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The Basel Area Life Sciences Ecosystem in a Global Landscape


What makes for a strong life sciences ecosystem and how does the Basel Area compare to hubs in Boston and London?


In brief

  • Successful Life Sciences ecosystems thrive through the integration of five key elements: stakeholders, talent, research and development (R&D), business activities and a supporting environment.
  • While the Basel Area’s, Boston’s and London’s Life Sciences Ecosystem perform along these key elements, each ecosystem thrives through individual success factors, strengths and opportunities.
  • The Basel Area’s innovative ecosystem is recognized for its exceptional economic productivity, high density of stakeholders and strong collaboration culture. 

Life Sciences ecosystems are networks of interconnected stakeholders – including companies, research institutions, investors and healthcare facilities – that collaborate to drive innovation, economic growth and advancements in patient care.

One example is the Basel Area in Switzerland, which enjoys a global reputation as a world-class Life Sciences hub in the heart of Europe. EY-Parthenon and Basel Area Business & Innovation, a non-profit agency dedicated to helping start-ups, institutions and companies find business success in the Basel Area, wanted to understand more. In the first study of its kind, they:

  • Assessed the Basel Area’s performance across the five key elements of a successful Life Sciences ecosystem.
  • Explored how it compares with other leading ecosystems, specifically Boston and London, to understand how different factors contribute to their success
  • Identified strengths and areas for improvement within the Basel Area ecosystem, providing insights to enhance the location’s global competitiveness.

Life Sciences ecosystems thrive through the integration of five key elements: stakeholders, talent, research and development (R&D), business activities and a supporting environment.

Our findings indicate that the Basel Area excels due to its dense and diverse network of stakeholders, including major pharmaceutical leaders like Roche, Novartis, and Johnson & Johnson, along with numerous start-ups, research institutions and investors. This concentration fosters a collaborative research environment, reflected in the region’s high research output per capita. The Basel Area also boasts a well-developed infrastructure, featuring science parks and ample laboratory space that enhance operational efficiency for Life Sciences companies. The region’s talent landscape emphasizes quality over quantity.

While producing fewer graduates than Boston and London, the Basel Area’s research-intensive academic institutions attract international talent and drive strong R&D capabilities through close industry collaboration. A notable emphasis on late-stage clinical trials, with 59% in Phase III, underscores the region’s strength in advancing therapies toward market readiness. However, limited early-stage research represents an area for growth; bolstering early-phase activity could strengthen the innovation pipeline. Business activities in the Basel region are characterized by targeted and high-value transactions, with deal sizes comparable to those in larger ecosystems. In general, venture capital (VC) and late-stage funding provide economic stability but constrain opportunities for early-stage ventures. Basel Area VC funding is a strength of the ecosystem but a declining trend in early-stage funding highlights the need to enhance financial support for start-ups to sustain a robust flow of innovation. The Basel Area’s specialization in biopharma is a key driver of its success, yet it also exposes the region to market fluctuations specific to this sector.

Diversifying into medtech and digital health could create new avenues for cross-sector innovation within life science and medicine, increase resilience, and position the Basel Area to address a broader range of healthcare challenges.

How the Basel Area compares to its peers

The evaluation of the Basel Area Life Sciences ecosystem confirms that it is indeed a unique hub that drives Life Sciences innovation, especially remarkable given its smaller size (784 stakeholders) compared to global leaders like Boston (2,754 stakeholders) and London (4,334 stakeholders). Measures in terms of stakeholders per million inhabitants, the Basel Area has more Life Sciences stakeholder (1,352) than Boston (558) and London (484) combined.

This high stakeholder density is enhanced by exceptional clinical trial density and a significant per capita output in patent registrations and pipeline assets. Further, the region excels in terms of economic productivity, is unrivaled in its concentrated focus on biopharma and lives a strong collaborative culture.

Nevertheless, the Basel Area trails behind Boston and London in absolute terms, including with regard to overall funding volumes and absolute stakeholder diversity. Specifically, a lack of early-stage funding and the Basel Area’s very strong focus on biopharma may cause the ecosystem to miss out on innovative opportunities to attract and support early-stage ventures and companies in digital health and medtech. By building on its key strengths and addressing these areas of opportunity, the Basel Area ecosystem has strong potential to take its place as a globally leading Life Sciences ecosystem, next to its peers Boston and London.

Strengths and areas for improvement

Based on the quantitative insights gained through evaluation of all three ecosystems, as well as qualitative insights from interviews with selected key stakeholders from within the Basel Area, we were able to distill the key strengths of the Basel Area ecosystem and its opportunities for growth to become a truly innovative global Life Sciences ecosystem.

Going forward, the study identifies five steps that would help the Basel Area capitalize on its strengths and seize opportunities for growth:

 

1.       Reinforce early-stage funding and support

2.       Diversify across Life Sciences sectors

3.       Improve and accelerate collaboration between academia and industry

4.       Broaden therapeutic area diversification in clinical trials



For a more detailed analysis and all insights from the study, please download the full PDF:

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Summary

Overall, the Basel Area Life Sciences ecosystem demonstrates remarkable efficiency and productivity relative to its size, excelling in stakeholder density, infrastructure, and strategic investment. To remain competitive with larger ecosystems like Boston and London, the Basel Area must address gaps in early-stage funding, diversify its sector focus and streamline academic-industry collaboration. By building on its current strengths and pursuing these strategic opportunities, the Basel Area can further solidify its status as a leading global hub for Life Sciences innovation.

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Maximilian Huber and Dr. Patricia Camara Mor for their valuable contribution to this article.


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