Marc de Garidel, Abivax | How to make two Billion-dollar exits (“smoothly”) | E09

Today, I’m in Paris to chat with Marc de Garidel, the new CEO of Abivax. We talk about the challenges behind the exits and why Abivax could be a third big success. Marc is a biopharma veteran with an impressive track record. He has made two billion-dollar exits, was CEO of Ipsen, and has recently made the biggest French IPO ever with Abivax. He has also raised $60M series B for Massachusetts-based Corvidia Therapeutics before being acquired for $2.1B by Novo Nordisk. He also was the CEO of CinCor Pharma which sold for $1.8B to AstraZeneca in 2023. I’ve never met Marc but I heard many great things about him.


Transcript

[00:00:00] Intro

Philip Hemme: It’s great to finally meet. I heard great things about you. 

Marc de Garidel: Well, I don’t know if I deserve them, but I think at 11. 30 p. m. I got a second offer from a competitor to Novo, and actually the terms were not very different. A few years later, Novo is one of the dominant market cap in the world. It’s been a great deal for us.

Philip Hemme: Was it already your plan to go in? Like exit pretty early. 

Marc de Garidel: Maybe I’m not smart enough to do the other way around.

Philip Hemme: Hi, I’m your host Serap and welcome to a new episode of the Flot.bio Show where I interview the best Europeans in biotech to help you grow. Today I’m back in. I was quite sunny and nice to talk with Marc de Garidel, who is the new CEO of, of Abivax. Mark is a, one of these biopharma veteran with an impressive track record.

He made two billion dollar exits. He was a CEO of a French biopharma Epson and now made the biggest IPO ever for a French biotech on the NASDAQ with, with Abilax. Actually, I don’t know him personally, but I’ve heard great things about him both on the track record side, but also on the personal side.

So I’m very excited to, to meet with him. And we will talk about, actually, what were the challenges behind the exit, as well as why Abilvax could be your next big success. So let’s head to the office and meet with them.

[00:01:32] Two big exits

Philip Hemme: Welcome to the show, Marc. 

Marc de Garidel: Thank you very much for having me. Great. 

Philip Hemme: It’s great to finally meet. I mean, I heard great things about you. 

Marc de Garidel: I don’t know if I deserve them, but it’s good to be here. 

Philip Hemme: Let’s, let’s see. Actually for today I want to start with the with the two exits you did prior to, to Abyvax. I mean, both were in the billions, billion, biobucks, such billions.

I mean, Corbidia, I think it was 7, 75 million upfront dollars. Synco was 1. 8 billion. It was in cash, which is impressive. Actually, I don’t know many people who did. So it exists like this but I’ve also heard that it was not a, a smooth ride so could you like elaborate a bit more on what happened and what didn’t make it a, a smooth ride?

Marc de Garidel: Well, as you know, you know, biotech is always a bit of a lively experience. So I think in the case of Corvidia, the you know, the challenge was that we are developing an, actually an anti inflammatory treatment for arteriosclerosis. And we had been actually in discussion with one of the big pharma, fairly early on when I joined.

But what they wanted to see was actually the phase two completion before possibly doing doing doing a deal. The challenge also of the program was related to the fact that Phase two was relatively simple to execute. It was a 250 patient trial, but the phase three would be more like 3000 to 5,000 patients with, you know, costs already ranging from 300 to $400 million for the phase three.

So it was clear from a covid standpoint that the step from phase two to phase three would be a a, a difficult process. And we were preparing actually for an IPO in that context. So we actually ran. Sort of a, a dual approach. One was indeed, you know, execution of of, of the phase two and seeing whether a partnership could be possible and still in parallel trying to raise money.

Yeah. For, for, for, for the phase three in case a partnership would not happen. So I think what was very interesting is the, we got actually a first offer from from, a big pharma company. Again, maybe 

Philip Hemme: not from Novo, not, 

Marc de Garidel: yeah, from another one who who came about and the first proposal was very, we thought was very low.

So we told them, you know, we cannot accept, we keep going with with our phase two. But as the phase two started to get toward the end, then We had a very productive discussion, actually starting at Jeffrey’s, which was in November preceding, basically, the deal. And Novo started to show real interest into possibly looking at our face to data and possibly doing a partnership.

So We at J. P. Morgan organized a more thorough meeting with basically all the research team and R& D team actually of Novo and ourselves to try to come to a potential agreement on conditions for a deal. So, Novo followed that procedure and essentially gave us a term sheet in March of that year. It was, yeah, but this was upon the condition of success in a phase two, which, you know, again, could be always argumented and and channeled.

So we you know, so we are on one hand very happy, but forget still to wait for the result of the phase two. And then when the phase two results were uncovered. We are obviously very happy with the results and we communicated that to to to, to Novo, but that in the meantime, so I gave a call to the other party saying, you know, now we have some great results, let’s say, are you still, are you still interested or would you consider you know, doing a partnership with us?

Because we you know, we have already a term sheet from from a great a great, partner. And you know, I remember vividly because I was actually, you know, in my house, this was, you know, COVID time, you know, so this was when everything was Was virtual. I was you know, in my home in, in near Boston, and I, and I got this call from the head of r and d from this big pharma.

I knew actually from, from history, it’s told me not. Oh. Mark, we are very interested in possibly, doing a deal with you, but give us a bit of time because we need to analyze all your phase two and our confidentiality, but we’ll come back by Friday. Midnight of that week. Okay. So, you know, Which month are we talking about?

We are still, we are, we are probably at the end of we are in June. June. June of, yeah, June of 2020. So then, that Friday, at maybe four o’clock in the afternoon, I call the head of BD, that company, and I say, you know, I haven’t heard anything from you. Are you going to submit anything or because otherwise, you know, the other party is ready to sign.

So you know, they, this this this business officer says, Yeah, yeah, we are, we are preparing something, but give us a bit of time. We know midnight is is is the is the deadline. So I think at 1130 have a PM Eastern Time or your time? Time. I got the you know, the second the second bid from from a second offer from, from a competitor to know and actually the terms.

We are not very different. So, I sent an immediate message to the board. I had given them, obviously, the heads up that things were cooking. But I was not sure. And then I told them we need to to probably organize a board meeting tomorrow to review these these two bids. And, and and see what you want to do.

But I think I would propose we take a bank to help us in through the process. So, to cut a long story short. We put in place a bidding system, the bank organized, so by the following Tuesday, we would have essentially competing bids and the best offer would win. And what was very interesting is a big pharma who thought they would win, actually lost to Novo, who actually, you know, have a bid, an increase, you know, within two or three days.

The terms changed su substantially. It was wonderful for , for shareholders, social shareholders was wonderful for us. And I think ultimately, I now Novo is developing I think they, I believe they are doing three phase threes and for, for the drug. And hopefully in the next couple of years we’re going to know whether this re is going to be bigger.

a big you know drug for reducing inflammation and arteriosclerosis in patients. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. I mean, I, I heard also, I think it was one of the biggest deals of Novo around that period, or even like, not ever, but in the, in, in these years around, they didn’t make that many big deals. 

Marc de Garidel: That’s right. Yeah. It was the first, actually, I think it was in 

Philip Hemme: I think Ablynx had lost it to Sanofi.

Marc de Garidel: Yeah, exactly. So, so for Lenovo, it was a big step forward. And I remember the discussion with Lars, you know, the CEO of Lenovo, who’s a great, great CEO. And I, you know, he told me, yes, this would be already a big step for them. So we’ll see. You know, a few years later, Novo is you know, one of the dominant actually market cap in the world, without a drag, but yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s been a great job for us.

That’s nice. 

Philip Hemme: On the, on this outbidding, it reminds me another story, which I forgot the name of the biotech, but it was, I think, last year where they was like outbidding two, three times, and it went up to Like billion dollars when the first offer was like five or six times lower. Yeah. 

Marc de Garidel: I mean, in our case, we said, you know, we said, you know, on Tuesday.

Yeah. You need to have your bid by, by noon. We have a board meeting at one and two o’clock. We’ll let you know who has win and who has lost. That’s pretty quick. 

Philip Hemme: That’s a quick, that’s a quick time frame. But I’m wondering more on the lessons learned and for you. I mean, as running a biotech, I don’t really understand why you.

Wouldn’t do such a process, I’ll try to get, I guess. What’s the limiting factors if you have not enough interest from pharma? Or what would be the 

Marc de Garidel: No, I think, well, I think part of the challenge was, you know, in order to finance the phase three, it is going to cost, you know, three to four hundred, five, five hundred million.

You know, there are not so many so, so many pharmas that at the time would have been interested. And by the way, cardiovascular, you remember, was kind of ignored starting in the mid 2010, period. Because of exactly this this, this studies that are very big and you need to do an outcome study.

So you need to, to demonstrate that you are already literally saving lives. And, and a number of farmers like Roche and Novartis just to name a few, you know, had, had, had spent up to $700 million in, in studies and then everything yeah, that passed because of the result were not good. So I think.

Already, Corvidia was one of the first, I mean, certainly one of the most surprising DR at the time. One, it was because it was COVID, everything was kind of dead. And two, it was in a, in a, in a, in a targeted area where no one would have expected a DR. Yes. 

Philip Hemme: Wow, that’s, that’s amazing. And I guess from what you just said also on the running phase three, there’s also good chance that the milestones would be paid because I think we have 75 up front, but then there was one point, 

Marc de Garidel: there is another 1.

4 billion in in in my drama, 700 million under related to basically registration of the drug. And then there are milestones on sales. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll see. I mean, I 

Philip Hemme: think it’s trusting that, and I mean, I would, the dinosaur, I mean, cardiovascular already was, I mean, as you said, from big pharma dropped it all less interest.

But especially as a biotech, very few biotechs going there. Also from the size of the trial and the money you need to raise. But you are basically coming with Syncor, but also in the cardiovascular space. Yes. And it worked also pretty well. 

Marc de Garidel: Yeah, because I think, you know, at the end of the day, almost regardless of the therapeutic areas, what you have to try to find are drugs, which can, you know, bring a therapeutic value to patients.

And because, a lot of companies were in oncology you know, everyone tend to flock to the same areas. Actually, in cardiovascular, there was not so many assets, but there were still a few good assets. And and and you know, synchroasset was actually a drug that was initially at Roche. Roche decided to get out of cardiovascular.

They had done all the really, very good quality experiments in you know, in being preclinical setting. And what happened is you know, an incubator basically negotiated with the app of fin Investments and Fin our Partners the extraction of of the drug out, out of of Rush to, to start developing it you know, in, in in human clinical trial.

But all the foundation of the work was done, it was first class work for, for me when I was contacted again by Sofinova to, to to be part of this new adventure, I was very reassured that the foundation was very solid, you know, the early preclinical work was first class, and also the positioning of the drug.

was going to be very differentiated from anything that had been you know, inexistent to treat those hard, hard to core, hard to treat resistant hypertension patients. 

Philip Hemme: And what, and then, so when, what does the, so then you joined, and then what, can you go through the, what happened? I mean, this was even faster than Corbidia.

Marc de Garidel: It was faster, but you know, it was also a fairly lively experience because A few months into the job, first we got a lawsuit from, the incubator who was in Cincinnati, because we had transferred some of the employees in the incubator into into Syncor, which by the, by the way, was part of the program everybody had agreed to.

But there was some question about compensation and things like that stock options. So we, we already ran into a lawsuit from with the incubator, was also part, part of our shareholder basis. So. In the meantime, you need to raise, you know, funding, you know, to accelerate and to conduct four phase twos pretty much in parallel.

So the good news is we were able to, to raise you know, summer of 20, 21, about, 190 million in in a series B. That was the first, the first big basis. And then we wanted to do an IPO. By the end of the year or, or early in 2022. And then, as you know, 21 was the year of where I, so things started to shake up, especially in the second half of of 21 where it became unclear as to whether we could do an IPO and then we had this lawsuit.

So we eventually was a good story that we were able to, to resolve the lawsuit. And then we were able to be out, do the first IPO of of 2022. We are the first one listed on the, on the NASDAQ. And actually we did actually very well because I think everybody was excited about our program and I’m going to raise another 200 million.

Yeah, through that through that through that process. You know, a few months pass, we have the first results of our study in this R2 TRIT. 

Philip Hemme: It was already the first, was the first two results. 

Marc de Garidel: Well, yeah, a few months later. And on that basis, it was really successful. And as a result, we were able to do another follow on, raise another, you know, 200 plus.

So we basically raised 600 million within a year, which was, again, one of the highest you know, in the world in that period. And, while we were doing this, AstraZeneca was actually watching us because they thought, again, this mechanism of action, so it’s basically, inhibiting a very key hormone that plays a role in hypertension, and they were very interested in this mechanism of action, possibly combine it with their SGLT2 for CKD patients.

Okay. So, you know, that discussion with AstraZeneca took almost a year to complete before they made they made an offer. But then You know, life in the biotech, as I said, is never easy. The second phase two study that we were doing in a less severe population, actually, it was a disaster. Okay. So everything, you know, basically the results were poor.

Not because the drug didn’t work, but essentially, the patient we enrolled and the centers that were used, even though they were the same center in the R2 T3 population, the, there was a lack of compliance in, yeah, in, in, in, in the study. So basically, the, the criteria for inclusion were not very well respected by, by centers.

And we had a huge placebo effect. So after years, it was, I think, One of the worst studies ever seen in with a placebo effect of 16 millimeter for mercury. We’ve never seen that before in any study. So it was an entire disaster. So, so crazy how, okay. But the good news was because we, we, we, we had taken, you know, blood samples of of the patient at baseline and at the end of the study, we were able to demonstrate, you know, over time that, again, it was, it had nothing to do with the drug.

It was really poor execution of of the trial by the, by the, you know, by the centers. And that actually nothing went wrong, by the way. We shared it with the FDA, the FDA, the phase two meeting. did recognize the same thing and AstraZeneca was able to, to, to complete the transaction. 

Philip Hemme: It must be really hard also to frame the story or even explain.

I mean, usually the phase two results are kind of the headlines or like, oh yeah, it’s what it is. And then it’s like arguing and every biotech when there’s a like, say, or like a low result, they try to argue. But at least from my experience, it’s never that clear that it’s like. 

Marc de Garidel: Oh, sure. I mean, when we announced the result, the stock went down by nearly 50%.

But again, we, you know, because we, I have a very good scientific team who are also by great opinion leaders. We should, because we had such amazing results in this hard to treat population. Everybody knew. It was not making sense, it would not work in a less severe population, right? Because if it works for a very young population, it can’t.

And it had something to do with, you know, the design of the study or the way it was conducted. So anyway, just to say, yeah, we went from, you know, going up, then we crashed, and then we came back. And then, you know, Araz, you know, boss and in the context of competition, because there was another company that was, that would’ve been interested probably to, to, to get bought.

But you know, in the end 

Philip Hemme: did you do also out bidding process there? 

Marc de Garidel: So we had some discussion with a few a few, companies. But I think some of them were a bit, you know shaken by the you know, the early population results. So they decided to pass. Okay. 

[00:20:48] Lessons on compliance analysis

Philip Hemme: But I’m curious about this, on the, on the compliance analysis from the clinical trial.

What were your lessons there? What would you Let’s say, do differently. 

Marc de Garidel: Yeah, well, I think what you, you learn is, is that which by the way applies to, to Abilax I said to the team here. is, the discipline of conducting a trial is extremely important. You have to, there is a balance between quality and speed, right?

And the danger that we all have in this industry is because of money reasons and, you know, the time it takes to develop drugs is to go very fast. And when you want to go very fast, you go to centers. Breaks. Well. You know, they are not they are not cheating on purpose, you know, that’s not what I’m saying.

But their standards may not be as high as you want, or what the doctors do is that they don’t, you know, pay the same level of attention when they, you know, recruit the patients to some of the criteria. And you know, so the lesson for, for us, for RabiVax is, we have to work on the placebo effect in these studies, and part of it, He’s having MSRs to, to, you know, to help, train the the centers so that they target the right type of patients.

And to do, you know, sometimes audits of the centers extensively so that again, those sensors are not enrolled if they don’t if their discipline is not as high as as we would like to. 

Philip Hemme: And you will do, you do that or even the audits internally or then it’s also, I mean, I guess you’re working with a CRO.

Yeah. So 

Marc de Garidel: it usually is the CRO who does that for, for, for, for you or you can independently depending upon, you know, some, some companies. Do it independently, but the CRO can do that. I guess also you, you 

Philip Hemme: are very also careful in choosing your CRO, even like supervising 

Marc de Garidel: and where I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

And probably to me, the second lesson which we have applied actually here at at Amivax is we had a limited number of oversight, at Syncore. So we are fairly, you know, relying on, on the CRO. It was a good quality CRO, but nevertheless, We, we probably, you know, trip out too much. Yeah, yeah. And I 

Philip Hemme: guess with, with any kind of service providers, I mean, the, the, the way you manage the service provider makes also a huge difference.

Marc de Garidel: Yeah, but yes, I mean, but that I think we, we had in the relationship with the steering committee, we, we, we, we reused a number of things, but, I think still the key to me is you have to hire, you have to, you need to, when you are a small biotech company, you know, again, when you have been used to an outsourced model, you still need to make sure you have core competencies and, and some people you hire who have skin in the game who are on your side.

Yeah. You know, to review what the CRO is doing and, and the, and the centers makes sense. 

[00:24:09] What to do when the market is against you

Philip Hemme: Let’s, for the, so taking a step back to, to what you mentioned on doing IPO on Synco, at the period where you were one, the first or first only one of year, and now you did again with, with switching to AB bva. Yes.

Especially one of the only one this year, at least in this size, and I think was. It’s the biggest one of the French biotech ever on the NASDAQ. Even I compared data, I think in the last five years, at least must be the top five in Europe, even which is really impressive as well. How, how did you manage this when it’s like, how did you manage it when the, in both cases, the market was just not favorable and you still managed to push through it.

Marc de Garidel: I mean, Well, obviously, I mean, there are a number of factors at play. I think part of the success was already ingrained in the fact that in February of this year, the company had done a crossover round, attracting some top notch crossover fans. So I think there was a foundation of investors, deep pocket investors, U.

S. investors who knew well, you know, the story and were going to help back the, IPO story. But I think part of the reason we were successful is that, you know, we brought also a team on top of the existing team. We did a great job for this too. We brought much more us experience in the management team quickly.

You know, we did a strategic review within the two months. We laid out a plan, which is not, you know, six months plan, but we The seven year plan in terms of how we could exploit the potential of bifidimod, which is, you know, a very, very attractive drug, potentially, because it’s an oral treatment. It’s an immunomodulator, so it’s not like blocking one pathway for, for, for, for, for you know, for specific reasons.

So it helps probably reduce the risk of you know, safety, adverse events, issues, which we have seen, by the way, in phase two, where so far the profile has been, has been very good. So that, strategy with a great drug, great potential drug like this was, I think, you know, became a bit clearer to the, the, the, the, the financial community.

And then we were helped also by the fact that we released two year data on the drug. That was, oh, I think, you know, again, it’s not head to head the study, but this is the best ever seen in in ulcerative colitis. So I think the conjunction of, you know, having already some key investors upfront to have a management team that I think, you know, add the credibility in terms of the strategy, but also execution with some of the arina people who came in.

Plus the phase two data to your data, which was really best kind of best in class. combination, you know, the key elements were there for a successful IPO. Then, you know, the market, obviously, was, was not, was not good and actually got worse and worse because obviously you know, not, not only inflation, not only the Kremlin war, and then, you know, what happened in Gaza.

And in Israel, so we are, you know, certainly lucky to go through this this IPO, but, but, you know, you know, the conditions here were not. Not the best. And, and the price, you know, was, was not initially you know, we, we had a, a reaction, negatively reaction after the listing. There’s a listing, but now we’re essentially back where to the price of the IP.

So again, you go through this ation, but fundamentally what was important is to get the money to execute the phase three program in ulcerative colitis. To do the phase two, the in Crohns, in Crohns disease. and potentially develop a follow on product you know for the long term. Yeah, 

Philip Hemme: that’s, that’s because I want to go back to, to the, to the pivot was, with Sophie Nova coming in, you coming in, because In the IPO, I think you raised 200, over 200 million and, but before you raised, what was it from?

The stuff you never invested, I think was 150 and then debt on top in total was 500 million, if I’m correct on the numbers. 

Yeah, 

Marc de Garidel: so what we raised this year is 130 million euros. In, in, in February, we did, bank sorry, debt facility. In August 450, and then we raised you know, about 200 million euros net in the IPO.

So we raised, yeah, all together about 500 million, which, by the way, is in the top five, you know, in the world, you know, of biotech this year. Yes. And certainly, you know, the, the largest amount, not only in France, but also in Europe. Yeah. That’s impressive. Within a year, yeah. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: Can you go back to the, the story, I think?

I think I heard that, so know, played really a pivot or, yes, in course the, I don’t know if you call it a wheel launch, a we boots or let’s say a pivot. A pivot. Can you go a bit like specifically of what happened, how they contacted you or Sure. Everything fitted. 

Marc de Garidel: Sure. So again, you should go back a, a year, A year ago company again was planning to be sold after the phase two.

Unfortunately, it didn’t get get solved, and, as a result It had still now that it was moving to phase three with you know, a lot of potential commitment of you know, already 200 to 300 million euros. So company got into a severe situation where, you know, it had a good drug, but it was not well financed.

So Sofinoa. Partners played a role, 

Philip Hemme: they were a bit stuck, I guess they couldn’t run start the phase three the same time. Exactly. Hard to Exactly. 

Marc de Garidel: So they delayed a bit, the phase three as a result because they thought, you know, this is a good trial, so someone will show up and, you know, in the end nobody showed up.

So, so part of, of you know, the key role that, so partners played. Already a year ago was they said, okay, we need to reshape the way we operate we need to, to change the chairman. I mean, to have a chairman who has probably more experience in the phase three development program. And also because of the sheer scale up again, the complexities, we need to change the CEO to, to to address, you know, the complexity of a large large program.

And someone who can also help, you know, raise a large amount of money. So that’s where Sophien Auvard came in, in, in in essentially September out. And the rise would be for, well, yeah, yeah. So my story was was a bit of funny because when I got out of Sync Core, I should, you know, I announced the the deal at at GPM, and I said I was I’m dead.

I’m finished. I want to retire. So, I want to go back to Europe, because I was based in Boston before. I want to retire, you know. But, Sophie Nozad, part there, she came back and said, Oh, Mark, you know, can we do a bit of an excerpt? One more. No, no, not one more. I said, OK, you know, he’s Could you be a chairman of one of our companies?

So I said, well, being a chairman is obviously a different story. So that may be we have obviously a great story together. Why not? So I asked, you know, Antoine. Can you tell me, you know, what are your two top picks in your portfolio? Because I don’t want to do the, the, the work. But, please, please tell me what are the best companies in your portfolio where you are looking for a challenge.

So, Abivax was one of the two. And as I got into, you know, then the discussion with Kidam, who was on the board of Abivax, I was more and more attracted by, you know, the science. By what had been done by, you know, this sort of turnaround that needed to be, to be, to be done. And my conclusion, which I expressed to Kylian, was at the end, I think, you know, you’d be better off having me as CEO than the chairman.

Because, you know, there is very little time for this company for a turnaround, given the fact that, you know, the fact it’s not well financed. Field 3 has started, but it’s not really going, you know, it’s fast enough. So, you need someone to execute, to, to, to execute, and I’m willing to do that. Okay. So I changed my mind.

Philip Hemme: And so you, you sold yourself to do it again. 

Marc de Garidel: Exactly. Exactly. But I have no regret. So so, so it’s you know, it’s a great, it’s a great undertaking. You know, we can possibly change, you know, the fate of of patients in the long term in this, setting. You know, this is very, very unique.

Now, there are always risk when you, clinical development. And, but you know, it’s a wonderful opportunity. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. That’s a, that’s a main story. And I’m quite impressed by how quickly you executed also since joining, I mean, raising this kind of rounds of even changing or hiring more, most like some more us based C levels.

I mean, it seems like you went very fast. Yes. What’s like, what’s like, how did you manage to go like that fast? 

Marc de Garidel: Oh, I think it’s when you have experience, you know, the tempo, I think you’re going to, if you look back at Syncore, Syncore was already you know, managed in a very I think at least, you know, overall, yeah, efficient way.

So, you know, once you’ve done the analysis of what is the challenge of the company, the biotech, then it’s more, you know, are you convinced the board on one hand to get the resources you need? And, and two, to put the process in place so that you, you know, you get the money you, you need to execute, which was which was easy, the IPO and then put in place a team that will be ultimately responsible.

And I think where also I got some help is that Sofinova and the board attracted in in in the spring, so in, in March Sheldon Sloan, who was you know, the person who ran the arena studies. He’s a. The UC study at so at Arena, which ultimately got bought by, by, by Pfizer. So Charlotte had a great understanding of how to run, you know, a large phase three illustrative grade program.

So, and we both 

Philip Hemme: independently, well, 

Marc de Garidel: independently, yeah, he came before me. Even though I actually, I was part of the process indirectly of because I, I was, you know, being considered to as a chairman. So they asked me to, to speak with him, even though he didn’t know that I was going to be ultimately the CEO, he thought I was going to be the chairman, but yeah, so it was part of this process.

But the fact that we, we had people we knew and then we tracked it, you know. bunch of people very quickly. Yeah. So we didn’t need to go through, you know, headhunters and, you know, all the gyration of normal recording because we knew people in the field could you know, be able to, to execute such a complex track.

That’s good. 

Philip Hemme: I mean, I guess what also, it helps too, as you said, to have gone through it and I mean, I guess massive network as well. Yes, exactly. From the . 

Marc de Garidel: Yeah. 

[00:36:08] Phase II compared to standard of care

Philip Hemme: That’s great. The, for the, for the clinical results I’m curious on if we can go a bit more into the, the science and slash the clinics.

Because, I mean, in, in UC or even in IBD, I mean, there’s still, at least in IBD, there’s quite a lot of drugs also, like, around, I mean, Can you go a bit on how, like, how good how good were the Phase II, how it compares to, to the standard of care? I was like, sure, what’s in development, like, and sure. 

Marc de Garidel: So I think, again, first you know, to help a bit understand the, the, the setting.

So when you have ulcerative colitis, you know, the first, the symptoms you have as a patient, you have, rectal bleeding. You go very frequently, you know, you need to go to the bathroom very often including at night. And then, gastroenterologist who treat you ask you to do you know, sort of a coloscopy to check.

You, you know, the, the lining of your the tro of your intestine is being altered by you know, many ulcers or not. So from that sort of, conjunction of looking at those three elements, there is a score that is being, you know, sort of used by, by the gastroenterologist to, to assess the severity of your, of your, of your disease.

So, and this is a population, again, for mostly people are diagnosed between 20 and 40 years old, so it’s a very, it affects a really young population. So what happens is, for the treatment, usually what happens, you get a five ASA, so that’s sort of an old you know, generic compound that is, that start to stabilize your disease for a little while.

But very often, after a few months, or maybe a year or two, you know, disease continues to, to, to progress. The, the doctors start to put you on corticosteroids. Corticosteroids. They are, again, good to move to against a flare up. So when you have a peak of inflammation, however, if you prescribe corticosteroids in, in the long term, it can affect, you know, the really the.

And then massive side effects, systemic side effects. Yeah, systemic, like diabetes and and, you know, increases the risk of death and so on. So doctors really want an alternative. So before we talk about Obesosimod, until now, what happened was mostly you had what they call, you know, advanced treatments or biotherapies, which were, you know, anti TNF.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The anti the IL 23, I mean, the, RIVOX, the Jack ones. All those drugs add, add their utilities, but they face a few challenges. One is some of them have black box safety warnings. Because they have some serious, you know, adverse events in terms of either, affecting the human system and therefore, being more prone to infections or causes cardiac problems.

Some of them have, more recently, who are, who have arrived, like the S1P, the Ozanimod from BMS, which is the first real potential oral treatment before RINVOC has pre initiation requirements so you need to ocular exam because you have the risk of loss of vision up to 30%. So Essentially, you have a lot of drugs out there, some are highly effective for a while, but then over time, either their efficacy starts to wane, or two, the side effects, the adverse events start to show up and they are really problematic, which forces doctors to change treatment for patients.

So Obifazimod. Even the phase 2 resource we have seen is ideally placed now as what we call a first line or advanced therapy agent. Why? Because we think we could be well placed after again 5 assays and corticosteroids, but before all these advanced therapies would generate their own set of challenges.

And, and the profile of a Bephazine Morality is such that when you look at the Phase II result, is that first, after eight weeks, it’s, it has a competitive response for patients. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s really in the landscape of all, all the other drugs. But then over time, after one year, two years, you see this lasting efficacy that we don’t see with many of the other.

The three years data. The three years data, yeah. You know, you have, you know, If you take the, the, the, the, the patients who were enrolled at, at the beginning of the study, two years later, regardless of the profile of those patients, you know, 50 percent of them are still controlled. If you take now the patients who responded after eight weeks, So two thirds of these patients are controlled after two years.

I mean, I mean, no one, you know, again, it’s not, it’s not, we cannot claim superiority because we don’t have head to head, but in, in absolute terms of any published studies, we have the best response. And this is what was presented at the recent Congress at UEGW, which is basically the gastro week for Europe in Copenhagen, where we were, you know, in the second, in the, in the, Session new kids on the block, so basically new product and our data was judged.

as, you know, the best abstract, because simply, you know, it is, it is the best that are out there you know, so that’s why I think Obifazimod has a very important role to play and to finish just on a safety front, you know, because doctors are, you know, this is a chronic condition, doctors are obviously very worried about it.

About the safety of that patient. So what we have seen is we have treated more than a thousand patients now, and we have, we haven’t seen any opportunistic infections. We have any, we have not seen cancer, which could be you know certainly a risk when you you know, depresses you the immune system.

Nothing of this nature so far and that’s more than a thousand patients. So again, we thought it could be, so, so, so we think again, this drug could be a very important for the doctors. 

[00:42:51] IBD and the microbiome

Philip Hemme: I’m curious about, you see an IBD, I mean, it’s very tight to the microbiome. Yes. It’s down. So how does it connect, let’s say, to microbiome or even to microbiome drugs, or even lifestyle biotherapeutics?

I mean. More from a alternative way to treat it like, yeah. 

Marc de Garidel: So it’s a new mechanism of action. So what it does, it upregulates. So model in itself upregulates a key molecule, which is called mere 1 24. So micro, yeah, yeah. 1 24. And it’s very sim specific to immune cells. So what microRNA 1 24 does is essentially, you know, we’ve proven that in, you know, in the in preclinical experiments.

Is if you take a a mice, that with immunity is okay, so with no IBD you’ll see you, you, you administer od you see no impacts. On, on, on the, on the on the on the cells of, of, of those those m mice. When you take a a, a mice, who has the ulcerative colitis, so it’s called a DSS model.

What you see when you administer a, of a FuzzyMod, you see the production of of microRNA you know, ac accelerating, and basically regulating, you know, different pathways so that essentially the inflammation that is caused by psoriatic colitis, this is tampered by by you know, microRNA. So microRNA 124.

He’s essentially a regulator of of of you know, the information process. And what’s wonderful, it doesn’t block, you know, everything. It’s just you know, controls it. And it’s, you know, pleiotropic in the sense. That means it’s a physiological, you know reduction of inflammation throughout, for example, you know, the IL 17 pathway, the IL 23, you know and the macrophages, for example.

So it’s a, it’s a more subtle, I would say, way to, to, to, to reduce inflammation than, boom, you know, you just attack one, one pathway, which is great in the short term, but because of the, you know, the, the, the body, your, your redundance. You know, then ultimately the body finds a way to, to, to to, to, to do the information as one of the pathway.

Philip Hemme: And I guess that’s, that explains, I mean, the small subtle way and yes, explains also why it lasts longer in the safety profile. Exactly. Exactly. But still on this, on the cause, because at the end. The cause is still more micro microbiome. We are, we are not, we are not fixing the cause, we’re fixing the symptoms.

Marc de Garidel: We are fixed. We are fixed. We are, yeah, we’re controlling the disease. We’re, we are not, we’re not addressing, you know, fundamentally the the origin. Which, by the way, it 

Philip Hemme: makes sense to address, I mean, not for you specifically, but let’s say in the current development to actually address it directly. 

Marc de Garidel: Yeah, I mean, there are, well, there’s been a lot of companies who have tried, it’s extremely difficult because, you know, the understanding of IBD, especially, let’s say, if you take a user centric crisis, it’s based upon polyconjunction of things.

One, it could be genetics, so it could be some mutation, possibly. Two, it could be hormonal, too. If a disorder in hormones could also accelerate. And three, it’s also the lifestyle. When you eat, you know, things that are preconditioned, with a lot of you know, sort of bad things, you know, that ultimately accelerates the inflammation of your, of your of your body and your intestine, and then creates this this this, I mean.

So. The, the, the, the, you know, the science behind, IBD sources is still underway. There is a lot of, of work to be done in order to really fully address what what you are. Okay. 

Philip Hemme: Because I think, at least from my understanding, a lot of microbiome companies are going in IBD. Sure. But have not really managed.

Marc de Garidel: Well, microbiome is extremely complex, right? Because you have, you know, billions of of bugs that are as their utilities, which one are the ones that you want to, to, to, you know, are fighting and stuff. Yeah. And it’s a very recent, it’s a very recent field. And unfortunately, until now, until now, it has not been really highly successful.

[00:47:27] Microbiome therapeutics

Philip Hemme: I like this. Okay. I like the, the, the complimentary of, okay, this. It’s a microbiome therapeutics that can cause, I mean, can fix the cause, but it’s like, it’s a longer term horizon. But at the same time, we need also even more small molecules in the first line that can be taken easily 

Marc de Garidel: or a long time. Yeah.

Philip Hemme: That’s like, because that’s one thing I was also wondering, even if we zoom out a bit, Corvidia Zinco and Abivax are all small molecules. I was 

wondering what’s your feeling there if you just look from a, let’s say, small molecules versus biologicals, or like more complex cells, gene, cell, what do you How do you see it?

Like, what’s your, 

Marc de Garidel: I mean, different modalities have their own values. So it depends upon the disease and what you want to do. So I don’t think one should say it’s one versus the other. I think it depends on the a bit of the circumstances of the disease and what you’re, what you’re trying to address.

But one thing we forgot to mention is, for example, for the future of IBD is a combination therapy. So a bit like in oncology where You know, when you basically combine different mechanism of action to essentially to to find a better solution for our patients. So we, we believe based also on the feedback of our key opinion leaders around the world, they told us Obifazimod with this you know, sort of unique mechanism of action could lend itself.

With other products that are out there and they can complement each other, maybe by, you know, doing some of these highly effective drugs. Maybe that those could be reduced. You could add, which is on top or you could start with one of those these drugs and they put In maintenance. So there could be, you know, the variety of combination that could be very helpful to to to, to patients.

So this is one thing that we’re start going to start actually preclinical experiments right now. And hopefully we’ll have results of those combination in the course of 2020, four by the end of 24, so that in 25, once we have the induction data. Hopefully, you know, very positive data, we can start doing combo work as well.

Philip Hemme: Okay. Okay. Now, that’s, I mean, I like your approach of not necessarily opposing small molecules versus modality because I feel, I mean, quite a lot of biotechs, I guess maybe because they come from the science, they’re very focused on the platform, on their like modality and will compare it to the rest.

When, I think, at the end of the day, what tends to matter more is, okay, what are your, yeah, what are your data, yeah, 

Marc de Garidel: and what are you serving for, yeah, sure, yeah, I think that the challenge, for example, with cell therapy and gene therapy is, cell therapy is more the production, this process of manufacturing is extremely difficult to do, and the time it takes to, to, to, to do that for those patients in the context of some acute disease, and then gene therapy, I think the next challenge is, as you know, It’s been, you know, what is, you know, everybody thought, you know, you do one injection, you’re done, you’re, you’re fixed for the rest of your life.

Well, turns out that it’s not that simple, unfortunately. Seems also to have a waning effect over time, that’s one. And two, you have the, the safety side. of which, which, what is the support of you know, which you know, virus or what, which, what is the platform of your gene therapy? There are different platforms.

Yeah. So that you know, when it is administered to patients, you don’t also create some, some adverse events that are not not welcome. So, yeah, I mean, again, science, it’s is always in evolution. So you need to learn and need to be open about different avenues. 

[00:51:20] Why is 70% of the market in the US?

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s it. On the Just a question about on the, more on the market of where’s the markets very connected to Avivax, but also more a bit more of a general question.

I think if I’m wrong, that one of the press mentioned that 70 percent of the markets for Avivax is in the U. S. Yes. 

And I feel us, I mean, is, is it, is it because there’s more patient there from it’s, or it’s more just from a marketer policy from a reimbursement policy. Yes. 

Marc de Garidel: Yeah, so in the U. S., for example, I’ll give you some numbers.

Yeah, in the U. S., there are about 800, 000 patients who have ulcerative colitis. When we look at the population we can address, we think we can address about 25 percent of those, because they would not be, they would be Either, you know, already, once they have finished their first conventional therapy treatment, or we could get switched from current, you know, advanced therapy treatment where they fail, or they have too much side effects.

So that’s about 200, 000. In the U. S., just to give you an idea, the price of treatment, the net price, after rebate to the PBMs, is about 50, 000 per year per patient. So it’s, it’s a, so if you multiply what we think, you know, is a potential, the addressable population for us out of the 800, 000, we think we could have about 25%, patients.

Times 50 times 50, 000, that’s a 10 billion market opportunity. So, so, you know, that’s why we, we, we think, again, provided we can show again in phase 3 what we’ve seen in phase 2. You know, this is a 10 billion market opportunity, so we are not going to get to see all the market. But, you know. 10%. It’s already been.

And this is only a s ulcerative colitis. The, the market in Europe, in terms of patient is actually slightly higher. But as you know, that the challenge in Europe, our prices have been going down and down and down, and government are all reluctant to pay, you know, SD for, for, for big innovation. So, yeah, the US is 70% of the, of the market.

Philip Hemme: So. So it’s, if it’s, if it’s 10 billion, so what is it in, in Europe would be two or 3 billion potential 

Marc de Garidel: market. Yeah. The, the Europe is about 20% of, of the, yeah. 

Philip Hemme: And what do you think about this from the, if you reflected, I mean you’ve mentioned already that’s, it’s, it’s hard in, in Europe or for, let’s say for biotechs to get the innovation finance.

How do you reflect on this? I mean, I think for, for me, what I see is, I mean that’s, that’s kind of a fact. But I think it’s very, makes it very challenging for European biotechs to actually, let’s say access the market or forces them to go after the US market, which is not necessarily that easy of a talent location access to capital.

Yes. So what’s your, like, yeah, what do you, do you think about this situation? 

Marc de Garidel: Well, I think the, the, so if you are a biotech in Europe and you have a good drug, you know, you can start indeed the experiments in, in, in Europe, but, but quickly you need to take a look at the U S market. And because this is where, you know, in general, most of the opportunity is going to be.

And also this is where most of the sophisticated investors and deep pocket investors are. So. It means that for, for you know, the management of biotech, the need to have CEOs and management team with Europe slash US experience is becoming more and more more and more important. Otherwise, what would happen is if you can do that and what you have to do as a biotech in Europe, you have to partner quickly with, with you know, a big pharma company.

It is going to do the job for you in the US and we’ll do it obviously very well. But you know, obviously the value creation is very different if you do a partnership very early as a small biotech versus later when you get the benefits of having, you know, produced you know, good results and and having partly address again, the challenge of the of the US market.

Philip Hemme: I’m thinking maybe also from, from a, from a policy point of view, I mean. Talking Europe or even in France about financing innovation a lot and more on the financing side a lot in the early stage side. But there’s a market that’s not there. 

Marc de Garidel: Yeah, no, the irony in the end. I mean, I was recently, doing a speech at the Ministry of Finance here in France, I think, three weeks ago.

You know, part of exactly the irony is that Europe helps, you know, the foundation of the small biotech. At the early stage, I think, there is a really good process, good, good help, and they are, you know, good investors. The challenge is as soon as you go into more intense, you know, clinical trials, funding requirements, and so on.

Then, unfortunately, because there is less money available in, in, in Europe, you need to go to the U. S. And, and and then, because of the cost of, of doing those trials, the return that I expected by investors are such that today, and mostly it is you know, it is in the U. S., it’s the U. S. system that rewards innovation.

So, you know, many of the CEOs of, large pharma companies, including, you know, European, like You know, Pascal Souriau, the last at Nomadis have said, you know, the European system needs really to, to, to rethink itself in order to adopt, you know, innovation in the long term because the risk If we don’t do that, you know, you’re going to have the haves and the have nots.

Philip Hemme: Yeah, and I mean, if the, if the market rewards less innovation as well, means, in a way, less returns, means less investors. 

Marc de Garidel: Exactly. I guess it’s a society choice, I mean. Yeah, yeah, these are, again, they are complicated, they are complicated issues, but, you know, our role, at least as a leader in the industry, is just to give the heads up that, you know, there are consequences to what, So what you know, public, you know, politicians do and we again, you know, are, we, we are here also to try to help find solutions, but there is, you know, they need to, to, to reward the people who take risks, right?

Because it’s a very hard industry. It’s very hard to develop drugs. You know, a lot of them fail. And you know, so there’s a few that are making it to the finish line, you know, should should be a reward. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. I mean, it’s, I guess it’s a very complex decision, even on the political level. But I, 

I feel like it’s not really the same proving, at least I’ve seen in France or even in Germany, that a lot of even innovative drugs are even withdrawn from certain markets in Europe, even though they’re already approved for, for more for pricing and market access and while they’re already in US.

Yeah. 

But let’s see, let’s see how it evolves. 

[00:59:07] The best way to sell a company is to make a great product

Philip Hemme: Maybe more on the, on, on your, more on the personal, your story, like, so, I’m, I’m curious if, on both Corvidia, Syncor, even Abivax, is, was it already your plan to go in and, let’s say, not flip, let’s say, but like, exit pretty early, or was it more like, opportunity based depending on what, what happened?

No, I, 

Marc de Garidel: you know, I think the, the fundamental of, What we do is develop good drugs. So, I, I am actually absolutely, you know, I’m trying to preach that the best way actually to, to, to sell a company, like a great product, is to make a great product and to have, and to believe it is a great product. You don’t control, you know, a CEO.

You don’t control what a big pharma is going to do. People will think it’s easy to, to do a dr You know, this, this is one of the, the hardest thing to do. So the only thing you have tool you control is, is to develop a good drug and, and think long term. Think about, you know, what this drug could be in three in six years.

And then you need to to, to rally everyone. Including the investors to support the program so that the drug needs to be well differentiated where I, you know, part of my criteria when I have looked at, at drugs is differentiation. You, you can’t bring, you know, drugs that are me toos of me toos and me toos you know, the system cannot serve.

I still am convinced that bringing something that makes a difference to patients and that doctors would, would like to prescribe, that’s why we are in this business. So fundamentally, you know, I’m sort of a, like, a bit like we in buffet type of, of person in the sense that you, you need to create things you know, that are tangible that are going to help patients.

And then whether you do it with GI or not. This is, to some extent, secondary because it’s a, it’s a mean to the consequence, it’s a consequence. And I refute, and I think, you know, my judgment, the best CEOs are this way. People who want to make money quickly on, on technology, okay. If you’re lucky, yes, you can make it and make maybe a huge amount of money.

But this is really more the exception than the rule and probably it is not good because what you do when you’re too short term oriented You know, you try to hide things or you don’t give up the drug as well. Yeah, and And ultimately that’s not good for patients. So I think fundamentally what we are here for develop good drugs Companies I know are bought and are not sold No one, no one can tell, so I didn’t come to say, okay, I’m going to sell, you know, in one year.

I had no idea. The only thing I know, you need to develop well drag. You need to do it with tempo and quality. And this is you know, the sort of the combination of the two, which is the hardest thing to do. And you can, you could see Zincore on one hand, we did wonderful. We still, you know, blew up one study.

At the end of the day, we had a great outcome for, for, you know. 

Philip Hemme: I like that. I like to, I like it a lot actually. Actually it’s a great transition to, when I talk to Bomi, we actually from, from Sphinx, she said the first time she met you, you gave her, she said, he gave me faith in humanity. So I thought it was very, like, very nice compliment.

I was waiting to meet you. But from what we discussed, I think. I can see where it’s coming. I like this, like, in some very caring and focusing really on the patient and the problem to solve. Yes. And then the rest. 

Marc de Garidel: Yes, with Marvolo, and exactly. And then probably because maybe I’m not smart enough to the other way around.

No, but I think fundamentally that’s why we are, we are four. And that’s, you know, when you when you are, you know, building a company. You know, you’re attracting people who want to have a, a, a, a mission. Yes, money is obviously important. Everyone wants to make money for sure. At the end of the day You know, if you don’t do anything meaningful when you come every day to the office, you know, what is your you know, what, what, what, what’s your role?

What’s your, you know? So I think this is where, you know, the, the, you know, it’s a kind of a passion and you need to do like that and some people do, some don’t, 

[01:03:48] Find people who inspire you

Philip Hemme: but. I mean, I don’t think, yeah, I mean, what, I don’t think it’s, I mean, a lot of people in the industry do, especially in, I would say, in the biotech industry, maybe more than in some big pharma where it tends to be, maybe.

Bit more diluted at least from my experience, but not all big pharma are like this. There are a lot of people who care also on this pharma. But I’m curious on your side, maybe if you can zoom out even, let’s say where, where did it like originated? Is it like something that you had from very young or you cultivated or some experience you were confronted to that?

Marc de Garidel: I think it’s probably hard to say. I think it’s partly you see when you are, you know, I was raised on a farm and I was raised, you know, in a sort of in an environment where things were, you know, sort of difficult. So I think what you learn is, yeah, life is not simple and everything you do, You know, it takes time to, to, to to do things.

But I think the, the, the, the, probably the generosity comes more from, I think, from my mother who was a very kind person and and tried to help actually poor people. So maybe I have a bit of, a few genes from, from that. But I think the, honestly, it’s a bit of the luck of, you know, if you ask me whether I would be in this position 40 years ago, I would have said never, even 20 years ago.

So. You know, life takes turns, you know, I think the importance also of meeting key people, people who are, you know, who will help you grow, in your career. You know, that’s also what I say when you’re looking for a new job. Think about, you know, the manager, your, your to me, the company is one thing.

Yeah. There is a job is a manager. You have, because the manager can help you grow or can destroy you or can make you indifferent. But, so you, you do love this kind of skills because you get inspired. You see some people who are, who are very, very you know, they’re charismatic or doing things. And by the way, you know, this principle of do the right thing and then money will come.

This was, you know, the first time I heard that was one of was the CEO of American Express. He was in Paris. He attended his, his conference and Amex became, you know, one of the most successful company at the time. You know, again, 40 years ago. And he said, you know, always. You know, don’t think about money, think as an executive, think about building something tangible.

Philip Hemme: It’s funny for a financial company, right? Yeah, yeah, 

Marc de Garidel: yeah, but well, but he did a remark, it’s 

Philip Hemme: even more important. He did, 

Marc de Garidel: yeah. Yeah, but, you know, look at some people who have done a remark, it’d be well, it’s gonna get Warren Buffett, I think. You know, you need to have a mission, you need to have something in which you believe.

And then, you know, the luck of life is that sometimes you meet some people who are going to encourage you and, and give you this this, this this thing, so, 

Philip Hemme: and, I mean, I like that as well, that’s, that’s a precondition from your family from your origins, and then also connecting to the right people.

But I guess this, this precondition also led you to admire or to work. with the people I’m going through. I mean, you went through, I’d say, bigger Pharma or bigger I think at Amgen and then Ipsen, and you still have this like deep care and, and mission, which is, yeah, it’s amazing. Maybe as a, as a last question still on the personal, actually, I know your son after you actually, I didn’t, I didn’t mention when he was running his co founding a biotech here in Boston and he’s all the co founder.

So we, we talked once, but I’m curious on, with such like intense career and high, high level position in between two continents, how did you like balance, let’s say, more personal life and how you, how do you approach it? 

Marc de Garidel: I think it’s also part of luck. He’s he’s been lucky to, to, to meet a wonderful wife who’s been very understanding with you know, with he has the pace of my career.

But also what I think you can only be successful in your pri in your professional career, I think, if you have also some balance, you know, outside. So some people, you know, take that in different ways and do sports, they do, you know, the thing. But I think if for, at least in the long term, I think, you know, personally having a family, a strong foundation of having kids, always again brings you back to, to reality.

Because when, when you come home, Who cares, you know, whether you’re a CEO or not. You still have to do certain things. You still have to cook sometimes. You still have to, to, to, to, And that gives you, again, this, this, this balance that I think is, is, is, is, is essential. So, you know, yes, I’ve been, again, lucky at home.

I had a good a good person with me and who has a very understanding, who helped me also, you know, tells me also sometimes where, what I do wrong and what I should do more. But yeah, you, you need the balance. You need to, to do things, you know, to relax as well. Yeah. The intensity of there’s a big danger, especially, you know, when you are on CEO job is important versus urgency.

You always get, you know, the guarding files every day when you come in the office. There always when you, and you know, something pops up. But, but as CEO, you are paid not only to resolve the, the, the s but really fundamentally to shake. You know, the future and to alter the course of the company you’re running.

And this can only be done if, at times, you step back, you get out of this crazy world. And you think, you know, you know, what do I need to, to make with, you know, with the team you know, to, to change the course and to make a real difference in, in what what you know, what you do as a, as a company.

So it requires a bit of discipline, but it’s important, you know, like on the weekend to relax and try to avoid to, to watch, you know. All the time, you know, I, you know, I see your iPhone, because the pressure is, is, is constant, but stepping back. I like that. 

Philip Hemme: I share it as well for running a company, I can second this as well.

Yeah. It was great. I think, yeah, it was great talking to you. I think it was actually the, the first time you, you’re on the English podcast, or at least in the recent years, at least talking with Avi Vax, which I think is great as well for the audience. I’ve seen you on French TV or plenty, but I think for, for the audience, at least in Europe and the US, who don’t speak French, I think it’s great as well.

Thanks a lot for joining again, and good luck for everything. 

Marc de Garidel: Thank you, Kai.

[01:10:45] Thanks for listening

Philip Hemme: Thanks for listening to the end. I really enjoyed the conversation with Mark. It was super inspiring, especially how his mindset behind all these like exits, IPOs, how he focused on the core product, on the long term, and how everything else follows. If you Enjoy the conversation, please hit the like, follow button or even leave a review if you’re on podcast.

Any of these actions would, would help us a lot. And I would be also curious to hear what you think. So please leave it in the comments below of this post or send me an email to philip at flot. bio. Alright, that’s it for now. Catch you in the next episode.

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