TWIST Talk: Reflection on my journey from Academia to industry

by Priyanka Dutta Passecker, Healiva SA

Abstract

I often reflect back on my  journey from Academia to industry to starting my own company. I will speak about whether it is about taking path less travelled and keep going to follow your dream.

As a female founder and entrepreneur, it remains important to me to continue shatter glass ceilings and continue to support uplift innovation-driven mindset within researchers to translate innovation to transform patients’ lives. I will speak about how the private venture-funded companies valued at $1 billion and up (at least 957), an estimated 11.4 percent have a female founder or co-founder and how we can change the paradigm by offering early tools to researcher to be ready for industry. I will share my vision for Healiva where I mobilized a core team of seasoned experts in wound care and cell therapy that helped to build a cell therapy, medical device and enzyme technology focused start up in Lugano, Switzerland. Healiva® aims to provide a paradigm shift in wound care by bringing one of the broadest, end-to-end, personalized chronic wound care portfolios to millions of patients with unmet chronic wound needs.

About Priyanka Dutta Passecker

Dr. Priyanka Dutta-Passecker excels in combining her scientific prowess (a PhD in Neuroscience from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) with her qualified business expertise (a dual MBA from WU Executive Academia, Austria, and Carlson Business School, Minnesota, USA) to translate scientific advances to patient-oriented solutions. She has gained over years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, with key accomplishments in enzyme technology and cell therapy from Novartis (CH), UCB (B), Axol Bioscience (UK) and Bioseutica (CH). Outside of her professional life she is an energetic supporter of diversity and female empowerment, which has culminated in her co-foundation of the WU EA Female Leaders Network in Vienna, Austria, which has grown into the biggest female leadership network in central Europe. Priyanka also shares her experience and helps train the next generation of entrepreneurs at the School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Please register below to facilitate the registration at the TWIST Talk.

Program