Medtech: The New Eldorado - BioAlps
Prostheses, a pathto personalisedmedicine P22Big data boostsbioinformaticscompanies P21654684321365012220334895W e s t e r nS w i t z e r l a n dCampus Biotechthe Russian dollof innovation P9687354333301222033489574635135464medtech: thenew Eldoradoof cyberhealth654684321365based on its strength in medical technologiesThe health Valley of western switzerlandhas created an ideal ecosystem for e-health012220334895S p e c i a li ss u eo nB i o A l p s ,t h el i f es c i e n c ec l u s t e ro f012220334895BioAlps 4 to 6: company profilesand business guide P36
CONTENTFEATURES14Cyberhealth, a new El Dorado for Western SwitzerlandAfter biotechnology and the neurosciences, health is becoming an area of expertise in which universities and schools of highereducation are positioning themselves, creating an ecosystem which is favourable for spawning start-ups. BY PASCAL VERMOTPHOTOLARGE VIEWNEW & VIEWS9 Campus Biotech:The Russiandoll of Innovation11 ObsEva targetspreterm birthprevention11 SAV-IOL’s lifewithout glassesCOUVERTURE: DR, SOMMAIRE: DR12 Endosense takenover by St. Jude12 3 questions toJacques Essinger(Symetis)13 Medtronic:a bigger site forsmaller devicesFEATURESBIOALPS 4TO619 “Big Data” boostsbioinformatics36 AC Immune20 Enabling stemcell therapies38 PhytoArk37 Productec23 Medtech forsmall investors39 Cremo24 Prostheses,the avatarsof personalisedmedicine41 FRM26 Adolphe MerkleInstitute’sbio-inspiredmaterials44 Ceramaret28 A holy alliancebetween researchand the industry47 TRB Chemedica30 How WHO isbetting on medtech49 MPSBUSINESS GUIDE50 BioalpsBusiness Guide40 CSL Behring42 FKG Dentaire43 regenHu45 Valtronic46 CovanceCONTENT45From the editorFrom the Presidentof BioAlps6 Techno-image:Bionic hand.8 Guest editorial:Thierry Mauvernay34 The Large View48 BaccinexSummer 20143
EDITORIALThe clustereffect and medtech, thenews flow has been extremely positive for WesternSwitzerland in the recent past. On the researchside, the leadership of the Swiss Federal School ofTechnology in Lausanne (EPFL) for the 1 billion panEuropean flagship the Human Brain Project is attracting new major investment (see page 9). On the business side, local and international private companiessuch as Medtronic (see p. 13), CSL Behring (see p. 40)and Celgene have continued to invest massively in theregion. And new medtech start-ups are springing upwith the arrival of promisingnew fields such as bioinformatics (see p.23 ), equipment forstem cell therapies (see p.20)and the emerging domain ofbio-inspired new materials(see p.27) as well as the firstapplications of 3D bio-printing(see p.43)Epitomising the convergence of micro, nano, cognitive-biological and information technologies and meetingsome of the toughest healthchallenges, such as personalisation and cost-effectiveness,no field looks more promisingthan cyberhealth. For WesternSwitzerland, with its long traditions in first-class medical care, microtechnology and data security andaccuracy, this is a major opportunity – and one thatis beginning to be embraced by a wave of new players(see p. 14).Integrationand opennessAs an observer of the growth of the Health Valley,Technology by Bilan can testify that the ecosystem hasreached a size that allows it to absorb shocks such asthe departure from Geneva of Merck Serono two yearsago without adverse impacts on its general dynamic.The very same building that used to accommodateMerck Serono is now the heart of a Campus Biotech,thanks to private investment approaching the CHF500 mark from investors such as the Wyss Foundationand the Bertarelli Foundation. And with its MedtechVillage, the microtechnology trade fair EPHJ-EPMTSMT is fast becoming a major meeting point for healthprofessionals both locally and internationally. Movingto less formal structures, the region is now home tothe first Do It Yourself Biology Labs (UniverCités) inSwitzerland – places where would-be entrepreneurscan gather, tinker, work together on projects and bringtogether ideas that lead to new start-ups.All this means that the cluster effect long soughtby local actors, such as our partner BioAlps, is maturing. Private investors are very much aware of this.International venture investment, particularly in medtech start-ups, is still on the rise in the region, whiletrade sales of more mature companies ( see p. 12) havebecome common news. And IPO rumours aroundAC Immune (see p. 36), Symetis in Lausanne andNovimmune in Geneva are becoming more insistent.Of course, Western Switzerland’s Health Valleyfaces the same regulatory and cost-effectivenesshurdles as its competitors. In her analysis of medicaltechnology policies, Adriana Velazquez Berumen,the Coordinator for Diagnostic Imaging and MedicalDevices at the World Health Organization in Geneva,suggests that academic and industrial actors can innovate not only to introduce disruptive technologiesbut also to adapt medtech to the heterogeneity of national markets – an opportunity now clearly identified in the Health Valley.It is also a field where the region’s strong linksbetween industry and academia – bolstered in therecent past to transfer knowledge and technology tothe marketplace – are proving to be a major advantage. This process is now functioning at full speedin the Health Valley between Bern and Geneva. For FABRICE DELAYEexample, a new funding instrument launched in Editor of Technology by Bilan2001, the National Centre of Competencein Research (NCCR), has given birth to noTHE HEALTH VALLEY HASfewer than 79 start-ups, creating more than400 jobs. Now a new round of eight NCCRs, REACHED A SIZE THATthree of them oriented to the life sciences ALLOWS IT TO ABSORBas with the Centre for Bio-Inspired Stimuli- SHOCKS WITHOUTResponsive Materials centred around theADVERSE IMPACTS ONUniversity of Fribourg, suggests that thereITS GENERAL DYNAMICmight be many more to come.4Summer 2014Switzerland seems to be a country of opportunity that hasmanaged to create an enviable position when it comesto competitiveness between countries and regions. Thatmight just be a result of the country’s openness and itstalent for integration. Switzerland’s history is a tale ofsuccessful integrations. During the 16th century, leading scholars – such as Paracelsus, Andreas Vesalius andErasmus of Rotterdam – came to Basel to have their thesesor essays printed, thus making the town an integral partof the Renaissance humanist movement and its scientific progress. Closer to our time, one of Switzerland’s keysto success has been its capacity for innovation. Indeed,our higher education institutes attract first-class talent –both from Switzerland and abroad – in a globalised environment. Such openness is a valuable asset that can bemeasured by, among other things, Switzerland’s degree ofinternational competitiveness in the field of knowledge.The expansion of our industry has been driven by generations of entrepreneurs who crossed the Swiss border. Among the most significant contributors were theHuguenots, who introduced us to the worlds of chemistryand watchmaking. Having fled France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, weavers and silk merchants turned Basel into the ribbon capital of Europe. Theneed for dyes encouraged the chemical industry to takeroot, leading later to diversification into fine chemicalsand, finally, into pharmaceuticals. The history of watchmaking followed a similar arc.can count on skills that go way beyond biology and medicine. Our expertise in micro- and nanotechnologiesas well as in chemistry, computer science and communication is essential both to integrate knowledge and todevelop novel therapeutic approaches.To the lay person, the interdisciplinary approach is notobvious, yet it is what drives change and opens new avenues. Interdisciplinarity is one of the best assets we havefor supporting our leading position in many industrialsectors. The innovation process needs more than theclassic environment that buildson an organisation’s internal resources by way of its idea management systems for its collaborators, internal incubators orits R&D. Rather, such a processhas to develop in parallel, reacting to the fact that the boundary between an organisationand its ecosystem tends to blur.The trend is towards openness –or open innovation – a processthat consists of going to fetch theknowledge or even the resourcesoutside the organisation and, inturn, providing resources andknowledge to the ecosystem.Companies, universities andtechnology transfer organisations have all developed participatory ways of transferring knowledge.UniverCité, based in Renens, for instance, following theglobal DIYbio trend, is positioning itself at the interfacebetween industrial design and life sciences. It will beoffering almost 1000 square metres of open lab spaceand will be open to the public at large.Without the ecosystem it has nurtured, neitherSwitzerland nor any of its industrial, academic and entrepreneurial actors could imagine surviving in an interconnected environment. Nor do they believe thatthey are the sole bearers of knowledge: knowledge is toAs early as 1761, in the introduction of his famous be found everywhere, and collaboration and exchangeenrich it continuously. Switzerland undersEncyclopaedia, Denis Diderot wrote: “Theretood this long before anyone, by advocatingare two ways of developing Science: one isINTERDISCIPLINARITYintegration and openness. And this is theto increase the mass of knowledge throughspirit that nurtures not only BioAlps but alsodiscoveries; the other is to bring discoveries IS ONE OF THE BESTthe actors of our community, whom you willtogether, and organise them ” Bringing the ASSETS WE HAVE FORdiscover in this issue.mass of knowledge together is what began in SUPPORTING OUR LEAthe 18th century, and has become a necessityDING POSITION IN MANYin the 21st. Take the life sciences, for example.BENOIT DUBUISOne of the hallmarks of our region is that it INDUSTRIAL SECTORSPresident of BioAlpsBehind every great innovation there are human beings.Here, too, there are many examples of integration: Nestléwas founded by a chemist of German extraction, HenriNestlé; Xavier Givaudan was French; and Charles EugeneLancelot Brown, who had dual Swiss-British nationality,founded Brown, Boveri & Cie with the German-bornWalter Boveri. On a more contemporary note, industrialists such as the Bertarelli and Mauvernay familiessettled in our country to create and develop their ownbusinesses and the story continues, constantly addingentrepreneurial dynamism to Switzerland.Summer 20145
IMAGEAmputee feels with bionic handPHOTOS: DRTECHNONine years after losing his left hand in an accident,Dennis Aabo Sørensen from Denmark became the firstamputee in the world to feel – in real-time – with a sensory-enhanced prosthetic hand surgically wired to nervesin his upper arm. Silvestro Micera and his team at theCenter for Neuroprosthetics of the Swiss FederalInstitute of Lausanne (EPFL) and the Scuola SuperioreSant’Anna in Italy developed the revolutionary sensoryfeedback that allowed Sørensen to feel again whilehandling objects. A prototype of this bionic technologywas tested in February 2013 during a clinical trial inRome under the supervision of Paolo Maria Rossini atGemelli Hospital (Italy). “The sensory feedback wasincredible,” reports the 36-year-old Danish amputee.Micera and his team enhanced the artificial hand withsensors that detect information about touch, measuringthe tension in artificial tendons that control fingermovement and turning this measurement into anelectrical current. Because this electrical signal is toocoarse to be understood by the nervous system, thescientists used computer algorithms to transform thesignal into an impulse that sensory nerves can interpret.The sense of touch was achieved by sending the digitallyrefined signal through wires into four electrodes thatwere surgically implanted into what remains ofSørensen’s upper arm nerves. FD
NEWS & VIEWSWyss and Bertarelli Foundations, theUniversity of Geneva and the ÉcolePolytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne(EPFL) decided to buy the complex, withthe mildly mad idea of developing theodd 58,000 square metres at their disposal into a new cluster dedicated to neuraland bioengineering. Goodbye MerckSerono. Hello Campus Biotech.Could Campus Biotech have imagineda finer crown for the jewel it wished tobecome? “Usually, when you start aproject, you begin with the content andthen you look for a place to locate it. WithCampus Biotech, the exact oppositeoccurred. We had to imagine how tooccupy a huge space”, remembers BenoîtDubuis, the project’s Operations Director.Dubuis, who is also President of BioAlpsand Director of the life sciences incubatorEclosion, admits that everything is stillleft to play for. “Our key advantage is thatwe adopted a cluster dynamic from thevery start, seeing to integrate financial,scientific and academic partners.”Health Valley,a huge Swiss assetHealth Valley in Western Switzerland has no reasonto be jealous of the Boston area, which has earnedworldwide respect as the North American center ofexcellence for medical and pharmaceutical research.Indeed, Western Switzerland has a higher employmentlevel per capita in life sciences, biotechnology, medicaltechnology, and medicine than Boston.Between Geneva and Viège - a region with a population of 2 million - the BioAlps cluster brings together750 companies and over 25,000 employees, including5,000 highly qualified scientists*, working in life sciences.This compares favorably to the56,000 employees** in the samefield in the Greater Boston Area,with its population of about 6million.The EPFL (Ecole PolytechniqueFédérale de Lausanne) has justattracted funding from theEuropean Commission for itsHuman Brain Project, whichwill bring together over 1,000researchers and contributeto the development of a newCampus Biotech in Geneva.Tomorrow’s drug will include a diagnostic test – whichis another asset for Switzerland’s Health Valley, whosenumerous medtech companies benefit today from cutting-edge research in microtechnology and nanotechnology carried out by the Swiss watch industry.Switzerland’s Health Valley has all the conditions needed for its research and industry to thrive – with theexception of two essential aspects. The first one is a lackof public-private partnerships. Scientific discoveriesfinanced by public funds should not stay on the shelfunnoticed: research has to find an application. In the USand UK, academia and industry have developed fruitful collaborations, partly due to their world leadershipin pharmaceutical research and in the discovery ofnovel drugs.People sometimes have the feeling thatpharmaceutical research is mainly fundedby the state. In fact, nearly 70% of the cost ofR&D in all sectors was covered by industryin Switzerland in 2008.*** In 2014, industryfunding in the pharmaceutical arena is expected to exceed 80%. With over 30% of8Summer 2014global industry expenditure, Switzerland’s pharmaceutical industry is a heavyweight player in R&D.Bringing new products and treatments arising frombasic research to market saves lives. The pharmaceutical industry does not simply access academic researchers’ work for free. If a product is successful, then theindustry pays significant royalties to universities andtheir scientists. The creation of new employment linked to this also contributes to the economy.The Swiss pharmaceutical industry provides highlyskilled jobs with a higher value added than those ofother sectors. In 2012, a pharmaceutical worker’s productivity in Switzerland reached 277 Swiss francs perworking hour, twice as much as in financial services(114 francs), and three times more than the Swiss average in all sectors (72 francs).****The second condition needed to increase the dynamism of Health Valley is to create a center of competence that can attract and keep both the headquartersand the operational activities of large pharmaceuticalcompanies. To ensure the long-term presence of companies, these two aspects have to go hand in hand –which unfortunately is not always the case.A close-knit, high-level professional cluster with atalented employment pool and leading companies fosters interaction between the players. But fiscal factorsalone are not enough to encourage companies into along-term commitment to the region. The aim shouldbe to bring together decision-making and operationalcenters in the same place. Western Switzerland couldalso further integrate multinational employees by encouraging them to settle permanently and create localties. Such an approach would probably prevent companies closing or moving their headquarters, whichcan weaken the region and hinder its developmentpotential. Indeed, without a strong public-private partnership and without the creation of an attractive center of competence for big pharma, the development ofHealth Valley could be slowed down. Let’s bring downthese barriers to boost its development.THE PRIVATE-SECTORINDUSTRY COVEREDALMOST 70% OF THECOST OF RESEARCHAND DEVELOPMENTIN SWITZERLAND IN 2008Sources:*BioAlps**US Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW, Massbio*** The Swiss Federal Statistical Office****InterpharmaTHIERRY MAUVERNAYDelegate of the Board, Debiopharm GroupTranslational medicineSuch a vision is at the heart of theCampus Biotech model, with its threeobjectives. Firts, to promotebreakthrough innovation by invitingresearch groups in fields for which theLégende légendeLake Geneva Region presents both specilégende légendefic needs and strong skills. Also, tolégende lég légendeconcentrate on institutional collaboralég légende.tions, not only with universities but alsowith hospitals – the Geneva Hospitals, inparticular – and industry. And finally, tofocus on translational aspects with an eyeto the emergence of products and therapies. By providing shared infrastructure,researchers who are offered accommodation are urged to collaborate withteams in different scientific fields, usingplatforms formed around specific themes, such as neuroprosthetics, animalresearch or computational research.BY PASCAL VERMOTBecause of its particular layout, theSécheron site is ideal for such collaboration. During the Merck Serono years,have appreciated this architecturalrom the outside, nothing seemsalmost 80% of the available space wascontrast as an illustration of the compato have changed in Sécheron.shared. Open floors were linked by glazedny’s glorious pharmacological heritageThe site continues to be one ofpassageways and passages between theand what would be its outstanding futuremodern edifices with largedifferent buildings also enperformance in the field ofglass-fronted façades, and threecouraged mobility. Thoughbiotechnology.red-bricked buildings that are remindersTEXTE CITATION TEXTEmany interior conversionsWhen the pharmaceuticalof Geneva’s 19th-century industrialCITATION TEXTEwere necessary, the philosogroup announced the site’sflagship. Visitors enter the complex byCITATION TEXTEphy has remained the same.closure in April 2012, it left itway of an atrium whose interior bounda“For any research carried outdevoid of occupants andries seem to touch the sky, so huge thatCITATION TEXTE CITAin bioengineering for example,purpose but not for long.the human eye has trouble focusing onTION TEXTE CITATIONhuman, animal and computaWithin a year, a consortiumanything. Long before its fusion withTEXTE CITATION TEXTEtional research are indeedformed by Hansjörg Wyss, theMerck, the Geneva-based Serono wouldThe Russian Doll ofInnovationWhen Merck Serono left Geneva, Campus Biotech developed a newcluster model on the Sécheron site, bringing together academic,hospital and industrial partners.FSummer 2014PHOTOS: DRGUEST EDITORIAL9
NEWS & VIEWSMOT CLE The “Entrepreneur PartnershipLégende légendelégende légendelégende lég légendelég légende.based in different buildings but are all onthe same floor. As a result, moving fromone zone to another is very easy andfast,” explains Benoît D
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1. Introduction to medtech 2 Medtech: a growing global industry 2 The population is aging and older people need more medtech 3 Chronic conditions are becoming more commonplace and this is driving demand for medtech 4 Healthcare expenditure is a key driver for medtech 5 The innovative nature of medtech 6 Challenges and opportunities in medtech 6 2.
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