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32 BioPharm International ® Emerging Therapies 2022 eBook www.biopharminternational.com bio/pharmaceutical development and cell handling, for instance; a large community of life science com- panies; and a wide range of business development programs tailor-made to support any stage of an en- trepreneur's journey, says Fåhraeus. Switzerland Switzerland is another country where the life sciences sector is being driven in part by the presence of bio- pharma majors headquartered within its borders. "The incubator scene in Switzerland is f lourishing for a number of reasons. Firstly, proximity in Basel to the major pharma companies Roche and Novartis and, secondly, the growing start-up culture in the main universities such as EPFL [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne]," says Sirpa Tismal, director of Investment Promotion, Switzerland Global Enter- prise, the official Swiss organization for export and investment promotion. "Furthermore, the incuba- tors themselves are very varied—some specialize in a theme, such as the new Femtech Incubator in Laus- anne, others [specialize] in disease areas, such as the Diabetes Center in Berne, while others cover the full spectrum of life sciences." BaseLaunch, based in Basel, Switzerland, for in- stance, helps launch and build ventures to the point where they can complete a Series A financing or sim- ilar. The organization focuses on venture companies specializing in innovative therapeutics. "We provide a diverse range of support, from financing to strategic advice for de-risking the science and building-out the companies from scratch. We partner with key play- ers from the biotech sector, leading pharmaceutical companies, and venture funds: Roche, Pureos Bio- ventures, Roivant Sciences, Bridge Biotherapeutics, CSL Behring, Johnson & Johnson, and China Medi- cal System, which also finance the pool out of which BaseLaunch funds ventures," says Stephan Emmerth, PhD, director Business Development & Operations, BaseLaunch. These key partnerships give BaseLaunch access to the scientific and commercial know-how of its part- ners, Emmerth points out. The organization is run by Basel Area Business & Innovation, which also finances its operations, which are additionally also supported via its domain partners—KPMG, SpiroChem, Vossius & Partner, Walder Wyss attorneys at law, KPBMA, WuXi AppTec, Alloy Therapeutics (a reflection of how the efforts of these incubators often intersect and am- plify one another), Lonza, and Charles River Laborato- ries—In addition, BaseLaunch collaborates with the TechPark Basel and the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area for infrastructure access. "We provide convertible loan financing of up to $500,000 per venture. And on top [of that] we work closely with each venture to help them build the company to the stage where they can raise venture capital financing. We are completely customized," emphasizes Emmerth. Emmerth explains that BaseLaunch typically also gets involved in other aspects that foster a venture company's devopment, such as building the team— bringing in drug development and commercial ex- pertise, as needed, and establishing fair ways to com- pensate early team members; providing support with intellectual property licensing and incorporating the company; and providing introductions, globally, to venture f unds as well as assisting in negotiations with these funds. "Through all of this, ventures retain full entrepre- neurial freedom to decide what they want to do, and how they want to do it. Importantly, ventures retain control over the extent to which our partners become involved. We believe that this overall set-up was in- strumental in being successful building new biotech companies: Since supporting our first ventures in early 2018, nine of our portfolio companies (of a total of 19 counting the just recently added) have, in total, raised over $450 million in financing from European and US Venture funds," Emmerth states. Anot her Sw iss organ ization, Star t Lab, located on the Biopôle campus in Lausanne, Switzerland, is an incubator that offers 1500 m 2 of fully equipped shared lab space. Biopôle is one of the largest life sciences parks in Europe, according to Nasri Nahas, CEO of Biopôle. StartLab offers spaces tailored to com- panies operating in wet-lab biology and chemistry environments for drug discovery, diagnostics, syn- thetic biology, medtech, and other areas of the life sciences, Nahas states. "We offer individual named lab benches as well as hotdesking—for employees who are between exper- iments—and shared specialized labs, including cell culture, centrifuge, PCR [polymerase chain reaction], chemistry, and microbiology. Our infrastructure in- cludes shared general ser vice rooms—such as au- toclave/washing, machinery, and cold rooms—and there's a laboratory manager who takes care of the facility," says Nahas, detailing the resources that the incubator offers. Life science sectors around the world are invigorated by efforts of various entities.