Breakthrough therapies and tools

The Entrepreneur Fellowship track «Bio & MedTech» supports the foundation of startups that develop breakthrough therapies, medical devices and diagnostic tools to improve patients lives and strengthen the healthcare sector.

Innovators supported by an Entrepreneur Fellowship «Bio & MedTech» will gain the skills, knowhow and network needed to become confident entrepreneurs in the health sector.

TheBioEntrepreneurship & Innovation (BEI) Program is a hands-on training for life scientists aiming to translate scientific results into real-world applications. Experienced entrepreneurs and experts share their knowledge on how to develop a first business plan and setup a successful start-up company. Fellows can participate in the program before or during the fellowship.

The product lab is organized in September each year and consists of five full-day workshops and individual work. In the lab, fellows work on their projects individually, in groups and guided by experts and entrepreneurs to create a strong product profile, identify gaps and come up with a detailed plan and deliverables until the review meeting.

While fellows may choose the starting date of their fellowship idependently, they are expected to dedicate at least 50 % of their time to the product lab during September.

The Entrepreneur fellows are supported throughout the program by the experienced coaches of the Translational Medicine Accelerator (TMA). TMA support fellows to develop a strong foundation for their startups through advice on how to plan value-generating and "killer" experiments, how to identifying and engage key opinion leaders (KOLs) around key gaps and by providing opportunities for "soft" feedback from investors before launching.

In the life science domain, it is important to think of your intellectual property early on. The fellowship only support solutions that are based on a technology that has been demonstrated in a lab at UZH. An invention disclosure is required at application stage.

Entrepreneur fellows are employed at UZH and have access to all the IT and library resources offered by the university. In addition,  the program offers access to the UZH IncubatorLab, a fully equipped laboratory located in the Bio-Technopark in Schlieren. The lab is hosted by the Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Selected candidates will be invited for an interview with the expert jury.