We travel to the offices of Pharming Group in Leiden, the Netherlands, to chat with the newcomer CEO Fabrice Chouraqui.

Fabrice discusses the fascinating history of Pharming, with its first commercial drug RUCONEST produced in the milk of transgenic rabbits. He also talks about the growth of Pharming from a protein therapy-focused biotech into a European multi-asset heavyweight, with a market cap of at least €800 million.

⭐️ ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Fabrice Chouraqui has been the CEO of Pharming Group since March 2024. Prior to this, he was a CEO-Partner at the US biotech venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering as well as CEO of the Flagship portfolio company Cellarity.

He also served at Novartis and Bristol-Myers-Squibb for 10 years each, with his career beginning in R&D at pharmaceutical companies that were predecessors to today’s Sanofi.

🔗 LINKS MENTIONED

• Pharming Group’s website – https://www.pharming.com/
• Pharming Group’s second quarter and first half 2025 financial results – https://www.pharming.com/sites/default/files/imce/Presentations/Pharming 2Q25_1H 2025 presentation_31JUL2025_website.pdf
• Stefano Portolano, Azafaros 🇳🇱 🇨🇭 | Rare Diseases, Small Molecules | E40 https://flot.bio/episode/stefano-portolano-azafaros-rare-disease/

Transcript

[00:00:00] Intro

Fabrice Chouraqui: The company didn’t rest on their Laurel rolls. They could have said, Hey, we’ve created an amazing platform. We’ve commercialized Rcon Nest that just get the proceed from Rcon Nest and that’s it. No, they kept being very ambitious with really a vision to create a a leading rare disease company with us.

Changed the most over the past decade. I think it’s the fact that science is becoming more complex, environment is becoming more ambiguous and uncertain, and the pace is ever faster. Two weeks ago, I, I met a 15-year-old girl who was just diagnosed with A-P-D-S-A few months ago and now is treated for a condition, and she told me I’m, I feel a different person.

Philip Hemme: New 20 episode. I’m your host, Philip, and on the show I’m interviewing the best European biotech to help you grow. Did you know that the approved drug. Was made by milking trans genetic rabbits. Yes. This drug has been developed by farming, just founded in 1998 in Leiden, and this drug has been approved in 2014.

Since then, the company grew into a commercial biotech with two approved drugs and over 500 employees. In March this year, fabs joined as a new CEO. So I went to Leiden to catch up with him. I didn’t know him personally, but I heard great things about him, especially through flagship. We talked about farming’s two approved drugs and the late stage asset in the pipeline.

We also talked about the strong momentum of European biotech. And why the first signs of a biotech spring are here. So here’s my conversation with fibrous and please hit the like or follow button if you’re enjoying it.

Alright. Welcome you to the show far. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Hi Philippe. Thank you for having me on the show. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Cool Lion. You made me come to Lion. I’ve never been here, so 

Fabrice Chouraqui: it’s a beautiful city actually. Yeah, I can tell you I 

Philip Hemme: walked a bit on the canal. It’s actually 

Fabrice Chouraqui: very nice. Yep. It’s like Amsterdam without tourists.

That’s what I told my wife is still 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

[00:02:12] Kicking off at Pharming

Philip Hemme: So I wanna start with. You are basically a CO at, at farming. Basically. You joined in March. I’m curious on, on the why you joined and also on how things are going. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Absolutely. Listen, farming is a company that has evolved tremendously over the past five years five years ago.

Farming was a one asset company with es a legacy asset that the company had developed out of a protein recommended platform. I’m sure we’ll talk about it. And, and today farming is is, is. In a sense, the best of pharma and the best of biotech. The best of pharma with two drugs on the market, each growing double digit, transforming the lives of of patients.

And a late stage pipeline with two programs. With each $1 billion sales potential. So that really made me join farming as I felt was a, it was a unique company for which you can apply five x 10 x mindset whilst already being at commercial stage. And it’s quite rare in the biotech industry.

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s, and especially in Europe, I guess that’s even more, more even more. Was it your intention as well, like to kind of. You look globally or was it also intention to look with something with a European tire? 

Fabrice Chouraqui: You know, I, I’ve been working in the industry for, for now close to 30 years. I’ve always seen our industry as a kind of bridge between science on one end and society on, on the other.

And I’m someone very loyal. As you’ve probably seen in my, in my resume. I’ve, I’ve worked for 10 years at Bristol Marqui, 10 years at Novartis, five years at flagship, pioneering. It’s been an amazing experience, so I was not expecting to to leave flagship, but obviously this type of opportunity cannot be passed.

And on the other end, coming back closer to to Europe, being closer to my family was also important to me. 

Philip Hemme: Makes sense. I understand this. 

[00:04:26] RUCONEST and transgenic rabbits

Philip Hemme: I think one thing that’s, as you said, also farming has a quite rich history. I think it was founded 1998, but, and what you said was a recommended poll, which I think that’s.

Quite fascinating to me that you’re actually manufacturing the drug in transgenic rabbit in the milk of trans rabbits sort of thing, and it actually works. And from my understanding, it’s basically on par with other manufacturing methods. Which is like from a biotech, bioengineering is, is insane. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Farming is a true biotech, you know, and, and for the reason you said and the, actually on my day num number two, I went to the farms, you know, to see those rabbits and to understand how we we manufacture es and as you said, we.

Nest is is the C one Ester protein, it’s a reconvene protein, which is manufactured out of the, the milk of transgenic rabbit, and it’s a very complex platform and to the credit of farming the company was able to repu boundaries of the science back then. Hmm. Was able to develop this transgenic platform, understand how to breed those transgenic animals, and then how to manufacturing a drug product out of of this protein.

And it’s it’s been an amazing, story, a very successful story and to the credit of of, of the leadership and all the people who were associated with this with this story. It’s 

Philip Hemme: funny ’cause we talked just before the recording that I started by engineering in Paris. I actually had one academic who was kind of presenting of like producing proteins in milk.

And milk was not a rabbit, but I was like, sound like sci-fi. It’s like, can it really work? And basically now I kind realize it’s, it’s 

Fabrice Chouraqui: like it’s real and I can tell you or. The people who works in our, in, in, in our farms, they, they really, truly understand that their job every day is contributing to reach, transform the lives of, of patient downstream.

They’re far away from the from, from the patients taking care of rabbits. It’s not like when you work in a factory, you can see, you know, the pills or the vials, you know. They understand actually what they do as a is very, very meaningful. Yeah. Downstream for patients. Yeah. That’s good. 

Philip Hemme: I like that.

[00:06:57] Path to profitability

Philip Hemme: We’ll talk about Recon Nest a bit more while we stay on. Also on the bigger picture. What I, so I guess the, the history of the also other company at the court, which history, I think you were also headcounts 500 plus employees when you joined, I guess. That you wanted to change some stuff as well, or like how like.

I mean, also, it’s always hard, I guess, to join as a CEO in a, in a existing organization with like 25 plus years of, of existence. How did you approach this? Like, how much did you want to change? How much do you want to keep? Yeah. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: I think you’re asking a, a, a very important question to your point, you know, when a new CEO is appointed is not to manage the status quo.

Yeah, but, but before you, you drive change, you need to understand the culture. I think and, and as you understand the culture, you can challenge the culture. And, and, and that’s what I, I’ve been doing. I really wanted to, I’ve very quickly tried to understand, you know, where farming is coming from.

What has been the development of, of farming about over the past 15 years, 20 years how we ended up, where, where we are. And then it’s been about engaging with our associates and, and understand that. What took us to where we are will not necessarily take us to where we wanna go. Yeah. And, and I think successful companies have the ability to make adjustments along the way to remain successful.

Yeah. And, and that’s how I’ve been approaching the job. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And can you like, and I, I saw you, I mean, yesterday you announced a date on the, on the restructuring. I guess that’s one one aspect. Or can you actually talk a bit more about this one? Like how, why, what’s the rational behind it? 

Fabrice Chouraqui: So obviously it’s always a, a difficult decision when you when, when you.

You make people redundant. But we have so many growth catalysts in our portfolio and pipeline that we had to, to ensure that we would deploy our capital, our resources optimally. And, and we could see that the, the company had had grown very fast in the recent past. And when it comes to some functions non-medical, non-commercial functions we had.

Invested a lot, probably a bit too much. We had a lot of resources way above accessible benchmarks and it would make real sense to redeploy actually those capital in other areas where we could really best leverage some opportunities that we have. So it’s very much about. Optimizing capital allocation Yeah.

To accelerate our growth. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And I guess also in the current biotech winter environment, I guess it makes also, it’s also important, so like 

Fabrice Chouraqui: you have to be very diligent. Yeah. When you allocate resource, I mean, farming is, is, is uniquely positioned in a way that we don’t need.

New capital. Yeah. Every year, like many biotechs. Yeah. We have, as I said, revenue two drugs on the market. We, we generate revenues. We generate. Cash and we can use the cash that we generate to fund the growth of the company. Now we have a duty, we have a duty towards our shoulders, we have a duty towards our employees to use that cash appropriately.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: And given that we have a number of gross prospects in the near term, it’s important to deploy that, that cash, you know so we can fully leverage those opportunities and continue to grow the organization 

Philip Hemme: and your, your revenue. So last year, what was it? Oh one 300. It, it’s about 200 million. 200 million, yes.

Actually last year you were also not profitable, a net income, at least. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: We, we we had the last two quarters we we started becoming profitable. I mean, profit is all about obviously revenues earning, but it’s revenues and it’s also investment. And I think what also been very impressed that the company didn’t rest on their laurels.

They could have said, Hey. We created an amazing platform with commercialized recon nest that just get the proceed from EST and that’s it. No, they, they kept becoming, being very ambitious with clear a vision to create a, a leading rare disease company. So after RUCONEST that decided. To in license and, and develop JIA Len for a PDS.

And then before, or just before I came farming acquired ABL with a, a very promising asset in a primary mitochondrial disease. A, a great complement to a pipeline, to a rare disease pipeline. So that’s why you always need to see the profitability in terms of revenues and expenses. The good thing is that we have today, we are generating the cash to drive the the development of the company, the development of our portfolio, our inline brands, as well as the development of our pipeline.

And that’s, that positions farming in a, in a kind of unique way in the biotech where often companies always need cash because they, they don’t make enough revenues or often they don’t have, they have no revenues. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. I. Yeah. I mean, commercial biotechs in Europe is, yeah, it’s. F dozens, but not much more 

Fabrice Chouraqui: dozens, many.

But actually I, I’m, I’m very happy, happy to see that there are more and more biotech entrepreneurs in, in, in Europe. There are amazing talents across Europe. Amazing scientists actually a lot of Europe. You see a lot of European scientists in the us. Yeah. And so it’s, it’s good to see that some European scientists also are part of great endeavors about biotech creation.

And a number of these biotechs are becoming more and more successful. So this burgeoning biotech world in, in, in, in Europe is, is very encouraging in my opinion. And. We are not yet at the level of what’s happening in the, in, in the us. But I’m very encouraged with this growing ecosystem that allows actually more and more biotech to to grow.

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s gonna, maybe we’ll talk about this a bit, a bit further late in the conversation if we stay on the finance. 

[00:13:43] Encouraging stock price trends

Philip Hemme: Also, one thing that I, I noticed in that. It’s quite surprising was like you, I mean you’re double listed basically also in, in the us but you have some kind of like 10 to one.

Is it something I I never 

Fabrice Chouraqui: saw. Yeah. Main, now, main listing is that on, on neuron? Next is Euronext actually in Amsterdam. We have a listing on Nasdaq. These are a DR. So we only have actually a small fraction of, of our capital, which is traded on nasdaq. That’s something we, we would be looking at for, for the future.

But that has been historic, but it’s good to have this listing, you know, it, it provides a platform to to develop our capital market strategy. So yeah, more to come on this on, on, on that aspect 

Philip Hemme: and on the. While we talk about this also, you said about your shareholders, like, I’m just curious on the, what’s public?

Who has the main, who has the main public or it’s public? Shareholders. Is it like big pension funds, like. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Farming. The, a majority of, of, of shoulders at farming are, are, are Dutch shoulders. They are fans obviously. And since general shoulders as well. Yes. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Okay. Okay. 

I mean, no, never sure of what’s, what’s public with.

Good. And, and the last thing I saw is also that the stock basically, since you joined, I don’t know how much it’s correlated, but I think it increased whatever, 60, 70% which I think. I guess it’s must be very encouraging. Again, I don’t know if you want to comment on, on that. No, 

Fabrice Chouraqui: absolutely. No, listen. No, absolutely.

I think it’s as, as the CEO is, is is one of my job to ensure that the stock price reflect the the enterprise value. Yeah. And it is true. When I, when I joined, there was a an important disconnect that. Also attracted me to the company because I could see that there was a lot of value to unlock in the short term as well as, as, as in the long term.

I think the farming has developed extremely well over the past few years. As I, as I mentioned, we have a very strong platform of growth. And, and I think that this, this new momentum that you see in the stock is, is the, the, the the reflection of the shoulder, the capital market appreciation Yeah.

Of of, of the value of, of farming and the value creation potential. Yeah. Again, es which is a drug which has been. 10 years on the market, still growing double digits. Mm. It’s not a drug that will face an an end of its lifecycle anytime soon. I think that is, is, is started to be to be understood very well by by shoulders joint jar.

It’s a drug at the very beginning of its lifecycle. Just launched in the US two years ago, does an amazing. Potential in different indications. One that we have already, a PDS and two others that are under under development. And then KL 1, 3 3. So I think investors start to see a lot of potential in, in farming and, and the stock is being repriced months after months, which is very encouraging.

That’s good. 

Philip Hemme: And as just on the, for, for the audience as well. Thank you. Passed the, the billion dollar market cap as part of this organization with also, I guess, a nice marked. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Absolutely. I know we’re very happy to, to pass and to, to say, as you said, to, to reach this billion dollar market cap. We were very happy now also to be to be selected as, the Euro Next midcap index, which is also an important milestone for, for, for the, for the company. But again, these are only milestone. We have clearly a far greater, far greater ambition and 

[00:17:39] The protein and small molecules portfolio

Philip Hemme: Okay, now you’re getting more to the product. I mean, you mentioned quite a few things on one thing I’m also a bit curious is, and when you do so much, as you’ve said, also so much work in developing the platform.

Behind ness. Why? As I know more of these recommended protein in the pipeline and why in the portfolio, in the pipeline, why adding like small molecules to the mix. Yeah, 

Fabrice Chouraqui: it’s a great question. I, I wish I, I wish we could have, I mean, I, I wish that this amazing recommended platform, recommended protein platform would’ve yield all the treatment options.

I think the company tried some years ago now, and, and, and they found that actually it’s been difficult to find to be able to to develop out of the platform differentiated treatment options. And they made the decision to not to invest anymore in the platform and, and to channel their r and d investments toward other drugs, other highly differentiated and, and, and transformative treatment option in rare disease.

And that proved to be to be very successful again with join j with scale one triple three. So. I, I think sometime I, it’s, and I know quite a lot of that having worked at flagship where we, we create a platform company I think it’s, it’s important to to be very ambitious about your, your platform to, to constantly push the boundaries of the science, but also not to be.

Too much in love with the science and, and not and, and not to be grounded when it comes to, to value creation. At the end of the day, it’s important to progress the science, but ensure that that science, that scientific excellence, yield yield value and a return as a, as a, a publicity trade 

Philip Hemme: company.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so I guess also from what you. Saying, I guess it’s not a deliberate choice of like, we move away from, we can fall into small workers. There’s more opportunity exactly. To go after. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: It’s at the end of the, of the day, the, the goal of a company like, like farming is to be able to develop and commercialize transformative treatment.

Treatment that will make a real difference. For, for, for patients. For rare disease patients, exactly. Mm-hmm. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Actually, I mean, a bit of a tangent, but it’s. I feel like small molecules, like there’s quite not, I mean a revival is a big word, but I feel like recently we had some guests on the show and we talked about with, with pha in Stefano, in, in Basel and they have a small molecule, four rare disease as well in the phase three.

And we talked about this in. So like quite a lot of like successes, recent successes, even rare disease in oncology as well with swollen workers, with the protein integrators. I mean, I can go on and go on where it seems like. Molecules still can deliver like huge amount of value. You are totally right versus whatever.

Like five, 10 years were like, even flagship was like, okay, microbiome gene therapy, cell therapy, who wants to do small molecules? Like s everything possible that. I, I, I contributed 

Fabrice Chouraqui: exactly to take off the ground. An amazing company at flagship called Celerity, and, and we were specialized in, in in small molecule.

Obviously this was, the platform was a, was at the confluence of high dimensional data, machine learning, chemistry and biology. So something very complex. So the future of, of small molecule, but still small molecule. I think what’s great about scientific evolution, what we’ve. Seen over the past decade is that now you have many more modalities than we had in the past.

And, and so that provides many more options for patients. So I don’t think it’s about saying we, we shouldn’t think that a a a new modality will actually take others out of, of, of, of the market. To the contrary, these are not, are just new addition. We’ve seen obviously with RNA, you know yeah, there are lots of RNA.

Derived modalities. That’s amazing. It, it opens actually a, a new front of of medical research. Yet we will see new small molecule based treatments that will have great impact on patients. So it’s done. One or the other is both more options. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. That’s good.

Curious on a bit, on, on, on ness, on the HAE or what’s her hereditary angioedema? Because I think I, I heard quite a bit about this field, especially recently. I saw, I think the Cal Vista approval. Mm-hmm. I think there’s another thyroid virus. I, I think there are. I mean, technically in, so, but I think they’re also in enlighten or not far.

I think they’re quite active in, in that space as well. How, and, and then there’s also gene therapy. I think Intel has also quite some data. Like how do you see the, let’s say the market dynamics in the space or like. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: HA is a, is a fascinating area because the, the etiology, the the biology of HA is well known.

This has attracted actually a lot of research and as a consequence on a number of treatments we’re able to reach the patients. And that’s great for patients because today, I mean, whereas 15 years ago you had. Barely any treatments. Now you have really a number of treatment options. First of all, it’s a, it is also a, a disease for which you have two types of treatments.

You have prophylactic treatments. Yeah. These are treatments to avoid or limit the number of HA crisis. Yeah. And then you have, acute treatments to treat those, those crises so recognized it’s, it’s an acute treatment a treat crisis. So yeah, lots of, of different different offering the protic market.

We’ve seen a number of, of, of launches specifically recently. I think there is a broad offering which give patient choice specifically in terms of not only modality, but more convenience. You know, do you want an oral? Do you want a subq? Do you want a subq every month, every two weeks, every three months?

So it is good to have a, a different d different treatments actually for different type of patients in the in, in the on demand. So the, the acute category in the on-demand category historically it’s been a injectable, category with a lot of subcu treatments and then recons, which, which has a, a very differentiated value proposition for, for, for patient.

And then lately we’ve seen the first overall, again, good for patient. The good thing for recons that it’s it’s, it’s a drug that, is, has a very unique, valuable addition for a subcategory of patients. And so as such it is it is of, of great value to this subcategory of, of patients. I was 

Philip Hemme: about to ask how it impacts also sales, sales projections of frequent, as I, as I said.

Fabrice Chouraqui: Yeah, no. The drug has continues to, to grow double digit despite launches of generic or new treatment options that, that, that we, we seek. Months after months, more doctors using the drug, more patients using the drug, which shows again, the the unique value proposition. What what’s important is making sure that patient receive the right drug at the right time in their disease and recognize as a very distinctive value of position for a certain subcategory of patient.

And so it’s great to see that. Yeah, months after months, this is being recognized and doctors u more doctors use the drug and, and, and they use it on, on, on more patients. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. That’s good. And maybe you want, you just wanna talk about the, also the, the, the pipeline ongoing because I think, does it k sorry, 

Fabrice Chouraqui: KL one, three.

Philip Hemme: 3, 1, 3. You mentioned the, the billion dollar. Potential. And I think it’s, it’s in, is it, is it in AL phase right now? It’s, it’s a phase two. It’s a pivotal phase two that, 

Fabrice Chouraqui: that we expect to file. The, the drug to register the drug with this phase two? 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: This phase two has been designed as a registrational trial.

The, the two endpoints have been pre-agreed with the regulators and the, the program has already undergone a few analysis. Which somewhat de-risk the, the, the entire program and, and, and we expect to to, to have a, a data readout at the end of 27. 

Philip Hemme: Okay. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: So 2027. Okay. So it’s a, it’s a great addition to the, to, to, to, to the pipeline and how many patients and how like Yeah.

It’s a, so primary mitochondrial disease are a very well-known set of, of disease that affects about 30,000 patients in the US and in top five EU countries. So it’s a, it’s a very significant rare disease. So it’s, it’s a rare disease, but still significant. Yeah. Patients are often actually diagnosed.

They are treated. There is no. Disease modifying treatments, but they are, when diagnosed, they, they, they are treated with what’s available in center of excellence. So those patients are well identified and so hopefully, and we know that we are creating great hopes. With this program, which could be transformative for for these patients.

And so more to come will have to be a bit patient, but we’ve obviously been very encouraged with this positive interim analysis at the end of last year. 

Philip Hemme: Okay. 

[00:28:13] Switching gear to commercialization

Philip Hemme: Yeah, I was ask, I mean, I was ask. Talking about the number of patients, but also how, how many patients you have you will recruit in the trial.

180 

Fabrice Chouraqui: patients, 

Philip Hemme: is it? Okay? Yeah. And I guess Europe, us, or even global. Yes, 

Fabrice Chouraqui: absolutely. Absolutely. So it’s very important to cover most of the center of excellence in the us the key center of excellence in Europe. And, and that’s I think where we can leverage the, the, the, the, the great, capabilities that farming has developed over the years in clinical development to, to really optimize the clinical development of, of, of the drug. And if successful ensure that this drug can reach as, as many patient as possible. 

Philip Hemme: And I guess then it plugs into other commercial. I think you, you we gonna commercial in commercialize on both.

Post continent yourself. Absolutely. I mean, I saw that the rights were giving back at some point, but yeah, 

Fabrice Chouraqui: it’s always been a long story. Recognize that I don’t even actually know probably in detail. So, but today we are commercial owners, so. Recognize that I said earlier is a drug that originated from farming, okay.

From this unique protein recommended platform. Then there’s been rights and a lots of commercial setup. But today farming is the sole owner of the, of, of the drug. 

Philip Hemme: It’s, it’s amazing because if you have the commercial. For, I mean, Salesforce already on, on both continent. Then you can go commercial yourself obviously, in terms of, even on terms of, of revenue share or whatever potential.

It, it’s, it’s much, it’s just very appealing. I guess I can just, 

Fabrice Chouraqui: yeah, no, it’s always better to, to, to commercialize a drug by yourself. But sometime, you know specifically when you are a biotech, you. Cannot. We were talking about resource allocation earlier. Everything you need to make choices as you grow you you have to make choices and that’s why often biotech may give away the rights the commercialization, right, in a certain, certain part of the world because they don’t want to incur the cost.

And so they get royalties and they focus on on, on other part of the world. That’s fairly common. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe to finish on farming on you, you mentioned a few like upcoming milestones. What do you have for like. By end of the year or, or next year? What’s the like upcoming? 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Yeah.

A great milestone on, on join nja. I mean, join J is, as I said earlier, is a drug which is at the early stage of its lifecycle. It was launched two years ago in the us it was launched this year in the uk, in in England and Wales. And, and we expect European approval next year. Okay. So not only we expect European approval next year, but there’ll be, they’ll, they’ll, we’ll have a number of growth catalysts on join j.

We, we’ve announced last week that we’ve received accelerated approval for for the pediatric indication in the us. So it’s a very important milestone because it’s a PDS is a disease affecting children. Where the onset actually is, is is early and it’s important that children can benefit from, from a drug that may affect may slow the, the, the course of the disease.

So that’s an, an, an important, the the approval of, of joint jar in pediatrics. So the, the, the expansion of the label of of, in the US for. The pediatric patient population is gonna be a big milestone. We have also other milestones when it comes to regulatory approval to having jja use in in more patients.

Some patients, some A PDS patients they, they have a genetic test, but that the test is inconclusive. These are called VUS patients. And the US means variant of uncertain significances. So these are are patients that have hydrogen test and that the test. Came inconclusive. Inconclusive because they have an anomaly on the two genes coding for a PDS.

But these anomalies have never been documented in the literature. Mm-hmm. And so there’s been new data published that shows that a, a number of. Of variants now should, are associated with a PDS. And so the, the, the, the carriers of those variants should be reclassified as a PDS. So that’s also an important milestone for, for the company.

And then later next year we’ll have the the readout of those. Of two, phase two on two, new indication on Jo Nja two primary immunodeficiencies with a much larger prevalence than a PDS. And so, so this is, these are important milestone for the drug. So a very busy time for, for farming, for Jo Nja in particular in the coming months.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Amazing. 

[00:33:40] European biotech success stories

Philip Hemme: If we switch back to the topic we, we said a bit about, about European biotech. If, if we go a bit if we expand a bit. And first it’s good to hear that you’re so optimistic and, and I think I quite agree. Also what’s what. I’m curious also is like this, there’s a few companies like Farming who started before 2000, late nineties, and some of them also developed really well.

Mm-hmm. I, I mean, I just checked a bit who, like, they were Farmer Zealand, farmer s even Gen Fit I saw recently. I thought they like, but the xFi still are pretty good and even Transgene and France are doing a bit less well. But like how, how do you, I dunno, can you. How do you look at it? What, yeah, what’s your thoughts on, on the dynamic on the market?

Very 

Fabrice Chouraqui: proud to see actually that these companies are, are still developing. I think they like farming, I think they, they created a movement in Europe. They showed that you can create biotech. That can grow, you know, in a sustainable fashion. Often it is being thought that biotech are bound to be acquired, you know at a very early stage in their life cycle.

No, you can develop meaningful drugs for patients. You can commercialize them. You can expand your pipeline and as a consequence, expense your, your portfolio and, and build actually mid-size companies. And it’s, it’s great to see that, that’s why I can only encourage more entrepreneurs, you know, more scientists to take risk to raise capital, to create biotech because.

Obviously science is risky, but the more the more biotech are, are created the more chance you’ll see other farmings, you know in, in Europe. And, and I think I’m very encouraged. By what I see a a new generation of entrepreneur who embrace the fact that science should not only stay in labs, but science should be applied to creating differential treatment that.

Ultimately will make a difference for patients. So as a scientist, by training, obviously you take great pride by being at the forefront of of, of patient by publish publishing a great paper in top medical journals. But as importantly. It’s about what you do with that science. It’s and, and I think it’s extremely rewarding.

It’s extremely fulfilling to see that you can apply that science to create medicines that will have an, IM a very tangible impact in the life of, of people. And, you know, just two weeks ago, I, I met a 15-year-old girl, which who was just which has been diagnosed with A-P-D-S-A few a few months ago.

And, and, and now, now is, is is treated for, for a condition. And, and, and she said, you know, she told me I’m, I feel a different person. Mm. And, and, and so being able to provide hopes to change literally the life of, of patients is very meaningful. So I’m glad that you see more and more scientists, entrepreneur who, who wants to make to, to make that impact on society.

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s amazing. And also what you said also about like commercializing themself, I mean. What I find quite amazing that now there is a handful of, of companies where you commercial and also some of them like with really like large impact. I mean, thinking about whatever. I mean even in market cap, that’s kinda the market cap, but usually it kind of translate also in terms of, of patient impact.

Normally I mean you have like whatever, three. Above 10 billion now. Absolutely. So Argen X have the BioNTech. I, it’s quite amazing. It’s a 

Fabrice Chouraqui: amazing success 

Philip Hemme: story. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Amazing success story. And, and, and now with technology, you can scale the company much faster. Before to scale, you need a lot of resources.

It was quite cumbersome. Now you can actually scale much faster by leveraging technologies and run organization much more efficiently. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that will allow biotech to scale much faster and reach commercial stage faster and, and remain independent in, in many cases. 

Philip Hemme: I want to, I want to jam on it.

The, the last thing that I, I want to mention about European biotech is I just saw that this morning actually, that in France. Just passed the billion dollar market cap. Another biotech as well. And Ivax actually was Mark. Amazing story about past three months. Three just in France, I mean French connection, but it’s quite amazing, like 

Fabrice Chouraqui: it’s very recent.

It says a lot. It says a lot about again the fact that you have this new generation of entrepreneur in France, in Germany, in the Netherlands. Lots of actually success there in Denmark, in Belgium, all across Europe, in the uk and, and, and, and, and first and foremost, it’s, it’s because of the, of the great capabilities that you have in Europe.

It’s not about Europe versus the rest of the world. Honestly. I’m I’m, I’m, I’m very impressed with the, the ecosystem and the and the world class capabilities that you have all across the US and we need actually scientists all across the world to collaborate and contribute to to progress a science.

Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: At the end of the day, 

Fabrice Chouraqui: also 

Philip Hemme: biopharma. It’s global. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. But still, it’s still, it’s still good to see as well. It’s maybe moving a, a bit on the, a bit more, a bit more on the personal side like. 

[00:39:55] Lessons from Fabrice Chouraqui’s career

Philip Hemme: Maybe more. I mean, you, you mentioned a few lessons you, you had already. I remember.

I’m just curious maybe on the, I mean you, what I see is like whatever, 20 years in, in big pharma in positive studies, but 20, 20 years big pharma. I think at the end of Novartis you are a. What is it? President oncology, US Oncology or US Pharma. Yeah. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Novartis 

Philip Hemme: US pharma. Yeah. For Novartis. Yeah. So I guess you’re reporting to CEO of Novartis Pharma.

Exactly. Report to CEO of Novartis. Okay. Just put, I mean, the hierarchy is always, for me, the harder to understand this. Okay. So 20 years, I’m pretty high level. And then, as you said, five years at flagship, not farming. Like how, like, I don’t know how. Some of the unique lessons you had here, like throughout past that, that brought you here or where you are today?

Or maybe some, some key, I mean, there must be hundreds I can imagine, but some of them that, that comes to your mind. I think. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: What is, what has changed the, the most of the past decade? I think it’s the fact that the, the science is becoming more complex. Mm-hmm. The, the, the, the environment is becoming more ambiguous and uncertain, and the pace is ever faster and, and as a consequence.

You can no longer think that you own the truth. And, and what’s very important is to be able to make decision fast because you are living in a much more complex environment. You never have all the cards hands to make the perfect decision. And so what I’ve really learned specifically when I, when I joined flagship, it’s the ability to make.

High quality decision fast knowing that those decisions are not perfect and that you’re gonna have to to course correct. So by the time you make a decision, you are already ready to course correct, so you’re not spending ages, months to make a perfect decision because it’s likely that that perfect decision may be outdated by the time you make it.

It’s better to make. Quality decision fast and course correct as you, you you acquire more information along the way and it’s it’s easy to say. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s clearly it’s, it’s more difficult to apply and I must say I had to learn but also unlearn. 

Philip Hemme: Mm-hmm. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: As I, I, I went through that process.

Mm-hmm. And I think it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s, it’s a winning mindset nowadays. Clearly a winning mindset in the biotech industry. But I know that large companies are struggling or they’re striving hard to apply this mindset. Obviously, it’s more difficult because there are more people. It’s slower by nature.

But in my opinion, it’s probably one of the, of the key mindsets. Together with the need to really be very ambitious, not to be afraid to be afraid. And, and, and really strive to to continuously challenge status quo and, and push the boundaries of the science. You cannot be you, you cannot be out stage of, of status quo.

And, and, and so that’s, for me are, are two dimensions that have been really key in the past five, 10 years for me. 

Philip Hemme: And how, how on this, I like this on the, on the decision making, on the how, how do you find the middle ground between a. Novartis versus when you start some fixity, which from the ground up where you need to decide a lot of things versus now at the 500 employee scale, like is there like a optimal pace of decision making or is it like you need to have a scale and like I don’t, I, I don’t think 

Fabrice Chouraqui: I mean obviously.

It’s, it’s, it’s a bit different, you know, whether you work for a company with 130,000 people, or you work for a company with, with one 50 people. But at the end of the day, the, the, the mindset if you want to to win if you want to be successful, should be the same. As I said, it’s, it’s being able to, to understand what you’re doing.

It’s, in a sense, it’s the ability to zoom into, zoom out, being able to understand what you do, the complexity of your environment, the complexity of the science. Be very connected actually with the people and what you’re doing whilst being also have the mental agility to zoom out and be able actually to see things from a distance be able to project yourself.

Tech risk change status quo. That’s that’s absolutely essential. And whether you do it on a very large scale when you are a multinational company or on a smaller scale it’s it’s the same type of mindset. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. Because the last thing before a bit more quick fire, quick question answers.

One thing is this transition from. Big pharma. I mean, you went from really from big pharma to flagship, which is, which is really you, you went from starting from zero. But even to, to biotech. I think quite a few people who listen to us are in pharma. They like it or they’re not, but they’re also very intrigued.

Oh, biotech looks, maybe it’s greener or maybe it’s more dynamic. How like. How did you feel? How do you, like what would you, what’s your experience or what have you seen, like this kind of transition? 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Listen, pharma, biotech you know, there are more overlaps than differences. More and more likes to actually box, you know, things and say, I know everyone.

I mean, a lot of people reached out saying how how different it is or whatever. At the end of the day, there are more similar similarities than differences. I think one of the key difference is the pace, is the ability to make decision fast. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: And, and, and, and, but first and foremost, at the end of the day, it’s about value creation.

I mean, in, in biotech, you strive to, to, to create value because if you don’t create value, you you die. That’s very simple. And, and so what attracted me to, to biotech, I wanted to understand how you create sustainable value creation out of research. Something that obviously pharma has not been great at doing.

And for various of reason. And, and so obviously I felt. Bless to have the opportunity to join flagship work alongside amazing people like Nuba and who over decades, you know, were able to, to show the world how you can create, how you can, can push the boundaries of the science. 

Philip Hemme: Mm-hmm. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Whilst creating sustainable value out of that science. So, and, and, and that’s that’s the two component which are important if if you want to to succeed as an entrepreneur. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Like that. 

[00:47:29] Quick-fire questions

Philip Hemme: Alright, so quick fire is more like quick question. Yes. No, or quick question in quick answers.

The first one is on on Radiopharmaceuticals. I mean, you’re on the board of Ed. Do you think that space is a bit a bit hyped or over hyped, or is it just. Huge potential, huge potential. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: The Novartis, it’s very beginning again, I had the opportunity to appreciate that at Novartis. We were one of the I mean the first large company investing in this field Novartis doing very well and or med is, is clearly a, a, a, a leader in this in this field with with lead 2 1 2 and, the potential is immense. Okay. 

Philip Hemme: Alright. One thing that people get wrong about European biotech ecosystem. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Can you repeat the question? 

Philip Hemme: One thing that people get wrong about the European biotech ecosystem 

Fabrice Chouraqui: that’s that it’s it’s, it’s not successful. And that’s, there is no, no potential. Are there are amazing talent and and there’ll be amazing companies growing out of, of, of some new startup today.

Philip Hemme: How long will the biotech winter still last? 

Fabrice Chouraqui: It seems to me that there’s a bit, a bit of spring is on the horizon. Spring is good answer. When I see the XBI, it’s now about 100. 

Philip Hemme: One biotech or biopharma company that you would’ve loved to be part of? 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Oh, many, many, many, many. You know, I mean, you, you, you name a, a, a, a number of them.

For me you didn’t. I mean, in the US for instance, Nym has been an amazing success story. John Ra, the founder, and, and, and CEO of Nym for a number of years. I’ve done a terrific jobs but it’s very difficult to single out a company. I mean. When you, when again, you, you push the boundaries of the science, you create differentiated drug that ultimately change the practice of medicine.

I mean, this is this is a scientific story. This is a, a, a business story. This is a human story, and you always want, you want to be part of that. Yeah. So yeah. There are many, many companies I would’ve loved to work with. Awesome. 

Philip Hemme: Bit more, bit more, not biotech, but one mistake you made in the past 12 months.

Fabrice Chouraqui: One mistake that I made, I made many, many mis mistakes of the past of the past. I make mistakes every day, you know, so it’s difficult to to point out one, but I think you need to be very self-critical and, and learn from your mistakes. So it’s not so much about. The mistake, per se, what I’m telling people, I think mistakes and failure are part of what we do every day.

Mm. What’s important? It’s about failing, failing fast if possible. Cheap. Take the learning and move on. 

Philip Hemme: Failing fast and cheaper because, I mean, it’s good. It’s quite also quite. That’s what I think Americans in general are doing really well at. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: Absolutely. 

Philip Hemme: Like accepting failure and learning from it.

That’s, yeah. One of your biopharma heroes or big inspirations, you mentioned John Morgan or you maybe someone else. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: There, there are, there, there, there are many. Actually, again, it’s difficult to or mentor or mentor of yours maybe to to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to again. But you have had so many successful CEOs.

I mean, look, I mean, I’m, although I, I never worked for Astra, for AstraZeneca, but I’m, I’m very very, very impressed with what Pascal saw you actually how you develop this, this company the the reputation is, is, is developed again, it’s difficult, honestly, like there’s so many not only CEOs actually.

I think it’s, it’s, it’s about scientists that, that have had such an impact. On society over the years. So I had the opportunity to to, to, to work with amazing people at at Novartis at at Brewster Meers Square at flagship, as I mentioned. And so again, they, they, they whole had their their impact on the world.

You know it’s and 

Philip Hemme: on yourself and if you want, if. As a, like what? Like some per, I mean, I guess some people or mentors that really impacted you in your, your career. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: I was, I was fortunate. You know, you are who you are because some people believed in you. Mm-hmm. And so throughout my career I had the opportunity of having people, more senior people who believed in me, who stretched me, gave me the opportunity to learn and develop, and I’m extremely grateful to them. Hmm. And so that’s what I’m trying actually to, to do. I love to. Find talent in the organization, take risk on them, grow them. I’ve since I’ve been at farming, this is what I’ve been, I’m trying to do so, so in a sense, replicate what people have done with me on other people.

And, and that’s very fulfilling because at the end of the day you do what you do to make an impact on society. And an impact on people and, and being able to identify people who are not necessarily visible in the organization. See potential in them. Mm-hmm. Stretch them and allow them actually to reach a level that they may not have Rich if you had not given them the opportunity.

Personally, I take I take great pride in this. 

Philip Hemme: I like them. 

Fabrice Chouraqui: And the 

Philip Hemme: perfect, perfect way to finish the conversation. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed your discussion. Great. Thank you. Thank you.

I’m impressed by fibrous belief in what lies ahead for farming. I’m also impressed by his optimism for the European biotech and his clarity in decision making. If you have enjoyed this episode, please hit the like, follow, or review button. Any of this action would help the podcast a lot. If you want to support the show even more, you can make a donation by clicking on the link in the description below.

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