We’re in Copenhagen with Jens Nielsen, the CEO of BioInnovation Institute. We will talk about what works best to translate academic research in bio into innovation for humanity, especially how everything is connected. We also talk about how BII is solving some of the main challenges scientist entrepreneurs face and the drawbacks of Novo financing most of Denmark’s biotech ecosystem.
Jens Nielsen is one of the best in this space in Europe. Not only is he the CEO of BII, he’s also a professor of systems biology at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and is the most cited researcher in the field of metabolic engineering as well as industrial biotechnology. He’s the founder of the International Metabolic Engineering Society and has also founded many biotechs.
[00:00:00] Intro
Jens Nielsen: What is of course important for creating an entrepreneurial culture in a lab is the open mindedness.
Philip Hemme: It gets down rapidly to that of what’s the role of academia.
Jens Nielsen: That’s a, that’s a difficult question. That is why I think that many biosolutions companies failed because they were inspired developing new pharmaceuticals.
There you’re not pivoting.
Philip Hemme: In innovation especially it’s all about people. Yeah. Works also. Yeah,
Jens Nielsen: yeah.
[00:00:29] Welcome
Philip Hemme: I’m your host, Philippe, and welcome to a new episode of the Flot.bio Show, where I interview the best Europeans in biotech through how to grow. Innovation in biotech mostly comes from translating academic research into products, but it’s far from easy. Jens Nielsen is one of the best in this space in Europe, so I went to Copenhagen to talk with him.
And I’ve known Jens for many years, and I met him when he was running one of the largest academic research group in bio, and he’s now the CEO of the Bioinnovation Institute or BII. We talked about what works best to translate academic research in bio, especially into innovation for humanity. And especially how everything is connected.
And we also talked about how BII is specifically addressing some of the main challenges that bioentrepreneurs and the biotech ecosystem has. And we talked about the drawbacks of Novo, especially Novo Nordisk Foundation, financing most of Denmark’s biotech ecosystem. So here’s my conversation with Jens.
Audience. Yes. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Philippe. Great. Everything works now. Yeah. Okay, good. Ready to go.
[00:01:43] Translation of science
Philip Hemme: All right. So I want to start with talking with you about translation of science, especially in life science, biotech. I think you are at least one of the best I know in that space from whether, when you were as professor, as PI, entrepreneurial lab, now as CEO of BII.
Maybe the one to start with is what were your lessons of what works and also what doesn’t work?
Jens Nielsen: Yeah, thank you. That’s a, that’s a difficult question. You know, because it’s, it’s hard sometimes to define when you have a good case but Let me rather try to start by saying a little bit about, you know, my, my perspective and my view of, of running my research group.
And then, you know that resulted in a number of cases that work and some that, that did not work. So, when you, when you have a research group you know, you, you of course are focusing very much on. On, on educating students, PhD students postdocs doing research that are, you know, of, of addressing scientific challenges and so on.
I’m trained as an engineer and so therefore I always had the kind of the perspective of trying to see that things we do should have some impact on society and they should, you know, address some challenges that eventually could lead to products or services for, for the society. And, and so of course when you then begin to look at, at, you know, a research problem, you can find things that are big challenges in society and you start to do research in that area.
And, and here you immediately come into certain things that will not really work for translation because there are simply some barriers, either regulatory. Or simply because if you are going to do that, you will need, if you’re going to pursue a new business in that area, you would have to transform so many things in, in society and so on.
So, so that I think I learned. Quite early on, actually, that, that starting a new venture, can be difficult and you need to be able to find where you can actually address a certain market and where you also can, you know, and, and, and of course there will always be barriers when you make a new venture, but, but, but, but they should be, it should be possible to pass them.
Philip Hemme: So it is finding the sweet spot where. Your technology or your science is basically solving a problem and then where it’s actually there’s a market, not just a market need, but where it fits with the market, investments, markets.
Jens Nielsen: Let me take a good example, something that we did a lot of research on in my group was, you know, new biofuels, advanced biofuels.
Which is something that you could say that it’s obvious we need this in society. And I I worked very closely also with some of the large oil companies in that area. They were also very active in it you know, 10 years ago. They all stopped because this is extremely sensitive to the oil price and this is something you do not as an entrepreneur have influence on yourself.
And, and so unless there is, you know, you could say there’s made some overall, and maybe we’re beginning to move in that direction now, but at that time it was just impossible to make really you know, a viable startup company in, in that area. So, so, so there is where you can say. Do we need it? Yes, we do in society, science wise.
Can we do it? Yes, we can, but it, it, it will not, and it could not work.
Philip Hemme: How, so I mean, yeah, I guess, I mean, the, the timing also has everything. And I mean, startup wise or even translational innovation wise, the timing always is a fine line and you don’t want to be too early. I mean, biofuse, I guess if you were like 10 years ago, even like.
The early 2000s with that kind of biofuel bubble, which completely bursts and still today it didn’t take off or it’s still not solved. But how does it translate to you, maybe your lessons of what works, maybe what works and also what works when you’re running your lab of like, where you may, may question, where you trying to take it like backwards by knowing that, There is a need of timing and fit and a certain type of problem can be translated and then you move it backwards and you define the research project.
Jens Nielsen: Yeah, so, so I think so, so as I said, we did a lot of research on, on making advanced biofuels and that was based on, on, you know, chemicals that could be derived from fatty acids. So therefore we. had a quite a large you know, research activities on producing fatty acids, and that was using yeast as a, as a production platform.
And and as I said, we, you know, we’re looking into whether there could be a, a opportunity to make a startup addressing biofuels, but, but, you know, that I could just begin to see that, that we would never come through with that, we would never get financing and so on. So then, of course, you, you start to evaluate what, where, where else can we use this technology?
And, and you then you know, maybe begin to look into some speciality fatty acids and stuff like that. And, and, and in, in each case, you need to dig a little bit in order to evaluate you know, is this potentially interesting and, and, and, and key metrics that comes out as, you know, of course, market size, because it needs to have a certain market size in order for it to be interesting.
But also, can you produce it with the technologies you have now at sufficiently, you know, quality and cost? And so we iterated actually quite a around, but then an interesting thing happened is that you, you know, with this whole plant based food movement that you started to see, there was suddenly a need for capabilities in producing fatty acids that had, you know, unique properties for, for that application.
And so the company eventually pivoted into that space and has now raised you know, several millions of euros to address that market. And this company, we also changed the name. It was originally called BuPetrolia and then it, it pivoted and changed the name to now Melt and Marble to address that, that market segment.
So, so I think that’s, that’s an you know, I often say. If you have a very strong research base, there is a good chance, and you did have an application in mind, that You can, you can find an outlet for this, but you may have to pivot on the business model several times.
[00:08:48] Being flexible is key
Philip Hemme: That’s, I’m thinking back to my question of like, what, what’s the lessons here, what works, but I guess, yeah, yeah, being flexible.
Jens Nielsen: I exactly, I think a key lesson from this is being flexible and not, you know, and being open minded, to, to continuously adapt and learn from, from what feedback you get, And, and, you know, it can sometimes be hard as a scientist because you get really committed to the, to your course and think that this is exactly the right thing.
But when you want to make startups, I think you, you have to be more flexible and, and be willing to, to scrap your ideas and actually go in a different direction.
Philip Hemme: Yeah, I think, I mean, even I’m making, thinking about the parallel between life science startups and more digital startups, or let’s say any startup, but I think I don’t know many startups even.
Mine that haven’t pivoted. Yeah. It’s very rare that you start with a, whatever projects market and that this is the right fits product market fit and that it goes big. I mean, it’s very rare. So yeah, it’s interesting to apply the two life sides where, I mean, I think you have probably a bit limited or more limited to, I mean, Your patents and your technology is there, but the application then is, is usually you have several markets you can tap into and you can go
Jens Nielsen: No, exactly.
No, I and, and I agree. I mean, and I actually, I’ve reflected a lot on this pivoting, you know, because if, if you take tech for example, or, or it, you know, there’s very typical that you, you, you pivot along, you know, and and you know, you create mv MVP, you know, and you evaluate that and so on.
In life science, it’s hard to make an MVP because, you know, alone to make a product is, is, is a difficult task. But I think also where and, and, and this Melton, where Melton Marble is operating is what we call biosolutions space. But what I think that space had suffered a little bit from was that it had had the mindset of, you know, biotech and when we talk about biotech, that’s often pharmaceuticals and trying to apply that business model, whereas actually the bio solution should more look at tech.
For, you know for in terms of inspiration in, in, in, in changing and modulating the business plan along the way, but still pivoting, of course, around a very, you know, solid scientific route. Yeah. And, and, and, but that, that is why I think that many biosolutions companies failed because they were inspired, of course, from, from the, the, you could say the, the, the more advanced scientific analogy, namely developing new pharmaceuticals.
But there you are typically stick there. You’re not pivoting. We see that also at BII. They come, these companies, maybe they adjust a little bit what, what disease indication to do approach first, but, but, but, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s not really a major pivoting. It’s just adjustments, you could say.
[00:11:58] When to stop being flexible
Philip Hemme: Yeah, I like, I mean, the whole MVP lean startup. Yeah. I think it’s, I find it, I mean, I think it, it works. I mean, text for sure, but also in biotech and, but I like your point. And I think that’s probably where it’s really tricky as well as finding. How much does it really apply? How much does it not apply?
How much can you do MVP? How quickly can you do MVP? How quickly can you pivot? I mean, in tech, maybe, yeah, okay, in 3 months you can test a product in the market and then decide, yes, no, biotech will take, whatever, 9 months, 12 months, even more. I mean, how much runway do you have? I mean, that’s also very hard to apply, and I think also What I can see there, and I think with BI you’re addressing this, is that I think that also takes some skills that are typically a bit more, let’s say, strategy business skills than typical scientific skills.
And yeah, maybe you have some scenes, I mean, I guess you have seen what works there from the, like, making the connection.
Jens Nielsen: Yeah. You know, I think it’s a, it’s a good point. Let me first try to address this about, you know, pivoting still, you know, because of course you, you, you also need at, at some time stick to a certain plan because otherwise you will not be able to raise money.
And, and as soon as you begin to raise money, it’s important that you maintain the same narrative and, and actually address that market. So at one time you need to, of course, really dig in and, and, and, and push towards that direction and so on. So I think, and that is also more because you need to have a pretty much laser focus on what product are you aiming for, because as soon as you begin to have to scale up and so on, cost really increases dramatically and you don’t want to waste those money on betting on the wrong product.
So, so in that sense. It’s fine to pivot initially around it, but, but you need at one time to settle on something and then stick to it and then hope that that is the right thing.
Philip Hemme: What, what specific, like, can you give, like, specific examples of, like, exactly at what stage you can still pivot, what’s the timeline looks like, or kind of, is there something a bit ideal, like, that
Jens Nielsen: As soon as you begin to, you know, and make the real MVPs because then in, in biotech when you need to have an MVP, you need to have production in certain scale.
How many liters? So then we are talking about at least 500 liters typically, because otherwise you cannot get enough material to provide to, to potential future customers for testing and so on. And then. Of course, you can adjust a little bit, but, but it, it, that will really more be smaller adjustments along the way.
So, so I, it is at that, that, that stage that it’s more, becomes more and more difficult.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. But 500 liters, I mean, takes a bit of time and capital.
Jens Nielsen: Exactly. Yeah. You can, you can go to, to contract manufacturing organizations and, and, and have them to of course help you and so on, but still it is costly.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. So we’re talking already. I mean, a big seed round or
Jens Nielsen: yes, yes, you would normally ask, I mean, that, that, that you will not really get far with less than 5 million euros as, as, as, as that would be a big seed round. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: But so maybe, yeah, that’s, I mean, yeah, but that maybe you can reflect on the, the stage before, before, like basically on from, let’s say.
If we, if we still take this like pivot example from, let’s say someone in the PhD postdoc has found something, maybe patent application, thinking about spending out to this 5 million, like, then specifically, like how many pivot can he do or he or she?
Jens Nielsen: That’s, that’s a, that’s a, you know, not too many because then, then it becomes time consuming.
But, you know, this is exactly what we are doing at BII. We are helping. These cases at an early stage. So, so we you know, we often, when we evaluate applicants coming to us we, we are looking very much at, you know, what, what is the, what is the scientific basis for this? Is there something to build on?
We look at what are the the founder’s first bet on a potential market, and, and then we also, of course, look at the team do is this team willing to also maybe pivot if it becomes necessary? So do they have the right agility and flexibility? So these are the three kind of criteria we’re looking at, but then in our first program where we, we give the companies about half a million euros, so it’s not a lot of money, but that’s really the key objective is to make the business plan so that is to validate the These hypotheses that the founders may initially have or validate some part of the exactly and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, see that and hopefully then based on this build a sufficient case to, to get to the seed round that we just talked about.
And we do see in, we do see in those 12 months very often that the companies pivot in, but, but normally, you know, it’s, it’s smaller changes. We have had cases where we have seen a complete pivot even happening at the bootcamp when they come in and, and so it’s a completely different company comes out.
But, but, but. That’s, these are rare cases, but, but there are significant adjustments in their business plan in that period of time.
Philip Hemme: I find that’s a good point. I think that’s, I mean, it comes also a bit with experience, but it’s, I think that’s, I mean, you, we, we nailed right away, but I think that’s one of the hardest thing to do as, as an entrepreneur.
Yeah. Because, I mean, as you said, you have to be super focused, also not change direction too often, but at the same time being flexible and you need to be extremely convinced by what you’re building, but at the same time being open. I find this like, it’s a very fine line and it’s very individual depending on the market, the technology, even the team synergies, the whatever, even the location you are at or what access to capital you have.
I mean, it’s Very tricky.
Jens Nielsen: Exactly. And all these factors are in play along the way. And that’s also why it’s, it’s important to you know, it’s important to take in advice, but you will have to be able to synthesize based on this advice because sometimes that advice will be. Orthogonal you know, and of course it’s great if you begin to get advice that are all aligning and you can, you know, follow that.
But sometimes you will have to make decisions and, and stick to them. And that is tough. That is tough. That’s also why companies sometimes fail because you make the wrong decision. But, but then you learn from that. You learn in that process and, and you, you can hopefully go back and reflect on, you know, what, what, what was that decision I made and, and based on what assumptions was it.
[00:19:34] Listen to your gut
Philip Hemme: In the learning process. Yeah. It reminds me that we added on episode three at the founder of Kurovac, Ingmar, and we talked really from, from how we started. As a PhD in the lab in the garage to building a basically was at some point was 20 billion market cap company pretty crazy At the beginning and I think one thing he said which one of the takeaway which volume was extremely difficult in this kind of decision as well, especially coming from a scientific or engineering mindset is like a lot of these decisions are basically gut feeling
you cannot
Put the table plus minus and it’s not obvious.
Oh there is like and And somehow, I mean, he took a lot of decisions, basically gut feeling of, okay, this is probably the right decision. And there’s also probably, okay, I just feel it. I’m convinced, but that makes it even harder decisions.
Jens Nielsen: Yes, but that is true.
Philip Hemme: I think as a scientist, that’s very important.
Yeah. Just first to be aware of this, and then at some point taking the decision, sticking to it, evaluating. Whatever, six, nine months later, learning from it, iterating. I mean, we didn’t talk about iteration with Arno.
Jens Nielsen: No, but, but let’s not forget that, you know, what we talk about gut feelings is that there is it is, you know, as, as the expression says, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a gut feeling as such.
But let’s, let’s not forget that there’s a very close communication between the brain and the gut. And and, and what. mainly gut feelings are based on is actually a lot of information that we have obtained, and that’s what I said, you know, ask people and, and we, based on that, we synthesize that, but maybe why we call it gut feeling is that it’s synthesized to some extent unconsciously, by us, but it is based on a lot of data and a lot of information that we have collected.
And I think that’s important. So I just want to emphasize that because I think it’s important when you are an entrepreneur at an early stage, that you’re very open minded and ask people, talk to a lot of people and get that information in, because I think it influences you more than sometimes you actually know it does.
Philip Hemme: But yeah, I think, but yeah, I don’t know if I see the flip side also is like, you can spend a lot of time listening, listening, listening at some point, also need to make a decision.
Jens Nielsen: Absolutely. Of course. Of course. Yes. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: But also really, especially at the beginning. Yeah. Even if I reflect on the really beginning of, of lab biotech, which was basically 10 years ago.
We had no idea what we were doing. You know, at 23 years old. And yeah. You hear a lot of things and sometimes there are things contradicting, but at some point you also need to take a decision. No, I agree. I agree. Be laser focused. Yeah. Okay, so that’s, that’s, that’s good.
[00:22:38] The importance of network
Philip Hemme: If we, what else did you see, what, what works or what didn’t work from a, maybe even more from a, let’s say, interaction between the different partners.
Because I think at the end, you’re also really. I mean, good. And there’s a big focus on this, of connecting with these academics with potential, let’s say, business partners or teams with VCs and kind of let everyone talk together and have an overlap. But what did you see there? Like, what kind of,
what works?
What doesn’t?
Jens Nielsen: So, so net, network is extremely important, to, to use in that, in that process. I, I think, you know, this is, this is the biggest challenge that you, that, that I would say that I faced as you know, being in academia is that it’s relatively still isolated. You know, you, you, you may, begin to have contacts to some investors that you talk to and, and that, that opens more doors and so on.
Or maybe you talk to people in industry and so on, but, but it is in many places, unless of course you are in, in a very, very strong ecosystem like Boston that is extremely well connected and so on. But that I think is the biggest challenge. And that’s what we are trying to overcome at BII to be that place.
And it’s, it’s, it’s harder than it sounds, but but, but to be that place where we can connect people, because it is important that you, you, you, before you get the right, yes, that you get some nose and you will get a lot of nose, as, as all entrepreneurs have experienced, but as I said, you, As a scientist, scientists are not, you know, we’re used to get rejections of our papers and so on, and grant proposals.
So, so the no is not necessarily the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that it’s something new. And, and and as we talked a little bit about that, being able to take in the advice in new areas, but actually make decisions and, and move on. So, but that’s, that’s what I think we, you know, we’re good at at BII that is to bring people into an environment where, where there is this connection.
And of course my staff is extremely helpful also for, for the individual companies on these travels. It, you know, it, it’s, it’s hard to give to, to, to, to kind of create, I think a winning formula to be quite honest, because I think it is to a large, large extent the people’s game. You know, you need to find people that can really support these cases and, and have a large network and can actually activate that network to the benefit of, of those who are helping.
And, and, and that’s You know, as I said, you know, this sounds good, but if I was going to write down a recipe for how to do that, then I think my, my, my only key recommendation will be to find the right people to help you to work with this.
Philip Hemme: Yeah, you know, it’s a, it’s a good feeling to, to people. I mean, deep down, I think that’s also maybe a parallel with tech, but you know, in tech we say like, ideas are commodity, execution is everything.
Say people and execution is everything. I feel like in science is always, of course, you have something a bit more palpable with patterns or results, data, but still people are, I mean, she’s going to start about at least 50 percent of whatever the success factors are, but that’s also, people are also very hard to, let’s say change or adapt or changing a mindset of academic lab to make it more entrepreneurial.
I mean, this takes also. I mean, yeah,
Jens Nielsen: but yeah, and I, you know, this is a, this is a good point, you know, at, at coming back and talking a little bit about culture in my research group, because this is also what I really tried to install in the group, you know running a very large group with a lot of ambitious people that are each having, you know, individual career aspiration.
It’s, it’s almost. A given, you know, design for disaster in terms of conflicts among people, right? Because they’re all but, but, but if you create a culture where, you know, everyone feels that they can safely share things, you know, I think I managed to ensure, first of all, collaboration, but, but that also taught me that this really brings in much more innovation and I’m talking innovation both in terms of new scientific projects, but also about addressing things.
And so, so, you know, and I, and, and that’s what I would like. You know, I, I think it’s important also for entrepreneurship, again, this, yeah, realizing that it’s not, it’s, you know, it’s a team effort and you need to be open for listening to, to the team you, as we talked about several times, you need to make decisions every now and then.
But, but this about you know, Creating a, a, a culture where everyone feels that they are on the same side and that they’re actually working and, and as I said, that’s tougher in a research group, but if you manage to do that in a research group, you actually also create an environment that I think is very open for innovation, going forward.
[00:28:05] Entrepreneurial mindset recipe
Philip Hemme: I think that’s, that’s, I wanted to touch this on like really those entrepreneurial mindsets inside academia or research that I think, I mean, that’s. One thing, what you describe, and I heard it from, I mean, from my best friend was, was a PhD at ULAB, so I kind of heard it also from the inside of the different thing, but I think it works, or at least it seemed to have worked, works really well, and it’s, I can see it very similar to some of the biggest bio entrepreneur labs, let’s say, Church lab, Langer lab at MIT, or some Boston or San Francisco based labs.
And I think this, I mean, this seems to, I don’t know what’s the recipe, but it seems to work that there is a certain kind of cultures that you can set up and it will lead to more innovation and yeah, entrepreneur. But I guess it’s very related to, I guess the people and especially to the PI. This culture has to be.
Yes, but I guess you can. I mean, I can imagine if you’re, I mean, also I’m trying to, in fact, but if you’re a pi, I, I was in some labs where the pi was, was very fundamental. Mm-Hmm. , I think it would be impossible for a pi like this to change and become more, or like, like become more like your lab or very entrepr.
I don’t think there’s really a, a real recipe there, like, what do you, you know, do you think let’s say PIs can become more, like more entrepreneur?
Jens Nielsen: I think, what, what is of course important for creating an entrepreneurial culture in a lab is, is the open mindedness, right? Because as I said, often a scientific discovery, you know may.
you know, may find a completely different application than you, than you originally thought of. And if your eyes are suddenly open for that, you should, of course, be, be open minded, as I said, to kind of pursue that. And, and, and let’s just face it that most of the big discoveries in terms of, you know, startups and so on in life science and biotech have actually come out of basic research.
So it’s not. Then, you know, that, that I think, the, the, the researchers that are kind of really looking deep down to unravel some specific mechanisms in, in biology cannot lead to startups. But I think what distinguishes a lab, let’s have two parallel labs one from the other where innovation will come out and startups will come out is, is the open mind is to look at applications for that science.
And, and, and that’s more difficult because you know, how do we do that and how do we, and I think. It is by through role models and, and illustration of, of this by having more role models. And that I think is what actually eventually drove development of the Boston ecosystem.
[00:31:08] Role models
Philip Hemme: Talking about role models, for you, what were, what were your role models, I mean?
I mean, you’re quite close to Bob Lange, it’s pretty well as a reference in this space.
Jens Nielsen: Yes you know, I, I lucky wise had had many role models in my career early on. You know, various professors, including my own mentor and advisor was, was a, you know, very strong professor and, and did excellent research and so on.
So, but, and I think that’s the point also that you develop different role models, but what was important for me in my career was that I spent a sabbatical early on in my career in Boston and, and, and this, first of all, being more ambitious reaching, you know, higher levels, you could say in what you can aspire to, to do as a researcher was one thing I learned, but also this, that if, you know, That if you want it to find application, you should not necessarily expect anyone else to do it.
It’s not just publishing papers and then hope something will happen. You actually have to drive this yourself also. So this is what it taught me. And, and and so that I think is important to, to, to get that.
Philip Hemme: I like that. I like this, like, lesson of what works on, I mean, if we sent. If I summarize what we just discussed on like focusing on the people, entrepreneurial mindsets, and really, yeah, being, being open, like driving the innovation.
[00:32:38] Interaction with industry
Philip Hemme: I think that’s, yeah, as a scientist driving it, not just doing the research. I mean, one point that I had here, which I think is also super important when you look from a, let’s say from a, when you talk to a biotech or life science industry, and when you look at all the products that are on the market, most of them.
came somehow through, through academia. And so most of them, I mean, in pharma, maybe some internal pharma, even though I mean, over the last 20 years, it’s going down and down. So it’s much more academia that translate to biotech.
So I think, I mean, it’s key,
it’s definitely key there. And I think definitely that’s one thing that, I mean, at least what I’ve seen what BIA is addressing is that the translation of science, let’s say, especially here, Copenhagen, Denmark, there’s much more translation that can be done to industry.
What, where, where, like, where is this interaction with industry? Like, I mean, except what we, everything we discussed, do you see anything else there where, where something can be more done?
Jens Nielsen: Like, Yeah, this is, this is a very interesting discussion and something that I’m quite passionate about also, you know, and, and I think, let me wind back and, and say very early on in my career, I was fortunate to work very closely with industry.
on a research project. And, and, and the, the interesting thing was that they really asked, me and my group to, you know, to do some more fundamental characterization of a process that they were very interested in. And, and so, so, and because they needed to have this deeper knowledge and so on. So it was a perfect, you could say, synergy.
We could do research and get, you know, and public publish the results and so on. But they got more knowledge that they felt that they could use to improve their process and so on. And so what did. What this taught me was well, first of all, sometimes, you know, this idea that industry will just ask you to optimize their process.
This is absolutely not the case. Normally, industry is ask asking in, in research collaboration actually to do some more fundamental work because they need to have that covered in order to, you know, have a better understanding of their product. Or testing new ideas. Or testing new ideas or whatever.
They wouldn’t do anything. Exactly. So, so. So, so it, it showed me clearly from, from earlier on in my career that there can be a perfect synergy between, you know, doing research. But what it also taught me was that through this collaboration, I, you know, a number of other interesting research questions appeared that were, you know, that were kind of really interesting to pursue and more fundamental.
They of course now had relevance for the industry. Okay, so that became a perfect symbiotic so I could make even better research proposal to get funding for this because, you know, I actually knew that this was a real problem and this was interesting for industry. Secondly, it allowed me to, to bring many of these cases into education.
And so when I was teaching in the classroom, I could give examples. And of course this was at, at the Technical University of Denmark, so it is an engineering school and most of the engineering students are interested in, in real life applications and so on. But it resulted in that, you know, many of the best students came.
to me to do their, their, their, their project, their research projects later on, also as PhD students and so on. So I was fortunate at an early stage that I wrote, got really good students coming to me because they were interested in this. So I think this was, you know, and as I often say, and, and, and, and this will not, this is one example when, but, but I think It, it, it at least showcases that there is not a conflict between doing something that has applications and value for the society, and in this case industry, and doing good education and research on the other side.
I, I sometimes also use another, you know, way of explaining this, you know, as a researcher, you, you, you know, you can do, you know, basically anything, but, but maybe. We could begin to do research in areas that potentially would have some application. And I do understand that there’s certain research questions, but I, but actually I think it’s very, very small, even, you know, when you’re studying evolution, you learn some things that can, can, you know, and that would many people would characterize as very basic research, but, but you will learn some, maybe some techniques and stuff that will come out of this that you could find application for.
So I. I actually, I’m convinced that any branch of science, any activity of science lead to some new knowledge that could find application. But it’s this openness, as we talked about before, builds on everything else.
Philip Hemme: Yeah, yeah. That’s why it’s so hard to make. I like your point of the synergies because it was something I’m always wondering and I think it gets down rapidly to that of what’s the role of academia and why, I mean.
What’s the use of public money in academia, whatever, if you spend 2 3 percent of your GDP. How much should be really, I’d say, I mean, if you try to split how much should be fundamental, how much should serve the industry, but I like in your case that if you look at it more synergetically, you see that it’s not one versus the other, it’s together and that’s 3 percent of the GDP will contribute in both ways and that the more you do on both sides, I mean that everything fits together.
I like that a lot. Yeah,
Jens Nielsen: I, you know, I, I, I, I’m still, especially in biology and life sciences. Exactly. I’m still a strong believer in the academic freedom of course and, and, and, and, but, but let’s, you know, if, if I’m interesting also in the historical development of universities, I mean, you had the, the old classical universities that the, the old schools, they, you know, they was in theology and medicine, then engineering came and so on.
But, but really a transformative university was the Humboldt University. That was the first to say, let’s do research so we can do research based education, right? Because the training of people was the original foundation of a university. So suddenly then research and education became the two pillars of universities.
It was late 1800s. That was the late 1800s, exactly. And that was then picked up by Harvard, Yale, and many of the other, Princeton and so on in the U. S. They looked at Humboldt as a role model actually for doing this. Today, of course, exactly as you were saying, the, the, you know, so many taxpayers money are going into, into research at the universities that, that, that not just for education but also for research, that they, they are beginning to ask, what do we get for this, right?
And so that’s why universities are beginning to, to build this third leg that you can call innovation, where you do expect that, that some of it you know, comes back. Again, of course. Let’s not forget a big part does come back because many of the candidates that are coming out for, you know, graduates, PhDs and so on are taking jobs in industry.
So there is a link there, but can we do even more? And, and, I am certain we can in, in Europe, it’s, you know, we, now we talk a little bit about Denmark as a yes, we could do many more spin outs in Denmark. I’m pretty sure, but it’s, it’s a European difference compared with the U. S.
Philip Hemme: I was about to say, I mean, I like the perspective, I mean, I like the looking back at the perspective at also what works now, I mean, what leads me to wonder, I mean, in Europe, if it’s so clear that there is synergies.
And that, let’s say, I mean, when you look at Boston, it’s crazy how well it works. Like let’s say, why is it not happening more in Europe? I mean, some in Europe are better than others. I mean, I think even you mentioned Cambridge, Oxford, Oxbridge, or Imperial or London. I mean, they’re super good. I think in Belgium, actually, VIB is very good as well.
Denmark, I would say, is actually leading. Some countries are probably less good, but why, why is it not more if it’s, if it’s so good? Thanks. Yeah, if it’s, let’s say if it’s so clear, why is it not more? I mean, I have some, some ideas of what’s, what’s the,
Jens Nielsen: you know, I, I think it. It did become a little bit of a tradition, right, that you had segmented, you still talk about professors sitting in their ivory towers and so, you know, that, that kind of mental thing is still there and, and where let’s not forget you know, becoming a successful academics is, is extremely hard work and, and it requires a lot of time and effort and so on.
And so as I often say, you know most academics are very, you know, incentive driven. And so let’s not forget what incentives we have built that’s publications as a key incentive driver, right? And then many professors are hired this university say, yeah, we should also be able to teach, but but, but normally that’s harder to evaluate and so on.
So, but, so we have built incentives. For the, for professors to focus on that. If we, if we started to build in other incentives, I’m pretty sure we would, we would get for what how we decided.
Philip Hemme: Do you see that changing? I mean, let’s say of money ways I begin to see that change?
Jens Nielsen: Yes, absolutely. For sure. So, so I, I think, and also.
I see many more young academics being also interested in, in their research having impact and, and, and, and having impact as I said, it’s not just meaning a high impact publication, but actually having impact for society. So, yeah.
[00:43:07] Results of BII
Philip Hemme: That’s good. Yeah, I was thinking back also from your answer, back to what you said about people, and I think also, I mean, for things to change, people to change, sometimes takes a bit more time or some generation thing as well, to, to get there, even having him.
Mm hmm. Even if you have the willingness, even if you design the system a bit differently, still, I mean, it’s heavy stuff and it takes whatever, I mean, it’s always in decades that you really see the change, I guess, you know, yeah, that’s good. It’s good. It’s I think, I mean, we, we covered, I think, pretty, yeah, pretty broadly there.
On, on the, I mean, on re translation, maybe if we go to, to BII a bit more specifically, I mean, you talked a bit about it as well, I, I think, I mean, I really like the, the model and the problem you’re trying to solve of really, like, enhancing this translation and being there, supporting. Maybe, I mean, I will, I will present it in an intro, but maybe you can talk maybe on, on the results.
I mean, it’s been now a bit more than five years. What’s the results so far, like compared to the initial hypothesis? Yeah.
Jens Nielsen: Oh okay. I think that there we, you know, superseded expectations but, you know, it’s also hard to have expectations and, and set the right expectations when you start something that is so new.
So, but when you, when you build something as massively as BII, which is, you know, we are supported by almost 500 billion euros from the Nobel Nautics Foundation over a 10 year period. So that’s a massive, you know, investment you could say in building a new ecosystem, but still, you know, what we are, you know, what I’m impressed about what we have achieved, you know, we’ve, we’ve taken in now, we’ll take in a new cohort of companies here on March 1st, but then we will pass a hundred companies that we have supported so far.
Many of these companies are still in our program. So that means that they. You know, they’re still in fundraising mode, but still our companies and we have supported these companies with about 50 million euros in, in, in, in, you know, convertible loans and, and grants and so on. But they have raised about 500 million euros in, in investments and, and, and grants and so on.
So, you know we have really managed to, to, to gear the activities quite significantly. Okay.
Philip Hemme: That’s fine. Yeah. I, yeah, you have almost 10, let’s say 10 X. Yes. Yeah. Multiple. Yeah. And then the, can you talk a bit specifically on the program of how, like basically what the companies get and what’s, yeah, let’s say the program, maybe a short summary of that.
Jens Nielsen: Yes. Of course. Yeah. So, so the, so, so we. If we go back to the, a little bit, what we talked about, the fundamental challenge you have as you’re sitting as a, as a young academic, and you have an idea and you, you need to build that business plan. And that’s really what we designed it out from because we, the, the, the reason why we do not see so many startups here compared with Boston is because we don’t have enough entrepreneurs that understand and can kind of go around at the universities and pull out.
Cases and make a business case and put proposals to investors. So. We see it a little bit as a long term objective of really training and educating more entrepreneurs in the space. And so therefore we designed this program that we call VentureLab, where exactly we take young academics, we take them into this program, we let them drive the process because we want them to be educated and trained in doing a business case.
And then they go through a 12 months, we give them half a million euro in capital. And then they get 12 months to, to go through, you know, how to build a business plan. Who are your customers? What are the regulatory constraints we talked about? You know, what are all the other, how do you secure IP and stuff like that?
All elements
Philip Hemme: doing it and doing it,
Jens Nielsen: not just talking about it, but actually doing it on your case, each individual case, then maybe also important is that we take in. Companies in, in cohorts, so, so, you know, they, they, they, there’s both some peer learning, also a little bit of peer competition, of course, but, but, but that works fine.
And, and, and, and so a cohort of companies go through this 12 months, it’s a little bit like going to class, but, but you’re really working on your own case that you’re maturing.
Philip Hemme: And they have access to, you have labs here. We have labs. 3, 500 square meters.
Jens Nielsen: Yes, exactly. We have labs, fully functioning labs.
Philip Hemme: So they’re all moving in office and lab and they are zero space.
Jens Nielsen: Exactly. And we have created large investor network. We talked about the relevance of networks also, industry networks, you know, so, so we can facilitate that they can talk to people. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: That’s great.
I think. It’s, it’s one, it’s one thing where you are really, where there’s really the, the bridge of this like pre seed money that you invest, I mean.
To be honest, Devin, two years ago, three years ago, I was talking, looking for building an X Venture, talking with some, some scientists from DTU, we were talking, I was talking with BII actually, with some people from your team, I think this like 500, 000 kind of precede as in, okay, you have ID patent and then you can work for Torment.
I mean, that’s, you can really, like, it really can bridge between the academic lab to them being ready to raise a seed. Yes. In whatever level of seed or series they’re even directly, but you can really cross that bridge. And sometimes that’s, especially when you come for a committee, especially on deep science and reading, kind of, let’s say, advance on the MVPs, if that’s, What you need, I don’t know if you need 500k, I mean, if I look at more like YC or Entrepreneur First, which I would guess are in a similar stage as well, it’s more around 100k, you get 4th, but at the same time, usually they don’t really get 2 MVPs, they need additional cash there, so, but I think this is really crucial for getting them started, because if you don’t get This step,
then
Jens Nielsen: exactly, exactly.
Philip Hemme: Nothing happens, but yeah, and, and,
Jens Nielsen: you know, it serves, let me just come back to, you call it investment. And let me come back to that, but I mean, it serves the purpose of course, of building companies. But I think it’s important to emphasize this, that I mentioned. That we see it really as an objective also of training people.
And we are of course very happy that the companies actually succeed, raise money, move on and hopefully, you know, bring products to the market that address unmet needs and all these kind of things. But. But, but we, and the, the reason why I’m emphasizing this about training people is that we’ve strongly believe in the idea of it’s possible to take academics and train them to become entrepreneurs.
And I, and for you coming from tech, you say, yes, what’s the problem with this? But I can tell you that many investors in life science in Europe. Do not believe in this this idea there. The sentiment for a long time has been lit as soon as we invest in the companies, let’s get rid of the founders. And, and, and we look at this very differently.
And that brings me also to the way we support them. We, we don’t see it as investment. Well, first of all, because we. Well, we can, we can take that, we can take this luxurious position because we get the money to, to support us as charitable financing from the No One Hurts Foundation, so we don’t have to give the money back but we we give it as convertible loans.
at very founder friendly condition. So therefore the founders feel that we are standing on their side also on the travel along the way. And I think that’s an important element also in, in, in, in this for they, they really trust us when they, when they have to do that jump.
Philip Hemme: I like that. I mean, and one thing that is, that I’m pretty impressed by from a BIA point of view is really the, also the team, internal team you were able to attract. Yourself, but also. I mean, I know about the CBO, Christian, and the Symbioteam and some others, I mean, which I think is one of the things that I always see in Europe, which is really liking all these, like, bio incubators and programs and, and then the people react.
It’s not like, it’s not people who have really, really know what they’re doing versus we had, we had Johannes from LabCentral BioLabs on the, on the, on the, on the podcast. I know he was also in discussions with Novo, but I mean, I think there is some parallels there where someone really experienced, has built companies, has VC experience.
And at the end, I mean, what we also discussed, people, everything, and yes, I mean, in innovation especially, it’s all about people and here, I mean, when the people come, it’s people, people, building companies together, and I think that’s, yeah, I mean, and you take YCEOEF, they have amazing people being able to try, which I think is a, is a key, I mean, yeah,
I think it’s key.
Jens Nielsen: Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. And you know, I, I think also that’s of course an interesting observation over the years because I think in the beginning we were perceived a little bit as, you know, we would help some of these young startups and so on and, and that’s fine and by the, you know, traditional biotech environment in Denmark, you know but, but now we have grown to a situation where everyone is taking us very serious.
So we have all the experienced biotech people, you know, coming in and helping our companies and so on. And so in that sense. We have also really become that center for, for this. And, and that, that of course, I’m very proud of and happy to see that we have succeeded in. So it doesn’t become, you know, something parallel to, to, to what was there already before.
[00:54:14] How to be cost-effective in helping startups
Philip Hemme: Yeah. I know having quite a few of your entrepreneur residents or like mentors, which is. Basically all the best, let’s say, especially in Copenhagen or Danish, like, really, really impressive. I mean, one, one thing that I, I mean, it sounds like you’re really doing it. Yeah. Seems to me of results and works.
I think if I play a bit devil’s advocate, what you mentioned of like, we have the luxury of the novel. I mean, it’s a big luxury, but it’s also. I guess it makes it easier, like, if you have, you know, whatever, 500 over 10 years, that’s 50 million a year that you can invest slash burn, but invest and spend, I mean, that’s, makes everything easier, but I mean, still need to spend it well and et cetera, but.
Thinking of like, yeah, I mean, but it makes sense, like,
but it’s.
Jens Nielsen: I think a very, you know, what you may be alluding to here, you know, how could we replicate this without spending that much money somewhere else? And that I think would be key learnings, of course, from, from here, because, you know, let’s say we that that’s fantastic if we can build a strong ecosystem here in Copenhagen.
And that’s of course good for Copenhagen and Denmark and so on. But how do we help you know Berlin you know Heidelberg, Paris, other places in Europe where, where this also Would work, but, but, but do it more cost effectively because the most other countries don’t have a charitable organization like the Nova Nordisk Foundation to, to, to help them.
And, and this is something we are looking into. How can we, and, and maybe the models would be slightly different but still with the same goal in mind. And how can we then unleash, you know, maybe not fully commercial kind of investment type, but, but, but, you know, strategic kind of investment type to, to drive again as to to begin to do this, of course.
So, so this, but, but it’s, it’s difficult, you know, as I sometimes say it’s, it’s interesting when we have international visitors, you know, from France, Germany, England, and other places, you know, they come, they get super excited and they all say, Oh, we would like to have a BII until I tell them what it costs.
Then then, then, then the the interest drops a little bit because but But I think, you know, we will be able to figure this out and this is something we are working on right
now.
Philip Hemme: I guess that’s, maybe that’s what, actually, I always thought there was something puzzling with that thing that’s probably the biggest limiting factor as in access to capital, capital available, slash, let’s say, the return on capital compared to other options.
Because, I mean, I mean, but, but deep down, I mean, everything we discussed before as well, if you don’t have. enough capital, then you don’t have the right people. Yes. You cannot invest enough to seed the companies, et cetera. And then everything breaks. I mean, because at the end I mean, the formula you need to execute and find the right people and find the companies, everything, but still, if you don’t have enough capital to execute everything, like in any startup, if you don’t raise it enough, you can execute and everything.
[00:57:56] Novo Nordisk
Philip Hemme: Yeah. That’s a, that’s a good, yeah. I was looking, if we zoom out on the Novo Nordisk Foundation, because I think that’s one thing that, that, that strikes me here in, let’s say, in Denmark. I mean, I was in this building actually, it was like seven years ago, and we did like a documentary about biotech in Denmark.
And of course I knew Novo Nordisk, I knew Neuroscience, but then when I arrived here, I was like, okay, actually, everyone basically, or almost everyone, receives money from Novo somehow. Even like the research institutes are basically Granted or built even by, I mean, they have the Novo name here is basically one, one of the institutes.
And then the Novo, let’s say Novo holding as an investment vehicle, which is I think even in one of the biggest, let’s say, evergreen, such private equity fund in life sense, even globally. Yeah. Which is crazy. And people don’t, even in the industry, don’t know how, how big and how large it is. Which I find quite fascinating with the no foundation is that there’s not that many like.
drawbacks or like flip sides. If I looked into a critics, I mean, there’s a few, but it sounds like the ideal thing of super successful company, the word artist, which also, I mean, there’s not that many scandals behind in, let’s say, in a pharma standard. I’m like doing, I think, an amazing products. I mean, right now, especially it’s going crazy with, with, with JV, but amazing companies with a foundation that controls the company was.
Dividends and profits coming in, reinvested. I mean, sounds like the ideal thing. I was obviously looking into like, okay, what’s, what’s like, sounds too good to be is that, is that so? Actually, what’s your like
opinion?
Jens Nielsen: Yeah, you know, yeah, it is almost too good to be true and to some extent, but, but, you know, of course there is but that’s also why the organization, I think it, and I think that same culture was, you know, instilled in, in BII that we need to have a certain humbleness, we need to be aware of the, You know, the big impact that we actually have and therefore the way we, we do things and set up things has to be in line with this.
But of course, when, when you become so large and dominant, you know it, it does have consequences. I mean, if you look at the Danish, research environment and, and, and really performed a deep dive, I’m pretty sure that you will find that it, it, it’s, you know, to some extent skewed on what Nobel Nordisk Foundation is supporting.
Philip Hemme: One of the big critique is that most of the life science in Denmark is very oriented towards Beginning to, you know, all this
Jens Nielsen: Lucky wise, you know, they still give a lot of money, you know, for open ended research and so on. But you could, you know, you could argue is, is that so problematic? I mean, after all, we are a small country, so do we need to be strong in all areas of science?
Is it maybe fine that we begin to stick up really in certain areas of, of life science? And I think You know, if we it’s kind of interesting if we look at our portfolio of companies in, and let’s take therapeutics because this is what most people can relate to in biotech. You know, of course we have a lot of oncology companies not surprisingly, any accelerator around the world will have that.
We have some of them that are strong. Some of them have raised a lot of money. There’s also a lot of VC investments in that space. So, you know, this is fine. Do, do any of them stick out compared with, you know, what you have in Boston and other places? I, I don’t know, I don’t know enough about it to, to be quite honest, but I, I doubt they would.
But they’re, they’re good companies and I’m sure they will be successful and, and hopefully many of them will develop new cancer medicines. What is interesting is that we, we probably is one of the accelerators slash incubators in the world that has the most companies in metabolic diseases, compared with our portfolio and even addressing metabolic diseases with peptide based pharmaceuticals.
You know, and, and, and, and this is, this is not by us selecting for that because we always select the best companies in every cohort we come in. But this is the outcome of that, you know, you can say over here, select, and then you suddenly, and then you look at that, and then You know, I say, of course, because this is where we have a very strong research base in Denmark.
And so, I think that is a reflection of, of what we just talked about, that, that Novo Nordisk Foundation has, and probably also Novo Nordisk themselves, sponsored and supported research activities in that areas over, you know, tens of years. And You know, there we are building some very, very strong and interesting companies that I think are more unique compared with what you find many other places.
And, and is that a strength? Yeah, I think it is. So, you know, one can, of course, be, be raised criticism around it. But, but as, as long as the foundation is, you know, thoughtful and careful about its supportive activities, I think it is a strength.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. I don’t,
I don’t, I really don’t see that many setbacks.
And even, I mean, what we discussed before, I mean, the synergies you have when you specialize a bit more in one space from the academia to even be a, to industry and the synergies you can create when people work in a similar space also, I mean, you’ve got a lot of great advantages and even, and the people working in similar space can transition from one space to one, one company to another.
I mean, yeah. Yeah. Now that’s, that’s, that’s remarkable. I mean, one, one thing that really I find remarkable and you mentioned the humbleness is, is really this that I see, I saw here, especially it’s really struck me, especially in Denmark and Copenhagen where basically the money comes from basically one organization, most of the money comes from one organization, everyone goes to pretty much the same university to DTU or business school or one program, but still like everyone is very humble.
I mean, it comes to the root culture, I think in the Danish culture. And I think everyone kind of works together. You compare to other where people are always fighting. I mean, Tim Harris, people are always fighting and one against another and like not working together. And working in a smart way, I don’t know, I, I feel like it’s always quite, it’s quite remarkable that it functions, it functions so long, and especially when you add so much cash.
Because usually the more cash you put on the, any balance, the more you have jealousy and fighting and stuff. And I guess it’s not ideal, and there are some of this, but still, I find it remarkable. And at the end, if you look from a long term view, I mean, the results is also, yeah, amazing.
Jens Nielsen: Yeah. Yeah. It’s good reflections.
You know, there is a certain element, of course, in, in, in Danish culture that, that buys into this. But I think it’s also to some extent from, from the. The Noble Nordisk company culture. So, so if, if one reads about the early stage and the early foundation Noble Nordisk as a company were among the first to get, you know.
to, to, for example, begin to give maternity rights and maternity payments for, for women. You know, we’re talking about, you know, very early stage, right? So they were always very supportive of their employees. It was, it was voted for many years, the best place to work in Denmark. And, and, and building as a bigger and bigger company, of course, that becomes a benchmark.
And I think many other companies. So I, I think the impact is more than just the money. It’s really also was a culture that was established and that was pioneering of the founders of the company to, to actually. To think around this, but that’s, you know, we talked about it several time today. It’s more obvious that, that people isn’t, is the key asset you have.
But if you go back to that time to see that I think was visionary and, and I, I, I think that that is a part to play. But Danish culture is, is also, you know, we have this, you know. Something that I’m not a great fan of that they call it yendolo. I mean, it’s hard to explain that translate directly, but you know, it’s basically just saying that you, you, you know, you should not stick your neck out too far, you know, you should not, you should not break and so on.
Exactly. And that is so. And, and the reason why I, I, I am not to, you know, I don’t think that’s a very strong trait because it does prevent you know, people to take leadership sometimes and then, you know, and, and set ambitious goals and so on, but it, of course, because it is there and unspoken off, it also means that you as a leader need to make sure that, you know, you kind of embrace your team and make sure that everybody you know, follows you.
And, and so, yeah.
Philip Hemme: No, that’s great.
I think, yeah, I mean, if I, yeah, I like that. If I, if I look also, one thing even for our audience to understand as well, I mean, Denmark, think about a country, but it’s basically not even 6 million people. So it’s like half of Paris. Yeah. So it’s like, also, I mean, the, the scale is pretty, it’s smaller, but even compared to a city, I mean, it makes different dynamics, but still, it’s still, I mean, 6 million starts to be.
Quite sizable as well. And I mean, I think the second also, let’s say, you know,
thing to put in perspective is also there’s some, let’s say, luck, especially from the Nordic side of, I mean, diabetes, it was impossible to predict that it would grow that big. I mean, even though, of course, they, they, I mean, they executed brilliantly, I mean, and keeping a market leadership and like at that scale is insane.
Yeah. But still, there was some, like, let’s say luck of, no, it’s a market that’s exploded and when your market explodes, of course, your company explodes with it. But I mean, that’s, as everything in entrepreneurship, there’s a
big luck component as well.
Jens Nielsen: Of course, there was a, you know, being a company that is, that has as a main business focus on, you know, diabetes.
And yes, of course, because of obesity epidemics, you know, diabetes has also increased as a disease. So, so the market has increased, but, but suddenly being able to go from there to begin to address the maybe more underlying problem, obesity and then that you have drugs that can actually do that, that is, of course, a little element of luck in, in, in that.
And, but, but being able, you know, as always luck is, is good. You know, we have a, an expression it’s an old expression from a Danish entrepreneur, you know, that, that, that luck favors the prepared one, right. And and, you know, if you were not able to, to use it. Then you know, then, then you can be lucky.
But if you were not prepared for using that luck, then yeah.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. I mean, I think luck is not, I mean, it’s, it’s part of every entrepreneur journey. I mean, I was listening to one entrepreneur, you were saying that basically 50, oh, more than 50% of the success was luck. Yeah. And it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily like negative, it’s just more accepting that it’s part of it.
But then. Even if an average is 50 percent sometimes, can be even more, I mean, yeah, even that is, I think, was, what was the market, I looked, was like, 10x over, what is it, 20 or 30 years, I mean, this is, for a, market growth is insane, yeah, yeah, so, just from a, being in the right space, and being already there, and then the market explodes, it’s, yeah, I mean, there’s a big luck component.
It doesn’t, it still doesn’t, doesn’t like withdraw the merit of being able to capture that luck and execute on it. Comes down to it. That’s great.
[01:11:07] Closing the lab
Philip Hemme: Maybe I want to finish more on the, like a bit more on, on yourself. I mean, you talked a bit about the mentor and everything we discussed, there’s definitely a lot of your personal lessons.
I want to finish on one thing that quite struck me when you joined BII, which was, okay, well, you joined BII as CEO and you’re still keeping professorship, but your lab, basically, you were kind of continuing what was ongoing with, I think now is pretty much closed, I’d say closed down or not running, which I found.
Like, I’d say quite surprising, slash, I don’t have many other examples of someone, I mean, your library, you had basically 75 people at some point, and then, whatever, each index, 150 or something, and like, really, I mean, building, as you said, so difficult as well to BPI at that level, and then, such a big transition, I, I, I mean, I was quite like, wow, like, surprised, and I don’t know many, but can you?
Reflect on it, maybe now, five years later, of like, how you took this decision, how it went, like, Well,
Jens Nielsen: let me, let me first start by saying I have not regretted it. But but it, you know, it was a big decision. Of course it was. You know, I, as, as I often say, you know, I, I could happily have been professor until my retirement.
And, and, you know, I thought it was fantastic to to engage you know, and, and, and train young people. Doing research and work with them. That’s something I get a lot of energy out of, you know, I found it super exciting also to take some of the research and make spin out companies and so on. So all these things, you know.
But on the other hand, when this opportunity arose, you know, they say, okay, you could take leadership of BII and, and build this. And then as I know, the ambition level from the New Religious Foundation can be high, you know, that, that was a golden opportunity to, to focus a hundred percent on something that I’m passionate about.
And that is, you could say. Translating science from universities into, you know, startups that are viable and eventually, you know, address our many needs and so on. And yes, I could continue doing that in my research group, but here I could do it on a bigger scale and help many others to do that. And, you know, and it, it, it’s, as I said, yeah, it was a big decision, but, but maybe also published more than 800 papers at that time and educated, you know now my, my last students are graduating, you know, more than a hundred BSD students and so on.
And, and, and of course, if I could, I could do more of that, but, but, you know, I, I kind of had fulfilled, you know, some, some of the objectives you could, you could aim for, you know, probably for a lifetime. So, and if I was going to do it, do something else, it would be something like this. So, all this went into my mind, you know, and then I said, okay, let the Let, let me do the jump, but I can tell you many of my colleagues were shocked also, you know, they said, what?
I mean, but, but some of them also, you know thought that it was, was extremely brave to dare to do some, try to do something else, you know, and so, but anyway, yeah,
Philip Hemme: I liked
it. I mean. I have to say from all our discussions so far, I, and now what you have achieved, I can see much more, the, the much more connections synergies and how it fits together than when you did the job.
Okay. I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah, now it, from our discussion, it makes even more, yeah, even more sense, which I quite like. I mean, I think it’s also, and what we said also, I mean. This kind of jump is also more of a typical, like, let’s say, more U. S. style, let’s say, Boston style of, okay, you’re doing more dramatic changes, which, but it works also.
Jens Nielsen: Yes,
yeah. And, you know, and let’s also not forget that, that, you know, one of the things I mentioned, you know, that I get a lot of energy of, you know, working with young people and training them and so on. But there is still that element here and that’s what I, you know that, that is the same. Both young people in my own staff but also, you know, all the startup companies that I meet and, you know, helping them and, and, and, and, you know, instigating hope for the energy and, and, and, and drive into them.
So yeah.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
That’s, yeah, that’s where I can see a lot of overlap. It reminds me the, the the episode 11 that is coming out will be come out when, when it will be released, which is a Sander Van Deventer was at the Amsterdam and founder of Unicure was a professor and then transition, which become like many founding a gene therapy company and really running it.
And then now VC. Made also this big jump, but when we discussed is like what struck me is how everything is quite connected. Yeah, we had separate jobs, but deep down what you did, I mean, what you started our conversation was, was like, you have this engineering mindset and trying to apply and translate science and that’s like the pillar and then you can be more PI, you can be Incubator.
I mean, probably you can be a very good VC as well. I can imagine. And you are half, half investor there. So at the end it’s a bit different hats, but they are so connected. Yes. I like that. I mean, and I think the whole discussion here is what I like, how like also we had always realized how, how everything is quite connected and I think, I mean, if I summarize to my initial It’s a question of like what works, but what works is to realize that everything is connected and that instead of opposing whatever one academic or fundamental from other, like when you start seeing that everything is very connected and embracing this versus rejecting it.
Jens Nielsen: Yeah, exactly.
It is a conclusion. Yeah, no, I mean, I agree completely. No, I agree completely. This is a very good song.
Philip Hemme: Great.
Thanks a lot.
Jens Nielsen: Thank you so much, Philip. It was great. I think it’s one of the best roundup where everything fits together perfectly.
Philip Hemme: Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you very much.
[01:17:46] Thanks for listening
Philip Hemme: Thanks for listening to the end.
I love the episode especially how Jens is passionate and humble and how everything is connected and all the synergies when you’re trying to translate science into products. If you enjoyed the, this episode, please hit the like or follow button. And if you are on Spotify or Apple podcasts, you can even leave a review.
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bio Alright, see you in the next episode.
