The unbridled success of the Swiss Biotech industry continues apace

The success of the Swiss Biotech industry continues. In 2017, the sector matched the successes of the last few years and even topped them, as the latest figures from the Swiss Biotech Report show. Compared to the previous year, capital investment in private and listed Swiss biotech companies doubled from CHF 0.8 billion to CHF 1.64 billion – the highest figure since the report was first published. Industry sales* increased by 14 percent to reach CHF 3.79 billion. The number of employees within the total 237 biotech companies and 60 suppliers rose by around 2.5 percent to 13,725 employees. The value of pharmaceutical and biotechnology product exports in 2017 was CHF 83.8 billion, which is about 38 percent of the total Swiss export volume. In addition, investment in research and development increased by more than 22 percent to CHF 1.39 billion.

Domestic activities expanded after Acquisitions
Swiss biotech companies continue to be attractive on the world market, and they remain on the radar of global pharma and biotech companies. Successful partnerships continued in 2017, and many new ones were forged. A know-how drain is repeatedly and successfully prevented, and instead, domestic activities are expanded in order to keep the high level of innovation and value creation in the country. A recent example is the takeover of Actelion by the global player Johnson & Johnson. Although Actelion is no longer included in the Swiss Biotech Report statistics, the spin-off of Idorsia has created a new biotech company affiliated with Switzerland as a research location. Further examples of past success were the takeovers of of Prionics by Thermo Fisher; Okairos and GlycoVaxyn by GSK; Covagen by Johnson & Johnson; Serono by Merck; Speedel and ESBATech by Novartis; and Glycart by Roche.

Digitisation fuelling growth
Digitisation is also a topic for the biotech industry. Nowadays software is used to make development processes faster and more efficient. Swiss companies are very active in this field, corporates as well as start-ups. One indication that the topic is important for the Swiss industry is that Jurgi Camblong, CEO of Sophia Genetics, a fast growing scale-up working on the intersection of biotech and IT, was elected today as Member of the Board of the Swiss Biotech Association.

Challenges remain
Although the industry performs strongliy, Dominik Escher, President of the Swiss Biotech Assoction, mentioned some challenges on which the association is working. One challenge is the over-regulation of clinical trials in Switzerland. Start-ups often do clinical trials abroad although the Swiss hospitals are world-leading and would be just around the corner. In addition, the association is working on tax issues and is helping to increase the available seed and venture capital.

(Press release / SK)