Roche Latvia participation in Spotlight Latvia 2023

Roche Latvia leaders and partners will participate in the Spotlight Latvia 2023 event, hosted by the Latvian American Chamber of Commerce (LACC) in Boston, to share their expertise and inspiring cases. 

In front of government officials and business leaders from Latvia and the U.S, our Latvian colleagues and partners will showcase three OneRoche game-changing projects. These inspiring examples demonstrate how partnerships can drive innovation for a greater impact on patients and Health systems and how Roche success will continue to be enabled by the new Roche Services and Solutions in Riga.

1. How Latvia is “Revolutionizing Personalized Medicine”

Roche Latvia is supporting the Faculty of Medicine at University of Latvia and the Centre of Cardiology at Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital in Riga, in the development of a method for lung cancer risk assessment, early diagnosis and prediction based on big data. This project encompasses the development of three new technology units, risk determinations (lung cancer risk calculator), early diagnostic technology and predictive technology. 

“Contrary to the currently used diagnostic methods, the new technology will be less aggressive and more accurate, at a more affordable price and will greatly contribute to the efficiency and development of lung cancer screening, timely diagnostics of precision medicine”, highlights Dr. Andrejs Erglis, Chief of Latvian Centre of Cardiology.

Learn more about the project.

2. Big Data in BioMedicine: Use of Atomic Force Microscopy in Differentiation and Analysis of Oncological Material with Artificial Intelligence

A Roche Latvia Innovation Incubator member, AFM.AI, led by Agnis Jakubovičs, is leveraging Artificial Intelligence to tackle the lack of reliable way to predict predisposition of any given patient to immunotherapy thus leading to inefficient expenditure of resources. 

“The solution is to figure out correlations between different patient metrics and immunotherapy outcomes using more diverse data and more sophisticated AI driven analysis methods than human driven observations and conclusions”, specifies Agnis Jakubovičs.

Atomic Force Microscopy-AFM is a technique for examination of biomechanical (viscoelastic) properties of cell surface. AFM is relatively slow and requires human insight for execution and data analysis. AI can solve both problems – optimization of scan parameters (scanning area, resolution, etc.) and analysis of complex images.

3. "Riga as a Shared Service Center" 

Kaspars Losāns, Medical Director at Roche Latvia, will be the advocate for the new Roche Services & Solutions satellite site opened in Riga. At the conference, he will highlight why Riga is preferred for foreign investments.

“There is a continued high demand for talents in various areas of expertise and Riga is an ideal location to complement Roche's existing team in Budapest and access Latvia's highly skilled talent”, proudly underlines Kaspars. 

Riga was chosen due to its excellent infrastructure and the high educational standards of its many universities. The recruitment started in Q2 2023 and aims to ramp up the operations to more than 200 employees over 4 -5 years. Employees of the RSS in Riga join the existing RSS network of 3000 employees enabling Roche to operate in a competitive and ever-changing business environment. Roche employees from any country are welcome to apply for one of the open positions in the new RSS satellite.

Learn more about career opportunities at RSS and apply here.

Roche has an impressive history in Latvia, with the first local office established in 1925. Recently, Roche invested in and renovated a historical office building in Riga. The Grand Opening of the renovated house was hosted by Dr. Rauls Velins, General Manager of Roche Latvia, welcoming André Hoffmann and Severin Schwan. Roche pays homage to its past, with the building, constructed in the 1930s, serving as the architectural prototype for other Roche office buildings in Europe.