Insights from our entrepreneurs

We interviewed more than 25 entrepreneurs and experts from our community during 2022 who shared their journeys and their views about their respective fields. Here, we’ve handpicked three stories to spread knowledge, provide inspiration or just pique your curiosity.

Dr Loïc Roch, Co-founder and CTO of Atinary Technologies

We merge high-performance computing, materials sciences and AI to fast-track R&D. At Atinary, we make experiment planning easy and companies can deploy our AI technology seamlessly in their R&D processes, today.

Discovering new materials – such as biomaterials or pharmaceutical substances – is a very slow and expensive process. It can take many years and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the problem that we’re tackling at Atinary. Our technology fast-tracks R&D and makes it cheaper. Using a cloud-based machine learning platform, we have the power to process the data and suggest experiments that will lead to those discoveries faster.

In Switzerland, we benefit from a rich ecosystem that combines leading companies in chemistry, pharma and life sciences with top universities and talent. And at Biopôle there’s a real spirit of collaboration and lots of opportunities to work in partnership with others, which is a huge advantage.

Ivan Mestrangelo, CEO of MediCrops Biomedical Technologies AG

At MediCrops, we aim to produce medicinal cannabis products from seed to sale. Our main challenge is turning a natural product into something stable and reproducible on a large scale. Ultimately, we would like to create a platform that connects doctors with patients, as well as developing training for doctors so they’re more aware of the products and their benefits.

One of the main lessons I’ve learned is finding the right people. Over the years, I’ve employed over 130 people. It hasn’t always worked out, but when you’ve hired so many people, you start to get a bit of an instinct. In my previous companies, I recruited people really quickly. Now, I’ve learned to take my time. It’s timeconsuming, but well worth it.

Geoffroy Lapeyre, Co-founder and Board Member of Novostia

My father is a heart surgeon and an inventor, so I’ve been surrounded by science and medical innovations for as long as I can remember. As a young boy, artificial hearts that my father developed were among my favourite toys.

Novostia’s heart valve uses very strong materials that don’t degenerate and has a unique design that mimics natural valves.