News & Events

Last week, our Product Lab Workshop Series for the University of Zurich Bio& MedTech Entrepreneur Fellows came to a grand finale.
Over the past six weeks, together with the UZH Innovation Hub and the BioEntrepreneurship & Innovation (BEI) program, we worked closely with the Fellows on key aspects that shape every successful healthcare venture such as the unmet need, Target Product Profile, competitive landscape and the development plan going forward.
Last week we celebrated the finale with an inspiring panel discussion on translating scientific ideas into market-ready products. A big thank you to Daniela Doda (Lichtsteiner Foundation) and Kevin Yim (EVIIVE AG) for sharing your experience and insights!
This was followed by presentations from our Fellows Arian Ehterami, Lukas Schwyter, Taiyo Yamamoto and Tommaso Marchetti who reflected on their learnings and presented their plans for the road ahead.

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It was a real pleasure hosting Markus Kalousek at the Kick-Off of our Industry Insights Seminar Series today. Markus spoke about how to go from Target to Therapy, drawing on his extensive experience in program management, portfolio strategy and business development at CSL and Novartis.

Thank you, Markus, for coming to UZH and sharing your insights!

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The TMA hosted the third SPARK Night in 2026 bringing together a fantastic group of advisors and three exciting pharma projects. We had the pleasure of welcoming:

• Adularia, presented by Ana Montalban-Arques developing a novel immunotherapy for ovarian cancer based on their research of the gut microbiome
• CaTi Therapeutics, presented by Thomas Look developing a platform to arm T-cells with cytokines to treat advanced melanoma
• Nomal Therapeutics, presented by Andreas Dzung working on a new treatment for uveal melanoma, a rare but potentially deadly cancer originating in the eye.

A big thank you to all of our fantastic advisors for taking the time to join us and for sharing their expertise, experience and honest feedback. 

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The second edition of Product Lab, our training program for recipients of the UZH Entrepreneur Fellowship has officially started. Over the course of 5-full days, we will cover important topics such as defining the unmet need, constructing the Target Product Profile and identifying the Killer Experiments to give the entrepreneurs a headstart in developing their healthcare products. The course will consist of a mixture of lectures, workshops and discussions with exciting guests. We are looking forward to seeing your projects progress!

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The TMA had the priviledge to be involved in the ETH Health Tech Week held at ETH Zürich - Michio as part of the Jury while Mirco and Anna joined the Coaching team. Ten interdisciplinary teams from medicine / life science, engineering and business worked together on real-world challenges in HealthCare. It was definitely inspiring to see the drive, talent and motivation of these students and observe what can happen within 5 days when people from different disciplines work towards the same goal. 
 

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This week, Mirco Müller and Anna Hanzl from our team had the pleasure of joining the SPARK Global Meeting in Helsinki, where 40+ affiliates from SPARK programs around the world came together to celebrate two milestones: 20 years of SPARK at Stanford and 10 years of SPARK Finland.
Over the meeting we exchanged ideas on everything from education to partnerships, funding, communication and branding. There's so much to learn from one another. Most of all, it was inspiring to experience the SPARK community first-hand - a community that openly shares knowledge and supports each other, because we only move forward by pulling in the same direction.

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We have put together an overview of industry partnership programs for translational life science research in academia (and start-ups). The document features calls from Daiichi-Sankyo, CSL, Debiopharm and others, covering deadlines, topic areas, collaboration formats, and application guidance. Beyond funding (CHF 40k to several hundred thousand), these programs in many cases offer direct access to industry expertise, infrastructure, materials, and networks.

Download the document HERE and see what's in it for you!

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Another SPARK night focusing on MedTech topics took place on May 27th. Two outstanding teams presented their projects to a panel of industry advisors and Medtech experts:

- Skaaltec presented by Paulius Viskaitis, developing a non-invasive approach for vagus nerve stimulation to support the rehabilitation of stroke patients

- MutaDent presented by Isaac Maximiliano Bugueno Valdebenito and Argyro Lamprou, Ph.D, developing a regenerative biomaterial for deep carious lesions with the potential to actively restore damaged dental tissue and reduce the need for root canal treatments and tooth extraction

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The Swiss Biotech Day is coming up next week on the 4.5. and 5.5. in Basel and we are very glad to announce that Anna Hanzl and Mirco Müller from our team will participate! Looking forward to exciting meetings and presentations all around the Biotech Space.
In case you are thinking about how to build a LifeScience StartUp, want to learn how you can get involved in our translational expert community or just exchange on current trends please reach out to us.

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We are thrilled to officially welcome Anna Hanzl to the TMA! Anna brings a PhD in molecular biology and recent experience consulting for the Boston Consulting Group. She will lead the TMA's initiatives in industry relations among other things. We are looking forward to working with her!

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Another exciting SPARK Night here at the TMA: We had three outstanding teams who presented their approaches and challenges to a panel of industry advisors and drug development experts

- Marc H. from CypherCure: Developing a novel algorithm to identify highly immunogenic antigens for cancer vaccines

- Massimo Saini from Apheryon: Working on a novel liquid biopsy technology to extract large numbers of circulating tumour cells to support the development of personalized cancer therapies

- Nicolò Pernigoni Pernigoni from MicThera (visiting from USI Università della Svizzera italiana): Developing a novel therapeutic approach to treat late-stage metastatic prostate cancer

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We had the chance to hear from three outstanding projects who presented their approach and challenges to a panel of Medtech industry experts:

- Patrick Weber and Hao Liu Lui from Lumios: Developing novel 3D-printed nerve grafts

- Cornel Dillinger and Pedro Pereira Amado from SonoStent: Working on a surface coating for urethral stents that can be cleaned from biofilm using ultrasound

- Kevin Yim from EVIIVE: Pioneering a new blood test to select the optimal immunotherapy treatment for melanoma patients

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At this week’s SPARK Night, we had the chance to hear from three outstanding founders who presented their projects and challenges to a panel of industry experts and investors:

- Vincent Forster from Nerai Bioscience AG: Pioneering gene therapies based on a precision gene-editing platform

- Gregor Bordon, PhD from Eldian Biomed: Developing a novel approach to treat osteoarthritis

- Antonis Katsoulas from Innunity Therapeutics: Working on new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases

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