Apply before 10 April 2026 for the Tenity Health Innovation Programme in partnership with Novartis Türkiye

The Health Innovation Programme, led by Novartis Türkiye with the strategic partnership of Swiss Embassy and MEXT, and in collaboration with Tenity, is an 8-week innovation initiative bringing together entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of health technologies today.

Designed with a collective and interdisciplinary approach, the program aims to identify innovative solutions that address key challenges in the health sector, enhance patient and customer experience, and improve accessibility to healthcare and medicine.

The programme consists of three main phases:

• Innovation Call
• Scouting & Discovery
• Innovation Day, where shortlisted startups will pitch their solutions

Application Deadline: 10 April 2026 | More information here.

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Four Swiss Health Valley Gems won several awards during BIND – BioInnovation Day 2026. Dexterous Endoscope won the Best Start-Up Award, PreciMune got the Best Academic Project Award. Impli AG and MoleSense won support from H4 and CSEM.

BioAlps proudly celebrated the most promising life sciences innovations emerging from Western Switzerland at the BIND – BioInnovation Day 2026, held at CHUV and attended by 340 participants from academia, healthcare, industry, investment and innovation support.

Now firmly established as one of the region’s flagship innovation events, BIND brings together the Swiss Health Valley ecosystem to showcase breakthrough academic projects and fast-rising startups shaping the future of healthcare.

This year’s edition recognized four standout winners, each addressing major unmet needs in medicine and health technologies:

Dexterous Endoscope Best Startup – Sponsored by Lenz & Staehelin (CHF 5,000)

Dexterous Endoscope is an EPFL spin-off. The project stood out for its next-generation variable-stiffness endoscope, designed to combine the navigational advantages of flexible instruments with the precision and force of rigid tools. The technology is particularly relevant for procedures in ENT, urinary and gastrointestinal pathways — areas where access remains a major clinical challenge. The company has also recently secured significant support, including CHF 150,000 through Venture Kick and CHF 250,000 from the Canton of Vaud to accelerate product development and growth.

PreciMune – Best Academic Project Award –  Sponsored by KT UNIL-CHUV and UNITEC (CHF 5,000)

PreciMune, developed at UNIL-CHUV with support from the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, is advancing a proprietary immune profiling platform capable of delivering highly sensitive and comprehensive immune repertoire analysis. The project aims to support more precise patient selection, earlier treatment monitoring, and more effective development of next-generation therapies. In early 2026, PreciMune also received a FIT-InnoTREK grant.

Impli AG – H4 Award

Based at Biopôle, Impli AG is developing what could become the first real-time hormone monitoring device for women’s health. By enabling continuous hormone tracking, the company aims to transform fertility care, IVF monitoring, and broader hormone-related health management. The startup recently gained international visibility through a strategic partnership with Bayer, following its win in a Bayer-sponsored innovation challenge.

MoleSense – CSEM Award

Finally, MoleSense, another breakthrough project originating from EPFL, is developing a needle-free wearable patch for continuous and non-invasive monitoring of reproductive health biomarkers, with an initial focus on high-risk pregnancies. By replacing repeated blood draws and enabling real-time monitoring, the technology has the potential to ease the burden on both patients and clinicians. The company recently received CHF 100,000 from the Fondation pour l’Innovation Technologique (FIT) and is currently preparing for its next stage of development and fundraising. MoleSense will receive strategic and technological support from CSEM.

A jury representing the strength of the Swiss Health Valley

The 2026 winners were selected by a distinguished jury bringing together leading voices from academia, technology transfer, innovation support and the life sciences ecosystem in Western Switzerland.

2026 Jury members:

– Wilma Lukas – FONGIT
– François Capel – Innovaud
– Olivier Deloche – Unitec Technology Transfer Office
– Julien Guex – FIT – Fondation pour l’Innovation Technologique
– Alberto Schena – Knowledge Transfer UNIL CHUV
– Pierre-Jean Wipff – BioAlps – Life Sciences Cluster 🇨🇭and Biopôle Lausanne

Their combined expertise reflects the depth and diversity of the Swiss Health Valley, and their evaluation highlighted projects with strong scientific merit, clinical relevance and market potential.

About BIND – BioInnovation Day

BIND – BioInnovation Day was originally launched by UNITEC, the technology transfer office of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), together with KT UNIL-CHUV (formerly PACTT), the technology transfer office of the University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV).

The event was created to showcase the best academic life sciences research and innovation emerging from Western Switzerland. Since 2025, BioAlps – Western Switzerland Life Sciences Cluster –  has taken over the organization of BIND, further strengthening its role as a platform connecting research, entrepreneurship, healthcare and industry across the Swiss Health Valley.

Press contacts

• Dexterous Endoscope: Yegor Piskarev – yegor.piskarev@dexterousendoscopes.com
• ImpliAG: Anna Luisa Schaffgotsch – annaluisa@impli.org
• MoleSense: Gian Luca Barbruni – gianluca.barbruni@molesense.ch
• PreciMune: Johanna Chiffelle – johanna.chiffelle@unil.ch

Photos credit: ©Salomé Crouzet Kazzaz | BioAlps

📸 BIND 2026 Winners – From L to R: Johanna Chiffelle – PreciMune, Daniel Doyon – Impli, Yegor Piskarev – Dexterous Endoscope, Gian Luca Barbruni – MoleSense.

➡️ More Picture here

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The ARGENTIC project, funded by Horizon Europe, has just secured €7.5 million to develop a sovereign, energy-efficient AI system — to be rolled out across 19 institutions in 9 countries. Elena Tessitore and Douglas Teodoro, from University of Geneva (UNIGE), will lead the healthcare pillar.

Elena Tessitore (HUG / Faculty of Medicine, UNIGE) and Douglas Teodoro (Faculty of Medicine, UNIGE – Data Science for Digital Health) will co-lead the healthcare pillar of ARGENTIC, a major Horizon Europe project supported with EUR 7.5 million and bringing together 19 institutions across 9 countries.

The Geneva teams will focus on a highly promising use case: enabling real-time analysis of vital signs from hospitalised cardiac patients — including ECG, heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation — to help detect arrhythmias and cardiac decompensation earlier, directly at the bedside.

A key innovation of the project lies in its privacy-preserving architecture. Using federated learning, knowledge graphs and digital twins, several hospitals will be able to collaborate on AI model training without sharing raw patient data.

This approach perfectly reflects the mission of the newly launched Geneva Centre for Cardiac and Vascular Research (GCCVR), which aims to strengthen synergies between clinical medicine, cardiovascular research and data-driven innovation.

It also highlights, once again, the unique strengths of the Swiss Health Valley: a compact and highly connected ecosystem where hospitals, universities, research labs and innovators can rapidly collaborate to bring cutting-edge innovation closer to patients.

Congratulations to Elena Tessitore and Douglas Teodoro on this outstanding European recognition.

Source: UNIGE | ©UNIGE and AI generated

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The Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS), in partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim, has announced that Gioele La Manno is the recipient of the prestigious Boehringer Ingelheim–FENS Research Award 2026.

The award, worth CHF 25,000, recognises outstanding contributions to neuroscience and will be officially presented at the FENS Forum 2026, taking place from 6–10 July 2026 in Barcelona, where La Manno will deliver the award lecture.

Currently Assistant Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Gioele La Manno leads the Laboratory of Brain Development and Biological Data Science. His research focuses on understanding how the brain forms during embryonic development, combining cutting-edge biology with computational approaches.

La Manno developed and applied techniques to read the molecular identity of individual cells in the embryonic brain, producing the first detailed portrait of how human and mouse midbrain neurons are born. He then invented RNA velocity, a method that reveals the direction in which cells are changing, and assembled the first comprehensive molecular map of the embryonic mouse brain from its earliest stages to birth. Along the way, his group created new methods to map where cells sit in tissues and how their states evolve over time.

More recently, his lab developed a new analysis aproach leading to the discovey that the fats composing cell membranes are not uniform across the brain but form hundreds of distinct spatial patterns, a discovery that opened an unexpected new dimension of brain organization.

Source: Press Release | ©EPFL

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bioMérieux announces an investment of more than one million Swiss Francs in Plair, a Geneva-based and University of Geneva spinoff offering a breakthrough solution for real-time microbial detection and air sampling.

As part of its commitment to advancing environmental control to help improve patient and consumer health, bioMérieux invested in Plair, a Company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Plair’s flagship innovation, RAPID-C+, is a unique real-time viable particle counter that sets a new industry standard in pharmaceutical environmental monitoring. RAPID-C+ is already commercially available. 

This partnership reinforces bioMérieux’s commitment to driving innovation in environmental monitoring and supporting the evolving needs of the pharmaceutical industry.  

RAPID-C+ combines real-time counting of viable and total particles with certified continuous sampling on standard agar media, enabling microbial identification and supporting faster, more-informed decision making in cleanroom environments.  

As part of this collaboration, bioMérieux Senior Vice President of Pharma Quality Control Michael Reynier will join Plair’s Board of Directors. 

“Our investment in Plair is a strategic step forward in our ambition to be the partner of choice for advancing pharmaceutical quality control,” said Reynier. “RAPID-C+ is a breakthrough innovation that complements our portfolio and supports our customers in delivering critical therapies quickly and safely to patients.”

“An investment from a global leader like bioMérieux brings unique synergies to Plair, creating significant value for all our stakeholders, partners, and RAPID-C+ users,” said Plair CEO Denis Kiselev. “The acceleration of the bio-fluorescent particle counter market demands that quality managers and microbiologists receive clear regulatory support and scientific guidance to adopt this new method. We believe this endorsement by bioMérieux will become a strong signal to the industry, ultimately resulting in better, safer medicines for patients.”

This investment reflects bioMérieux’s strategy to diversify and strengthen our Pharma Quality Control offering, which is built on a partner-first approach and over 60 years of scientific excellence. With a global presence in more than 160 countries and a team dedicated to innovation, bioMérieux is recognized as a trusted reference by pharmaceutical leaders worldwide.

Press Release | © Plair, Plair’s Team, September 2024 (Archives BioAlps)

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The Leenaards Foundation has launched its new initiative, “Vers une santé partagée” (Towards Shared Health), a five-year program (2026–2030) designed to support the transformation of Switzerland’s healthcare system. With an annual budget of up to CHF 1.75 million, the initiative aims to encourage innovative approaches that promote a more accessible, sustainable, and equitable health system.

At the heart of the “Vers une santé partagée” programme lies a strong ambition: to move beyond a system focused primarily on treatment, toward a broader vision of health as a collective and societal responsibility. To achieve this, the initiative is structured around three key areas of support.

The first axis focuses on shaping new narratives around health. It seeks to move away from a purely individual or technology-driven perspective and instead promote a holistic understanding of health that integrates social, environmental, and collective dimensions. By redefining how health is perceived, this approach aims to foster cultural change and mobilize stakeholders around shared values.

The second axis supports advocacy efforts and the testing of new healthcare models. Faced with major challenges such as ageing populations, the rise of chronic diseases, and increasing pressure on healthcare resources, the initiative encourages projects that rethink how care is organized. The goal is to promote prevention, continuity of care, and more resilient and coordinated systems.

The third axis emphasizes the importance of patient and citizen engagement. It recognizes patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals as key actors in shaping the system, valuing their experience and expertise. Projects that strengthen participation, empower communities, and support citizen-led initiatives are strongly encouraged.

The initiative is open to institutions, associations, and foundations based in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva, with applications accepted year-round. Projects must demonstrate their ability to drive meaningful change, foster collaboration across stakeholders, and offer scalable, sustainable solutions.

Through “Vers une santé partagée”, the Leenaards Foundation invites stakeholders to rethink healthcare not only as a system of care, but as a shared societal project, rooted in prevention, collaboration, and long-term impact.

More Information | ©Pixabay – pachecopablo90

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The Symposium: AI for Clinical and Translational Medicine is taking place on 6 May 2026 at CHUV

The CHUV Centre for Biomedical Data Science is delighted to invite you to the second edition of its symposium dedicated to recent advances and applications of artificial intelligence in the field of healthcare. Building on the success of the first edition, this event will bring together international experts for cutting-edge scientific presentations. Throughout the day, discover how AI is transforming medicine: predictive analytics, personalised treatment strategies, and AI-based diagnostics and decision support.

Programme

Keynote:

• Jonah Cool, Life Science Lead, Anthropic
• Xiaole Shirley Liu, Co-founder & CEO, GV20 Therapeutics
• Pranav Rajpurkar, Associate Professor, Harvard

Speakers

• Guillaume Jaume (University of Lausanne – Unil)
• Giovanni Ciriello (Unil)
• Emmanuel Abbe (EPFL)
• Olivier Muller (CHUV)
• Noémie Boillat Blanco (CHUV)
• Jean Louis Raisaro (CHUV)
• Berend Snijder (Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering – BIIE)
• Alice Driessen (kaiko.ai)

6 May 2026, from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm |César Roux Auditorium, CHUV | Registration until 27 April

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If you are an early-stage biotech entrepreneurs, apply before 12 April 2026 for the Swiss HLG Start-Up initiative in partnership.

Swiss HLG, in partnership with Johnson & Johnson & BaseLaunch, is launching the 4th Annual Swiss HLG Startup Initiative—an educational and mentoring programme designed specifically for early‑stage healthcare and biotech entrepreneurs.

What you’ll gain

• Business development fundamentals
• Effective pitching and investor outreach
• Term sheet review & negotiation strategies
• Company and asset valuation
• Direct mentorship & industry networking

Participation: Free of charge (travel costs covered by participants)

Application Deadline: 12 April 2026 | Application Form here

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Geneva-based startup Agora Care is the first company to develop a patient-centred platform for storage and communication of medical images. The funding, coming from key shareholders, will support the launch of new features on the platform.

This new investment will support the launch and promotion of powerful new features on our platform—marking a significant leap forward in the way we serve patients and caregivers.

“Among these innovations is our new AI-driven personal assistant, designed to translate complex medical documents into clear, easy-to-understand language—available in the language of the user’s choice. We extend our sincere gratitude to our shareholders for their continued trust and support. Their commitment has enabled us to grow from a patient-centric medical imaging management solution into a comprehensive digital platform that securely centralizes a patient’s complete medical history.
We are excited about the journey ahead and remain dedicated to transforming how patients access and understand their health information.” – Osman Ratib, Agora care Cofounder and Managing Director.

The Agora Care solution Agora makes it easier to access, store and share medical images, providing patients and healthcare professionals with a single, fast and highly secure tool. The solution gives patients the opportunity to be fully in control of their medical images using a simple web-based platform allowing them to share the results of imaging procedures with medical practitioners and healthcare providers anywhere in the world at any time.

Source: Official Declaration Osman Ratib, Cofounder and Managing Director, Agora care | © Agora Care

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Apply before 17 June 2026, the SNSF and the Australia National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) are launching a call for proposals in the field of AI-supported healthcare.

This call for joint research projects (JRPs) allows researchers in Switzerland to collaborate with academic partners in Australia.

The theme of this collaboration is: artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare for populations of diverse sex, gender or sexual orientations or other underrepresented population groups.

The SNSF will cover the costs for the Swiss part of the research, while the NHMRC will cover the costs for the Australian part of the research. The duration of the JRPs is exactly four years, and the maximum funding amount on the Swiss side is 400,000 francs per project. The budget available for this call will allow up to 10 projects to be funded. Proposals must be submitted to both funding agencies.

Application Deadline: 17 June 2026 | More information

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