About us

Swiss Healthcare Startups (SHS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering innovation within the Swiss healthcare sector. At SHS, we believe in empowering startups by granting them significant exposure and facilitating access to key stakeholders. Serving as a neutral platform, we actively encourage dialogue, networking, and the exchange of ideas across the healthcare landscape. Through various events and initiatives, SHS strives to catalyze collaboration and drive transformative change within the industry.

SHS provides an excellent environment for our biopharma startup PRAMOMOLECULAR - to exchange ideas and experiences with other outstanding biotech founders and to get in touch with pharma, investors and others. Because if you want to achieve something in our field, you need contacts with the best!

Merle Fuchs

CEO PRAMOMOLECULAR GmbH & SHS Member

«We have received valuable support from SHS’ team to connect with other startups, with investors, and with advisors. And this has been delivered with a unique human touch!»

Francesco Cecchini

CEO Gondola Medical Technologies & SHS Member

SHS gave our startup the opportunity to present our mobility device for blind and visually impaired people at the Cortex live event in April. Thanks to SHS we obtained a lot of visibility which led to great contacts, including potential investors and prospective candidates to join our advisory board.

SHS’s strength lies in being a lean and highly performing organization in support of startups in the health ecosystem. As such, it is a valuable partner and friend. Thanks for all your help and support!

Franco Burlando

CEO Lighthouse Tech & SHS Member

«Thank you VERY MUCH for the invite, the platform and the organization of this great SHS Cortex Live! I’m looking forward to hopefully meet everybody in person soon.»

Nicolo Angerer

CEO LifeDrop & SHS Member

«All the contacts provided by SHS are very precious for our business, and I aboard any recommendations as a piece of gold.»

Shere Ruano

CEO RhythmiaBreath & SHS Member

Team

Diana Hardie
Chief Executive Officer
Ben Crawshaw
Lead Events
Sibylle Jungen
Finances and accounting
Janine Unfug
Marketing Communications (external)

Board

Thomas Löhrer
Thomas is a co-initiator of Swiss Healthcare Startups, passionate entrepreneur and partner of CR Kommunikation. He is responsible for the startup portfolio of the agency.
Fabian Unteregger
Fabian is a co-initiator of Swiss Healthcare Startups and the current co-president. The scholarship winner holds a Master in Food Science ETH and a Doctorate in Medicine. He is passionate entrepreneur and an award winning standup comedian.
Stefan Kohler
Stefan is a co-initiator of Swiss Healthcare Startups and partner and co-head of the Life Sciences Group at the Swiss law firm VISCHER AG. He has extensive experience in advising healthcare companies in Swiss law matters.
Franziska Steiner
Franziska is the co-president of Swiss Healthcare Startups and is passionate about tackling challenges through innovation. As a senior opportunity architect she’s building great things with the team at VNTR Innovation & Venturing. Prior to that she ran the startup programs at swissnex San Francisco and was also their digital health lead.
Cornelius Warncke
Cornelius is a Member of the Board of Swiss Healthcare Startups, a Medical Doctor, founder of medseek.ch and as such works together with health care providers all over Switzerland. Via medbridge.ch Cornelius and his co-founders establish FOAM-Sessions (Free Open Access Meducation) in Switzerland.
Olivia Zollinger
Olivia is the former-CEO of Swiss Healthcare Startups and a Member of the Board. Prior to joining SHS, Olivia worked in Global Pricing & Market Access with Celgene in the US. She holds an MLaw from University of Fribourg and an MBA from Temple University, Philadelphia.
Angelina Rau
Angelina is the former CEO a.i. of Swiss Healthcare Startups and a Member of the Board. As a qualified attorney at law Angelina specializes in Life Sciences and Healthcare Law at the Swiss law firm VISCHER AG. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Biomedical Law and Ethics at the University of Zurich as well as a Master in Drug Development at the Medical Faculty of the University of Basel.
Urs Fischer
Urs is a board member of Swiss Healthcare Startups. Urs is responsible for innovation at Health Info Net AG and is committed to developing and redesigning services for the healthcare market. He has extensive experience in digital transformation in various market sectors.

Advisory Board

Arthur Germain
EPFL Graduate, Arthur Germain has worked as a Digital Consultant for large corporations in Europe and Asia. Since 2017, he is the co-founder and CEO of OneDoc. Expert on the Swiss healthcare system, he works at the intersection between digital and healthcare to simplify the daily life of patients and healthcare professionals.
Claudio Feser
Claudio Feser is Senior Partner Emeritus of McKinsey & Company. He is chair and member of several company supervisory and advisory board. He teaches innovation (also in healthcare) and leadership at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and at ETH Zurich. He has authored or co-authored four books and numerous teaching cases and articles on innovation and leadership.
Heidrun Flaadt
Heidrun is director of CASE BioMed, Center of Advanced Studies on Entrepreneurship in Biomedicine at USI. She is also one of 16 Women in Healthcare Innovation 2021. The award was presented to her by the Innovation Office of the University of Basel for her work as director of CASE BioMed at the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, Università della Svizzera italiana.
Patrick Griss
Patrick is CEO of Zühlke Ventures and has an international track record as value adding investor, engaged non-executive director, or discreet advisor to leadership teams involved in key decision processes.