Leveraging Medical Expertise to Drive Innovative Projects

People are living longer than ever, a shift in how to plan life, both professional and private is urgently called for. A 100-year-long life may soon be common, yet our healthcare systems, social institutions and economic policies are designed for much shorter life-spans. I am therefore delighted to be faculty at the NEXT-Program of the University of St. Gallen Executive School. The NEXT program is first-in-Europe, unique summit for accomplished and advanced professionals to redefine their purpose and explore what’s next. The program supports a recalibration in our approach to health, wealth and wellbeing.

Apart from resource management - which includes circular economy and sustainable urbanization - we also must protect rural areas, indigenous cultures and biodiversity. The state of nature and health of humans are highly interdependent and interlinked. Hence, in order to allow nature to heal, we must support biodiversity and protect our environment from pollution such as micro-plastics and contaminated water and from climate change. The loss in biodiversity, for instance, diminishes the supplies of raw materials for drug discovery and biotechnology. At the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2023, I had the opportunity to host an illustrious panel on planetary health and discuss the health impact and the interaction between nature and humans. You can read about the panel in Forbes below.