The Venture Leaders, the Swiss National Startup Team members, have a clear objective: They envision themselves as global players and aim for international expansion. The Venture Leaders Biotech roadshow 2026 brought 10 handpicked Swiss entrepreneurs to Boston, one of the world’s largest life science hubs. Over the week, the members met investors and experts, received targeted feedback, participated in hands-on workshops, and visited companies already operating in the US. The roadshow is organized by Venturelab and supported by EPFL, ETH Zurich, University of Basel, Hansjörg Wyss, Kellerhals Carrard, and VISCHER.
Venturelab has been organizing international investor and business development roadshows for the Swiss National Startup Teams since 2006. The ambitious entrepreneurs and their promising startups are introduced to high-caliber investors and potential customers in leading technology hubs such as Silicon Valley, Boston, Asia, Barcelona, Munich, and London.
"The Venture Leaders Biotech program is a great way to access the Boston biotech ecosystem early on, connect with investors, and gain firsthand insight into investor expectations."
The Venture Leaders Biotech roadshow offers a one-week deep dive into the Boston life science ecosystem, pitching to US investors, expert workshops, industry and market insights, and peer-to-peer exchanges with entrepreneurs. Venture Leaders Biotech alumni include high-flying startups such as Covagen (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), Versantis (acquired by Genfit), SimplicityBio (acquired by Precision for Medicine), AMAL Therapeutics (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim), NBE-Therapeutics (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim), Alentis (USD 105 million funding round in 2023), Interax Biotech (Seed round with US investors met during the roadshow), and BioVersys (IPO in 2025).
"Venture Leaders Boston Roadshow gave Baxiva direct access to the US ecosystem and serious investors. Their network opened doors we couldn’t reach otherwise, and it’s already reshaping our strategy and priorities going forward."
Swiss biotech startups expand investor outreach in the US
Selected from over 70 applications, the ten Venture Leaders Biotech immersed themselves in Boston’s life science ecosystem while building strong connections with fellow entrepreneurs navigating similar challenges and ambitions. The startups showcased a diverse range of technologies and therapeutic approaches, including AI-driven drug design, vaccines, peptide therapeutics, CAR-T therapy, in vivo gene editing, proteomics, and organoid automation.
The week-long roadshow in Boston featured investor pitch and feedback sessions with leading US investors, alongside a pitch event hosted by Arnold & Porter. Participants engaged with investors including Cure.Bio, Insight Partners, Novartis Venture Fund, Cure Ventures, Pappas Ventures, M Ventures, Pac8 Ventures, Solasta Ventures, P74 Capital, and RA Capital, gaining direct exposure and feedback that helped refine their strategies for entering the US market and expanding internationally.
"One of the biggest values of this trip is the opportunity to build relationships, not only with U.S. partners, investors, and customers, but also with fellow Swiss entrepreneurs. These connections can be just as valuable in the long run."
Beyond investor meetings, the startups participated in a series of workshops and expert sessions covering legal, regulatory, and commercial topics. These included legal strategy workshops with Kellerhals Carrard, regulatory and legal strategy sessions led by Arnold & Porter, U.S. market landscape and business workshops with NEMIC, Knightsbridge Advisers, and Seqens, as well as business visits to Asymmetrex, Biognosys, and SOPHiA GENETICS.
The Venture Leaders Biotech is organized by Venturelab and supported by EPFL, ETH Zurich, University of Basel, Hansjörg Wyss, Kellerhals Carrard, and VISCHER.
Find here the Venture Leaders Biotech 2026 that traveled to Boston.
Baio Labs Sàrl: Streamlining early-stage drug discovery processes.
Traditional early-stage drug discovery depends on screening chemical libraries, a costly and time-consuming process that explores only a tiny fraction of the astronomically large chemical space. Depen... Read more
Baxiva AG: Next-gen vaccines to prevent Gram-negative infections
Baxiva is an ETH Zurich spin-off building next-generation glycoconjugate vaccines to prevent serious infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria, starting with extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPE... Read more
Biodelphis Therapeutics SA: A new generation of targeted drugs for cancer and beyond.
Several proteases, such as cysteine cathepsins, play central roles in the development of cancer and other diseases, but are considered difficult to drug because of their important physiological roles ... Read more
Bioscibex SA: Faster, cheaper & safer monoclonal antibody production
Imagine developing a life-saving biologic, only to realize that millions of patients may never access it because manufacturing is too complex and the drug too expensive. This is the challenge of mon... Read more
GlioCART GmbH: CAR-T cell therapy targeting glioblastoma.
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive and fatal brain cancer, with a median survival of just 15 months. We have developed a dual-action CAR-T cell therapy for GBM, targeting the tumor directly w... Read more
Immitra Bio GmbH: A platform for scalable in-vivo gene editing therapies
Currently approved and clinical blood stem cell therapies rely on editing cells outside the body (ex-vivo). This involves extracting stem cells from the patient, editing them individually at specializ... Read more
NanoZymeX AG: Next-generation enzyme replacement therapies.
This project builds a platform biotech that upgrades enzyme replacement therapy by solving its main bottleneck: poor intracellular delivery and high immunogenicity. We use proprietary lipid nanopartic... Read more
Translation-X GmbH: Novel precision therapeutics for autism spectrum disorders
We're addressing the unmet medical need in autism therapeutics, impacting over 1% of the population with limited treatment options. Our team, based at the University of Basel, comprises experts in the... Read more
UNOMR AG: Unlocking precision medicine through protein sequencing
UNOMR AG, a techBio startup from ETH Zurich, is developing next-generation protein sensors to solve one of the biggest blind spots in modern biology and medicine: our inability to fully read and under... Read more
Visienco AG: Providing automated organoid handling technologies.
Visienco is an award-winning startup combining AI and robotics to standardize and scale the production of 3D biological models. Our flagship product, the Orgadroid, automates the classification, s... Read more
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