„20 Years of Evolution in Healthcare Business Development“
Basel, May 19th 2022. The Swiss Healthcare Licensing Group (Swiss HLG), a non-profit association of Business Development and Licensing professionals, held its 20th Jubilee Conference in a beautiful setting in Montreux. The conference theme was the transformation of business development into an essential strategic growth driver and innovation catalyst over the last 20 years.
Over two and a half days, more than 100 delegates from Switzerland, Europe, the UK and Turkey gathered by Lake Geneva to explore and discuss how the world has evolved in the last two decades, the underlying drivers and the implications for business development.
The conference opened with keynote speeches from Thomas Tóth von Kiskér, Chief Executive Officer at Tillotts Pharma and Martin Heidecker, Chief Investment Officer at the Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) Action Fund. As the first ever President of Swiss HLG, Thomas took the audience through the last 20 years in an interactive and entertaining way. Addressing a very serious and hot topic, Martin shared the mission of the AMR Action Fund to support much-needed new solutions and help address market failures.
Over the following two days, leading experts from the healthcare industry presented on three main themes and gave interesting perspectives for the future.
The first session explored how Partnering helped realize the promise of breakthrough science. Talks highlighted the shift to high unmet need specialty care diseases, building an innovative biotech through creative dealmaking, ecosystem engagement to access exciting science, and the importance of courage and strategic focus when navigating the cell and gene therapy jungle.
The lens then shifted to the impact of global market developments on deal-making. Key trends include the rise of the payer as the industry strategic customer, the growing importance of China both as a market and a source of innovation, and new partnering approaches among diverse stakeholders to deliver value through the shared objective of improving health outcomes for patients.
In the final session the audience heard how organizational structures and processes adapted to the growing strategic importance of business development, and how executive profiles evolved to require stronger leadership, agility and drive. The conference wrapped up with two excellent presentations from venture capitalists on past and future financing trends.
The 20th Jubilee celebration gave participants the opportunity to take full advantage of networking in person while enjoying a beautiful panoramic view of Lake Geneva.
The Swiss HLG Board thanks all presenters as well as the participants for the lively discussions and interactions. Please find below some images from the conference.
We thank our sponsors for their continuous support.
(Please click on the image to view it in its entirety and or a slide show.)
