Flot.bio on Youtube Flot.bio on Spotify Flot.bio on Apple Podcasts

Christoph Lengauer, Curie.Bio | Biotech Founders, Venture Capital | E57

Youtube
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Philip Hemme
Philip Hemme
•

We admire the mountains of Austria with the co-founder of Curie.Bio, a founder-friendly fund that now manages $1.25B and backs 38 portfolio companies.

We discuss Curie.Bio’s track record, with its most advanced portfolio candidate Forward Therapeutics in Phase I.

We also talk about major bottom-up successes including argenx, Ascendis and Genmab, and how life sciences investing differs from tech investing.

Christoph also explains his ‘rebel’ mindset and why founders shouldn’t accept the status quo.

This episode is brought to you by Avance, where European biotech turns for trusted financial advice. Learn more at https://bit.ly/flot-avance.

⭐️ ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Christoph co-founded of Curie.Bio in 2022, after serving as Partner at Third Rock Ventures for 6 years. He also had leading roles at Blueprint Medicines for ten years, and at MOMA Therapeutics for one year.

He has also been an Adjunct Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University for more than 20 years, with past roles at Celsius Therapeutics, Sanofi, and Novartis.

🔗 LINKS MENTIONED

Transcript

[00:00:00] Intro

Christoph Lengauer: We believe that founders should own more equity than in most settings. The founder team should own 15, 20, 25, 30% of the company in the beginning. I think that’s really important because it’s their company, and we appreciate the value of the idea. There’s no company without an idea. The math in investing is much more favorable in tech than it is in life sciences.

Our desire is not a dating web page that has 2 million users. Our outcome is the people who died before now live, ’cause they have a medicine. 

Philip Hemme: What’s your biggest miss as an investor? 

Christoph Lengauer: Tube Police. I remember when Thilo Schroeter from Nextag asked me what I think about it. I didn’t find it that innovative.

Big exit. Wrong.

Philip Hemme: Welcome to a new episode. I’m your host Philippe, and on The Flood Bio Show, I’m interviewing the best European leaders biotech to help you grow. Biotech founders can sometimes be sidelined by investors. The relatively new VC firm, Curie Bio, wants to solve that. So I caught up with one of the co-founders of the firm, Christoph, in the mountains.

We’re here between Germany and Austria. I actually first met him in 2014 in Boston when we recorded an interview, so it’s been quite a while. We talked about how Curie Bio is going now, almost three years after starting. We also talked about how to start a $9 billion biotech, like Blueprint, and why being a rebel is sometimes needed to change the status quo.

So here’s my conversation with Christoph, and please hit the or review button if you’re enjoying it.

This episode is brought to you by Avance Life Sciences, Europe’s leading financial advisory firm focused exclusively on life sciences. For over 20 years, Avance has helped biotech and pharma companies raise capital, close deals, and value assets with precision. From fundraising to out licensing, they connect you with the right partners to move your science forward.

Learn more by clicking on the link in the description below.

Christoph Lengauer: All right. 

Philip Hemme: Welcome to the show. 

Christoph Lengauer: Thank you. 

Philip Hemme: Thank you. 

Christoph Lengauer: It’s 

Philip Hemme: amazing working setup. 

Christoph Lengauer: It’s been a while, huh? Since we had this long last serious or official conversation. 

Philip Hemme: Over 10 years, yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: 10 years or so. Small world. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: It’s a special– I think it’s the first episode we record outdoor. 

Christoph Lengauer: Ah, 

Philip Hemme: good to go.

It’s a pretty good setup. So we’re in the, yeah, basic for the people watching, but, yeah, we’re in the middle of Germany, Austria, in the south, parts, in the close to a national park. Lot of mountains. Yeah. Pretty cool. And especially we– when we met again in, in Vienna six months ago, you said, “Okay, you wanna do an episode with a view on the mountains?”

And I wasn’t sure you were that serious, but- … you were, so that’s cool. 


[00:03:05] Curie.Bio: 38 portfolio companies in just three years

Philip Hemme: All right, so I wanna start with with Curie Bio. You you st- co-founded the fund. Now you have 1.25 billion under the management. I think there’s, a few funds, and you really try to bring a new model to biotech VC, especially to biotech founders.

Can you just, yeah, tell me how if– or how, is it working so far? 

Christoph Lengauer: It’s easy to say it’s working great. Because we don’t have an exit yet, therefore it’s all in anticipation. But why do I nevertheless say that? I think there’s a couple of parameters that I think feed into this.

Is one is we wanted to build something for founders, as when Alexis, Saq, or myself as the founders, when we started our first companies, it was tough. Yeah. And we wanted to have something that helps us the right way. Yeah. Okay? And Curie is built around that. Therefore, we see this now. We are getting about 80 company applications a week.

Yeah. Is this, is the number important? No. But it’s im- important because it means people are receptive to this concept. Because if they wouldn’t like it, they would just not apply. Yeah. Therefore, it is important because that’s 5,000 a year. That’s more than any fund that we think we know is getting.

Therefore, that resonates. The second thing is we have now 38 companies in the portfolio. For a biotech fund that is just three years old, that is a massive number. That’s 12, 15 companies a year. Maybe 15 to 20 in the future. It’s a lot of companies. But the reason why I mention the number is that also means there are 38 ideas or company concept That one of us has been excited about.

Because that was another concern. How many good ideas are there? And I thought that can’t be limiting. Therefore, the ideas are there. We see a lot. We have now a team of 110 drug hunters, drug makers that work in this and help build those companies together with the founders.

Therefore, that is in place. We got an outstanding team, which is important because you could also get a bunch of losers doing this type of work, not the case. Those are super, super strong people. Therefore, from those parameters, the interest- Yeah … the ideas, the team that we have built, the volume that we are operating with, that part I would say it’s going really well.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Which is already a lot in, three years, yeah. And the– I’m wondering on the– you don’t have exit yet, you mentioned it, but on the whatever portfolio evaluation, some– are you looking onto is there some metrics there, some up rounds, some– Is there some early signs there or it’s…?

Christoph Lengauer: Yeah there’s a couple of ways to look at that. One is the progression of the companies. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Because if you start 38 companies and none is getting out of hit finding here there’s something wrong. As I said, we are now a little bit over three years old. The first two companies, both which started out just with an idea- have now finished their SAD and MAD studies in the clinic. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: And both have super promising, exciting data. One is a small molecule company. The other one is a complex bispecific antibody company. And both of those have reached this goal in that timeframe, and that’s exciting data. Therefore, that’s that’s one metrics.

The other one is- That’s already fast from zero to- Super fast. Yeah And both reached the development candidate with less than $10, $12 million. Therefore, that’s, that’s– That, that part works is, super exciting. The second one is we have, this year, eight or nine companies that are likely to reach a Series A, which usually in the Curie setting is at development candidate stage.

Which means there’s another eight or nine companies from that portfolio. And remember, not all 30 companies like started on day one. Yeah. Therefore, some of them started in day two– in t- in year two or in year three. Therefore, now eight or nine of those will also reach development candidate.

Therefore, that I would say is super exciting. 

Philip Hemme: So something like, like about So which state– ready to enter preclinical or- 

Christoph Lengauer: Exactly. That’s the way you can define it, where you have defined that, that the, candidate that is chosen, that is for scale-up and for non-clinical tox studies or something like that.

That is good because that’s a good measurement, and this is exciting. And we have eight or nine companies that together with the founder teams we decided to stop. But that’s also important because from an investment ins- in perspective, it’s that discipline of going for crazy idea, like getting excited about something, but recognizing if that idea was flawed or if the drug embodiment cannot– if that cannot be achieved, what you had in your head, maybe biology works against that, and then stopping it at small dollars is also very important.

Therefore, I think those are maybe three other metrics that one- 

Philip Hemme: Okay. 

Christoph Lengauer: Yeah … one could apply. 

Philip Hemme: And this is– the one you stopped at part of the study eight or on top of the study 

Christoph Lengauer: eight? No. There were two that finished sad mad in the clinic. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Eight or nine that will reach development candidate this year, and then eight or nine that we stopped or in the process of stopping.

Okay. And then you have whatever is left, fifteen or eighteen or so that are just like getting going or doing their thing or progressing. 


[00:09:29] The four buckets of biotech venture capital

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And yeah, and what I l– the model– we can talk more about this. We we looked into and we talked about it on, how you differentiate from other VCs, let’s say the company building VC.

You were at Third Rock, which kind of pioneered. I didn’t know they were the first one to start the kind of the first one to start, and then the flagship, the Atlas more that model versus a more, let’s say, traditional VC model. I don’t even know what that really means, but let’s say the– I don’t know.

In Europe, probably the Abingworth, Sofinnova, maybe Omega in Boston. I don’t know. Yeah. In this– RB Med would be in, in this bucket. How yeah, how do how do you look at it and how do you place yourself, right? 

Christoph Lengauer: Yep. I think each fund, of course, is different. And not every fund, nor its query, is suited to support every company model.

Yeah. Like that just wouldn’t make sense. Therefore, there are certain companies that don’t fit certain other philosophies or concepts or things. I think that’s a good thing. But if you want, we could maybe try to say there are three bigger buckets- Yeah … or types of VC in the life science context for early company like seed and A.

Yeah. Maybe four The first one is, let’s call it the accelerators. Yeah. Very prominent in Europe, maybe more so than in the in the US that have money, either government or some form of support that actually really initiate things. Some seed funding efforts, some form of support to orient things and try to founders get oriented.

I think that’s one. The second one is the other extreme, like hardcore investors. Where the VC actually just– his contribution might be on the board or his contacts or connections experience. But the major support that such a– that bucket provides is money. That’s important and good, but it’s that’s the, second bucket.

Then there’s the third bucket, which you referred to as the Third Rock, so a Flagship or Atlas Diversions and several others that, 

Philip Hemme: Oh, you would put Archrock on this like- 

Christoph Lengauer: Yes, I think yeah, all those that, that actually not only provide money but some additional value that relates towards company support.

That either can be in the ideation, like Atlas and Third Rock do a lot, but it could also be in operational support. Yeah. Financing, hiring, business development- Or a little bit in drug discovery. And then there’s the fourth bucket, which maybe you want to call the new bucket, and you ask me how sort of Curie is slightly– well is, significantly different.

And I would call that the hardcore primary data generation drug-making support. Most Curie companies have maybe one or two, sometimes three employees. Most of it is done as COOs, but the interaction with the COOs the interpretation of the data, the design of molecules or experiments is usually done by member of Curie.

And Curie puts maybe 10, 12 individuals- onto the project to support one portfolio company. And they meet with the founder team and do their work and maybe, I would say maybe two or three times a day. And for that, it’s like maybe 20 interactions a week- or more, and- The emails and the things and the contacts and the WhatsApp and the Skypes and the thing and like in the Slack channels and like all of that.

Therefore, that is instantaneous, constant, breathing, living, and working the drug embodiment. And that intensity of support, I would say, is its own bucket. And that’s maybe something that people have not done or not been able to do, and there are many reasons. One is it requires enormous drug discovery experience, which many funds don’t have.

They have maybe the intellectual, analytical things. Is this a good drug? How does competition look like? But wouldn’t be able to actually make it. It’s not a criticism. It’s just like an observation. But then it is also, this is expensive. There must be a way to actually pay for that because the team at Clari now has about a little bit over 100 drug makers.

Those are structural biologists, computational chemists, medicinal chemists, biologists, biochemists- Chemical labs as well … DMPK, safety people, doctors that run trials like, all those kind of things that team, which we provide as a service with fractional staffing towards the companies is also something that needs to be recruited and managed and paid for.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. 


[00:15:42] Why life sciences investing is harder than tech investing

Philip Hemme: And I like that you also you also inspire from quite a few other models, which are a bit more tech-driven models. Let’s say YC or Y Combinator, more like the A16Z for really bringing a lot on the operational front as well. But then you talk from my understanding also, it’s not that easy to translate into biotech or life sciences necessarily.

Christoph Lengauer: No, it’s not at all. Like Zach Weinberg is one of our founders, right? He comes out of the tech world. Yeah. As he always says, he knows nothing about drug discovery, which by the way, over the years is actually not true anymore. Actually, he knows more. He knows more about it than me being able to code for sort of a dating webpage or something.

I couldn’t do that. Now, I’m not sure I would trust him to interpret a- That’s it … a chemical structure or something, but that’s okay. No, but coming from the tech world, he says that all the time. This is– drug discovery is so much more difficult, and I’d say not an arrogant statement.

It’s just like in the nature of things. Costs a lot of money when we do something. It takes a long time to find out if you were right. More often than not, we are wrong. Biology is complex. We don’t know how to do things. We can’t– This is not an engineering problem. We will not just hire another couple of people, and then we’ll figure it out.

We do version three and version four, and then we’ll be better, and then there are less mistakes in it. That’s not how drug discovery works. By the time it doesn’t work, you’re dead. It’s a, complete different sort of problem. It’s more complex. It’s maybe harder. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: And that sort of impacts the model.

But there are certain parameters that you can still learn form– from in the tech world, like as it relates to seed investment. Wouldn’t it be great to apply a model in, in, in life science investing where you try to win– to win big, but if things don’t work out, lose small? That’s the Y Combinator model.

That’s the tech model of seed investing, and would be fantastic to apply this in our world rather than the, big rounds, and then you get there, and the next round is a down round because you can’t pay for it. Therefore maybe it’s needed, required in those– in times like this.

And therefore, those are things that I think we can, learn from the tech world and I applied in a query model. 

Philip Hemme: And, I like that. Next is a bit of a tangent, but the difficulty of drug development which is basically correlate– it, it basically results in the risk profile of, the projects.

And usually in investing your, risk profile should be more or less correlated to your re- or potential returns at least. But I feel like in, at least recently in the, tech world, the returns are just, I think, probably higher than in biotech and life sciences. Yeah, I mean- So I guess even as a fund, then it’s higher even when you pitch LPs.

How, do you look at all of that? 

Christoph Lengauer: Life science investing is tough. If you’re a fund that returns two X, you have, Fantastic. 

Philip Hemme: You told me that the flagship is 10X, and then the, second or the one of the fund, and then second fund is whatever. 

Christoph Lengauer: Third Rock fund one, Third Rock fund two are amongst the- Four or 

Philip Hemme: five, and then-

Christoph Lengauer: most successful funds, and they are in the 4X, 5X returns, and this is this is super, super good. Good, yeah. Okay? Most funds return much less. Therefore, life science investing is tough. I think it has to do with the fact that our returns are not as high. If you’re in life sciences a return of 10X, you, that’s spectacular.

Yeah. For example, you invest… Just a thought experiment, you invest $100 million- Yeah … and you return for a billion. Yeah. That’s fantastic. 

Philip Hemme: Exit for that. 

Christoph Lengauer: Or you exit for a billion. It’s- Therefore, that’s a 10X return. Let’s say- to, make 

Philip Hemme: a billion, you need to exit five or whatever, five plus billion 

Christoph Lengauer: that’s, exactly the thing. Let’s say, what is a super return? Like 3 billion. Okay? Therefore, a 10X return would mean you only invested 300 million in that. How quickly, and we all know this, like we work in life science, how quickly have we spent 300 million? Therefore, it’s really tough to get that, right?

Therefore, for us, 10X is mega. Yeah. Okay? If you are in tech, you can have a 500X return. You can have a 1000X return. Therefore, the, that magnitude is very different. That has consequences. It has consequences because if we have a fund that invests in 10 companies in life sciences, and one of your companies has this 10X return, that’s it’s fantastic.

The problem is if those nine companies write a zero- 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, it’s 

Christoph Lengauer: zero … then your return is 1X, which means you have not made money. Yeah. And that’s the problem of life sciences, versus if you have a 5000X return, you can have 4,999 companies to return zeros to only make 1X, which means if 4,000 of those companies make zeros, you still have about 1000 left that actually help you in that return.

Therefore, and there, why shouldn’t you have another 100X or 10X or 20X return in there? Therefore, the math in investing may, and what we discussed before, the predictability and engineering and powering it through and the, life cycle or the time it takes to get there is much more favorable in tech than it is in life sciences.

That makes it really difficult for what we are doing. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. That’s the math at the- it’s almost one level down because if I look at the top level of what we discussed seems like the return and just the value created and captured in tech not even– AI right now is even more exceptional, but even just in regular tech, the value captured is, super– and created is super high.

And then I guess you trickle down to everything else into the funds versus life science, I guess capture just a bit less value in general. For what– many, reasons in society and pricing and whatever, But, 

Christoph Lengauer: No, but what you’re saying is important from another perspective, because why, aren’t people investing in it?

Why are people then doing it? If only one out of 100 drugs that go into the clinic actually is successful, like, why are people spending their whole life of not making a drug? Like, why are we all doing this, right? And I think because our desired sort of satisfactory endpoint is not a dating web page that has 2 million users, so that might be also a super achievement.

But our outcome is the people who died before now live- 

Philip Hemme: Yeah … ‘

Christoph Lengauer: cause they have a medicine. Therefore, it’s a complete– it’s, a different motivator that kind of drives that. And when you talk to other life science investors or drug discoverers or so, we are all in a way thankful to be part of that ecosystem that in the end delivers drugs that makes a difference in people’s lives.

Yeah. That, that’s really what I think sustains the industry in spite of this complexity and difficulty of making it or investing in it- Yeah … and getting their return. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Okay. Maybe ’cause it just reminds me, I had Sander Slotte from Forbion, I think one or two episodes now, and we talked quite a lot about especially the, fundraising with the fund, closing funds in Europe.

And he was saying that actually on the, returns of funds, that it was quite competitive with other funds- when was– when you are closing a fund and raising to, limited partners. But I guess this doesn’t necessarily apply to tech, but how, do you see it? Because at the end of the day you guys are fundraising often, and you, need to convince limited partners who can be whatever, pension funds, endowments, high net worths, whatever, or family offices.

Like, how much do they look at just the, return and invest, or how much do they look actually at the impact? Let’s say, take this also. 

Christoph Lengauer: I think it’s very important to them because- 

Philip Hemme: And how do they price the impact? That’s what I’m curious actually is. 

Christoph Lengauer: You can have a– You can donate money.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: I once talked to- 

Philip Hemme: Like the Broad or 

Christoph Lengauer: whatever … in case that person is listening to this podcast, it would be like he will remember that he mentioned to me. It was in New York in this corner office. And he said to me, “Christoph,” look, super rich person, very successful and thoughtful, and he said, “Look for me there are two ways of putting my money somewhere.

One is to donate it.” Like somebody makes a– tries to dig for water in Africa. An orphanage in Romania. Like you just like you give it there and it’s gone. It creates value maybe, but from an investment perspective- It’s zero. Yeah. It’s, it’s- It’s gone. It’s gone. Yeah. You give it away in a meaningful way.

It’s zero. 

Philip Hemme: It’s very zero. And you get even closer to licen- a Broad- I’m just saying … The Broad, Institute or the- No, yes. Well- … basically 

Christoph Lengauer: translation … I’ve been working with Cancer Research UK. Yeah. Of course, there’s a translational component to it, but its primary sort of fundraising mission is to take the money and give it to researchers in an undirected way to discover stuff.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And 

Christoph Lengauer: for that is also meaningful and impactful, but like from your perspective, it’s difficult to return, okay? You- Yeah … give it away. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Then there’s the other extreme, he said, where you are about like making money. Apartment complex in, in China. Yeah. Rare earth in whatever, Russia. Yeah.

like you’re like go in there make money. Okay? You’re like, just like that’s what you do. There’s no deeper mission behind it, but like making money. And then he said, “Christoph, and then there are you guys.” 

Philip Hemme: You’re in 

Christoph Lengauer: between. 

Philip Hemme: You’re in between those two scenarios. Okay?

Sometimes I make money. Sometimes it feels 

Christoph Lengauer: like I’m just giving it away- … because like you’re trying to make a drug, and like it needs to be appreciated, go for it. Okay? Therefore, you’re in between. But I think that’s– maybe that’s where we are. But to your point is why do then those fund invest?

I think it has to do with that, right? Because they diversify. They also invest in real estate, right? They do things where they make money and but there’s a power in the diversification, and I think there are different risks in this, and you can make some money in it. But in the end also, you want to do good, and like what we do is really important, and I think endowments in particular, but also family offices, rich net worth individual have an appreciation of that.

Because I think many of them do all three. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: They do the giving it away- They do the making money, and then they also do life sciences. Yeah. And it can have this enormous impact, but sometimes difficult to make money. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, I like that. I’m still curious how they priced that because that’s that’s, 

Christoph Lengauer: Fun, right?

Philip Hemme: Magic.


[00:28:28] Searching for European biotech innovation

Philip Hemme: On the, yeah, on the– go back to, CureBio, one thing that I’ve– that that, is, is quite amazing as well that is relevant to the podcast is your presence in Europe. You’re European, and we are– we’re in Europe right now. But also, I think you told me that over 20% of the deals are from Europe or even based in Europe.

You have quite a lot of staff also here. Can you talk about this on the why and, yeah why is it an opportunity? Why it’s working? Working is a big word, but 

Christoph Lengauer: no. It’s super interesting because, yes, I’m from Austria, but I did my– got my PhD in Heidelberg, Germany, and if I’m from here, but I’ve spent so many years in the US.

But many of us at Cure have this affinity and have similar background as as, I have. Also, we have 25 employees of Cure are actually Europeans or in Europe. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: And therefore, we have a presence there. But when we started out, of course, we started out in the US. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Because big thing the natural geography affinity.

We have virtual first. We are geographically independent, but we start out in the US. Brand recognition the, word that we exist that was US-focused. And we do that, and then we look at our portfolio, and we notice, ah, we have close to 20% of our companies in Europe. How can that happen?

In fact, it was a very interesting sort of thing to us because we hadn’t forced that or applied that. Okay. Now we do. Now we make an intentional effort to be known in Europe, to that European countries, researchers, founders discoverers understand our model because now we rationalize it backwards, and we think that actually what we are doing makes a lot of sense for European- companies and founders. Why do I say that? Yeah. Number one is the science is very good. It’s undisputed and has always been that way. 

Philip Hemme: Everyone agrees on 

Christoph Lengauer: this. Everybody agrees on that, and it doesn’t really matter if that comes out of Barcelona in one of the top universities or out of the Oxford, Cambridge, London triangle.

And you can play this now by country or whatever. There’s strong science. There, there’s strong investigators. There are innovative people, and s- the ideas are strong. Yeah. Therefore that’s good substrate. And, but there’s traditionally, I think and I’ve been trying to help European companies over the last 10 years a lot, therefore I think I’ve seen a lot and I can say this in in all with objectivity, there are maybe three difficulties.

For, that’s a super stereotypic statement, of course, but I think it’s valid and most people will understand that there are three difficulties that European founders have. The first one is there are not a lot of serial entrepreneurs or it’s difficult to have an experienced management leadership team.

Of course it exists. Of course. But in general- 

Philip Hemme: Yeah … 

Christoph Lengauer: when you look across, this is difficult to get. And I think it holds company back, companies back because it’s not only about the good idea it’s about the mixture of science, medicine, and business, and I think that’s tough if there’s not the right experience.

If I think it holds companies back. That’s number one. 

Philip Hemme: I guess it improves a lot, but it’s still, it’s still- Of 

Christoph Lengauer: course. And I’m not saying it’s bad- Yeah … I’m not saying it’s whatever, but generally- And it’s comparatively … spoken in comparison- Companies in Boston, I guess it’s, yeah … It is very different.

Period. And we know that. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Everybody knows that. Investors know this and people know that. The second disadvantage or barrier is while it is easy to get early money- like the first two million or whatever, which there’s so much government, there’s so much non-dilutive funding, there’s so much support, which by the way is not as great in the US in comparison.

It is very difficult to get money in that next round. Because a lot of investment have been geographically influenced, and the European investment community looks different. We know that. And no endowment- really. There are of course many exceptions to it. Yeah. You mentioned some of it, Sofinnova, NextTech Forbion and others.

But it is in comparison- Much harder to raise that next round- Yeah … of finance. That has always been an issue that’s written about. I’m not like saying something new or controversial, but that holds company back. And the third thing is There is in general, and I think it has to do with the fragmentation of, of– and the different geographies, there is, I think, less understanding or appreciation of the rough competition on a global market.

Because

I think a Portuguese company that wins a pitch event is on TV, and now they think they, they achieved something. Yes, they’re number one in Portugal, but maybe only number 3,000 in the world. And that just makes it– That creates– With that– Because you’re– You– The market you’re most familiar with is your home market.

It’s just totally natural, and I’m a good example of that. I’m from Austria, right? We win all those skiing events, and we are super excited, and nobody realizes that nobody in the world ca- gives a shit about 

Philip Hemme: skiing events, 

Christoph Lengauer: okay? They feel like, “Ah, we are first, second, five Austrians in the top four,” because one was ex aequo, right?

They feel like those are our news things, and nobody else doesn’t know what ch- a giant slalom is. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Okay? They feel– And it’s a ski jumping, things like that. What are we do- there’s a, geography bias- Yeah … that I think can hold us back culturally when we build lifestyle companies.

Especially in pharma where it’s 

Philip Hemme: more global 

Christoph Lengauer: market, global 

Philip Hemme: competition. 

Christoph Lengauer: It is not more. It is. It’s only a global market, period. If you’re product number two, you might have lost, okay? Yeah. Therefore– And I think that awareness that this is global, this is a business, this is a thing I think holds one back.

And the reason why now, coming back to your question, Curii works really well, I think, in Europe is because it doesn’t worry about those three elements. We– If the founders have a great idea but not that experienced drug making team or management team, then we help. We do it. It’s easy. It’s not easy, but it’s easy to provide.

Cool. To e- It’s easy to fill that gap. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Fundraising of that next round of that things that’s what we do. Yeah. Seed financing series A, we have a breakout fund that does that. We have the seed fund that sort of supports in that. This is where we play. Yeah. Therefore, this is exactly where we live, in that risk sort of world early on, in that sort of ex- extension of a, grand idea and its initial findings.

And the global market is we are part of this because Curii is virtual first. We have 115 people now that live anywhere. We as a group have are responsible more than 40 approved drugs. And therefore, we know. We have been there. We have done that. We have won. Before we’d like to share that and bring that in our co-piloting activities into the company and make that part of that company DNA.

Therefore, I think if you then have this good idea, everything else in the Curie context in Europe could actually really work. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: And I think that’s somewhat unique. You solve somewhat the next, yeah. Yeah. Nice. The, I’m by the way super excited about it because if that unleashes the good ideas in Europe- Yeah

I think that’s spectacular. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Okay. Even if it just has a significant impact- Yeah … On tens of ideas a year- Yeah … or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll talk more about success stories because you, were CSO of of of Blueprints, and that’s when we met, and there’s massive exit. I think there are some lessons to be learned.

We’ll talk about that just after. 


[00:38:00] Founder-friendly equity shares

Philip Hemme: At first, curious on the– ’cause you mentioned a bit the model of Curie of what I quite like is this, like bringing the drug, making drug hunting. So really not just the strategy level, because I think a lot of VCs do that and helping on the trial design a bit.

But are we more on like on the top level, you go really in the like operation and into the details like, and then how how does it, yeah, just how it works. And I’ve seen that you- you price it basically more at cost, and then you get it later on equity, and that, yeah, there’s and there’s a bucket that is more common for equity.

The other one that they pay, they pay on demand. Can you explain where, the model goes like? 

Christoph Lengauer: Curie provides two type of support. The first one is what we call co-piloting. That’s maybe something that is closer to what others try also. I think it’s more intense. I think it’s more, it’s deeper.

Yeah. It’s but it is on that mentoring, strategic conceptual level. We originally thought that is actually sufficient. Okay? We thought we can do this because we pair this with an external COO model, and I thought that works. Because you have the founders with the idea and then you have this externalization model with COOs which basically has all the contracts, all the frameworking, all the negotiation power from pricing to like best teams and like whatever under control that- Now you can run this virtual model by just basically commenting on it, giving advice to it.

And that is our first service, therefore that, CEO framework with the co-piloting. And for that we said we are charging seven and a half percent- of the company, which we thought is super founder-friendly, and this is why. ‘Cause in the beginning, company doesn’t have much money, and money is very expensive.

Therefore, companies, we thought, shouldn’t pay for that- and with cash. And therefore they pay nothing for that till they are successful and have the exit, then they pay the seven and a half percent. Therefore, it’s a very– It’s a, good investment because you don’t need the cash- 

Philip Hemme: Yeah … 

Christoph Lengauer: to spend on that.

Okay? Therefore- 

Philip Hemme: But you give away equity, but- Thank 

Christoph Lengauer: you. Thank you. Of course. Yeah. But you give it away when it’s still not worth so much. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, 

Christoph Lengauer: Okay? Because therefore because it might dilute and things like that. Yeah. Therefore, we thought that’s a good thing.

Therefore, that’s the co-piloting. But then as I said, we noticed it’s not actually not sufficient. You need to go really deep because what does a biotech do? They’re young. They have an idea. It’s risky. Now they need to hire a structural biologist. What do they get? Do they get the world’s best structural biologist?

Maybe not- ’cause that person might just not want to do this. Put all their eggs in that risky basket- and tough to get the pers- the best, number one. Number two is you need the structural biologist maybe only 40%. Therefore, now you spend another 60% on them if it’s not super cost-effective.

Thirdly, when you don’t need them anymore because you move on and now you become non-clinical or whatever, you still have them on your payroll. Therefore, what you want is you want to have fractional staffed experts. And that’s what Curie provides. Yeah. We call them drug makers. And we do– we provide this.

We pay those people’s salaries. Those top people are trained in Curie. There they have the safety net. There they have the assurance that they can engage in three, four companies. Some of them are risky, some are not- And if the- … and are fractionally staffed … 

Philip Hemme: if the company grows, they can jump to the portfolio company or what?

Christoph Lengauer: Yes. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Yes. Those people– Why do those strong people do this? One, they have diversity. Yeah. Secondly, they have the safety umbrella, which is Curie. Thirdly- It’s a little bit of a try-buy. Yeah. Because if they like the company, if this risk gets removed, if this looks exactly what you were hoping for, then- 

Philip Hemme: Can jump

Christoph Lengauer: Curie has no issues with this person jumping full-time into the company- Yeah … ’cause they do their thing, they whatever, and then- They get 

Philip Hemme: their equity yeah … 

Christoph Lengauer: with equity they come back. Yeah. Okay? Therefore, we like that. Also, why do we like it? Because then the company that we financially support has now a very strong person on it.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. ‘

Christoph Lengauer: Cause we know that person. We had hired that person before. We love it. Yeah. For us, and this has been happening already, okay? Like- Yeah … this is reality at Curie. And as people then go in and live it, they are full-time as the CSO of one of our portfolio, as the head of biology in another company, as the CEO in a third one.

Yeah. Therefore, this is something that we are used to, and we love that. Therefore, this is really good. Therefore, now it’s basically their try-buy. But we want to do this at no margin. Yeah. Therefore, we want to do this so that we break even, that we get our money back on those people, but we have basically created this fractionally staffing agency.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: And this gives people basically, on a monthly basis, they can go back and say “I don’t need that anymore next month,” then they come back. Yeah. No issue. They can change the percentage on them- Yeah … and we manage that, and it gives them access to top top truck, makers. Yeah. And we learned that this is absolutely necessary.

Therefore, that’s then at cost. But of course, with very low fixed cost because it’s only based on the fraction that they need them. But it’s a really good model. Therefore, now you have it, you have your co-pilots, you have the strategy of the thing, you have this CRO services around it, and with that we provide everything else, from payroll to IP to business development, whatever, that’s clear.

That’s within the 7.5% of equity. Yeah. And then you add cost, get access fractionally staffing top talent that we manage at Curie. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And one thing you also claim is that you’re very founders-friendly. I’m curious on there, like, how much of it is, true? How can you be more founder-friendly?

Yeah. Just, 

Christoph Lengauer: First of all, it’s a- 

Philip Hemme: And what does it mean, 

Christoph Lengauer: actually? You can also come in and say I don’t give a shit about founders, and just there’s a mindset to it. Okay. Therefore, it’s a…

Because we wanted to build a support system that when we, founders of Curie, built our first companies, wanted to have- and access to, and to allow us to take our ideas and- Make less mistakes but still feel like we have control over it and feel like this is our company. And that’s the origination of Curray.

And that’s spiritual. But you can also go out there and say “I’m just a VC, and I’m trying to make my money, and I’ll try to get away with it whatever I can.” That’s also spiritual, but different. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: I do believe there’s value in that operary. It’s important to us.

Yeah, Okay? But how does it show? Yeah. One is I think it shows in governance. Founders control the company, and if we say our recommendation is to work with COO A, and they say, “I want to work with COO B,” they decide. It’s their company. It’s not ours. Yeah. It’s important. If they decide, I’m like, “You should put another 10 chemists on it because by the COO, because this is very important.

Otherwise you take so much risk in this and I don’t think it works.” If they don’t follow that advice, it’s their company. But that’s- 

Philip Hemme: They still own a big part of the equity. 

Christoph Lengauer: Yes. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Okay? But it’s still their company. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Okay? Therefore, that’s, it’s, I’m just saying, it’s very important.

We are not… If they say, “I sell this company,” that’s okay. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: I think this is important. Of course, there are limitations to it that come with the act- with the financing that we provide, where we say “We have this, right? We have the here are limits to this.” but conceptually, broad stroke, for us, it’s important that founders have a say in their company.

Because we believe in founder entrepreneurs. There are many funds that actually get founders. They have, for example, the 88. And then they say “Who are founders who could join that thing?” Because it looks good when they are there because they further credential or validate that concept because they’re willing to come in and spend some time on it.

But those are founder advisors. We can also work with founder advisors, but I’m saying we’re also okay if somebody’s a founder entrepreneur, and we start, wants to build and run their company. Maybe that only is as a founder CEO till the series A or- till they’re more aggregates in their clinic, because that’s what they know well.

But nevertheless I think it’s important to us that people have that governance and ownership. That’s one. The other one is the equity that founders have. You 

Philip Hemme: take less equity compared to other funds 

Christoph Lengauer: Yes, we want– we believe that founders should own more equity than in most settings, especially in the US.

Philip Hemme: Okay. 

Christoph Lengauer: We believe that the founder team should own 15, 20, 25, 30% of the company. We really believe that- With stage up? … in the beginning. I feel it’s really important, we think because it’s their company. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: And we appreciate the value of the idea. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: The idea is only the beginning. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: And then you need money, and then you need to work it.

But- I can tell you there’s no company without an idea. Yeah. And we would like to value that. 

Philip Hemme: There’s no company without founder. 

Christoph Lengauer: Yep. 

Philip Hemme: I guess you value also that the founder can create more value by having a bit more equity and a bit more- 

Christoph Lengauer: Yeah, I think it’s just like- … control of the company. We believe that

it’s also a sign that this is more their company. I think. 

Philip Hemme: And why are other VCs not doing that then? Both being more founder-friendly biotech VCs and both being more into the day-to-day of operations that’s two different things, but- 

Christoph Lengauer: the problem is

that a good idea is enormously valuable, but maybe worth not much- when you look at it from a pure cost perspective. Why? ‘Cause now you need money to make this thing. The chances that it doesn’t work are very high. This is new. This is novel. We talked about before about the probability of success of an idea to go in a clinic, from an idea to g- from a medic molecule that goes into a clinic to actually getting approval.

This, if you go back and do the NPV of this, okay that the chances or the likelihood that this idea is valuable at the end when it’s all said and done is small. Therefore, that’s why it’s not worth much. Yeah. Which is very difficult for founders to accept because they put all their life into this, all their energy.

They are away from their family on the weekend because they are obsessed with this, and now they have this idea, and it’s so much work they’ve went into it, and then you get 2% of the company- when you start. They feel like, “What’s going on here?” But it is because of that math. But at the same time, I said it’s very valuable but worth nothing.

It’s very valuable because without that brilliant idea, without that seed- without that sort of discovery- There’s no company. Therefore, we ne-need to find a way of appreciating this, and we just think it’s the right thing. Because also coming back to what did we want when we started our first company?

I think we wanted more equity. Yeah. We just didn’t know. We didn’t understand how it works. Okay, here’s this many thousand shares, and I’m like, “Wow, this is a lot of shares.” I didn’t even ask what percentage I own. I just thought a million shares sounds great. Yeah. What do I know? Yeah. Therefore, those are things that we want to just get ahead of and be very clear and say “Look, here founder, here’s the cap table. We did this for you. Here’s the Excel so you can play with it.” “When you change the numbers, tell us.” We want to have that to be a dialogue- 

Philip Hemme: It was

Christoph Lengauer: So that people understand and have the transparency about it. I think there’s a, respect in that. There’s a this– We want people to o-o-on- You can only own something if you understand. Okay? And I think we try to empower towards that. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. But still, yeah, still trying…

I understand the philosophical part. The stance and the, fit. This I understand it. Still on the, valuation, because at the end of the day if, you give 10 extra percent to the founder versus you guys taking 10 extra percent, this impacts your return down the road.

Except if you say, “Okay, we give 10 more percent to the founder, so this gives extra ownership or extra motivation, and this extra-” return.” there’s a net benefit to that down the road when there’s exits. 

Christoph Lengauer: I, look at it, maybe that helps you.

I, or we, look at it this way: Good ideas are rare. We– Not every company that gets built fits into the Curry concept. But if it were to fit in the Curry comp-concept, we would love to see this idea. This good idea. And I think if a founder has to choose reaching out to where you get 3% than reaching out where you get 30, maybe we have a bigger chance.

When we get the good ideas, we have the better returns if we help make the drug embodiment. Yeah. Okay. Okay? Therefore, it’s it’s a utilitarian argument. Okay? It’s it’s two things. One is very utilitarian to make the math work. Okay? The other one is the respect, and you try to sort of- Connected to.

I think that’s what it is. 

Philip Hemme: Okay. No I’m just thinking, as a founder myself, I understand also where equity come in. You always want more equity, but then you also want to give the equity to the right investors as well, and you want to keep certain amount of control. I’m more in the tech, world where you have very high equity and you keep very high equity.

But I’m just mix– yeah, just, 

Christoph Lengauer: Yeah. I think- … looking 

Philip Hemme: at it- 

Christoph Lengauer: It’s always a good question, right? But I think it’s- And I’m always amazed in the biotech world how little equity founders have. Yeah. It has to do with what we discussed before, because it takes a lot of money and a lot of risk. And, like– And we have to– Where we can agree is that founders in biotech in the past just haven’t had much equity.


[00:55:15] argenx, Genmab and Ascendis: Bottom-up biotech successes

Philip Hemme: Yeah. But at the same ti- the, they all also if I look at just out of memory, some of the very sizable exits, quite a lot of them were founder-led. If I, even– in Europe, but even I think in the US, but in Europe especially. If we just talk about Tubulus it’s very founder-led.

argenx the founder just moved to, chairman, but was found- very founder-led. A lot of Ascendis also founder-led. There’s a lot of- 

Christoph Lengauer: GenMab. 

Philip Hemme: GenMab is basic, yeah. Yeah, founder- Yeah … 

Christoph Lengauer: founder CSO. Janssen Winkel was founder CSO, now he’s CEO. Yeah And this is many years later.

Philip Hemme: BioNTech, the same. Actually- BioNTech … if you look at the most biggest success, there’s still the founder. Maybe not in the, like in the quicker returns, but I think in– if you really want to go big I, don’t know if there’s really a correlation. I’m really thinking out loud. I don’t know who did the math.

Reach out if you, did. But I feel like there is a correlation that some of the founder-led, if you really want to go big even in Genzyme, whatever, you have so many examples. And I guess that translate to returns ultimately as well, so yeah. Okay. Yeah. Totally. Good. Let’s just a bit more we talked about– I, I mentioned on the, a bit more personal, a bit of lessons.

You were with Blue- Blueprint, I think you told me six years, I think, and then, what was it? Five or six years after you left, you had this massive exit to, Sanofi. It was, nine, over nine billion last year. How, like– Yeah, how much you, when you look back in hindsight, how much of it was I, want to say obvious.

Nothing is obvious, but how much of it was, like, foreseeable, or how much of it were, some mistakes? What did you learn there? 

Christoph Lengauer: It’s actually really interesting when you look back and all those deals were they foreseeable? Most, most likely were not. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: It’s very difficult to predict which one of those that you start an exciting concept or that like other people start, like which one of those will have big exits.

I think it’s very, difficult to predict. Now I was founding CSO of Blueprint, and I remember we spent the first, what was it? Maybe $50 million of that Series A in trying to build this kinase platform, obsessed with the idea that it’s possible if you do it– if you screen upside down, whatever that means, that you actually can make selective kinase inhibitors- rather than promiscuous ones. And that was the concept. But that’s a very good concept. But that should work. Therefore, you can say the idea is good, like it should work, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now that little detail is you need to make this drug embodiment. Okay? Detail. But that we felt really good about and seems so did the investors, but after $50 million, we had nothing.

We built this library that we were not sure, kinase library, and we were not sure if it can do what it wants in terms of drug discovery. We were nowhere. That’s scary. Nowadays, this, by the way really difficult to do. But that’s what it was. Therefore, to your question is like upside down.

Then we started five programs, of which we stopped I think three or four. The program that– The pro-pro-program that was there from the beginning was that KIT program. Because we knew– We were not– never sure if we can make it work for GIST, which is the gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

So we tried, but we always felt that it is– if we can make that selective molecule for that one super specific KIT mutation that all mastocytosis patients have. I remember Brian Druker, who was one of the scientific founders of Blueprint, at every scientific meeting that we had, he was pounding his fist on the table saying, “This ought to rock.”

Every time. And we’re like, “Yeah we’re trying.” And then we made this molecule, and isn’t that ironic? I had no idea what mastocytosis was. I’ve never heard of it. And it turns out I talked to a physician, didn’t know what mastocytosis either. They’re like, “Yeah, we had learned this in school whatever, med school, but I’ve never seen a patient.”

I learned then that it took at that time about 14 years for patients from the first doctor’s visit to being diagnosed with mastocytosis. Why was that? Because there was no treatment. However, those patients didn’t go anywhere. It’s difficult to diagnose because you can have all those different system– because mastocytosis is a mast cell disease.

Yeah. And we know that from our allergies or whatever, but it can show in many ways. It affects the blood, you get cancer. If it affects your brain, you get depression. If it depr- if, it affects your skin, you get you get eczema. If you get it can– it, it shows in the respective tissue, and that’s how then people go to their doctors and then they treat those symptoms.

Yeah. They treat your dep- treat your depression, they treat your blood, they treat your skin. Yeah. And the underlying disease is a very simple genetic definition of it. It’s a very specific mutation on one position in the KIT gene. 

Philip Hemme: Okay. 

Christoph Lengauer: And we thought with our selective project, we can make this drug.

And then we did, and we tried many other things, and we made other drugs that were successful and approved also. We were, I think, the first companies get– got– first biotech company that got two drugs approved within the first 10 years of its existence, both homemade. One of them was for mastocytosis. And then when I left, we were already deep in clinical trials. We had a platform, we had a collaboration with Roche for immunokinases. We did a lot of things. Eventually, those got approved and the value that Sanofi saw was exactly like, like in that, because Sanofi now has a focus in immunology.

Yeah. Mast cell disease is a big thing. As it turns out, there are so many patients that just never knew that’s what they had, and this is something that helps them for many, years, and it’s an impactful medicine, and I think that’s what happened. Lessons learned is if you can combine a technology and a drug embodiment with a disease that when you make that successful drug embodiment can have an impactful change in the way we think about it- then that must be successful. That ought to be successful, and Brian Drucker was right. That’s just- 

Philip Hemme: Some of you are pounding on the table as 

Christoph Lengauer: well as you- You make it. I’m like- As your portfolio … if you make the right thing, right? Like it’s exactly the same thing. It’s if you have this technology, and if you apply this the right way, and that has an impact on that disease It ought to be a successful company.

Ought to be. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. You think of Wolf of Wall Street hitting your head on the table. 

Christoph Lengauer: It’s not complicated, right? There’s this huge medical need. You have a solution for it. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: And then you make the drug embodiment. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Then it should work. Should work. Yeah. 


[01:03:37] Blueprint Medicines: From struggle to a $9B sale

Philip Hemme: The– you– before we– another personal question, but one thing you just told me, which I didn’t know, was that, that precise the– on the valuation of, on the exit of how, much of the valuation was on the lead product.

I think you told me more at IPO, but here for Blueprint, what, like– You told me it was more an average, around like 75% on the lead, product, and then the platform is priced way lower. You think on the– Here, I think Blueprint what was– I saw the revenues was around 500 million, 2024 something.

It was pretty strong growth. Do you– How, do you look at it, actually? The– I don’t know. The price roughly- 

Christoph Lengauer: it’s always tricky, right? It’s always in the eyes of the beholder. The pharma companies are very good at making those predictions that are then always wrong. And but there are different motivators in that.

But I think the key drug in the, in the Blueprint setting is absolutely the KD inhibitor for mastocytosis, and that’s very clear. But I think if you do this over and over again and you look back into deals, acquisition, IPOs, and you assess where the value is allocated towards, I think you can see a consistent pattern.

Yeah. That of course is not always true. And that is that most of the value- 

Philip Hemme: Yeah … 

Christoph Lengauer: is on that first drug embodiment. And then there’s some value, depends on how fiber it is and whatever, but there’s some value for the second molecule that’s maybe 10, 15%. Yeah. And then there’s maybe some value on cash in the platform.

That’s maybe five, 10%. But like the big value is the first program. That’s why in the Curie we worry about a lot

the first program. Yeah. The first program, especially if you have a platform technology but also irrespective, regardless, you have– that first program cannot be a toy. It cannot be a proof of concept. It cannot be like or– It is like bring, put– It’s a founder advice. Your technology, you have an approach Put your best foot forward- in program one. Why do you wait for program two? I never understood that. You put your best- 

Philip Hemme: I guess because- … 

Christoph Lengauer: foot forward … 

Philip Hemme: your first program can be something a bit cheaper or a bit something to- I don’t believe in that- … demonstrate. Yeah. Okay … 

Christoph Lengauer: at all. I understand why people say that. I just don’t believe in this.

It just makes no sense. If a technology, it’s like, what is the best application for it? Make that. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: That’s also where the value will be. And then if you have a platform when dollars are cheaper, then in the next round of financing, when you have shown that this is working, then have that money for program two and program three, where you do it on cheaper dollars, and there you can continue your platform if you choose so.

But I think that’s the better way of doing this, especially in days like today- Yeah … where it is so much about cost consciousness- Yeah … and trying to compare yourselves against others and including companies from China. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this has changed a bit in, in biotech in general.

I remember when, we met in Boston 10 years ago, it was, all about always your single asset or your platform- and the platform where massive investors– massive investments and all the Blueprint, the Moderna, the- Editas, whatever. You name them. But I feel like now the model ch- changed a bit.

I see way less of these full platform models and much more what you say of a bit more platform was very focused on the single as- on the lead asset, or then really companies much more focused on the asset set– very asset-centric. We talked about about Jato, about Omega. I think they– or I quite good at really focusing on the, clinical value- and taking the asset and clinical value- and then this, that this seems to work well on the– also on the exit side at least 

Christoph Lengauer: recently. Don’t understand me wrong. I personally love, and we at Cur8 love platform companies because it’s fantastic. You show it with one, and then you learn something, and then maybe you can faster and more efficiently do it on program two and three, and this allows opportunities for partnership or from reliving it.

Blueprint is a good example, where over and over you can make another drug. The issue is just you need to find a way of financing it. Yeah. And therefore, you can’t make a toy as your first program. You bring your best foot forward, and then with that, you build the platform. Then you can reconcile it with very disciplined financing.

Yeah. And I think that’s I think I think that’s the, that’s the way to go. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Like it. 


[01:09:03] Christoph Lengauer the disruptor

Philip Hemme: Last more personal question before the more quick-fire. Some quick questions, but the last personal. One thing that, that I like about y- about you and what I remembered when we met, and I still, see it.

I saw it– I saw you always a bit more– Had– You had a bit of a rebel mindset. Maybe it’s a founder mindset. I don’t know. I’m a bit fou- a rebel hacker i-in a positive way. H-how do you look at yourse- like, do you see that in yourself? Do you… I don’t know, like- 

Christoph Lengauer: Yeah, I appreciate that you said in a positive way, because you can also say that’s annoying or disruptive in a negative way, right?

Every coin has two s- two sides. But I think-

Forget me in this for a second, but I just have an enormous appreciation of people who will change paradigms, who questions the status quo, who will connect, create nodal points where things that had nothing to do with each other come together. That’s where I believe real discoveries, real innovation happens.

And that’s just what I admire. And sometimes I try to be that way. Sometimes it comes across the right way. Sometimes I’m a little bit the asshole but I, I don’t know. That– What’s important to me that in that, urge for innovation or changing paradigms or questioning the status quo or giving people a chance that others Don’t appreciate.

In that if you do this in an authentic way, then I think if it comes from the right place- then I think there’s value in this, even if people get annoyed by it. You know what I mean? Like that’s– If you do that– If in the end it’s driven by- It’s authentic. 

Philip Hemme: And- If it’s authentic. 

Christoph Lengauer: I think it’s if, it’s authentic- then it’s okay, and that’s the only thing I try to control, to at least be true to myself and authentic in that. The rest of it is for people to judge. But I think we have so many people who accept the way things are or don’t want to give the outlier the opportunity or don’t question the status quo and not where my appreciation goes.

And I think that’s also not where innovation happens. 

Philip Hemme: I like that. It resonates to me a lot, but it’s, yeah. It’s, Some of the words you use sounds like almost the think different a-ads from, Apple with in there, but in the hackers and the innovators. I think you, you have it in entrepreneurs and generally there’s something deep, something you want to change something otherwise.

There’s types of entrepreneurs, but at least some of them are there and yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: I think it’s- I think most, most likely many founders or entrepreneurs have some disruptive element in them. They have to, otherwise they just would- 

Philip Hemme: Continue … 

Christoph Lengauer: continue the old shit. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Get obsessed with something that’s different and and sometimes it rubs people the wrong way, but like in the end, it’s just like- 

Philip Hemme: It’s also okay.

You cannot please everyone also, so it’s it’s also- 

Christoph Lengauer: No, and in general, I think I think it’s true for history and like for politics and for our world.

I just don’t believe if you don’t change anything that this is the best path. I don’t think so. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah.

Yep. 


[01:13:37] Quick-fire questions

Philip Hemme: Quick fire. We’ll round up. Q- so quick questions, pretty quick answer, one or two sentences. First one, what’s your biggest miss as an investor? One company you really missed.

Christoph Lengauer: Tubulis. Not that– we, didn’t exist as Curie, therefore no loss. But conceptually, I remember when sort of Thilo Schroeter from Nextag asked me what I think about it. I didn’t find it that innovative- actually. Big exit. Wrong. 

Philip Hemme: Dominic was on the show for the, listeners. You talked about Europe.

One misconception US investors have about Europe. 

Christoph Lengauer: They think Europeans think like Americans. Big misconception. 

Philip Hemme: One metric you look at that most biotech VCs ignore.

Christoph Lengauer: The difficulty of making a drug embodiment or the value of making a drug embodiment. 

Philip Hemme: We talked a bit about tech, but is AI in biotech real? 

Christoph Lengauer: For certain things, absolutely. 

Philip Hemme: Like what? 

Christoph Lengauer: Efficiencies, certain things that it takes 10 chemists to think about forever. Here, it’s all available.

The aggregation of data and the interpretation thereof, I think is real. The generative part- not real yet. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. So AI will cut the drug discovery from 10 years to one year, I think it’s, It will take more time. Yeah. What’s the most cons– m- most common misconception that people have about Curie Bio? 

Christoph Lengauer: That Curie is for academic founders only. But Curie is for any type of founders, from the– for the postdoc and the Nobel Prize winner in academia, but also for the industry veteran or the vice president of chemistry in a biotech whose company just got acquired by big pharma, and now they want to build their own company.

Even for companies- like spin-outs- newCo … Or NewCo builds. Yeah … therefore, I think that’s a big misconception, which we try to explain to- people. 

Philip Hemme: One mistake you made in the past 12 months.

Christoph Lengauer: Promised, not for the first time, to my wife that I’ll spend more time with her 

Philip Hemme: Didn’t work out. 

Christoph Lengauer: Shouldn’t promise this. Or follow through and actually really do it. Maybe the later. 

Philip Hemme: How do you feel about the biotech market hotness or the state of biotech right now from one to 10? 

Christoph Lengauer: 10 being very hot?

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. I think- Very attractive, very hot, or 

Christoph Lengauer: I think it’s super hot. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Christoph Lengauer: I would say. It’s maybe eight, nine. Okay? The problem is it’s not realized by others yet. But I tell you, the level of innovation, the opportunities that we have, and the combination of ideas and now realizing those with technologies that we didn’t have before in terms of speed, effectiveness- efficiency is, mind-boggling. It’s unique. It’s maybe in a moment we didn’t have before. If I’m enormously excited but I acknowledge that this is not yet reflected by the way investors or or the public looks at it. But me as a drug maker- as like somebody who hunts for drugs, it’s maybe a moment that I have not seen in my life before.

Philip Hemme: I like that. 

Christoph Lengauer: Perfect time to invest then. 

Philip Hemme: Perfect 

Christoph Lengauer: time to- At times like this- Yeah … the most successful funds have been funds at times- Yeah … where the situation was not good. Yeah. I think we are in this period. It’s super exciting. 

Philip Hemme: Perfect way to finish the podcast, the episode as well. Thanks, Christoph.

Christoph Lengauer: Of course. Thank you. Thank 

Philip Hemme: you. I’m impressed by Christoph’s track record as a founder and drug hunter. I’m also impressed by his mindset, really no bullshit and down to earth. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please hit the follow, or review button. Any of these action would help a lot more people discover the podcast.

We also have plenty of similar episodes on our channel, so please feel free to check it out. I would also love to hear what you think, so if you could drop a comment wherever you are, or shoot me an email at philip@flot.bio. That’s P-H-I-L-I-P @F-L-O-T.bio. All right. Thanks for staying to the end, and see you next 

Christoph Lengauer: episode.

SHARE

Further Episodes

Never Miss a New Episode 💌

Trusted by 2500+ biopharma professionals from top companies like argenx, Roche, and Forbion. No spam, no noise.

Watch & Subscribe

Flot.bio on Youtube Flot.bio on Spotify Flot.bio on Apple Podcasts