Blog Overview

Drug Discovery Made in Switzerland

12.2.18

Drug discovery has come a long way from guess work to a structural and targeted approach to finding new and better remedies. To develop new drugs, companies need to stay up to date about the latest discoveries in genomics, proteomics, structural or quantitative biology.

To solve the riddle of a drug, to find the right target and to understand exactly how it influences processes at work in a human cell, scientists from many different fields must work together: biologists, chemists, crystallographers, bioengineers, computer scientists and even physicists and engineers. Their combined know-how is now bringing drug discovery into a new era.

Despite all the progress that has been made, we often do not have all the puzzle pieces that would enable us to see the big picture. To develop new drugs, companies need to stay up to date about the latest discoveries in genomics, proteomics, structural or quantitative biology. The industry must translate the scientific efforts into a new innovative product.

At Switzerland Innovation, such interdisciplinary collaborations between science and industry can flourish, thus finding keys and pathways to more precise medicine and bring drug discovery into a new era.

Switzerland Innovation is committed to promote Switzerland as a location for R&D and innovation. International corporations such as Roche, Novartis and Actelion (J&J), have their home base and global research centers in Switzerland. Other leading biotech and pharmaceutical companies — many of them from the US — including AC Immune, Alnylam, Amgen, Biogen, Bluebird, Prothena or Tesaro have chosen Switzerland as an R&D location. Together with Novartis and Roche as the incumbent players, they attract many highly skilled experts from all over the world.