It’s really a pleasure to interview Andrea Biffi, previously a CEO within the MedTech world and at present an entrepreneur, investor, and board member, with roles and initiatives at a world degree. Tomorrow’s leaders use expertise and investments to study, evolve, create efficiencies, scale up, and, in fact, serve folks in markets which might be strategic for the nation and the worldwide group.
Andrea, inform us about your skilled journey and what you’re presently engaged on.
Over the previous twenty years, I’ve labored within the pharmaceutical, MedTech, and scientific sectors, constructing deep and broad expertise in all key areas of healthcare innovation. As CEO, I led a pharmaceutical firm that skilled exponential progress, attaining important milestones and increasing investments into numerous fields: from prescribed drugs to microbiota analysis, and even robotic surgical procedure. This evolution required me to study rapidly and repeatedly. It was an incredible stimulus that led me to embracenew technologiesand use them to enhance each my very own efficiency and that of the businesses I led.
Over time, I’ve had the chance to collaborate with organizations world wide, constructing strategic partnerships and finishing necessary exits: (1) SOFAR, bought to the Alfasigma group; (2) a robotic surgical procedure firm, first bought to Asensus Surgical, an organization listed on the NYSE, after which – as shareholder and board member – accompanied to a second exit in 2024 to Karl Storz, one of the crucial distinguished gamers within the MedTech panorama; (3) different operations within the scientific and well being expertise sectors.
Right now, I focus my actions on investments in Healthcare and IT, supporting applied sciences that carry aggressive benefit, better security, and transparency. I’m additionally a board member and investor in a number of startups within the healthcare and expertise sectors, with the intention of bridging the innovation gaps I’ve noticed for years from inside conventional programs.
What’s the position of exponential applied sciences like blockchain and AI in strategic sectors reminiscent of MedTech?
Exponential applied sciences at present are not equipment, however elementary elements within the evolution of healthcare programs. AI represents the guts of innovation: predictive diagnostics, scientific automation, determination help, course of optimization, customized therapeutic pathways. It’s already fixing long-standing inefficiencies. Blockchain, specifically, ensures the safety, integrity, and traceability of well being information — a vital facet in a sector the place reliability is crucial. It gives a clear and distributed information governance mannequin, perfect for decreasing dangers, errors, and knowledge asymmetries. I consider that AI and blockchain will probably be indispensable for constructing really scalable, sustainable, and safer healthcare programs.
Which of your firms, startups, or investments are transferring on this course?
A concrete instance isDigitCo– Tokenance, which completely embodies this course: I’m extraordinarily satisfied that it’s going to scale quickly, increasing using its options throughout numerous sectors. Along with this, I personally observe a number of startups which might be integrating AI, clever automation, superior information governance, and, the place attainable, blockchain purposes within the well being sector. The main focus is at all times the identical: decreasing inefficiencies, growing transparency, bettering security, and creating actual operational worth.
Do you could have one or two suggestions for younger individuals who need to begin a enterprise now, when it comes to capital, folks, and expertise?
Actually. A few options, based mostly on my expertise. (1) Capital: Elevate a bit, however early. Initially, capital is required to study and validate, to not scale. It’s extra necessary to have buyers who present time, help, and imaginative and prescient. (2) Tech: Construct solely the core. Every part else must be managed with present options. Know-how should be a multiplier, not a burden.
In brief: velocity, the flexibility to study, clever use of expertise, and versatile groups. That is what permits us to construct really scalable firms at present.