The educated workforce and high retention rates makes Switzerland a desirable place in the cell and gene therapy field, says NewBiologix.
Armed with $50 million in Series A funding, the recently launched Lausanne, Switzerland-based company, NewBiologix, is focused on rAAV vectors. The firm is developing a DNA-based platform for the advanced engineering of cell lines used to produce cell and gene therapies (CGT), which will be applied to human (HEK-293) and mammalian (CHO) cell lines.
The firm has an operational 19,000 square-foot laboratory in Biopôle, Switzerland that has been designed to develop CGTs.
Igor Fisch spoke at the BPI Theater at BIO
While there is a general consensus among professionals that the amount of talent coming through is not reflective of the huge investment in capacity being seen across the Life Sciences industry, Igor Fisch, CEO of NewBiologix, told BioProcess Insider at BIO in Boston, there are two main advantages of operating in Switzerland.
“The main advantage of Switzerland is the manpower because you get really well-educated people within a small country. We have extremely good universities, so the people are well-educated, not only in science, but in biotech, Life Sciences, and everything.”
“[This] is a big advantage [for us] to rapidly include them within the company, educate them and work with them.”
The second advantage given by Fisch relates to another challenge concerning talent in the industry. It is no longer just about attracting potential employees to work for your company, but to retain this talent for a substantial period of time.
“The second advantage is interesting,” said Fisch. “[In Switzerland] the people have a tendency to stick with you, they start work with you, and they stay with you.”
According to Fisch, this enables employees to keep in the know as the company grows, which is “very important” as you must possess innovation.
“In our case, we will first start working on developing the platform to stably produce these AV particles. [However], we’ll then move on to cell therapy, [like] stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This means that our understanding of genomes we had before will be applied to stem cell and cell therapy, [which is] going to be an advantage.”
NewBiologix has 17 employees based at its facility and by the end of 2026, it expects to have representation in the US and a total of 50 members of staff.
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