BaseLaunch – Accelerating early stage healthcare ventures

In 2017, BaselArea.swiss initiated BaseLaunch, an accelerator for healthcare startups. BaseLaunch is backed by Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Novartis Venture Fund, Roche and Pfizer as well as other public and private partners. Applying Startups are reviewed and selected by a selection committee, which includes experts from the healthcare industry and seasoned entrepreneurs.
How healthcare Startups can benefit
BaseLaunch supports carefully selected ventures over the course of 15 months and two phases. During this time the BaseLaunch team as well as business development, scientific, technical and legal advisors work very closely with the projects. In the three months of phase I, participating projects further solidify strategy, R&D plans and operations. For consultant services, financial support through BaseLaunch can be as high as CHF 10’000 per project. Startups selected for the second phase receive a grant of up to CHF 250’000 to further de-risk the projects and reach key value inflection milestones as well as access to state of the art infrastructure. « What makes BaseLaunch unique is our industry focus, our extremely entrepreneur-centric attitude and that we build the program around the specific needs of each project. We do not take any equity, even though we support the Startups with sums of up to CHF 250’000. The pharma and investor network in the Basel region is exceptional. Our healthcare partners provide top-level strategic guidance. This allows us to support entrepreneurs early on in the most relevant ways, which we believe maximizes the chances for them to build strong healthcare companies. » says Alethia de León, Managing Director of BaseLaunch.
For the first year, more than 100 projects from Switzerland and abroad have applied. The selection committee chose 11 projects in the therapeutics and diagnostics space. Applications for the next program cycle will open in January 2018. To find out more visit www.baselaunch.ch.