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PhD Position (100%) Business Models for Healthy Longevity and Scalable Disease Prevention

We are more than happy to offer a fully funded PhD Position (100%, 3.5 years) at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) on Business Models for Healthy Longevity and Scalable Disease Prevention with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) Prevention as a use case. This PhD position in Management (Business Innovation) is offered within the new Innosuisse Flagship project Swiss Precision Digital Therapeutics for the Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes. The successful candidate focuses on one of the most critical questions in modern healthcare systems: How can disease prevention be made economically viable, scalable, and socially beneficial?

While T2D prevention serves as the primary empirical case, the research addresses a broader challenge: developing sustainable business models for digital prevention and healthy longevity within the Swiss healthcare system.

Project Context

T2D is among the most prevalent non-communicable diseases in Switzerland, causing substantial health complications and long-term costs for individuals, insurers, and society. Although effective preventive interventions exist, they often fail due to limited long-term engagement, unclear reimbursement structures, and weak business models. Our Innosuisse Flagship project brings together a unique national consortium spanning digital health, wearable technologies, health insurers, food retailers, hospitals, public authorities, and innovation parks. Together, we aim to redesign diabetes prevention as a scalable, data-driven, and economically sustainable service embedded in real-world care and financing structures.

Your PhD Project

Developing a Sustainable Business Model for Digital Disease Prevention in Switzerland

As a PhD student, you will lead and shape Subproject 5, which focuses on business model innovation for prevention. Your research will examine how digital precision prevention services can create value simultaneously for individuals, insurers, providers, public authorities, and society.

Key Research Focus

  • Designing and evaluating business models for upstream disease prevention

  • Aligning incentives across insurers, providers, public authorities, and digital health companies

  • Integrating prevention into existing reimbursement, tariff, and policy frameworks

  • Assessing economic viability, return on investment, and social impact

  • Translating prevention from pilot projects into scalable, long-term solutions

T2D prevention will be your core empirical context, while your theoretical contributions will be relevant across non-communicable diseases and healthy longevity initiatives.

Your Role and Responsibilities

You will be involved across the full project lifecycle:

Stakeholder Co-Creation and Field Research

  • Work directly with Switzerland’s largest health insurers

  • Collaborate with cantonal health authorities, hospitals, and provider networks

  • Conduct co-design workshops, expert interviews, focus groups, and surveys

  • Coordinate interdisciplinary partners across academia, industry, and the public sector

Health Economics and Business Model Analysis

  • Perform cost-benefit analyses, break-even calculations, and economic simulations

  • Analyze insurer data, Swiss tariff systems (e.g. TarDoc), and prevention cost structures

  • Evaluate value-based prevention and investment cases for insurers and public payers

  • Study regulatory, reimbursement, and operational barriers to adoption

Implementation and Scale-Up

  • Support pilot implementations of digital preventive interventions

  • Analyze engagement, outcome, and adoption data

  • Co-develop policy guidance and an open-access business model toolkit for national scale-up

  • Contribute to dissemination via policy webinars and practitioner-oriented outputs

Academic Output

  • Publish in high-quality international journals in management, digital health, and health economics

  • Present findings at leading academic and practitioner conferences

  • Complete a cumulative or monographic PhD dissertation at HSG

Your Academic Environment

  • Degree: PhD in Management (Business Innovation)

  • Institution: University of St. Gallen (HSG)

  • Supervision:

    • Dr. Mia Jovanova, School of Medicine HSG & Department of Management, Technology and Economics (D-MTEC), ETH Zurich

    • Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch, School of Medicine HSG & Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care, University of Zurich & D-MTEC, ETH Zurich

    • Prof. Dr. Elgar Fleisch, Institute of Technology Management HSG & D-MTEC, ETH Zurich

You will work in a highly interdisciplinary environment at the intersection of management, medicine, technology, and public policy, with strong access to real-world data and decision-makers.

Candidate Profile

We are looking for a highly motivated candidate with the ambition to shape the future of prevention-driven healthcare.

Required Qualifications

  • Master’s degree from a qualified university with a minimum grade of 5.0 (Swiss grading system)

  • Excellent proficiency in German and English

  • Strong interest in health economics, health technology assessment, and economic evaluation

  • Ability to coordinate and communicate with diverse stakeholders, including senior decision-makers

  • High intrinsic motivation to work on interdisciplinary, applied research with societal impact

Desired Background

  • Business administration, management, economics, health economics, public policy, or related fields

  • Experience with qualitative and quantitative research methods

  • Interest in digital health, prevention, and healthy longevity

What We Offer

  • Fully funded 3.5-year PhD position, starting May or June 2026

  • Competitive Swiss doctoral salary

  • Unique access to Switzerland’s leading health insurers and public health institutions

  • High academic freedom combined with strong real-world relevance

  • Excellent publication and career opportunities in academia, policy, and industry

  • A collaborative, international, and impact-driven research environment

Application

Please submit one single PDF document containing the following items in this exact order no later than 31st of January 2026 to mia.jovanova@unisg.ch:

  1. Cover letter in German, addressed to

    Dr. Mia Jovanova, Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch, and Prof. Dr. Elgar Fleisch

    motivating why you want to (a) pursue a PhD at HSG and (b) work on prevention, business models, and this specific topic

  2. Curriculum Vitae (CV) in English

  3. Transcript of records / overview of grades

  4. At least two letters of recommendation

  5. Written reflections on prevention business models in Switzerland (see also the related work below)

    • One qualitative reflection (minimum 1 page)

    • One quantitative reflection (e.g. cost-effectiveness simulation) (minimum 1 page)

Both reflections should critically discuss how disease prevention in Switzerland can be made viable from a business model perspective, considering:

  • Swiss society and public health institutions (e.g. BAG, Health Promotion Switzerland)

  • Individuals at risk of developing chronic diseases

  • Health insurers

  • Digital prevention and longevity companies

Join Us

This PhD position offers a rare opportunity to combine rigorous academic research with real-world impact at national scale. You will help redefine how prevention, healthy longevity, and digital therapeutics can work economically, socially, and ethically in modern healthcare systems.

We look forward to your application.

Related Work

Applicants are encouraged to consult the following related work for inspiration when preparing their application:

  1. Wouterse, B., Santos, J. V., & Hiligsmann, M. (2025). Future directions for the economics of prevention. Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, 25(6), 841–844. 10.1080/14737167.2025.2498665

  2. Watkins, D. A., Msemburi, W. T., Pickersgill, S. J., Kawakatsu, Y., Gheorghe, A., Dain, K., Johansson, K. A., Said, S., Renshaw, N., Tolla, M. T., Twea, P. D., Varghese, C., Chalkidou, K., Ezzati, M., & Norheim, O. F. (2022). NCD Countdown 2030: efficient pathways and strategic investments to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal target 3.4 in low-income and middle-income countries. The Lancet, 399(10331), 1266–1278. 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02347-3

  3. Weimar, S. N., Martjan, R. S., & Terzidis, O. (2025). Business Venturing in Regulated Markets—Taxonomy and Archetypes of Digital Health Business Models in the European Union: Mixed Methods Descriptive and Exploratory Study. J Med Internet Res, 27, e65725. https://doi.org/10.2196/65725

  4. Holdroyd, I., Lunn, A. D., Diamond, P., Harasgama, S., Ghanchi, A., Painter, H., Pearce, H., Torabi, P., Vodden, A., Wong, Y.-L., & Ford, J. (2024). What works: Payment mechanisms to improve prevention spending in health care settings. Accessed 18 December 2025, https://www.heec.co.uk/resource/what-works-payment-mechanisms-to-improve-prevention-spending-in-health-care-settings/

  5. Wanni Arachchige Dona, S., Angeles, M. R., Hall, N., Watts, J. J., Peeters, A., & Hensher, M. (2021). Impacts of chronic disease prevention programs implemented by private health insurers: a systematic review. BMC Health Services Research, 21(1), 1222. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-07212-7

  6. Lange, O. (2023). Health economic evaluation of preventive digital public health interventions using decision-analytic modelling: a systematized review. BMC Health Services Research, 23(1), 268. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09280-3

  7. Gmeinder, M., Morgan, D., & Mueller, M. (2017). How much do OECD countries spend on prevention? OECD Health Working Papers No. 101. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2017/12/how-much-do-oecd-countries-spend-on-prevention_556706d4/f19e803c-en.pdf

  8. Keller, R., Hartmann, S., Teepe, G. W., Lohse, K.-M., Alattas, A., Tudor Car, L., Müller-Riemenschneider, F., von Wangenheim, F., Mair, J. L., & Kowatsch, T. (2022). Digital Behavior Change Interventions for the Prevention and Management of Type 2 Diabetes: Systematic Market Analysis. J Med Internet Res, 24(1), e33348. https://doi.org/10.2196/33348

  9. Giger, O.-F., Pfitzer, E., Mekniran, W., Gebhardt, H., Fleisch, E., Jovanova, M., & Kowatsch, T. (2025). Digital health technologies and innovation patterns in diabetes ecosystems. DIGITAL HEALTH, 11, 20552076241311740. https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076241311740

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