Spin-offs from UZH
From Lab to Market
Detecting prostate cancer at an early stage, keeping transplantation organs viable for longer, or a lab that fits on a chip: spin-offs from UZH are bringing ideas that emerge from research to the market. Six new spin-offs were founded last year.
Medicine, neuroinformatics and finance: these were the fields in which innovative people founded spin-offs that incorporate the results from research conducted at UZH last year. Besides the number of spin-offs, patents are also a good measure of an organization’s capacity for innovation. In 2024, 35 UZH-linked patent applications as well as 61 inventions were registered.
Here are the new spin-offs:
Urine test for the early detection of prostate cancer
ONtrack Biomedical is developing a urine test for the early detection of prostate cancer. The screening of prostate cancer is important because prostate cancer is curable only at early stage, but the current method, the PSA blood test, is too unspecific. Therefore, many men undergo unnecessary prostate biopsies, with potentially severe side effects. Additionally, the high number of unnecessary prostate biopsies creates unjustified high costs for the healthcare system. With the urine test of ONtrack Biomedical, it is possible to reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies by half. In addition, the test ensures that those men who actually have a prostate tumor requiring treatment do not miss the chance of an early diagnosis and thus have increased chances of a successful treatment.
The new test is possible thanks to the discovery of urine biomarkers by a research team at UZH. The project was led by Dr Irina Banzola in the lab of Prof Daniel Eberli (USZ). Soon, ONtrack Biomedical will start a new clinical study to confirm the clinical performance of the test.
Improving patient safety
TransHeps offers laboratory diagnostic analyses that can be used on patients with drug-induced liver injury (DILI). A common problem with this kind of liver injury is the fact that the patient has taken multiple drugs simultaneously and it is therefore difficult to identify the substance that is actually causing the issue. The MetaHeps test offered by TransHeps makes it possible to determine the DILI-causing drug.
The MetaHeps method was developed initially in a collaboration between the laboratory of Gerd Kullak-Ublick, professor at UZH and Director of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at USZ, and a group from the University of Munich. UZH acquired the patents for the technology and developed them so they can be applied to patients.
This method is of interest to the pharmaceutical industry because DILI is one of the main reasons why the development of drugs is stopped. The MetaHeps technology could be used to confirm or also disprove liver-damaging properties of new substances. There’s no other test that can do this, so the MetaHeps technology represents a significant innovation for patient safety.
Preserving organs for transplantation for a longer period of time
Up until now, organs for transplantation have only been able to survive outside the human body for a short period of time. Apersys has developed a groundbreaking perfusion system that preserves organs outside the human body for up to seven days. For patients who are waiting for an organ transplantation to save their life, this means they have a greater chance of receiving a high-quality organ.
The organ perfusion system was developed and tested over the last seven years by a team led by visceral surgeon Professor Pierre-Alain Clavien and in close cooperation with ETH Zurich. The research results range from the first one-week liver perfusion outside the human body and long-term perfusion of hemi-livers to the defatting of fatty livers. The first patient has also already been treated.
Apersys emerged from the Liver4Life project in 2024, which was launched in 2015 under the umbrella of the Wyss Zurich Translational Center (Wyss Zurich) and funded by the Wyss Zurich Foundation.
Apersys is currently finalizing the development of the product and planning a clinical study to obtain market approval in the USA. In addition, the spin-off is working on fundraising in a Series A financing round.
Learning environment for medical students
Augmedi wants to fundamentally change the learning environment for medical students and medical professionals. To achieve this, the start-up has developed an e-learning platform on which users can access photo-realistic 3D models and real 3D scans of body donors to help them learn about the human anatomy and orthopedic approaches. An AI engine guides the users through customized learning modules step by step.
The platform is based on the diploma thesis by Dr. med. univ. Lukas Zingg at Balgrist University Hospital, with research led by Professor Philipp Fürnstahl and Professor Mazda Farshad.
Augmedi has been available since the start of 2025 to all participants on the orthopedic resident physician courses of the canton of Zurich in Operating Room X at Balgrist. The e-learning platform is already available as a beta version on the open market.
An entire laboratory on a single chip
An analytical laboratory that can be used anywhere at any time: this is what AiQUOS provides with its intelligent electrochemical sensor microdevices and probes to monitor and control aqueous solutions. The AiQUOS technology allows the miniaturization of hundreds of (bio)chemical sensors, electronics and neuromorphic perception into a single autonomous chip. The technology can be used to monitor drinking/waste water or soilless farming systems, for example.
The research that yielded these results was led by UZH professor Shih-Chii Liu and Dr. Josep Maria Margarit-Taulé, who worked on the project during his Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Neuroinformatics. The research team incorporated novel hardware architectures for neural sensing and processing.
AiQUOS is currently at the validation stage, with the next steps geared towards reaching technology readiness level 8 through projected pilots with companies of the water management and agri-food sectors.
Enabling start-ups to find customers in seconds
MetaOne AG is launching an AI-based sales assistant that will help start-ups and SMEs secure customers for their products in an efficient way. Whereas sales employees previously had to spend many hours trying to identify and appeal to potential customers (leads), the AI sales assistant can perform this task with just a few mouse clicks. It will analyze relevant target groups, find suitable contacts and even create an automated, personalized message to appeal to them.
MetaOne AG is currently in the launch phase and is preparing to launch a minimum viable product (MVP).
Lasting impact
A total of 161 spin-offs have been founded at UZH since 1999. No less than 85.1% of these spin-offs were still up and running after 10 years, which is truly remarkable considering that only around half of newly founded businesses in Switzerland survive beyond their fifth year, according to figures from the Federal Statistical Office. To date, 19% of UZH spin-offs have achieved an exit – that is, early investors, founders or staff were able to sell some or all of their shares and turn a profit.
For several UZH spin-offs, 2024 was a particularly successful year:
- UZH Spin-off OxyPrem developed a technology specifically designed to monitor oxygen levels in premature babies. Now they are launching a crowdinvesting campaign to make the second generation of brain oxygen sensors, OxyPrem Noah, available around the world. More information
- Synthara successfully closed a financing round of over USD 11 million. Its product is the result of years of research and development at the Institute of Neuroinformatics at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich.More information
- EVIIVE offers an innovative platform for novel biomarker identification in liquid biopsies and enables healthcare professionals to diagnose diseases at an early stage. The UZH Spin-off won the leading Swiss startup competition 2024 >>venture>> Startup Competition in the Health & Nutrition vertical category. More information
- Founded in 2018 as a UZH spin-off, Oncobit announced partnership with Immunocore to advance therapy response analysis in clinical trials. More information
- EraCal Therapeutics has signed a new partnership agreement with Novo Nordisk with a potential value of EUR 235 million. This is a major step forward for the start-up company and brings a revolutionary therapy for obesity one step closer to the market.More information
