In May, the oncology company BeOne Medicines, formerly known as BeiGene, relocated its headquarters from China to Basel, Switzerland. According to Xiaobin Wu, the company’s president and COO, the move was driven by a need for top talent. ‘Innovation needs talented people. That’s why we decided to set up our European headquarters in Basel,’ he explained. BeOne is just one of over 800 life sciences companies now based in Basel, a city that’s home to major players like Roche, Novartis, and Johnson & Johnson. In March, NBE Therapeutics, a Boehringer Ingelheim company, opened a new research facility there, and other companies, including Regeneron, Moderna, and Skyhawk Therapeutics, have also established operations in recent years. In 2024 alone, 26 of the 36 new companies setting up in Basel were in the life sciences sector. Unlike other European cities offering financial incentives to attract scientists, Basel has long been a stable and attractive destination without relying on such schemes. ‘Switzerland tends to shy away from single incentives,’ said Christof Klöpper, CEO of Basel Area Business & Innovation. ‘If you just give money and then hope that somebody would come, normally that’s not a long-term thing. Scientists, I believe, you should lure with great science, which we have. And you lure them with a great environment.’ Switzerland’s political stability—often described as ‘boring’—is a major draw, especially in a time of global economic and regulatory uncertainty. ‘We can only be stable here and offer a stable haven for many companies,’ Klöpper said. ‘Companies now value that quite highly.’ Basel is a small city with a population of just under 600,000, but it has a strong focus on science, with an estimated 33,000 people working in the life sciences sector. ‘If you’re in a bar, the chances are quite high that the person next to you will be a life sciences person,’ Klöpper noted. Switzerland’s business-friendly environment, including stable politics, excellent infrastructure, and a competitive tax system, makes it an ideal place for life sciences companies. Its regulatory approach is also more similar to the U.S. than to countries like Germany or France, making it appealing to American executives. ‘You have a relatively frictionless process of setting things up here,’ Klöpper said. Basel’s strong academic presence, including top-ranked English-speaking universities like the University of Basel, provides a steady stream of skilled talent. The city’s long history in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, along with its strategic location near Switzerland, Germany, and France, allows companies to recruit from a broad talent pool. New research centers, such as the Roche Institute for Human Biology and the Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering, further strengthen Basel’s position as a life sciences hub. While other cities offer financial incentives to attract talent, Basel’s reliability and scientific excellence remain its greatest strengths. ‘In other times, they wished for quicker and faster reactions from politics,’ Klöpper said. ‘Now, they are quite happy that the politics [are] steady and reliable.’