basel
(3)
Jonathan Talbot and the value of a second look
Before co-founding Mosanna Therapeutics, Jonathan Talbot studied both science and finance. Now the Melodia CEO and 2026 Strüngmann Award winner is building a career around the possibilities that survive a change of plans.
Girisha Fernando
Girisha Fernando is the CEO and co-founder of Lyfegen, a Basel- and Boston-based healthtech company building software that helps payers, hospitals, pharma companies and medical device makers manage value-based drug pricing, access and rebate agreements. After nearly a decade at Roche in market access, pricing and IT, he left in 2018 to build technology that ties the price of medicine to how well it actually works for patients. He splits his time between Switzerland and New York as Lyfegen pushes into the US market.
Ilise Lombardo
Ilise Lombardo is the CEO of Noema Pharma, a Basel-based clinical-stage biotech advancing treatments for central nervous system disorders. A Yale-trained psychiatrist with a Cambridge M.Phil and a Brown degree, she spent two decades in clinical practice and academia before co-founding Arvelle Therapeutics, which sold to Angelini Pharma for roughly $1 billion in 2021. She now steers Noema's pipeline of Phase 2 programs targeting Tourette syndrome, trigeminal neuralgia, tuberous sclerosis seizures and menopause-related CNS symptoms.