Sun Genomics

Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company and the problem it’s trying to solve?

My name is Sunny Jain and I am the founder and CEO of Floré by Sun Genomics, a San Diego, California-based company that specializes in customized made-to-order probiotics. I launched the company in 2016, shortly after my infant son began suffering from gastrointestinal issues. I tried finding a probiotic that would help him, only to realize that there weren’t any adequate solutions on the market. Instead of choosing one that wouldn’t have the desired effects, I purchased numerous probiotics and began testing them at the lab. I also sequenced my son’s gut microflora and researched strains that best matched his analysis. This is how I formulated the world’s first custom kids probiotic, specifically designed for my son.

Since everyone’s gut microflora composition is unique, probiotics need to be individually tailored to be effective. Today, we are the world’s only fully customized precision probiotic company.

Could you explain why you decided to establish a presence in Switzerland?

As people have focused more heavily on their gut health over the past couple of years, we have seen an increase in interest from international customers and started to examine potential new locations abroad. Switzerland, a known hub for both food and biotechnology, emerged as the perfect place to launch our international expansion. In Fribourg, we have found the ideal partner in the Swiss Integrative Center for Human Health (SICHH), which has the competence to drive our international growth. We appreciated the SICHH team’s creativity when developing a plan for our needs and their excitement for our gut health tests to enter the region.

By collaborating with wellness centers and physicians in Switzerland to provide individuals with gut health tests, we are expanding our mission of merging self-care with healthcare to help the millions of people suffering from gut health issues.

How has GGBa supported you?

When GGBa first reached out in early 2020, we were looking for a partner laboratory in Europe that could manage the supply chain, including logistics, operations, data management and more. GGBa and the Fribourg Development Agency helped us identify the right partner in SICHH, a unique biotech competence center based on the blueFACTORY innovation park. The first video conference took place in July 2020. Hundreds of emails and many meetings later, Floré Labs Switzerland became a reality in June 2021. The timeliness, knowledge and overall support of the team were invaluable assets as we began to explore international locations and then moved towards the incorporation of the company.

What’s your vision for Floré Labs Switzerland? Where do you see the business in five years’ time?

Currently, one person works for our Swiss subsidiary at SICHH in Fribourg. To expand, we plan to establish a bioinformatics team dedicated to building one of the world’s largest longitudinal metagenomic databases. Additionally, we plan to develop probiotics for individuals suffering from the long-term effects of covid-19 based on microflora profiling, gut inflammation markers and further wellness information. We expect to create 15 new jobs and invest two million Swiss francs in the canton of Fribourg over the next five years.