Lucas Scherdel, Director, Healthcare Innovation DayOne
Healthcare often lags behind other major industries when it comes to innovation. But, it’s not the technological barriers that are slowing down the pace of innovation in the industry. In fact, with the emergence of artificial intelligence, mobile technology, and bigdata, we have more technological solutions than we’ve ever had. But, still, these advanced technologies haven’t been able to create a large-scale impact on healthcare in a truly meaningful way. This is largely due to the long-standing operational silos within healthcare. Today, innovation is taking place within separate silos, where pharmaceutical companies, healthcare providers, and governments have different agendas. This fractured ecosystem of diverse stakeholders with differing objectives and perspectives creates a disjointed healthcare experience and impedes new healthcare solutions from evolving. Thus, to build a better healthcare system that connects all of the dots, there exists a need for more collaborations which use startups as a way to create new models in healthcare.
Founded on this premise, DayOne has fashioned itself as an open innovation platform which is designed to accelerate transformation in Europe’s fragmented healthcare system. Through its neutral platform it has accelerated startups which are now valued at over 50 million swiss francs and it provides a unique space for events, catalyst projects, and innovation workspaces to assist with its goal of building the future of health. As a Healthcare Innovation initiative by Basel Area Business & Innovation, the investment and promotion agency for the cantons of Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft and Jura, it is on a mission to change the face of healthcare by harnessing the power of the Basel Area as a global top 3 location for the healthcare and biopharmaceutical industries.
“DayOne is a grassroots initiative which came out of the need for more person-centered collaboration in the healthcare industry. It started as smaller events with a few people who thought the industry could be doing a better job at innovation and quickly grew to become Switzerland’s leading digital health and med-tech accelerator and community,” states Lucas Scherdel, Director of Healthcare Innovation at DayOne.
Building a Strong Ecosystem
DayOne is led by a neutral team of healthcare experts who serve a growing community of 2,000+ healthcare innovators comprising industry leaders, patients, medical doctors, tech enthusiasts, insurers, and researchers.“We have now built a platform for collaborative innovation across disciplines and industries by accelerating startups, launching catalyst projects, and hosting a community and events to bring healthcare innovation ventures forward,” states Lucas Scherdel.
DayOne hosts a variety of events ranging from hackathons to expert workshops to their yearly Conference that bring together a vibrant community of industry professionals, experts, and stakeholders in digital health and medtech. It also creates catalyst projects that help tackle bottleneck issues in healthcare by breaking down silos to reach across disciplines and industries and find solutions that connect technology, data, and innovative thinking. “Our recent value-based healthcare acceleration was the first in Switzerland to bring together startups and industry leaders to tackle this issue,” says Lucas Scherdel.
The DayOne Accelerator supports promising ventures that combine groundbreaking technologies, healthcare expertise, and entrepreneurial spirit. It looks for innovative ventures that solve problems across a broad range of healthcare areas from diagnosis, treatment, and prevention to patient and caregiver communication to improvements that directly assist healthcare workers. It helps them build the teams, skills, and connections that are needed to be successful.
Furthermore, it is managed by Basel Area Business & Innovation, which is dedicated to helping startups, institutions and companies find success in the Basel Area. They attract companies to settle in the region, support founders of innovative ventures and drive specialized initiatives in order to establish the area as the Swiss business and innovation hub of the future. With a focus on growing the Basel Area’s cutting-edge industries, they have launched several initiatives. As part of their services, the Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area houses Basel Area Business & Innovation’s accelerator programs, including DayOne, which is based at the site Novartis Campus.
The Differentiating Factor
When asked about the key differentiating strength of DayOne, Lucas Scherdel mentions, “We are unique because we have a specific focus on digital health and medtech which means we can provide a really high-value service to the corporate companies we work with and also the startups and ventures we accelerate. Our only KPI at DayOne is successful companies so that allows us to be a really trusted partner for all of the companies we work with.”
Over the years, DayOne has helped many startups in medtech, medical devices, digital health, AI, nutrition, health monitoring, medical access, and more to launch, connect and mentor a number of innovative healthcare ventures. It connects academic, corporate, government, payor, and individual interests in a truly collaborative way to address complex issues while keeping the patient’s well being at the center. This allows experts and healthcare stakeholders from a diverse pool to come together and work toward sustainable solutions built around digital health and technology.
Continues Shaping the Future of Healthcare
Advancing into the future, DayOne plans to continue its expansion by working with private companies to launch a number of new tracks which are focused on solving some of the biggest challenges in healthcare. Meanwhile, it also aspires to make the DayOne Accelerator Europe’s no.1 digital health accelerator, based in Europe’s no. 1 digital health ecosystem. “Our Digital Health vertical of the Dayone Accelerator will have a focus on helping people who suffer from serious pain until 2022 and we have some really exciting things in the pipeline on medtech so watch this space and be sure to attend our annual conference in November this year,” affirms Lucas Scherdel on a concluding note.