The 20 most promising Swiss biotech startups of 2025, according to investors

The 100 most innovative and promising Swiss startups are picked by a panel of 100 leading investors and industry experts and are revealed at the Top100 Swiss Startup Award. This year, biotech has 20 representative startups in the Top100. We have also talked with Thomas Möller, general partner at BioMedPartners and CIO at Kickfund, about the sector insights. Learn more about these biotech startups influencing the future of life science.

The annual ranking of the Top100 Swiss Startups has become a benchmark in Switzerland’s startup ecosystem—and beyond. Every year, a panel of 100 leading investors and startup experts chooses the 100 most innovative and promising Swiss startups. Each jury member nominates 10 Swiss startups that are fewer than five years old and show the greatest commercial potential. They assign 10 points for the first place and one point for the tenth place. The companies with the most points make it into the Top100 Swiss Startup Ranking.



ADC the new megatrend


In June, BioNTech licensed a potential cancer drug and cashed USD 11 billion in return. Shortly before that, the founders and investors of Araris sold the Zurich-based biotech startup to a Japanese pharmaceutical company for CHF 1.1 billion. What do the two cases have in common? The buyers were targeting expertise in the field of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). For Thomas Möller, general partner at BioMedPartners and CIO at Kickfund, this is no accident: “ADCs are the biotech industry’s great hope.” They have replaced earlier hot trends such as immuno-oncology and CRISPR gene scissors. Now the focus is on achieving therapeutic breakthroughs based on ADC platforms, since, says Möller, from a purely economic perspective the biotech ecosystem is experiencing a stress test: “The uncertainty in the US, the world’s largest pharmaceutical market, has deterred many investors.”



Discover the 20 biotech startups that impressed the Top100 Swiss Startup Award Jury in 2025:

Limula, #14
Limula brings a novel approach to automation, offering the biopharma industry a fully autonomous, end-to-end platform. Its mission is to support rapid and cost-effective introduction of new advanced therapy products to the market.

ENANTIOS, #16
Enantios leverages new measurement technology to accelerate drug development and discovery and enable more complete quality testing in the manufacturing stage.

MUVON Therapeutics, #22
MUVON reverses age- or damage-related disability through functional skeletal muscle regeneration. The startup's proprietary, cell-based regenerative platform technology induces successful muscle restoration, using a low-risk treatment modality.

Navignostics, #32
Navignostics is a precision oncology company pioneering the use of spatial single-cell proteomics to transform cancer diagnostics and treatment selection.

InCephalo, #47
The biotech company focuses on developing antibodies and other biological treatments for the local treatment of CNS cancers. Its primary drug candidate recieved EMA ODD.

NXI Therapeutics, #50
NXI Therapeutics intends to commence operations with screening and preclinical development of compounds that interfere with coronin 1-dependent T cell activation in autoimmune diseases and organ transplantation.

FimmCyte, #54
FimmCyte has engineered a first-in-class treatment that demonstrated efficacy against endometriosis tissue in laboratory and animal models. The company now plans to advance the therapy to the clinic in the next few years to provide women with better control over their health.

Windward Bio, #58
Windward Bio is a clinical-stage, drug development company committed to improving outcomes for people living with advanced immunological diseases with an initial focus on severe respiratory conditions.

Noema Pharma, #70
Noema Pharma is a biotech company developing ground-breaking therapies to address the most disabling symptoms in orphan conditions of the brain and nervous system.

CellX Biosolutions, #71
CellX Biosolutions creates innovative bacteria-based products for efficient and targeted treatment of industrial chemical pollution.

metaLead Therapeutics, #72
metaLead is pioneering the development of novel drugs to treat metal-related diseases such as Wilson disease and lead poisoning. 

HEKETISS, #74
HEKETISS focuses on developing patent-backed, off-the-shelf allogeneic stem cell therapies to accelerate the regeneration of damaged skin and restore skin health.

GlycoEra, #75
GlycoEra is a biotechnology company building a high-value pipeline of medicines in precision immunology based on deep expertise in glycobiology and protein degradation.

Nerai Bioscience, #77
Nerai pioneers novel highly personalized CRISPR proteins to deliver lifelong cures for diseases beyond the reach of current genome editing.

Aukera Therapeutics, #79
The biotech startup specializes in leveraging protein design to drive drug discovery on complex targets.

Bioscibex, #81
Bioscibex is a biotech hardware startup developing next-generation single-use bioreactors that simplify and automate cell culture.

Tandem Therapeutics, #87
Tandem Therapeutics aims bring drugs to fibrotic disease extracellular matrix, enhancing safety and efficacy. 

Apricot Therapeutics, #89
The biotech startup is positioning itself to become the “Google maps” of the tumor cell by combining drug perturbations, image-based phenotypic profiling, systems biology approaches, and robust predictive modelling.

ArcoScreen, #92
ArcoScreen's revolutionary technology enables the prediction of a drug's efficacy rapidly and early in the drug discovery process before expensive clinical trials directly on primary cells.

Orbis Medicines, #99
The biotech startup is developing the future of drug discovery with a platform to discover, develop, and deliver drug candidates for challenging targets.

Winner of the public voting
The Top100 Public Voting runs parallel to the expert jury rankings and highlights 1 outstanding Swiss startup in biotech sector. All startups that are no older than five years and listed on startup.ch are eligible to participate. Each person with a LinkedIn profile has one vote, and the company with the most votes win. The Top100 Public Voting biotech winner 2025 is Visienco.

The 15th edition of the Top100 Swiss Startup Award 2025 celebrated Switzerland's most promising startups. Discover the biotech startups and all other startups in the Top100 Swiss Startup Magazine 2025 or follow the hashtag #TOP100SSU on Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram for insights.