Novartis is attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting from January 19-23, 2026, in Davos, Switzerland.
Under the theme A Spirit of Dialogue, the program will be structured around five key global challenges where public-private dialogue and cooperation, involving all stakeholders, is necessary for progress.
How can transformative science help the world confront escalating global risks? Today’s challenges – climate instability, emerging health threats, technological disruption, and geopolitical uncertainty – demand scientific approaches that fundamentally shift how we understand and respond to risk. Transformative science pushes beyond incremental progress: it unlocks new capabilities, reframes old problems, and enables solutions that were previously out of reach. In this opening plenary, Science House will introduce its mission to bring frontier, high impact scientific thinking into global leadership spaces. Speakers from diverse disciplines will explore how breakthroughs in their fields are reshaping our ability to anticipate, mitigate, and manage global risks.
High-level policy roundtable will examine how strategic investment and enhanced industry competitiveness in life sciences can secure access to innovation, drive sustainable growth, and help countries effectively navigate ongoing global uncertainty. Novartis is partnering with the Eurasia Group and the European Business Summit.
Women’s health remains chronically underfunded and under-researched, despite women representing half the global population. The Global Alliance for Women’s Health – in collaboration with the Gates Foundation, Kearney, and Wellcome Leap – is addressing this imbalance by developing a new science-to-patient blueprint that shortens the path from discovery to scalable solutions. The initiative aims to accelerate breakthrough innovation through removing barriers such as slow regulatory process and limited reimbursement pathways that stall progress.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the world’s leading cause of death and an increasingly critical challenge for societal resilience, economic stability, and workforce sustainability. Yet it is still too often treated as a siloed health issue, rather than a systemic one. The session sets a shared global frame and calls for cross-sector leadership across policy, business, and cities.
Fewer than 10% of known diseases are meaningfully addressed by current therapies. However, rapid advances in science and technology are delivering unprecedented insights into human biology, enabling more precise interventions and opening the door to tackling conditions once considered untreatable. This session explores how breakthroughs in data, AI, and advanced therapeutic platforms are reshaping healthcare, unlocking a future of remarkable progress and transformative
Building directly on the earlier panel, this interactive impact session shifts from vision to execution. Participants will work together to identify one concrete action to test collectively in 2026, drawing on policy levers, urban innovation, and prevention models. The ambition is to agree on a focused one-year action plan and to reconvene at WEF 2027 to review progress and impact together—turning dialogue into measurable outcomes.
AI is learning the rules of biology and rewriting the pace of drug discovery. This session explores how generative and predictive models are compressing the path from target hypothesis to designed molecules and proteins. We’ll unpack what it takes to move from promising outputs to trustworthy decisions, through rigorous validation, reproducible workflows, and governance that builds trust with scientific and regulatory stakeholders. Beyond productivity, the session asks a deeper question: what diseases become solvable when we redesign discovery itself?
How can media, platforms, and scientific institutions work together to cultivate trust, counter misinformation, and protect open discourse in the 21st century? Studies show that people trust scientists more than many other actors, yet confidence in media and digital platforms remains fragile. This session examines concrete approaches—from transparent communication and open data to responsible algorithms and community engagement—to sustain trust in evidence in a polarized, information-dense world.
Hosted by McKinsey Health Institute
Investing in women’s brain health is not only a moral imperative; it is also a powerful economic strategy to enhance wellbeing, foster innovation, and unlock inclusive prosperity. As AI reshapes how we work, think, and create, strengthening cognitive resilience and equity will be central to sustainable growth. This convening will explore how leaders can unlock the next wave of inclusive growth and productivity by advancing innovation in women’s health — and by investing in the world’s most valuable asset: the human brain.
Link to session: https://luma.com/AC_Novartis
Africa Collective is a leading global-Africa network for pan-African and international stakeholders to connect, exchange, and collaborate on the continent’s opportunities. With a large week-long presence on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos (www.africacollective.com/davos) as an annual anchor, the platform is also present during selected high-level events throughout the year in key African markets. Together with Africa Collective Session Partner Novartis, we have co-created a session titled ‘Strengthening African Health Architecture: Innovation in Finance, Technology and Policy’, focusing on how innovative financing mechanisms, digital solutions and policy reforms can reinforce health systems across the continent.
In a time of unprecedented noise, cardiometabolic disease (CMD) remains the world’s leading health burden, causing immense human suffering and placing significant pressure on already strained health systems. Cities, as thriving economic hubs and home to most of the global population, have a vital role to play in shifting the health paradigm from costly reactive care to proactive and predictive health solutions that deliver measurable societal and economic returns. However, despite breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, healthcare and digital technologies, population health continues to worsen in many urban areas. This Novartis Foundation and WEF Accredited session will explore how data, tech, AI, and partnerships help cities target those most in need, driving breakthroughs in innovation and chronic disease management.
Free trade is evolving into a new system of managed trade, where tariffs, export controls, industrial policy, friendshoring and regulatory reciprocity are leveraged to protect domestic markets and secure supply chains. As countries seek coalitions of willing and like-minded partners, new regional and bilateral trade agreements are emerging with greater frequency. What will this new trade system look like, and how will it balance security with openness?