Indio-Swiss platform on health, sustainability

Over 50 experts from Switzerland and India have come together to discuss innovative approaches to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The event is seen as a launchpad for more collaborations between the two countries in other fields.

AMR refers to the condition when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and do not respond to medicines, making infections difficult to treat.

This condition has been the focus of discussion at the Indo-Swiss AMR Innovation Dialogue, being held in the city between October 29 and 31.

Swissnex in India, along with the Universities of Geneva and Zurich, the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER Pune), have come together for this purpose.

This event marks the launch of the Indo-Swiss Innovation platform, through which Swissnex in India, in collaboration with the Embassy of Switzerland in India and the Swiss Business Hub, hope to facilitate more partnerships and collaborations between the two countries.

The idea is to discuss matters in a thorough manner that lead to tangible, measurable outcomes in the health, sustainability and digital transformation spaces.

Jonas Brunschwig, CEO of Swissnex in India and Consul General of Switzerland, said: “This is a new way of organising our work, striving to collectively align our activities, programmes and instruments as much as possible in order to grow the Indo-Swiss partnership substantially.”

Dr Ralf Heckner, Ambassador of Switzerland to India, added, “This year, we are not only celebrating 75 years of unalterable friendship between our two countries, but we are hard at work to further realise our bilateral potential in investments with a Free Trade Agreement and in innovation with the launch of the Indo-Swiss Innovation Platform."

Speakers at the event included Dr Anuj Sharma MD, coordinator for AMR at the World Health Organisation in India; Dr Martin Heidecker PhD, Chief Investment Officer of the AMR Action Fund; Prof Annelies Zinkernagel, Director of Department of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology at the University Hospital Zurich; Prof Jan Fehr, Head of Department and Professor for Global Health and Mobility at the University of Zurich; Dr Anand Anandkumar, MD and CEO of Bugworks Research; and Simon Gottwalt, leading AMR strategy at the Federal Oce of Public Health in Bern.