Shwen, you have an impressive resume in digital health and corporate innovation. What is it about these areas that you love? 

Before I started my pharma career, I trained as a neuroscientist so perhaps that’s why I’ve always loved solving problems, testing hypotheses and exploring novel solutions. Even as a child, I was always curious about the crossover of science, medicine and emerging technologies — ever since I got my first Apple II computer in the late 80s and taught myself how to program in BASIC. 

Fast-forward through my 20-year pharma career and I found myself spending most of it leading digital strategy and innovation across different functions like commercial, communications, clinical and enterprise-wide.

Can you talk a bit about your work in supporting healthtech startups? 

In most of my biopharma roles, I first worked with internal teams to understand and define the business challenge; then I tried to figure out how to strategically solve them through novel technologies, partnerships, etc. This is why I ended up working with startups, tech companies and the broader digital ecosystem. 

Even though I have worked with startups for most of my career, my focus in the last five years at big pharma companies was to lead enterprise-wise innovation (i.e. across R&D, Clinical, Commercial, Manufacturing, etc.). Hence, I was responsible for sourcing and evaluating novel startups, establishing partnerships with the external digital ecosystem and helping to ensure the success of those partnerships. 

Over the last two or more years, as an independent consultant, I have also taken on more responsibilities as an investor, advisor and mentor to startups globally, including my role as an Mentor-Advisor to PharmStars — a pharma-focused digital health accelerator — and as an Executive-in-Residence at Springboard Enterprises, a nonprofit organization that helps women-led startup leaders grow by providing access to resources, investors and advisors.

You are the founder of GenAI4Pharma. Can you give us an overview of what this is and what it aims to achieve?

#GenAI4Pharma is a series of global events that showcase the application of generative AI and LLM-based technologies for the biopharma industry, across the lifecycle, including R&D, Clinical, Commercial and Medical. 

Each event typically starts with several keynotes delivered by experienced leaders in the field, followed by a series of pitches from startups that are developing GenAI-based solutions for the biopharma industry. 

To date, we have run four events in Boston, Basel, London and NYC, and our audience tends to be a mix of biopharma executives, investors, startups, tech companies and consultants/service providers.

We have featured well-respected pioneers in the field, like Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO of Insilico Medicine, Mike Nally, CEO at Generate Biomedicines or Jared Saul, CMO at AWS, and showcased over 20 startups who pitched their pharma-focused GenAI solutions.

What attracted you to becoming a representative of Business Location Switzerland and the Basel Area?

I was familiar with the DayOne accelerator through my work with startups and was a member of the selection committee as well as a startup mentor in 2023. I spoke at the recent Boom Summit in 2024, so when I was offered the role with Basel Area, I was excited at the opportunity to help spread the word about the region to my network and beyond. 

Your home patch — the Boston area in the US — is a world-class hub for life science. How do you think the Basel Area compares as a place to set up a startup in healthtech?

I was so impressed that the two regions are so similar! I visited Basel several times during my two-year tenure at Novartis and it reminded me a lot of the Boston ecosystem, with its pharma presence, great schools and vibrant startup community. In fact, I only recently found out that the Canton of Basel-Stadt and the state of Massachusetts have been sister-states since 2002. In addition, the Basel Area has a great talent pool, low tax rates, etc. 

Obviously, what the Basel Area brings to the table that Boston can’t is easy access to continental Europe. It’s multilingual culture — with many people speaking German, French and English — helps make interactions and deal-making with people and organizations across Europe super easy.

Who should reach out to you in your new role and how will you be able to help them?

Leaders of established healthtech, digital health and techbio startups who are thinking about expanding to the European market should get in touch with me. I would also love to hear from VCs, as well as anyone managing an incubator or accelerator, who has portfolio companies that might fall into this category. 

I can explain why Switzerland is a great location in which to expand either R&D or commercialization activities (or both!) and discuss the various ways that Basel Area Business & Innovation can help to support that expansion. One of the major ways being the premier DayOne accelerator, our launchpad for healthtech ventures at the interface with pharma and medtech. 

For leaders of pharma or biotech companies looking to settle in Switzerland, I encourage them to reach out to my counterpart Kirsten Detrick, who is specialized in this area.

Follow Shwen on LinkedIn or contact him via email.