-ups, and industry partners can access these critical resources affordably, whereas otherwise they would simply be out of reach,” he recounts.
At the same time, work is well underway to establish comparable ecosystems dedicated to oncology, vaccinology, and non-communicable disease. “The vision is precisely the same: leveraging synergies, pooling resources, accumulating bespoke talent and bringing together in a focused cluster the physical and intellectual tools required to achieve new breakthroughs in medical science,” confirms Antoine Geissbühler of BioAlps.
When it comes to early-stage financial assistance and seed funding for promising life science discoveries and inventions, Switzerland also has plenty to offer. Stories abound of successful outfits that would most likely would have struggled to get off the ground without such support mechanisms being in place. “The Swiss innovation support system proved particularly valuable for Araris through InnoSuisse grant funding that enabled higher-risk research activities not typically supported by private investment,” recalls Dragan Grabulovski. “It was these resources that allowed us to generate critical proof-of-concept data that ultimately facilitated our negotiations and acquisition discussions with Taiho,” he recounts.
Scaling Dilemmas
“For early- to mid-stage R&D, Switzerland is undeniably a great place to be thanks to the presence of very good incubator funds, and plenty of local investors ready to support early innovation,” opines Roberto Iacone, CEO of the ADC player, Alentis Therapeutics. “However, a challenge arises when your company attains a certain scale, and you find yourself suddenly needing to balance your innovation in Switzerland with the need to attract international capital to support clinical-stage growth.”
“The greatest challenge to strengthening our ecosystem is cultural: in Switzerland, public funding ends once a project becomes a company. We support university research generously, but spinouts rarely qualify for government grants. While this principle ensures fiscal discipline, it also creates a gap that hinders the growth of our most promising ventures. deep‑tech and medical‑device firms aiming for rapid market entry often find the US more attractive, given its larger market and investor appetite,” regrets Nicholas Durand.
Consequently, Araris’ Dragan Grabulovski stresses the importance of diversifying funding sources as early as possible. “Successful biotech development requires a global perspective from inception. Our investor base included organisations from Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and South Korea, reflecting the international nature of our market opportunity and the importance of accessing diverse capital sources and market expertise,” he explains.
“While Switzerland can be your launchpad offering stability and credibility, the US market is likely become key for any kind of sustainable long-term trajectory,” agrees Patrick Amstutz, CEO of Molecular Partners, developers of a new class of engineered proteins known as DARPin. “We are dual-listed, and I would say that if you want to fully scale and raise capital across multiple rounds, you really can’t ignore North America. The access to capital is greater and the investor base is more biotech-savvy. Companies planning to forward-integrate, grow across clinical stages, and ultimately commercialise, will almost certainly need American investors and all that that might entail such as securing FDA approval,” he warns.
Funding Headwinds
Such a situation has been compounded by current funding headwinds. While total capital investments in 2024 increased by 22 percent compared to the previous year, relatively few companies benefited, with the lion’s share of that investment split across only the top five transactions. Meanwhile, owing to a difficult overall capital market climate, there were no Swiss listings in 2024 other than the Curatis reverse merger into Kinarus Therapeutics.
“The funding landscape has been incredibly tough,” confirms Alentis’ Roberto Iacone. “During the pandemic, there was a surge in investment and interest, but that was followed by a significant market correction and, ever since, it’s been pretty difficult for everyone in the sector,” he sighs.
As a result, even high-profile, acclaimed outfits like Idorsia have had to tighten their belts. “Financial discipline will remain essential given the broader life sciences macroeconomic environment, geopolitical challenges affecting innovation valuation, and reduced capitalisation compared to historical precedents. Whilst we have addressed immediate financial pressures, our runway remains very constrained, necessitating disciplined capital allocation balanced with strategic ambition,” explains the company’s CEO, Srishti Gupta.
“The rules of the game have changed somewhat, and investors are now markedly more selective than they used to be in the past. This hesitancy is accentuated by the continued stagnation of the initial public offering (IPO) market, which has significantly limited traditional exit options for venture investors,” thinks CDR-Life’s Christian Leisner. “Nowadays, they are generally inclined to delay commitments, preferring to see further data or greater proximity to commercial or partnership milestones before engaging. This growing demand for de-risked opportunities reflects a broader shift in how capital is being allocated across the sector,” he perceives.
It also means that great science alone is no longer enough. “Companies must now present not only compelling research results but also a clear, near-term path to value inflection. In an investment climate where execution is under intense scrutiny and capital is selective, the ability to demonstrate organisational maturity, discipline, and follow-through is paramount,” counsels Leisner.
Biopôle’s Nasri Nahas remains optimistic, though, and is confident that Swiss biotech can weather the storm, emerging from the current correction more future-fit and resilient than ever. “The time has come to shift our metrics from ‘volume of companies’ to ‘number of sustainable, fundable ventures.’ We should embrace smart failure, pull the plug sooner on models that do not work, so that talented teams can regroup and succeed elsewhere. Fall often to succeed sooner should be our collective mantra going forward,” he insists.
“In my experience, strong science backed by a clear path to market almost always finds funding in the end. Rarely did I see a promising technology die purely for lack of capital. More often it is refined or repositioned until better futures, after all big pharma’s reliance on cutting-edge innovation from biotech is more pronounced than ever,” claims Nahas.
EY’s latest statistical findings would certainly appear to support such an assessment. “Companies historically conducted approximately 70% of research and product development internally twenty years ago, but this figure has declined sharply to roughly only 35% today as an industry average replaced by more external innovation through in-licensing and M&A activities,” reports Urs Indermühle.
At the same time, there are still plenty of signs that Swiss biotechs remain appealing to Big Pharma. “The recent acquisition of Araris by Otsuka’s Taiho sends a strong signal — not just about the quality of innovation in Switzerland, but also about the global visibility of our biotech ecosystem. It confirms that Swiss startups can generate cutting-edge science with clear translational value and become highly attractive targets for international investors and pharma companies,” points out Nicolas Durand.
New Directions
What is clear, however, is that business as usual is no longer an option for most Swiss biotechs. With equity and debt markets becoming increasingly difficult to access, many have had to become more creative in securing alternative sources of funding – be that out-licensing, collaborations, monetisation of asset transactions or other forms of non-dilutive financing.
Companies like Idorsia, for instance, have reconfigured their business models to radically reduce their cash burn rates. “My overarching mandate has centred upon optimising our dual-engine model: maximising revenue generation through our commercial operations whilst making targeted investments in our most innovative pipeline assets. This creates what I characterize as the sustainable biotech flywheel: commercial profitability funding continued research and development innovation,” reveals CEO Srishti Gupta.
MoonLake Immunotherapeutics, has been especially eye-catching in its willingness to do different. “It’s my strong conviction in the light of the current climate that the biotech industry requires a fundamental rethink across all dimensions: financial, operational, and strategic. We’ve made a point of eschewing conventional practices – choosing to focus on a single asset – and the results speak for themselves. Our cost base now operates at approximately 30 to 40 percent of comparable US biotechnology companies,” affirms the company’s Founder and CEO Jorge Santos da Silva.
CDR-Life, for its part, is now pursuing a deliberate financing strategy that blends equity investment with strategic partnerships, allowing them to remain agile while securing both capital and expertise. “Our USD 75 million Series A round, closed in early 2022, came just as the capital markets began to turn from a period of buoyant early-stage investment towards greater caution. Strategic partnerships now form an essential part of our approach. Beyond financial support, they bring operational value, know-how, and third-party validation – qualities that have become even more important amid tightening investor sentiment. Our collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim exemplifies this model and continues to serve as a benchmark to others,” affirms Christian Leisner.
Biopôle is even trying to facilitate this sort of alternative partnership approach through a dedicated mechanism – the Corporate Partnership Program – that connects start-ups directly with end‑users and industry buyers. “Instead of needing to chase venture capital alone, we help founders engage hospitals, clinics, and corporates as strategic investors. Successful examples include Clinique La Prairie’s stake in Volumina Medical or its commercial collaboration with our epigenetics company Genknowme, and LabCorp’s investment in Biospectral, a Vaud-based company. These collaborations validate technologies, align incentives, and can often prove a viable alternative path to scaling up and commercialisation,” says Nahas.
The conversion of traditional biotechs into platform entities seems to be another emerging trend. “Back in the day, when we went public, the model was either sell the whole company or go public. Today, we are seeing the rise of platform companies that develop multiple assets and spin them out individually, retaining flexibility without committing the whole company to a public listing. That option simply didn’t exist in our earlier days,” recalls Molecular Partners’ Patrick Amstutz.
“If we were being founded now, we might well choose to stay private longer and structure ourselves to develop and spin out assets rather than managing everything under one public umbrella. That approach affords greater optionality and can attract different types of investors,” he muses. “Today’s biotech entrepreneurs have more flexibility. Asset-centric development, hybrid private-public structures, and creative licensing deals give them tools we simply didn’t have.”
