The Swiss National Startup Team Life Sciences 2018 on their way to Boston!
Ten new startups have been selected to become the next Venture Leaders Life Sciences 2018. Chosen from among the most promising Life Sciences startups in Switzerland, the team will embark on a fully packed one-week roadshow in Boston. Meet the team at the Startup Champions Seed Night event on May 2nd.
Following in the footsteps of fellow alumni like Insphero or Covagen, the Venture Leaders Life Sciences 2018 team members will join the 17th edition for a deep dive into Boston’s Life Sciences industry between May 27th and June 3rd. For an intense week, the newly constituted Swiss National Startup Team will have the opportunity to build a solid network through exchanges with local peers, meetings with key Medtech and Biotech industry leaders, and pitches in front of investors, all in order to boost their global expansion ambitions. The Boston region is considered to be one of the major Life Sciences hub worldwide, representing an ideal environment for the Swiss-based startups to get exposure and visibility as well showcasing Switzerland as a breeding ground for innovation in Life Sciences.Discovery and impact: the mark of a unique program
The winning startups, selected by a jury of investors and experts from out of 70+ applicants, have developed ground-breaking technologies in diverse fields as neuroradiology, gynecology, dermatology, oncology, nanotechnology, cardiology, orthopedics, medical testing and surgery. “Venture Leaders has played an instrumental role for the previous winners, both in further developing their entrepreneurial skills and connecting with key players. We have countless examples of startups finding business partners, team members or investors thanks to the program.” explains Jordi Montserrat, managing partner of Venturelab. “I could not imagine to use only one week in Boston more efficiently than I did with Venture Leaders. I got lots of follow-ups with business angels, industry experts and advisors.” shared Martin Ostermaier, co-founder of Interax Biotech, who closed its seed round with Boston based investors during the 2016 program.
Co-organized with swissnex Boston, the roadshow celebrates its 17th edition and is offered this year thanks to the support of Kellerhals Carrard, digitalswitzerland, Canton de Vaud, Canton of Zurich, Wyss Foundation, EY entrepreneur of the year, EPF Lausanne, ETH Zurich, Paul Scherrer Institut and University of Zurich.
Winners of Venture Leaders Life Sciences 2018
Artiria | Guillaume Petit-Pierre | EPFL
Artiria develops a disruptive medical device allowing neuroradiologists to navigate in brain arteries three times faster and safer than any other available solution. With this system the surgeon can steer the device head in real time which improves outcomes of stroke-related procedures.
Aspivix | Mathieu Horras | www.aspivix.com| Lausanne
Aspivix conceives a new generation of single-use forceps featuring a suction pad, reducing pain and eliminating lesions & cross-contamination. Every year, 64 million gynecological treatments require access to the uterus. Standard use of Tenaculum forceps is painful, traumatic and poses a cross-contamination risk.
CUTISS AG | Daniela Marino | cutiss.swiss| UZH
CUTISS creates large quantities of minimally scarring skin. Standard of care often leaves patients with disfiguring and highly debilitating scars after a surgical intervention. Starting off from a very small piece of healthy patients’ skin, the startup bioengineers individually customized skin grafts, improving life quality of patients worldwide.
CDR Life AG | Christian Leisner | cdr-life.com| Zurich
CDR-Life produces therapeutic antibody fragments for high need diseases in oncology and ophthalmology, such as novel immunotherapies that work like CAR-T. The startup’s trispecific biologics show better results than most advanced therapies based on tests done with bone marrow samples from patients with multiple myeloma, the 3rd most common blood cancer.
EBA-Med |Adriano Garonna | eba-med.com| CERN TERA Foundation
EBA-Med (External Beam Ablation Medical Devices) develops innovative solutions for non-invasive and automated treatments of heart arrhythmias using proton beams (external beam ablation).
Elthera AG | Anne Schmidt | www.elthera.com| Zug
Elthera develops a first-in-class antibody against the novel target L1CAM using a personalized health care approach. The compound is expected to be efficacious in many tumors with preclinical Proof-of-Concept demonstrated in several mouse tumor models.
HAYA Therapeutics | Samir Ounzain | CHUV
HAYA Therapeutics develops innovative targeted first-in-class RNA-based therapeutics, with a specific focus on long noncoding RNA’s, to treat heart failures.
IDUN Technologies | Simon Bachmann | iduntechnologies.ch| ETH
IDUN conceives and produces soft and dry conductive electrodes for biopotential monitoring (ECG, EEG, and EMG). With a unique and patented surface structure these electrodes provide high quality signals with skin-friendly materials without electrolyte gel or glue.
Nagi Bioscience | Matteo Cornaglia | www.nagibio.ch| EPFL
Nagi Bioscience introduces the first Organism-on-Chip technology, as key to accelerating drug/chemical discovery. A fully automated device enables culture, treatment and high-content analysis of microscopic worms, for rapid and cost-effective in vivo testing of drug/chemical toxicity and efficacy.
Swiss Motion Technologies SA | Kevin Mamalis | swissmotiontechnologies.com| HEIG-VD
Swiss Motion Technologies develops a fast and cost effective solution to the problem of prosthetic limb discomfort. Itscomplete production solution enables prosthetists to measure and fit their clients with a custom-made liner to reduce friction between the stump and the prosthesis.
Save the date for the Startup Champions Seed Night: May 2nd 2018
Meet the Venture Leaders Life Sciences 2018 Team at the EPF Lausanne on May 2nd 2018. Co-organized by EPFL Alumni and the Innogrants, the event will introduce the Venture Leaders Life Sciences team members and ten of the most promising EPFL early stage startups. From 5PM to 9PM at the Rolex Learning Center Forum, a startup exhibition followed by a pitch competition will be held. Our keynote speaker will be Daniel Yanisse, CEO and co-founder of Checkr and EPFL alumnus. Join us to see 20 world-class startups pitch and vote for your favorite. More information here.
Follow the Startup Champions Seed Night on May 2nd, and the Venture Leaders Life Sciences roadshow from May 27th to June 3rd on Twitter and Facebook using the hashtags #Champsnight and #vleadersLifeScience.
About Venture Leaders
The Venture Leaders - the members of the Swiss National Startup Teams - have a clear-cut goal. They envision themselves as global players and want to take the first step to their global expansion. Venturelab has 17 years of bringing Swiss startup teams to high-tech hotspots: Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The 300+ alumni have created 3500+ jobs, generated more than CHF 1.4 billion in investments and won multiple awards. These business development programs are specifically structured to help them achieve this goal.
See full Venture Leaders Alumni list here.
Venture Leaders Life Sciences is co-organized by Venturelab and swissnex Boston, and supported by Kellerhals Carrard, digitalswitzerland, Canton de Vaud, Canton of Zurich, Wyss Foundation, EY entrepreneneur of the year, EPF Lausanne, ETH Zurich, Paul Scherrer Institute and University of Zurich.