Worg Pharmaceuticals has opted to establish its European headquarters at the site Allschwil of the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area. The Chinese biopharmaceutical company develops innovative therapies to treat allergies and autoimmune diseases.
The Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area will become the hub for the European activities of Worg Pharmaceuticals AG. Founded in 2018, the Chinese biopharmaceutical company is headquartered in Hangzhou and specializes in the development of innovative therapies to treat allergies and autoimmune diseases. The company is led by a management team from China, the USA and Europe.
Business activities in Europe will, according to the company, include both drug discovery and the preclinical and clinical development of the global Worg portfolio. A team of top-class researchers in the fields of chemistry and biology will be formed with the aim of establishing extensive research collaborations with academic institutions across Europe. “Our goal is to bring an IND (Investigational New Drug) candidate onto the market every year”, Worg explains in its company profile.
Worg “carefully examined” a number of possible locations in Europe, with Basel emerging as the front-runner due to the concentration of life sciences companies of all sizes in the region, “which form one of the best clusters in Europe, if not worldwide”. In addition, the large number of elite universities and research institutions in the region will provide the “talent pool” for the positions that are to eventually be filled.
The investment and innovation promotion agency Basel Area Business & Innovation supported Worg in the process of establishing its business in the region with by consulting and providing legal assistance in addition to helping with the property search. Director of Science at Worg, Rainer Henning, also acknowledges these aspects. For 40 years, Henning has worked in the position of CEO at biopharmaceutical companies in addition to holding a leading position in the field of cardiovascular research at Hoechst AG in Frankfurt. He now heads up Worg’s Hub of Business Activities in Europe. “Right from the very start we received incredible support from the management of the Switzerland Innovation Park as well as from experienced law firms and auditors. This enabled our company to get off to a smooth start”, he explains.