We’re in Barcelona 🇪🇸 with Joris Pezzini from Alira Health to discuss the hottest biotech insights right now, including obesity, I&I, radiopharmaceuticals and ADCs.
This episode is sponsored by Alira Health, an advisor and clinical development partner for life sciences companies. Learn more at https://bit.ly/alirahealth-flotbio-1
⭐️ ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Joris Pezzini has been in the biotech world for over 15 years. Before joining Alira Health in 2019, he had worked in some top pharma and biotech companies across the US, UK and France, including UCB, LFB, and Bionest Partners. Through this combo of roles as a Biopharma executive in start-ups, mid-sized, pharma, and consulting firms, Joris has a good eye on the industry with a wealth of experience and knowledge.
🔗 LINKS MENTIONED
- Roche pads out obesity pipeline, paying Zealand $1.6B upfront to codevelop amylin asset – https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/roche-fattens-obesity-pipeline-paying-zealand-165b-upfront-co-develop-amylin-asset
- Medicine 3.0: What It Is and Why You Need It – Hone Health – https://honehealth.com/edge/medicine-3-0-peter-attia/
Transcript
[00:00:00] Intro
Joris Pezzini: But they applied with their own model. It’s a feel and it works. You can see in biotech development, now that we have the obese patients or pre patient in the mix, what do I do in this metabolic environment? I see people talking about insulin resistance and how it links to CNS. I think now it’s a cornerstone, which to me is very interesting because we’re gonna start talking about, maybe not prevention, but trying to look at diseases decades before they actually get really bad, like your pharmaceuticals.
Honestly, it’s so complex on a supply chain standpoint because you need to ship. It’s within hours to treat the patient. It’s that, it’s understanding on a geographic standpoint, how does that work and the capacities. And then you still have all the medical things, right? The, the segmentations of patients, the traditional things are still there, but you also have the supply.
This seems to work. The second one is, is probably that we have no benchmarks, but if you take every piece that is within eva, you have a benchmark, you have a competitor, you have a market, and so on. As a CRO, I can tell you that we are working exclusively with biotechs. That’s very clear. But it’s true that when you zoom out and you, corporate wise, not adding benchmarks is very uncomfortable.
Philip Hemme: I’m your host, Philip, and on the show I’m ing the best European biotech to help you grow. Following the most important biotech trends can be challenging. One of the best at this is Joyce Pini from Allera Health. He’s following the industry very closely and is seeing a lot through working with many different biotechs as clients.
So I went to Barcelona to catch up with him. I’ve known him for several years and it was good to catch up. We talked about the hottest trends in biotech today, such as obesity, INI, ADCs, radio, pharmaceuticals. We also talked about the challenges behind the fast growth of all and how to bridge biotech and a healthy lifestyle.
So here’s the conversation with Joris and please hit the like follow button if you’re enjoying it.
So welcome Tojo. Thank you. Thank you for coming me. Amazing. And yeah, we sun, so he, we like, we need the ac, but that’s, yeah.
[00:02:17] Hottest biotech industry trends according to Joris Pezzini
Philip Hemme: Cool. I mean, I wanna start. So with industry trends with, I mean, are seeing so much through a leader, through your clients, and the first one we can discuss is the shift in, in therapeutic areas, especially in biotech, especially the rise of, of metabolic, metabolic approaches.
So I’m just curious here, what, what have you seen like recently?
Joris Pezzini: Yeah, it’s like a, a trend, the show in, in every, every year as is on campaign, it changes all the time. So it’s difficult to follow and especially when of course it takes 10 to 15 years to develop something, it’s very, very frustrating because, you know, depending on what year it is, it’s difficult.
But it’s true that it used to be full oncology, very precision medicine, and now it a pool. Yeah, exactly. And I, it became something very different with metabolic and so on. So I think of course it’s, it’s difficult to navigate at the same time I would say that there is a lot of trending kind of communication doesn’t mean that the rest doesn’t get financed or progressed.
So I think, you know, we in the ecosystem still see everything being developed. It’s just that the way you approach the different things are just changing. So. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. That’s good. Actually, we just, I was just in Copenhagen and recording with, with Christoph from the. And we talked about INI, which I think is another really hot one.
Was was metabolic and he was saying Yeah, kind of everyone was leaving themself. I, oh no, it’s all INI change
Joris Pezzini: the word. Did you see that as well? Yes. Yeah. I mean, we spent a lot of time actually on the narratives of equity story in, in those kind of things. Even you know, cell therapy sometimes. So you have companies that are borderline cell therapy or something else depending on the, on, on the actual technology.
And sometimes they remove cell therapy or I’ve had, I’ve had a client in, in the last few weeks that also remove plant-based kind of thing. So it’s really something where I think you wanna make sure, ’cause in the end people are gonna know, right? You, you know, they’re gonna know whether it’s cell therapy, it’s a blend or whatever.
But I think because the attention spam is very, very low, I think you wanna make sure that your first words just allow e VCs if you are trying to raise money, kind of have enough interest so that you can get to the actual important stuff. So, so it’s a narrative and it’s marketing in the end, right.
Storytelling. I
Philip Hemme: mean, yeah, biotech is about telling a story. You don’t sell any products, but you sell Yeah. On years you sell a story. That’s true. That’s good. And on the, actually on metabolic, one thing that struck me recently was the deal of, of Zealand pharma andro, which was just massive. I think I’ve rarely seen such a big deal in, in European biotech almost something I think was, what was it, 1.7, 1.8.
Upfront. Yeah. Upfront. Yeah. It’s crazy.
Joris Pezzini: Yeah. Crazy. At the same time, for somebody, for a group like Roche to enter I mean, they had a few things, but really enter and make a big move. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s small money. I mean, if you look at, look at the number of, you know, investments, they all have all the big pharma in you r and is still very strong.
So between, I think 25 and 30% of their revenues, I mean, it’s still a very innovative industry, I would say. Metabolism being important and also potentially high revenues. I think you, you know, you could, you could have a business case for that, for that first action, but metabolite is an interesting one for me.
I, I, I like it a lot first personally, because I think that’s maybe a very big challenge for pharma because pharma used to be, and still is to some extent, the very sick patient, very fancy drug that, you know, like the a, d, c, the mono antibody that would go again in a very sick patients listening, you know, last threatening and so on.
And in a way you’re kind of moving upstream to, not yet prevention, but like obese patient diabetes for sure. And then OB is patient, and OB is, in a way, is a pre patient, is not even a patient sometimes. So like now you have pre patient concepts getting in into the mix, and you could even say next time it’s gonna be prevention.
Another question is for pharma, how do you get towards prevention? Because there is no business model, but. It’s always funny when I talk to somebody in, in the biotech ecosystem, like you have two ways of handling the discussion. I think one is what are you doing as a, as a job? And you talk to you about, you know, about what I, what I invest in, kind of the things that develop.
And it’s very technical. And so how do you take care of your health at home? Very different. Very different thing. And at some point I think we will have the job to make those things, you know, transversely connected. Which again, is difficult because there is no business model behind. But I think it’s very interesting.
It’s
Philip Hemme: interesting. I mean, obesity is interesting part because, interesting thing because pharma is going earlier in the condition, but they still, it’s still a similar approach in terms of drug development. Yeah. And the revenues is huge. Medical lead, if you wish, or the struggle to like lose weight is actually very real.
Yeah. So it’s actually, it’s funny. So
Joris Pezzini: they applied with their own model. For now it’s, for now it works. It’s, it’s a feel and it works. But, but to me and you can see in biotech development is now, okay, now that we have the OB patients or pre patient in the mix, you know, what, what do I do in this metabolic environment?
You know, now you, you can, I see people talking about insulin resistance and now it links to CNS and to all. So I think now it’s a cornerstone, which to me is very interesting because again, we’re gonna start talking about maybe not prevention, but trying to, to look at diseases decades before they actually get really bad.
Which to me is a very, very interesting development.
Philip Hemme: It’s a good one. Yeah. Yeah. I remember I was, was Navid from Nova Holdings. Yeah. But it’s part of the Nova world. We discussed with Nova because that’s the only thing that, that puzzles me a bit. I know like. I mean, they’re making just so much money out.
Diabetes is a bit, I mean, is also kind of environmental disease for 90 plus percent, right? Yeah. Percent. And obesity as well. And just society kind of encourages or doesn’t like put a huge like discount towards or of this whose bonus towards prevention and they’re just making so much profit. But actually what was interesting is that they work quite a lot on the, I mean they, at least they work on prevention as well.
At least 1% of their revenues. Annual is only going towards prevention, non profit. So they’re actually trying to do something as well. Could they do more? I, I don’t know, but it’s, I
Joris Pezzini: know, I think it’s sort of, I mean. First of all, you have to respect in a way those were, were found a way to still help their, you know, patients who don’t have the education and so on.
Because it’s very easy to say, okay, let’s do prevention. Yeah. When you have access to, you know, money, when you have access to education, to know little bit understand nutrition, sleep, whatever. So I, I think, yes, it sounds easy to fix. The health lifestyle at the same time is super, super complex. So I think it’s good that we actually, you know, can, can, can address all types of patients and, and maybe a drug will be better for some or starting the cycle.
Because I think we also, it was is especially true for obese patients where you need to have a positive cycle before you want take care of your lifestyle, right? And those drugs potentially are very useful in that first frame step. So I think to me, I see that as a positive evolution for humanity.
I can, it is way, but then of course then it’s, it’s a question of are you, are, you make the business model more. What’s the word? You know, transversal. Comprehensive. Holistic, because in the end, everything, you know, again, I would, I would’ve a pill or something that would treat nutrition, sleep, and, and, and training or, or, or I think, you know, you, you could prevent, what, 70% of diseases.
That’s a, that’s a huge one.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s, it’s a good, I mean, yeah, I think I would agree as well, but overall it’s positive. But I’m just even thinking, even myself, I think the impact of biotech is huge in like life threatening disease where there’s really no other option. Yeah. Versus I think for obesity, there’s a few other options, so maybe the fresh or the impact is a bit lower, but I mean.
Seems like patients need it already to to play also, so, yeah.
Joris Pezzini: Yeah. And, and you, and, and then you have, I think we’re also getting into the segmentation of obese patients and, and, and those for who really you, those drugs are, and, and they have a pretty good safety profile as well. So I think, you know, you can probably use them without a lot of issues, at least it seems.
And then when you subsegment the population, then you get interesting things regularly and, and when you go off the drug Yeah. The, to effect, the effect disappears. But then this is where it’s interesting because, because off the drug, and maybe you can replace that by, by lifestyle change. And I think again, that’s positive cycle is what we, we, we all need in a way.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. It’s good.
[00:11:14] Medicine 3.0
Philip Hemme: I, and you were mentioning, and, and when we prepared this, this discussion as about a medicine 3.0, which, yeah. I had never really heard about this term but like with is a blurbing the line between. Lifestyle changes or Yeah, environmental changes and, and can, yeah.
Joris Pezzini: Invented, I think it’s Peter the, okay.
He was yeah, with this famous book he was talking about. He’s talking about Medicine 3.0. Again, interesting in the sense that I don’t want to summarize it by just prevention, but, but indeed, just trying to anticipate whatever conditions you’re gonna have, you know, 10, 20, 30 years down the road.
And then when you have that concept in, you know, and you use that as a framework, then all conditions are super interesting because, you know, diabetes, obesity, for sure, all the metabolically related issues, CNS, we get into Alzheimer and, and, and Parkinson could also be all those things. So of course it’s very powerful.
But I like, what I like about it is that it also very difficult, sounds simple, but very difficult to implement. And so in a way it’s challenging the traditional pharma model. And not only pharma, is pharma, also healthcare, and all the physicians and hospitals and so on. And that’s why I think one of the.
Types of clients we have on our side earlier also has changed for that. Because now you look at, you see some nutrition company knocking out our doors and saying, oh, how can we play a role there? Even now, the tech companies that want to say, oh yeah, but those people are actually at home. So you need to understand their lifestyle at home and you need to treat them, manage them in a way before they become patient, pre patient, therefore many years before.
So I, I think that that’s where it’s pushing pharma to reinvent themself, whether it’s gonna be pharma doing it or lot. I don’t know. At least it’s pushing the ecosystem in an interesting direction. Just, and I’m curious to hear what,
Philip Hemme: how
Joris Pezzini: you apply
Philip Hemme: it personally. But we can go into, if we have enough time, because I love it because I’m quite fan of, of this topic as well.
Still meditate. I do still meditate every day. Yeah. Yeah. Same.
[00:13:22] ADCs and Radiopharmaceuticals
Philip Hemme: And yeah, let’s continue the trades and. About the mean, we touched INI and, and metabolic. One thing also that I think comes a lot these these days is ADCs and, and radio therapeutics. And I’ve seen Novartis, I think got a big approval for for, for radio therapeutics recently.
What, what’s, yeah, what do you, what did you see there? I think you,
Joris Pezzini: so it’s complex, so that’s why we love it because when you try to help companies or when, when it’s complex, of course I think we, we can play a role. So we are, we are experts or we’ve really worked a lot in, in both the radiopharmaceuticals and a disease.
They all, and then I can add cell therapy, gene therapy and all those kind of things. We, we love it because again, it’s, it’s difficult to, to bring to market every single of those innovation and modalities of their own issues. Therapy is probably still the scalability. Gene therapy is probably the commercial model with the Pfizer and Bluebird bio recent example is kind of scary.
ADCs to me was talking to a, a former lin executive recently, and, and, and you know, talking about ADCs and so on. And indeed, I think a lot of generations, I think you know, every, every generation really are progressing on the linkers, on, on the way to build those molecules. Still in the end, it’s the traditional approach.
You need to not only have fantastic molecule, you need to demonstrate that into the clinic. And I think that’s what we’re waiting for in the lab for the latest generations of ABC Radiopharmaceuticals. Honestly, it’s so complex on a supply chain standpoint. We have our, our, our people here. We’re just, you know, experts of that.
And you’re like, oh my God, when you present that to, to, to ship with sos to treat the patient so that it’s understanding on a, on a geographic standpoint or does that work and the capacities and, and, and then you still have all the medical things, right? The, the segmentations of patients, the traditional things are still there, but you also add the supply.
This seems to work. So, so I think companies are not, that’s why also you see a lot of companies specializing in that. So you need to invest a lot of time to really understand the ecosystem and, and, and, and the, and the process and the supply chain to be able to be competitive in the space.
Philip Hemme: One, one thing that was I found quite interesting was, is both actually ADCs and therapeutics, is that you have big farmers already, like quite leading the way versus some other indication or some were, let’s say cell therapy.
I mean it was the exception of Novartis was more like biotechs. Yeah. Going into taking more the risk, taking also some of the, some of the setbacks. Yeah. And then big pharma coming in later on versus I feel like with therapeutics and ADCs, I. Big pharma a bit more
Joris Pezzini: probably be, yeah, it’s, it’s the true, I I, I guess it’s true probably because we’re at a different phase as well in a sense that I don’t know.
When I started in biotech 20 years ago, we already were talking about ADCs. We already were talking about radiopharmaceuticals. But I think, you know, we just learned, and I think the generations of products became better. And also I think why it fits with big pharma is because the, you know, they have this threshold under which in terms of revenues under which is not interesting.
And I think with ADCs and with some geo pharmaceutical echo, it can go above that more challenging for teletherapy at least. Especially if it’s autologous. I think it’s, is really a challenge. So I think there’s a question just of scale as well. The, the big pharma is still looking for the blockbuster mobile, at least to some extent.
[00:17:00] The “end” of the blockbuster model
Philip Hemme: I remember, what was it, five, 10 years ago? I mean, and we have one thing about rare disease. I remember like. Everyone was talking about the end of the blockbuster model and this, and now how it was saying that at some point this five, 10 years ago and now it’s like Humira still whatever, and like is what MK 30 billion or something?
39 95 or something like, but maybe, but maybe, I don’t know. Yeah. It’s, it is. So it still leads, I see
Joris Pezzini: like it almost did the opposite of the Yeah, like for the few of them. And then the question is whether the rest of the portfolio can be because of that super, super blockbuster driver. Maybe the rest of the portfolio can be a bit less blockbuster.
I dunno. I would hope because I, I, I really think some modalities and some diseases are not compatible with that. And we are struggling with some of our companies where you don’t find an exit and honestly they’re, you know, treating patients, but just you, you struggle to find an exit. Yeah. Especially with big pharma.
Philip Hemme: You a bit more about this.
Joris Pezzini: Anything that is under 500 million now, used to probably 400 or something, but anything under 500 and somebody wouldn’t say 700, you know, you, you don’t find a big pharma exit. And so you can get now into the mid-size pharma. We’re looking into that. It’s one option, but you know, they must be European and not a lot in the US and so on.
So I I, I think it’s, you know, for a large portion of biotech actually, because in a way you have this exit pressure and then the biotech have the opposite pressure because they need to develop something that is affordable or compatible with whatever they can raise. And the issue is you’re never gonna be thousands and thousands of patients and so on.
So they do a phase one or phase two on a disease that is manageable very often, then it’s a rare disease or a small population. And that’s often not in line with what the big pharma has. So, so I think you have a little bit of disconnect. Not saying that you can start with a small disease and expand, but still you have somehow with a little bit of disconnect.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. And how, how did this disconnect evolve? Do you feel It’s stronger now than it was?
Joris Pezzini: Yes. I mean, but it is very recent, right? It’s, it’s post covid then with the, the, especially in, in Europe now we see about the US ’cause it’s a little bit of a mess right now. But lack of investment or slow investment or and, and, and yi yeah, I think pre, I think 2020 everyone was financed and it was too much.
Now, I, I I, I keep talking about this filter of biotech where yeah, where it’s actually normal that some companies fail. I think it’s the, the healthy and healthy biotech ecosystem would see some biotech and the majority of them actually failing. But in 2020 everyone was financed, no one was failing.
Now it’s a little bit on the opposite. We are overcompensating and there’s a lot of companies are failing, and I just think we should be a little bit in between. So yes, indeed. Right now in the context where you lack funding, then people are going to really try. I have a lot of, of companies I’m working with saying, you know, joy, I was, let me, let me help me design or redesign my clinical trial because I wanted to raise 20 million, which I know is what I need to really develop the evidence I need on that disease.
And for that pivotal trial, whatever I raised, 10 half of it. Or could we redesign the trial so that I can still generate some evidence, some evidence that can still move forward with my, my asset.
[00:20:35] Challenges to raise money
Philip Hemme: I heard, I think it’s I mean there’s two things that comes to my mind is one is that biotech is always cycles Yeah.
Whatever, seven, eight years cycle and seems like Yeah, we’re quite the. Tell me what is gonna change. Because if I, when I hope, I hope we at the, at the bottom of the cycle and it’s, I think would take a bit longer I think. I don’t know how long more, but I mean let’s see. And and the second thing that is the man is I, I, I listened to Bruce.
Bruce, Bruce from, from Atlas. I was talking, I think last week and you were saying that Yeah, like, especially for latest stage companies, which I guess you’re kind of referring to, like some people are who needs like bigger access to capital or who needs IPO or who needs a big deal. That’s where it’s like.
There’s definitely less financing going versus very early stage. You can see like still massive funding rounds and VCs managed to close funds. I mean, it’s not that easy, but still, they had closed some bigger funds also during Covid. So yeah.
Joris Pezzini: I guess that’s anything post phase three in a reasonably large indication.
Europe, you’re still struggling. I think I, BVA is one of the French example. I think we’re we’re actually saying it openly saying, you know, we had to go to the US to find out the phase three I was what they raised. It’s also
Philip Hemme: impossible in Europe, I would say. Oh yeah. Hold, I, I’ve seen even, what, what, what could surprise me also on this is like adaptimmune.
Recently who got basically market approval and they’re still like really struggling and I mean self therapy is tough and Autodesk the same, like got market approval. I mean five years ago this would be accelerated like crazy. Like you do self therapy in a higher met medical need with great results and you go to market approved in the us I think a lot
Joris Pezzini: of pharma would be interested.
Yeah, it is like, well yeah, but again, if you’re not in that, in that threshold, then, then indeed is difficult. Yeah. It’s several companies I’m, I’m thinking about that are positive phase three in Europe, still looking for licensing partner. I’m like, yes. Few years ago it had not been case.
Philip Hemme: I think we, we touched a bit on it, but on the, on the financial trends, I’m, I’m curious also, because I mean, you are also, you said you are working on the narrative with your clients, but you’re also working on m and a and in making saying Yeah. And licensing so yeah. Is there anything else you have seen except what you, what you said, like,
Joris Pezzini: so yeah.
90% of my client came to me, I mean, since the last two years, asking for supporting capital raise. So, which we typically don’t do, or we, we make, we make exceptions. Normally we do licensing and m and a. So yeah, so cap raise was the number only question. It’s like, can you help us? I say, I can, I can help, but I will not be driving your capital raise.
But so yeah, I think that’s, that’s a major driver. And then it’s probably, probably polarized, like the world nowadays. Like you have the very, very good cases where I don’t need anyone. It’s like, you know, everyone know them. The, the company is very well known, very well, very well connected. The, the equity story is clear and they have the good data and they’re probably raising more money than they wanted.
And so they really have access to a lot of the, but you’re talking for the top, what, 20 us? 5% maybe odd. Yeah. And then you have the rest struggling. And it’s true that we’ve done a lot of work with, with those companies struggling to refine your equity story to. Even a preclinical stage. Think about the market access elements, the pricing elements.
Not because you need to know everything, but you need to be able to depict the end game well enough so that wherever is gonna invest in your company know that when they need to exit, they also have a strong case. Yeah. So, because at the beginning it was, it was CEO of companies telling Meor, I’m not gonna be the one selling that drug on the market to say, I, I get it, but your VCs entering now need to convince a pharma within three years that we will be the one commercializing it.
So I think the level of quality of the Theier really raised over the last years, and I think that’s also helping because I think now we are, we are really seeing good do Okay. Unfortunately, a lot of them get finance. Yeah, that’s good.
Philip Hemme: I, I, one thing on the finance I heard recently from, from someone at EY was saying, okay, three years ago I was working on IPOs, now working on liquidations.
Yeah. It’s like,
Joris Pezzini: but I, yeah, true. Yeah, it’s true. And and I think also it’s very humbling because it’s, you know, you have sometimes it’s ego driven thought that, you know, you are helping companies and, and then because you’re helping, then they’re gonna be successful and so on. You know, no, you have a lot of elements in, in, in the ecosystem that, that, you know, make or break a company.
Mm-hmm. Again, the normal thing is that some of those companies fail also. ’cause I’ve been also with, with with some companies where there, there are zombies and yeah, the lead asset fails in one indication and Oh yeah, we need to find another indication is that, yeah, I understand. You know, if, and, and if there is a strong, rational and medical value to find another indication yet, let’s do that.
But, but maybe not. And, and maybe it’s the end of the company. I think what we don’t have in Europe yet is in healthy ecosystem or healthy enough so that. When you have a failure, those employees can come to another, can go to another company and so on, which used to be the case in the us you know, they’re like the US were saying, we are taking risk and so on.
Yeah, you’re taking limited risk because you’re failing a company, but you know the VCs so well that they’re gonna put you in another company the next day. So I think how have you Failure as well in the us Yeah. Well, because also the ecosystem is stronger, so in a way you’re not really taking such a risk.
Yes. You the company is, but then on a personal standpoint, those employees and skills and on go to another, you know, project right after where in Europe it’s less fluid at the moment. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. I mean, yeah, not sure filter. What, what Also, one thing I just, I heard f funky stuff saying, you know, innovation is tough.
Like it’s,
Joris Pezzini: innovation is, is tough. I think we here at earlier, we also had this thing saying, it’s, it’s probably gonna be difficult to really advise on innovation without burning yourself with it. And so we burn yourself ourselves with, with innovation, we’re gonna come to that. But I think for me it was a very important point.
Whenever I, I, I saw, and I, and I decided to join because I wanted a company that, again, not only advised from very far away on innovation or you guys should do that, or whatever, very comfortably in your model that is, you know, as centuries no, but also, you know, face facing yourself with, with, with innovation and stuff staff.
Yeah.
[00:27:41] Transatlantic & China
Philip Hemme: And that’s yeah, we can, yeah, we can talk just, just after, but it would be, would’ve been, it would be good. A good transition. One, one thing just before also is more from a geographical point of view. Two, two topics. One is a more like transatlantic presence. The importa of it. I think you, you’re like very, yeah, very clear that both a, you have a presence in Boston, big presence, but also for your company that you’re advising them to be present and to get the both the best of both worlds.
Like how, yeah,
Joris Pezzini: how accurate is like how, so you always start with a personal history, right? It’s always, because I did that, I started my career in the US and then were in the UK and then, and then across Europe and so on. I, I think for me has always been a strong element in my profile. Like it was, it was this transatlantic culture in a way able to, to, to work on both sides of the Atlantic and so on, in, in.
And then I experienced it when I was in the, in pharma where I was charged of acquiring also companies in the US And so, so I was always strong. But today at All Rise is so, it is also our history is that we officially at quarter in Boston where we started in, in Europe and now our employees are on, on both sides.
Our companies, our clients are also on both sides. So we see the power of that. And so when you use, I think a local network to start with, ’cause I think, you know, whenever you start you have people around you, in ecosystem, around you, it’s very important to use that. But then right away to think about potentially, and I say Atlantic, maybe I’m limiting myself because now you can say, what about China?
And some like, I think it’s almost whatever link you are creating, I think is always low ship. In ship. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: That’s, makes me, yeah, it’s yeah, it’s good. And I was about to mention China as well, but what’s the, I think it, a lot of people talk about it, so I don’t know
Joris Pezzini: China personally. I can only hear people, you know, coming back from China.
And again, that person I talked to recently it’s a very biotech neuro, ’cause I started in Bioprocessing, so we were talking about Bioprocessing and so on, and, and she was telling me honestly Jarris, the, the, where they are in, in, in, in China. And, and it’s just amazing. Like, I don’t know, you have rooms of 30 bioreactors, you know, line with artificial intelligence robots that just take the samples and so on.
Everything automated where you can test all the conditions and, and saying that, yeah, we, we, we, and also the US are very far away it seems on a pure technological standpoint. So you see, let’s see how that develops. But it seems that whatever is happening in China is pretty powerful.
Philip Hemme: So yeah, should look into it.
I, it’s actually, yeah, I, I’m looking at it and my wife is Chinese, so I’m kind of looking at it in a professional angle, but it’s really hard to, yeah, it’s quite hard to access, but or hard to really know who know what’s going on. But it’s very interesting to see, I mean, I think even for, for the audience, one, one number that struck me with China was that I think was 2023.
There was as much financing in China as an all, you are more actually just, just a bit more in China alone than Europe together. Okay. In biotech. So it’s, it’s not like coming it like, like it’s already in the scale is, yeah. I mean, you could argue that three times one population, but Yeah, it’s still, the scale is, is there and now the financing dropped a bit.
It’s, sure. I saw a bit of psyches as well, but yeah, it’s, yeah, it is there. But that’s good. And I think, but I think, yeah, I mean that’s one thing also on the Transac Atlantic is one thing that was repeated over and over in the, in the show is almost from day one, you need to have almost a presence in Boston or very rapidly, or Boston know the US and especially to access the, the friend financial markets.
And and especially what’s, what’s pretty interesting is now I, I think this in the last five years was quite a lot of US VCs investing earlier on in, in, in Europe and really pushing to make the companies more present, which I found Anello from, from Omega was on the show. And he was saying that very clearly, and I think it’s a very good, I think a healthy development as well for the European ecosystem.
Like
Joris Pezzini: yeah, it’s also you, you never know what, what element you’re gonna be using on. Again, I’m, I’m thinking US Europe, it could be again, China, it could be, but I. When you develop a company, and again, we’re gonna come to that, but you know, we grew 10 times in five years. At the beginning we didn’t know where the growth would be going and so on.
So in terms of business, it was pretty 50 50. But in terms of employees talents, like Barcelona exploded. It was a way for us to recruit, like we would’ve never been able to do in the us. So I think you never know really at the beginning of a story, what, what elements are you gonna be using, depending on, so it’s really a mix of culture that gives you just, just more tools,
Philip Hemme: I guess.
Openness to both gives you more options. Exactly. Like, yeah. Yeah. That’s a good, that’s a good one. That’s a good one.
[00:33:04] The success story of Alira
Philip Hemme: And yeah, I, I guess we can transition more to, to allali. First, I think one, one thing maybe for the audience as well is, is what you’re actually doing, because I think you’re doing quite a lot of things and I’m just going, oh.
Quite well, but when I speak gives you, I mean, I can, I can try to describe it, but I mean, I mean, I can try, but I mean, one, one thing that I like is that you try to be the partner for biotech for on, on multiple like needs that they have and, and along the path, which I found very interesting and at least from the outside, seems like there’s a lot of synergies between the defense form what you just mentioned.
Financing on one hand impacts the design of a clinical trial impacts which CRO you choose and you can kind of fill in and, and fit in there. So Yeah, but maybe in, in your words,
Joris Pezzini: so, so first of all, yes, may makes sense that from the outside sometimes, you know, it’s, first of all, because we evolved a lot and, and because we are, we are doing multiple things.
But in a way, maybe a, a way to, to, to tell the story is actually telling the story of how this happened because in, in a way, it’s very simple. So it started in Germany 15 years ago under the rain, Russia. In, we did where two co-founders were in a consulting firm doing licensing m and h Transac action.
And, and, and that starting point to me is very important because what transaction is in the end is putting people, connecting people, the big guys, the small guys, the VCs and some sort, really any ecosystem role. Yeah. When you want to run a transaction, you want to be connected to everyone, which to me gave this culture of openness and connection to what, what even I is today.
And then very simply, our clients started asking question within the transaction about what’s the value of my asset? What’s the, or should I prioritize my two assets when it comes to transaction? So portfolio strategy what about China, us, Europe, the markets, and so, so, so strategy, consulting questions in a way.
So we say, okay, we’re gonna do strategy consulting, you know, to, to be able to answer those questions and be more equipped during the transaction. Again, naturally the questions became more technical every day. Okay, I’m working on the gene therapy. What’s gonna be like pricing in 20 years? ’cause my VCs, all the people pitching or keep asking me on that, I need to be stronger in there.
The design of my Pivotal trial, they’re not too sure about the endpoints and so on. Okay. We get into those questions and, you know, regulatory roadmap of that super innovative thing. Are we sure it’s that or that or that impact or is that the drug or is that not even a drug? And it’s, it’s, it’s a med device.
And so in a way those, with those technical questions, we were a little bit overwhelmed and we say either we answer it as a consultant, which we didn’t wanna do or we saw a limitation in that. And so actually the choice was made to not to acquire the skills that would allow you to answer those questions technically.
So this is where I think the culture of the toco founders were to say a little bit innovative. I don’t know where we’re gonna end up. But we are gonna integrate those skills in. And so we, by acquisitions, but also organically acquired a big market access shop. So now we have 40 people working only with big pharma on market access.
I can tell you that you can deploy that in a transaction and explain the pricing with the gene therapy in 15 years. That’s very powerful. Same thing now you require two CROs, one in the US and one in Europe running clinical trials for biotechs. So now when you are, again, in a context of the transaction and you talk about clinical endpoints with actually people doing it every day, so that became less theoretical, much more technical and much more real life.
And, and we became closer to what a biopharma would be doing. So now you have, you are equipped to vote almost all the elements that a biopharma has, strategy or commercial view, regulatory team, market access team, the clinical team. And so, you know. Of course, the way this model works as, as multitude of cases when we work with big pharma, it’s mo it’s mostly about maybe market access and it’s mono product.
When we work with biotechs, I’m responsible for biotech is really transversal. Why? Because the, the people you, you, you work with are transversal also themself. He or she needs to in the morning raise money or talk to a licensing partner, then design a clinical trial, and then our, a regulatory roadmap or the changes in, in regulatory and architect as a JCA, how do I do that and so on.
So that, that’s very easy. In a way it’s, it’s complex as a model, but very easy to implement because the, the, the companies you partner with have this need and it’s very, very easy. The last evolution, which may be complexified a little bit also, we, we found that it was completely required was this question of, now that we have all those skills inside, we still are seeing products or program failing because of lack of patient attention or, or, or patient understanding. And it can be a multiple, I mean a multitude of of cases, but sometimes the way some clinical trials were designed or are designed. Really not compatible with actually the disease and the condition.
And they have an emotional condition of, of the patient, really not. And sometimes it’s very, very simple. Some things that just don’t, don’t match or the way you develop a drug or the way you understand the disease when it’s a rare disease and so on. So that’s, that’s when we, we wanted, or we make the decision to go into really patient data, working with technology, becoming a real world dividends provider.
And so now we are working with, with registries of patients. We’re working a lot of rare in rare disease. IQV more so IQ would be doing it more on the commercial sites. So, but yes, IQA is also using our technology. Okay. They’re also using, but indeed, you know, when you open up this, this, this question of, of patient data or, and or patient focus and, and real world evidence, yes.
You become more complex in a way you expose yourself to more. Risk of failures, but at the same time, we also think, again, as I was saying in the beginning, we don’t think we can advise on innovation if we don’t innovate on our model as well. And we are convinced that in five years, the equity story or equity value, value wise, you’re gonna be more around that and on on the rest.
And then, yeah,
Philip Hemme: because from what you, I always try to place or bench, not benchmark, but just place, there is none. There’s just place and Yeah. ’cause every, I mean there’s quite a lot of, let’s say, boutique consulting firm who specialized in. One niche, another, I mean, s you have a lot of CROs. Yeah. I guess are you doing also more in like research, like really early stage discovery or we are entering a bit later on?
Joris Pezzini: Yeah, so we basically have two sites, the consulting broadly defined. And it could be on regulatory, it could be a market access strategy, and then the evidence generation. Yeah. Evidence generation can be clinical or can be real world evidence or can be not, basically. And so now when you open that, it’s you, you are, you, you’re now connected to companies developing preclinical.
Preclinical. In a way it could be either advising a company to go towards the cleaning, so the clinical roadmap which the regulatory team is gonna be working on. So yeah, depending on the client and on the case. But it’s true that this model now has a power of. Supporting, I don’t wanna say companies at most of the stages.
Most of the, yeah, yeah, yeah. But as you say, except very, very early, I guess. But, but you want to go very early than the rational of fees and the discussion of everything. But but it’s also why, where I think we’ve you know, it’s, it’s a cultural element, but we, you know, again, starting with transaction, I think is still, is present, is that we are connecting a lot of people in the ecosystem.
I think we are, we are very aware of our role in the ecosystem and even beyond projects. We are really spending a lot of time helping companies connecting and so on. Why? Because again, we know those people are gonna come back to you at some point. It’s the long term kink and the, and the story has proven us, right?
Yeah. That, that’s good. Yeah. Actually, I think
Philip Hemme: the, what, what’s crazy that you’re now, you have 600 Yeah. People, and you grew, how much was it? 10, 10 times in? Yeah. ’cause it been, yeah, in five years, just. I Congrats first. Crazy. Yeah. The crazy success. Like and I’m curious on, you also mentioned that there was quite a lot of challenges and you had to innovate as a model.
Like, can you mention some of them
Joris Pezzini: like Yeah, sure. I mean, the first of all obvious is, is linked to what you just said. Of course we are super happy that the, the brand is, is, is more known. And that I think our role again in the ecosystem is, is, is known. We are very, very good shareholders and so on.
So I, I, I think very happy of this success. But indeed we are also very different company from, from five years ago. Whatever was almost natural and easy when we were 50. Yeah, almost in the same office or two offices now with 600 is a different game. So you need to, yeah, you need to structure yourself.
Yeah. Structure yourself and and organize processes and so on. So for example, recently we made a decision that we would have a COO that would really handle all the structural functioning of the company. And so, and, and now we have also leaders like myself who are gonna be spending more time with clients.
And so
Philip Hemme: yeah,
Joris Pezzini: things like that, that were, you know, you need at some point to reorganize yourself. So the growth is painful. The growth is painful, and that’s for sure. And and that’s one. The second one is, is probably indeed that we have no benchmarks in, in, because you know, if you take every piece that is within, you have a benchmark, you have a competitor, you have a market, and so on, like as, as a CRO, I can tell you that we’re working exclusively with biotechs.
Okay. That’s very clear. I can explain and so on. But it’s true that when you zoom out and do corporate wise. It’s like, so, so not having benchmarks is very uncomfortable because I
Philip Hemme: guess even for clients, they must also, like, they cannot really compare directly. That’s
Joris Pezzini: also a good question. That’s a good point because and we addressed that, I think it was two years ago where we also reorganized ourself a little bit by client type.
Yeah. Just acknowledging that working with big pharma is very different from working the biotech, working with MedTech or VCs and private equities, because we do a lot of work with VCs and private equities. So every client has his own style where of working needs portfolio. So I think when once you do that, it’s easier to understand your client.
You don’t have to sell transversality to big pharma if you don’t want to do that. Biotech, transversality is key. So then you can, you can push on that. So I think that is, that was a challenge. I think we’ve addressed it quite quite. Okay. But still as we grow, what’s, what’s the benchmark? What’s the, what’s the metric on profitability?
What’s the, I think all of the things are difficult and that’s why you need very, very good shareholders that really understand that there is no benchmark and, and back shoe. So in the, in the tough times, it’s actually, I
Philip Hemme: didn’t know actually, but you have, which is crazy about shareholders. You have a strongman in hauling at us.
[00:44:50] Investing in real-world evidence and AI
Philip Hemme: So the same investors at Bio-Tech and then the Mir family or Brazil and then Kati and then, and then you raised a hundred billion ERs recently. So when you were very good at convincing shareholders and raising money. But especially I, I was, especially with Truman, I was quite surprised actually.
’cause I know them. I mean, know the investments were in biotechs. I didn’t know they were investing more in. Yeah, hybrid consulting. Consulting, CO firm. Yeah.
Joris Pezzini: So Atos the choice of, of this family office. So big holder in BioNTech and so on. Again, I mean, this story is very simple in a way. There were, I think the stories that we were working with one of their portfolio companies, they like the work and and actually it’s very smooth integration because atos has, has, is invested among many other things, but in a lot of biotech.
So not having an advisor that can also help those portfolio companies make sense. So I think it’s a very, it’s a very easy integration and it’s true that for now family offices have given us that support a little bit longer term than some other investments that a lower model like us to take the time to get the right size.
Because I think what we are seeing is that we are around one 10 million in, in revenues those days. But, indeed. I think as we grow we are seeing the model really become stronger and stronger. And, and you need, you need to just patient or just understanding shareholders to be able to support you during those spaces.
Philip Hemme: And historically, you, you were, because you never raised VC money, there’s no, no. So it’s only okay, and I guess you are quite profitable or at least on the year on,
Joris Pezzini: except that with acquisition, of course getting the service company, you’re profitable on, you know, the consulting, the CRO, all things, you know, but when you decide to invest in technology and, and of course that’s an investment and, and, and r and d and we deliver, especially on equity.
On equity value just takes time. So, but this is exactly where we didn’t want just to stop. And especially I, I think I could say we, we anticipated, but it’s, it’s wrong is like we always tend to reach our engineer strategy afterwards with you, that story and Yeah, exactly. Reality. But, but with a AI now, I feel much more comfortable in a, in, in, in a company that has all those pieces and, and, and, and is very equipped with, with different tools than if I would be just a very limited consulting firm.
Because what is gonna be consulting in five years, I think, you know for sure something very different. Yeah. So I think now you are much more a company that is an hybrid between maybe a pharma company and a service company. And to me that gives me a little bit more interesting.
Philip Hemme: Yeah, reassure this case also, when you talk about AI for anything, tech investment also scale and scale matters and the amount of data you have matters as well.
So I can imagine you’re profiting from that as well, like just having Yeah. Scale of number of clients, scale of number of everything.
Joris Pezzini: Yeah. And of course it’s never enough. I mean, you always want to, to brand to be known and so on. But, but, but, but for sure it has changed dramatically in the last five years.
I even want to say sometimes it’s frustrating because the current ecosystem is tough. I mean, the current environment in biotech is not super easy. Pharma also is cutting costs and so on. So there is money, but it’s not super, super, I mean, tough. Yeah. And, and, and we see that almost the perception we have from the market is stronger than, than what it can reflect in our numbers and, and frustrating, but also positive in the sense that the moment the ecosystem is a little bit better.
I, I think that model, we, we can feel it every day. It, it really is powerful.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Joris Pezzini: That’s that’s good.
[00:48:53] Background in bioprocessing
Philip Hemme: And maybe switching to, to more your personal background before talking about how you apply Medicine 3.0 more, can you like. I go back to, let’s say where you studied at. You, you mentioned you, you studied by engineering or by processing in Bordeaux and then Yeah.
You did some consulting. Can you walk a bit? I dunno. So as with some ba failed
Joris Pezzini: medicine,
Philip Hemme: first
Joris Pezzini: up it was very tough. In, in, in, at 18 years old, I didn’t see myself just working 24 hours a day and so on, and, and I was depressed and so on. And at the end of the parking lot I see this, this blue bubble because the the, the school is actually in Bodo is a, is a big bubble, a big blue bar because I’m gonna look at it.
And so it was bioprocessing didn’t know anything about bioprocessing. And so I did two years of what’s it, bachelor or something by, by molecular biology where you need to be ranked at the top to be able to enter that economic engineer. Either profile the top results from the university. So I, I, I worked there in, you know, was in the top where, what, one or 5%.
Then I entered in the, in, in the school. Again, I was not planned right? And so I did this engineering school in Bioprocessing and only afterwards I realized the power of Bioprocessing at that time was the two thousands monoclone antibodies started a little bit, the fragments of antibodies, so the more complex biologics and so on, and, and having a degree in bioprocessing was something super new.
Nobody had that. And so I used that to travel in the us, in the uk, in scientists jobs. Honestly, I was spending most of my time outside of the lab to understand. So I started in California for example, and I was amazed of the relationship between VCs, academic and the, and the CEO of the company. They were talking every day.
It was very fluid and so on, which at the time I didn’t see in Europe, so interesting thing. And and I knew at the beginning, I mean, from the beginning I knew I didn’t wanna stay a scientist, but indeed I use that as, as a tool to be able to see different types of companies. And then I found this consulting firm, bio Partners, which I think is now acquired.
But it was really the fun times of of classical folk.
Philip Hemme: Yeah, it’s after, I think after you were not there, but actually
Joris Pezzini: it was a good school, at least that when the years where I, what I was, was a good school. I worked with big pharma, small biotechs and so on. I, I, I became also a, a geek of NPV modeling, which really helped me even today as kind of translating science into finance and being at ease with the two worlds.
So strategy consulting is always, I think a good. Then 15 years in the industry in different roles plasma derived industry, which is a industry. Yeah. And it is funny because when people look at my profile, they see LFB and then UCB, where there was that licensing. And they keep saying that oh was the, you know, they keep saying at LFB and say, oh yeah, it’s a so, so company.
And it’s very tough, you know, very French. And so yes, but I learned a lot. I learned so much. It was doing so difficult. I doing pretty well. I have a, I’m a biased view because I love biotech and they focused on plasma now. Yeah. It’s but indeed, yes, I think this this mix of different platforms, plasma recombinant, at the time we were the number one biotech in France.
And because it, it’s still, I think, owned by the French government or the app here was all very quiet. You didn’t have to communicate a lot, but we, we were making a lot of investment in biotech, did a lot of acquisitions in, in, in in the US in, in Asia as well. So so that’s why I always also advise is take a company where you can just test things and, and and and have maybe less competition, honestly, where, you know, you go to a second class company, right?
Then you’re a bit more junior. Yeah,
Philip Hemme: yeah.
Joris Pezzini: And so I was exposed to things that I would’ve never been exposed in big pharma, a lot of tension as well, because you’re the big guys versus the CSL and the, and you’re struggling because of size.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. You
Joris Pezzini: don’t have the money to put in a licensing deal. So you need to think about creative way to structure a deal.
At the same time when you, when there is a need to do an IPO in the us they give you the key of the project and you’re like, okay, I dunno where to stop. So you think, I think, you know, it’s just, it’s just exposition exposure. I exposure is, is really something that that you can, and I guess you
Philip Hemme: had a very strong, very steep learning curve.
Yeah, I connected
Joris Pezzini: that. Yeah. I was, yeah, I was ready to work a lot and, and I just loved it. So yeah, I, again, did a lot of spent a lot of time in the, in, in the us which is Trans Atlantic role and yeah, when you, when you love it, you tend to be success.
Philip Hemme: It reminds me, I have some good memories, but I, but I almost start, I started really almost my career, but I carry my first job.
Wanna say career? I mean sounds, I dunno. No, it’s carry. Okay. I mean, I’m not that, I mean not that advanced either. So, but the first company at Bell Lab, biotech, and we, we did this tour, the France, I remember as I, you see, I remember a serious story. Yeah. And I, and I remember to the France on the pi, it was all on, it was a genius.
And we went to this release for, to interview one executive from, from LV actually. Oh, okay. It was just pretty cool to visit and have a amazing site and Yeah. Just next to Ipsen. Yeah. And it was at least from the Ipsen, I think is the ID site or manufacturing site. But actually, yeah, it was cool to visit.
Anyway, just
Joris Pezzini: very good people, very good knowledge in manufacturing. Very, very good. Patient-centricity also of, of, of this company. A lot of rare disease, a lot of, so yeah, I think the very good values. Yeah,
Philip Hemme: that’s cool. And then how, like, I’m always curious on, on the, what, what happens behind, I mean, behind the decision, but you, you decided to join a, like what, what was the, the decision making there?
Joris Pezzini: So I was, I was, I was at UCB out of licensing, I would say. I mean, superb company used to be a lot of, you know, fun, super good pipeline and so on. So and I knew how to do my job. Sper, maybe you too much. No, but I know, of course it’s a public companys, I’ll say what I can. But I was working on a big out licensing deal for one of their lead asset and amazing process where we got offers really, really high would’ve been that my biggest deal ever.
Really, really big one. On the high side of three digit upfronts million. It was really high. And then yeah, UCB realized that it was better to keep it because, because of the, and, so superbly was a lot of emotions and so on. And, and maybe the next one, I, I, I dunno where to come. That’s the thing.
When your business development is like you, you also want to be in deals and so on, and, and companies are, you know, you know, cycles of course. And and yes, I wanted to be ex, so it’s, it’s to some extent, after so many years being in a, in a chaotic environment I maybe I needed a little bit more journaling.
And I remember d as you say, not from what they were doing, but from a culture. So I knew the co-founders. I knew something. They were, they were doing something different. Sometimes you just don’t need more. That’s, that’s, that’s what I needed to kind of meet the team and be convinced. And then I, I went and, and, and meet Gabrielle with the CEO in, in in Boston.
Amazing guy. And he is the guy behind the model and so on. And, and, and yeah, we, we, we kicked it.
Philip Hemme: And why, and, and then you move to Barcelona as well, like that was part of the
Joris Pezzini: Yeah, so that’s, that’s a very, again, like I can tell you the, the very fancy explanation, but I think that when you live in Belgium and you offered to take the lead of an office wherever you want, and in the list you have Barcelona, it’s kind of very, but you know, I mean that simple thing that, that for me worked and I wanted to test a new country and zone.
Two months in, I, I really felt at home. So now after seven years, I really feel this is my home. But what applied to me and I didn’t know, applied to all the talents that we, we I’ve now in the team and same thing. They, they came for a, but they came also for, for Barcelona. And so that allows us to, to grow whenever we want.
Super quickly when you wanna do that, you’ve created a lot of French shots on the team. Yeah, the beginning was the French she was in. So because, you know, two co-founders. And but then he became also Catalan. He became, you know, people from South America because a really super, super international connecting culture.
So we’re now 150 people in, in Barcelona in fastest growing office. Again, not because we planned it, just because we had different tools, different offices, different dynamics, and it was the story. So yeah. It’s amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. That’s amazing.
[00:58:20] Bridging biotech and healthy lifestyle
Philip Hemme: And it’s enough enough medicine, sleep point off.
So how, how do you apply it to your, to your own lifestyle? Like curious and, sorry. Look, it’s, it’s both simple
Joris Pezzini: and boring in a way. It’s, it, I’ve reprioritized sleep, like really trying. So I’m, I’m going to sleep at 10 every night. How much do you stupid night that. I wake up at six 30. Oh yeah. So prioritizing sleep seems easy, but socially is kind of difficult because if you wanna prioritize sleep, you probably also want to have your last meal three hours before, which is a hot in Spain.
So I’m totally, no, but then you have a balance, which is tough because socially you’re doing all the things. And so I’ve always been training a lot, doing a lot of weightlifting. Even I remember when I was weightlifting in bio, it was a long time ago, people were making fun of me because it was like badly seen to be a bodybuilder, whatever.
Now every physician is telling you that it’s good for everything. So I think we also evolved on that. But yeah, sleep is probably number one. Nutrition is, is, is the second one is exercise is a third one. So, so, but, but, but, but I think yes, indeed. It’s it’s a question of how does that apply to yourself, which is the easy answer.
And then how can you influence also others around you because when you see people struggling with those things, they also know what to do. Right. You know, and it, but it’s not so easy to just decide one day. So no, the, the mental element is also something that is that is very present and limiting your side.
Yeah.
Philip Hemme: And it take, I mean, it’s also what you just discussed and I think what we, going back to the first point as well, it takes some, quite a lot of effort and prioritization as well. Like, it’s not, I mean, it’s simple, but it’s not easy. No. And it’s a choice as well. And
Joris Pezzini: it’s a balance because like, what is easy for me again, what is easy for me is actually to prioritize it.
I have no issue to eat whatever I need to eat and so on. But then the downside of that is that you become, I don’t wanna say isolated, but you have a risk to be isolated socially, right? Because again, you know, you don’t eat outside so much, you don’t, you know, it’s very easy. And, and the mental aspect with, you know, is also as important as the rest.
So you now need to proactively organize those, those, those
Philip Hemme: factors. And the social part almost the hardest. I agree. I cut alcohol almost. Totally. And that’s socially, socially, yeah. Very difficult. Way more difficult than my own control. Yes. Yes, I agree a hundred percent. Yeah. Especially it’s a French
Joris Pezzini: German.
I mean, we, we like, and we are only, we are in a society where alcohol will cut you from a lot of those, you know, very, very good moments. Even nutrition as well. You could be, you know, and, and sleep as well. So I think all the things that we should be prioritizing are probably the ones that are going to put us in a difficult situation socially.
Philip Hemme: That’s good. That’s good. I, I actually, I have a personal story, but I’m, it’s, I having, I also prioritize things a lot. Like, I call it life optimization and I went fully deep into it also on the meditation side, but recently I have some more like mental health challenges. Yeah. And actually I see also how some things which I managed and some things are out of control, like sleep or some insomnia.
It’s crazy difficult to fix actually. And sometimes it’s not even like, it’s kind of, that’s what’s in your control and then there’s beyond control and that’s really like tough. And even, yeah, it’s, so I, I now, I mean, I don’t know in your case, but like I say, I start to really understand also that first it’s not, it’s not easy.
Yeah. And for some people in, in some cases it’s even harder as even beyond control. Yes. Which before
Joris Pezzini: I didn’t really have by step, you need to go after that thing and then. Cycles as well. I think. I’ve actually, actually listening to a podcast in insomnia and I’ll give you the link, at least interesting one.
’cause now you have some techniques to try and go after it, depending on the source. But yeah, I think it’s, it’s also accepting that you are never gonna be perfect. And, and, and again, you’re gonna have, depending on what happens in your life, you’re gonna go through those things and, and then you can get into even the trauma analysis of whatever happened to you really before.
So all of that plays. But, but I think, yeah, I think what I like about healthcare today is not, is not a taboo anymore. Meaning all those elements are on the table known to play a role. We don’t know exactly how. It’s very complex and so on. Where I feel maybe 20 years ago it was, it was not at all, even a topic you could talk about.
Philip Hemme: Yeah, you can be open. I like that. I’m curious also maybe on how do you measure, how do you measure it? ’cause you just say, we don’t, we are not really sure. Like how do you measure, like for yourself?
Joris Pezzini: So I’ve, I’ve, I’ve measured things and over measured this, so, no, but I’ll take a very simple example. I, I, I wore a glucose mon monitoring system for a while.
Helped me to understand the way I was reacting to some foods, the way a stressful meeting would give me a spike in glucose, which I, I had no idea about. But then it was stressing me out. So, as you say, I developed also certain things I didn’t like, like, you know, I, I didn’t want to eat anymore outside, I didn’t want, so I think it’s a good thing to measure and then to remove.
So I’m, I’m not whole super, super measuring because I, I, I think that also leads to something. So it’s, it’s a balance. I think you need to really have all the elements on the table and think, okay, I’m gonna play on one is gonna, you know, help me, give me some data, but de stabilize the rest. So
Philip Hemme: I like that.
Joris Pezzini: Yeah.
Philip Hemme: I think the focus on, on one pillar at a time, because they’re all interconnect, they’re all interconnected and is good. And then measuring, I, I went also really down the rabbit hole of, of measuring. Some things are still measure, but I like the measuring, again, connected to a pillar, connected to a decision to make or some really monitoring with action connected to it.
Yeah. Say you want to lose weight, for example. You want to reach certain thing you can measure glucose monitor, and I’ve actually never done it, but I heard it’s very like very good and you can learn some pattern, develop some habits, but you have act actions connected it versus measuring to measure.
Measuring to measure. Yeah. Yeah.
Joris Pezzini: Ation maybe session there because then you know, all the, all the meditation and related kind of practices and, and seem grateful and, and, and all kind of things really play a role. I mean, and again, it’s difficult to say even as, even I think even worse as a scientist. Like if I really start the day with like, grateful energy and, and, and kindness and love and so on, pretty, is I gonna change something?
Because I feel it does, but, and, and I guess now we are starting to think or to see some evidence scientifically proven that indeed there are some energetic, in energetic elements that probably helps you. But again, as a scientist, I think it’s attention as well.
Philip Hemme: A hundred percent agree.
Joris Pezzini: Yeah.
Philip Hemme: The, yeah.
[01:05:42] Quickfire
Philip Hemme: The, the last, but before we do a more quick fire, quick questions. One thing that I kind of like about yourself is you, you refer to a relaxed look and also you feel quite relaxed. Yeah. How do you, like, do you cultivate it or is it like more natural? Especially in biotech biopharma, where people are a bit more serious?
Joris Pezzini: Yeah. If, yeah, biotech is less serious than banker or something. Yeah. So, so no, I don’t know. You, you always have your own stress and so on, but so you don’t look stressed right now? Yeah, no, I’m, I’m, I’m not, but I, again, I think it’s the same tools or ingredients that I’ve talked about before. It’s true that, again, for me, very personally, I, I need to start my day with a certain routine that probably anchors me and gives me the, so it’s meditation, it’s it’s training.
Physical expression. I think moving is something where I, I find very helpful. And then, and then it’s the posture. I’m a very big, so, you know, and then we can get into the shoes I wear, so like barefoot shoes and so the banana. But I discovered my feet at 40 years old. Because I had flat fees and then I started to actually play with my feet and, and, and that you gave me a posture that now helps me, even like now, if you’re sitting on your butt instead of, you know, you sitting on your lumbers, to me, it’s gonna give you a different energy as well.
So
Philip Hemme: yeah,
Joris Pezzini: we can do
Philip Hemme: another podcast on this one. Oh, like an episode? Yeah. Okay. Let’s do a quick fire and, and so, and more, more some more biotech topics. So just quick questions. You can answer one sentence or quick, quick answer. Who is one of your biotech heroes?
Joris Pezzini: I think biotech is the perfect example of anti heroes because I actually think that to innovate, if you think you’re right, I don’t think you’re gonna be successful.
So.
Philip Hemme: What’s on top of your mind at the moment?
Joris Pezzini: The brand of Ara is something that I
Philip Hemme: You, you, you gave one, but maybe a second one A second. Advice to especially young life science professionals want to build a career
Joris Pezzini: that’s gonna sound super simple or repeated and so on. But, but, but indeed just something you like.
I think if you’re motivated by something you like that gives you emotion, I think it’s just easier.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. Passion. Something you like, your passion. Yeah. What’s one of your favorite biotech or science books?
Joris Pezzini: Even? I was saying that the Medicine 3.0 is, I don’t think it’s something that, you know, it’s a good one.
Philip Hemme: Actually I think I have it at home. My wife. You haven’t read it? I haven’t yet, but this. How we actually, you answered this one one mistake you made in the past 12 months.
Joris Pezzini: Trying to be too pushy. Pushy on, on some of the closing of a project is something where when you have to deliver on, you know, quarterly or monthly or whatever for everyone, I think is something that and again, going back to the posture where things are gonna come when it’s right, but it’s difficult to reply every day.
Can
Philip Hemme: imagine.
Joris Pezzini: Let’s
Philip Hemme: finish on a more personal, what’s your favorite hobby?
Joris Pezzini: So I would say weightlifting is still one of my best. And then the more recent one is mountain biking, downhill biking. Nice. And I guess the mountains. He and I are very good stuff.
Philip Hemme: Amazing. Amazing. Thanks. It’s a good, a good way to finish.
Yeah. Thanks for coming. Say thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much for coming. It was super fun.
I’m impressed by the clarity of Juris about the big picture. I’m also impressed by his approach to healthy lifestyle and his more chilled manners. If you have also enjoyed this episode, please hit the like follow review button. Any of these actions will help us a lot to give more exposure to the show to more people.
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