[00:00:00] Intro
Regina Hodits: It’s an amazing success for Europe that we actually have funds of the size of a Phovion and also of a Cheeta. But what’s still important is that we actually keep a vibrant ecosystem, and we see actually those mega funds also make fundraising for the smaller funds not easier. But now it’s really about democratizing that and making sure that the supply of institutional money is there to really feed the industry.
Philip Hemme: How hot is the biotech market right now from one to 10?
Regina Hodits: The rare disease segment we like is red hot, 10, and the average, I would say, seven. But if you look at the company creation side, you just need to hit it big, and then Moderna happens, then everything looks different. And if you’re more like where we are in the series A, series B scenario, you’re out of the pray and spray.
You cannot do that. The tickets are getting too big.
Philip Hemme: bienvenue to a new episode. I’m your host, Philip, and on The Flood Bio Show we interview the best Europeans in biotech to help you grow. One of the best female biotech investors in Europe is Regina Hodets. She has been investing in biotech for over 20 years, including at Atlas Ventures, Wellington, and now Engine Ventures, and she has a really strong track record.
So I met with Regina while we were both in Basel for a week of biotech events. I’ve known her for almost a decade, and it’s always a pleasure to catch up. We talked about Engine Ventures, and why there’s never been that much money in biotech in Europe, yet much more is still needed. We also talked about why rare diseases are red hot right now, and why networking is a critical skill for anyone in the industry.
Before we start, here’s a quick word from our sponsor, Avance Life Sciences. They hosted the reception where we actually recorded the episode. Avance is Europe’s leading financial advisory firm dedicated exclusively to life sciences. For over 20 years, they have helped biotech and pharma companies raise money, close deals, and value assets.
I can highly recommend them. To learn more, click on the link in the description below. So now, here’s my conversation with Regina, and please hit the like and follow button if you’re enjoying it.
Welcome to the show with you.
Regina Hodits: Thanks so much for having me.
Philip Hemme: Good. Pretty cool view, no?
Regina Hodits: Absolutely. It’s great to be in Basel. Basel is the Boston of Europe,
Philip Hemme: no? No. The nice wash towers.
[00:02:33] From Wellington Partners to Angelini Ventures
Philip Hemme: Let’s start with with Angelini Ventures.
And I realize it’s already one half years you have been there, and I have to say, when you send me this, the email at Red Transition, I was quite surprised that I did, and I’ve heard that you have been quite busy.
So can you tell me a bit more about
Regina Hodits: that? Absolutely. Absolutely. When transitioning out of Wellington Partners, a firm that I’ve helped build for over 15 years, and handing that over to the new generation- the last thing I was looking for was a 120% job. But actually, opportunities come, and sometimes you have to take them.
And so it’s been a hell of a journey in the last 18 months, I have to say, but it’s been amazing to see what the colleagues had already started to build at Angelini Ventures in the about two and a half years before I joined, and what we’ve actually accomplished in the last three and a half years, and I’m actually pretty pr- proud that I can tell you a few of the things that we’ve achieved.
[00:03:29] Freedom In A €300M Evergreen Fund
Philip Hemme: Yeah. Go, for it, because I saw it’s a €300 million evergreen funds. EIV puts also, I think, 75 on top, as a co-investment and you’ve already invested quite a bit of that fund. Can you say a bit more on yeah, how you position yourself versus the other b- corporate venture funds, versus the other VCs, like?
Regina Hodits: Absolutely. I When I, was actually looking for my next thing to do, I was actually looking for freedom. A fund is a very controlled environment, and especially the funds in Europe by now, they have so many restrictions by the geographies that they should invest in, the stage that they should invest in the exit timelines that their investors expect.
And what was really great when actually Paolo De Giorgio, who actually set up the fund, and Tania Daho, who runs our health tech investments, and they approached me about two years back by now, a bit more than two years back, said, “Listen, we would love to expand our venture business in general, and we need somebody with a good biotech background.
And do you know some people?” And in the end, we started to talk, and actually after listening to what they had to offer, I signed up, because it is an unencumbered mandate to invest in innovation globally, without any strings- Yeah … from a pot of money that sits within an investment firm. So basically, we don’t have the typical fund duration- we would actually like to have also more LPs- Okay
but that’s one story here. Yeah. But in principle, the money that we had, the initial 300 million evergreen portion, comes with basically no strings apart from that our owners want us to become a venture firm or sorry, an investment firm more broadly, that is actually there for the long run. With a good view on innovation in healthcare on a global level, that actually invests in innovation that really matters, that makes a difference for the patients going forward.
And we see this very much as a starting point for our journey. Okay. And this is how you actually should look at the EIB, also co-investment facility that we set up. So this is another 150 million on top. So we by now, in addition to the exit returns that we already have, are managing close to 500 million.
Philip Hemme: Okay.
Regina Hodits: And our intent is to really grow that also over the lifetime, both organically, by the money that we will return hopefully from our investment, but also by adding to what we are doing right now.
Philip Hemme: Okay.
Regina Hodits: With money from the outside. And as you said, what’s the difference? Corporate VC indus- industrial V- like institutional VC, and also what we do at Angelini Ventures.
So pretty much look at us like an HBM in the making. Yeah. Although we have no intent to go public. Okay. I think it is a difficult model to, to be, as we see from some of our colleagues out there. But it is in principle a dedicated pot of money that’s there to invest in innovation- Okay … that’s supposed to make a return, and that is there to invest in the long run.
And you see us also doing investments that range from our startup studio activities in AlgoBio, up to Epic CRISPR, which is basically a deal that we did where a lot of the crossover funds came in already this summer with the intent to also be part of a universe that can stay with the companies until they go public.
[00:06:31] CNS, Rare Disease and Oncology: Key Strengths
Philip Hemme: Fine. What, I’m curious is what you describe is- I mean, it sounds amazing. Sounds amazing for European biotech. There’s definitely a need. There’s been more cash. What I’m wondering is just from a focus point of view 300 million or even 500 million is, quite a lot, but also not that much if you are spread too thin.
Are you also geographically? How do you- Good point … look at this again?
Regina Hodits: That’s a good point. Yeah. I think wi- with every money that you manage you need to have a very clear investment strategy.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah.
Regina Hodits: So that’s definitely something we do, and yes, we do health tech out of that. So our colleagues on the health tech side, they have their own strategy, and we can cover that maybe in another episode- Yeah.
with Tanya. They do a lot of really cool stuff on connected devices, very much focusing also on propositions where there is already a commercial traction. Yeah. And that helps us also to return money faster as we- Yeah … did with the first exit in No- Noctrix that, we had in stimulation for restless leg syndromes.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: On the biotech side, you’ll see us pretty much investing from where the heritage of the people that set up the fund came from.
They come with a really strong neural background- Yeah … and with really strong development background. Yeah. So anything where there’s an idea of a product or already a starting point of a product that has anything to do with neural, this is where we are really good.
This is where we know what we’re doing. And in that, and also more broader than that, what we’ve defined is that we’re really looking for targeted patient populations. And in the neural space, that leads us to the rare diseases- Yeah … both in the central side, diseases that have a CNS manifestation, could be neurodeve- Yeah
developmental, could be anything that has some seizures associated with it, like the investment in ALD that we did with Bolia last December, or that could also be things in the neuromuscular side, like the epi CRISPR story that I- Yeah … that I mentioned to you. So that’s close to home. Leads us also in general to rare diseases, and you may have read the announcement on the HTT side.
Yeah. This is a company build that we do together with BGV, who were already invested there first, and then Korma joined. We have several other investors joining us on that journey. That basically came out of this knowledge on rare diseases, the new regulatory paths that we
Philip Hemme: deploy. Rou- Rouge, or Rouge Thera- Therapeutics.
Rouge
Regina Hodits: Therapeutics, yeah. And so this is one that we really liked be- and that came out of that-
Philip Hemme: Okay …
Regina Hodits: Focus on the rare disease side. On the larger indications, mainly we’ve been doing oncology, and we’re now doing a bit of I&I. Yeah. Again, very much with the thinking, how can we, with a limited amount of cash, and you rightly said, we are in the middle.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: We are between the local funds that can really help to get innovation off the ground. Yeah. And between the Jatos, the forbears of the world that are sitting on their billions. We had this panel this m- this morning with- actually them and Novo. Having three pockets in Europe above 1 billion at your hand- It’s great
is really great, but it needs also the people in the middle- Yeah … that can actually do the large series As, the, the first series Bs, and this is where we position ourselves in these targeted patient populations.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: And with that, we actually go global. Because that’s an advantage for us. But on the other hand, we still feel that venture needs to be local, so we also have people out in Singapore that we- Yeah
at the moment are mainly our data hub, because we also feel that right now, being a new entrance in the market, we need to be really on top of anything that’s happening on the data side.
But you’ll also see us then coming back to where do we know the entrepreneurs, where do we actually know the founders.
Nice thing is, if you know the founders in San Diego, that’s also fine. Yeah. We can still do the deal.
[00:09:57] Family-Owned Angelini Pharma: Serving Two Masters
Philip Hemme: And we’ll get back to that because you have a you’ve been around, and you have a very deep network also in the US. I mean- Yeah … Europe is probably your, still your main, your core, but, Yeah
in the, we’ll talk about this. I’m just curious on the, relationship with, Angeli, ’cause it’s still 100% family-owned. I saw from Forbes, 10 billion family-
10 bi- I don’t know if Forbes, h- exactly it is, but it’s, in this in this range, which- It’s, is huge. What you said I think is, more a financial return for them, the funds or, but then when you talk about neuro, I guess that connected also to their pharma business.
Or h- how, like, how is that relationship like?
Regina Hodits: It’s a very good question. Yeah. So we’re very proud of our heritage to be part of the Angelini Holding. Yeah. Angelini Holding also owns Angelini Pharma, but also Angelini Technologies, a super amazing automation business. Okay. And several other business units, and also Angelini V- Ventures.
Yeah. Which is a separate entity. Yeah. So we are not Angelinis Pharma, and for us, Pharma is our cousins, and they are close to our heart. And of course, anything that actually makes sense, we discuss with them.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: But so do we with actually a lot of other mid-sized pharmas.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: Because we actually believe the mid-sized pharmas, large biotechs, are very interesting exit partners for our more targeted patient populations that we go after.
Yeah. So very clearly, very proud of the heritage. We have a good exchange on a non-confidential level. Yeah. But especially with having also EIB as an LP. Yeah. As an invest- as a co-investor with us.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: Keeps us really straight, because that means we have to be very clearly, we’re serving not only one master, we’re serving two masters.
This also means we need to be super clear with what we share with our pharma guys. On the other side, the least thing they want to be is contaminated by what we do.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: And so basically we see a lot of deal flow. We have a lot of open relationships that they could not be doing in their base business.
Yeah. And so this is why for them actually having us there as an eye on innovation and somebody where they can exchange ideas- Yeah … is great, and we do that regularly, and we are very grateful for those interactions. Yeah. But the intent from the h- holding side is to look at us as a view on innovation globally.
Yeah. And actually making sure that Angelini as a whole knows about where the trends in the industry are going. Yeah. And if we have topics that are of both interest, then that could very well be that in the rare neuro that we find a, project where both of us want to invest, and it’s actually not announced, but there will be a deal where Angelini Pharma is going to have co-invested in actually one of our portfolio companies.
Yeah. Together with a syndicate of other incoming people.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: And so this is something that for us is an additional benefit that we have a big pot of money there. And by the way, on the transaction that they did with Catalyst, to say the new generation of Angelini of the Angelini family and the current owners, they came in about six years ago, and the transformation that they have done, especially Sergio, who runs the entire holding and now also Pharma, is amazing.
And being able, as a European family-owned company, to take over a public company in the US that is actually-
Philip Hemme: What was it, four billion
Regina Hodits: or something? … significantly transforming the business that you have and the footprint there is something that I have a lot of time for.
Philip Hemme: Maybe on the, if you zoom out also on, on corporate VCs or the whole VC I’m curious what’s the trade-offs of being strategic for- For biotechs.
Is it is, this, are there some trade-offs? Because each time I talk to you, you sweat it, or corporate ventures or, pharma being in LPs, it’s always “Oh, yeah, there’s synergies, there are benefits.” Ab- absolutely. But s- but what’s the trade-off? The first one I’m coming to mind is valuations, maybe valuation is a bit lower from a BD perspective or for, like when you, negotiate the exit. Is that true, or is it-
Regina Hodits: I wouldn’t look at it that way. So we’ve d- just done a deal, it’s not announced yet, where we have two corporates in, and we, these corporates actually know that area. This is about, it’s actually a cellular tech- technology.
Yeah. And these people know exactly what they’re doing, and they know also the products that we need to develop, and they have due diligenced this with their in-house groups, and we value that a lot.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: If you look at where Angelini pharma’s background has been so far, that has been, by the time we were started, mainly in the epilepsy space, some other neuro space, with a pretty advanced portfolio and less of a research side.
Okay. So for them, actually, we were a logical extension of their business and not so much a kind of trade between the two organizations because you had both of those platforms already built out. Yeah. Also now with the Catalyst acquisition, Catalyst basically has been working more on the later-stage development side.
Again, also there, the early-stage deals that we would be doing on the rare disease side and that, we are doing with Espolea, with also an HTT.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: They’re on the early side, and they would not necessarily be part of the BD strategy or the in-house development strategy, and research is something that actually is not a core focus of the organization as such.
So there’s a difference for the specific model that works for Angelini- Yeah … given that setup, but that would be very different if you take that for a- I don’t want to single any of those out, but just to name a few, Lundbeck, UCB, Merck Taiho. These people have, And I love all of our other friends out there that have specific knowledge.
If you have a research organization close by, I see this as a huge value. Yeah. I would fight claws and teeth not to let them in at any preferential terms- Okay … and to have always enough institutional investors around the table to actually balance that.
[00:15:41] Fund Returns: It’s Not Just Spray And Pray
Philip Hemme: Okay. Yeah. Okay. And I don’t know how much you can talk about it the, the, the fund returns, or the return general is always a bit let’s say, hidden.
I’m cur- I’m just curious a bit on what’s the… You’ve been Wellington, which is more independent. I don’t know how much pharma you had at LP or not, versus now about corporate. And I’m, curious on the, on how the return look like. Is it always the case, or is it the case generally that some independent have higher returns than, corporate VCs or not?
I don’t…
Regina Hodits: How much you can- Honestly, that I don’t know. Because most of the corporates will not publish what they’re doing. But just a- again, not to single out individual people, and I don’t know the numbers, but if I look at the number of actually exits that Taiho had in the last years, I think they must have been doing pretty good.
I’m not sure they beat NextTech at, that, but I, think the two of them, I would actually, if you look just at the public number of exits- Okay … they’ve been doing really well. And on the fund side, o- of course, for us, it’s still too early. I cannot give you any guidance. Anyway, we’ve only been starting to stay as a fund, operate as a fund about three years back, okay. For sure. Yeah. And the first thing was meeting up.
Philip Hemme: We, talked about with Christoph Lengauer from CureBio, which I think you fully know,
Regina Hodits: Oh yeah,
Philip Hemme: You know it
Regina Hodits: I don’t know if Christoph got
Philip Hemme: that. The Austrian connection. Yeah.
Regina Hodits: On the
Philip Hemme: line. But he was quite open about it. Saying CureBio is too early, but shared a bit on the third work, on the flagships, where they were, and and that was for the some of the highest returns in some of the biotech, but they were more the independents.
He didn’t mention some more, like, corporate ventures. But yeah.
Regina Hodits: Yeah, I think on that side, if you look at the company creation side- Yeah … you just need to hit it big. I mean- Yeah … how many people have been looking at some of the returns about some of the corp- company builders, and then a Moderna happens.
Yeah. And then everything looks different. So you’re more in tech investment territory.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: If you do company, very early company building, so different topic here. But I think you just have to be prepared to put little money into a lot of projects, and then basically just double down on the winners.
Philip Hemme: At one home
Regina Hodits: run. And wait for the, big one. And I think if you’re more like where we are in the Series A, Series B scenario, you already have a starting point, and there I think the- What we are trying to do, and what I think is super important as an industry, is we need to finance our companies well so that they really get to an inflection point- Yeah
that is measurable. Yeah. And you just have to always be careful. So if somebody tells you, “I’m going to finance this to kind of CTA submission,” you go like okay, great. I’m not sure it’s the easiest time point where you’re actually going to attract new money.”
Philip Hemme: Yeah. And you, wanna finance something with a clear milestone on the 18, 24 months time frame.
Regina Hodits: You need to. At that stage, y- you’re out of the pray and spray. Yeah. You cannot do that. The tickets are getting too big. Yeah.
[00:18:36] Platforms vs Assets: Bicycle, Tubulis and Adcytherix
Philip Hemme: And how do you look at the trend in the, I feel like in the whole venture, but also in a sort of focusing much more on the assets, more than platforms? I’m thinking about the- Otello from Omega on the fund, which I think on the podcast, which I think is one of the best, and more asset and, exiting it as well. Jato is quite focused on it. I think you are also more focused on the assets than the platform.
Regina Hodits: Yeah. I think honestly that’s just also the heritage, since a number of our, colleagues on the, fund come with a strong, pharma development background we, have an easier time to due diligence something where we can see the product.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: And yes, there are some early technology wins that have really high returns- Yeah … but most of them also get those to those high returns because people can actually see the product behind the platform.
So we like platforms, we like diversified risks also within a portfolio company, but if we cannot see what we would use a platform for, that makes it really difficult for us.
So that’s.
Philip Hemme: Good advice for for entrepreneurs listening. You- because that’s, interesting, is y- I’ve seen you in your in your investments in the past. You’ve done bicycle silence, I think, a while ago, which was they’re still around and really good success stories and platform- Yeah
couples in Europe. But then you’ve done less, but more I think, we’re gonna take was, more assets.
Regina Hodits: That was more an asset, yeah, absolutely. But also- I guess
Philip Hemme: You are I, guess at the end of the day, you’re a bit more agnostic. You look at what,
Regina Hodits: what makes sense. So I, personally started off with things like GenMab and bicycle.
F-Star is one of the ones I founded. They were founded pretty much with the technology in mind- Yeah … but this is now also, you’d be talking decades back. And I think if you look right now, of course companies like the big successes now in the, in in the, German-speaking space, NRR is a Tubulis.
They have a platform, but in the end, they had to invest heavily in their lead programs to actually get from A to B. And then you can also say like our own ADC play, ADC Terics.
Philip Hemme: Yeah.
Regina Hodits: Is it a platform? In a way, we have a number that is larger than three of novel ta- payloads that we can actually put to our ADCs, and we ha- we are good in actually conjugating those.
Philip Hemme: Okay. Yeah.
Regina Hodits: Is this a platform? Maybe. But in the end, it is a quite broad pipeline that you can actually draw on. And so I think this is also the w- what is really a, a platform as such is, is- Yeah … becoming also in the eye of the beholder.
Philip Hemme: Yep. You, mentioned for Forgan riff to talk about it. They just published- data and it’s 2 point, what is it? $2.6 billion, 2.6 billion or 2.7
Regina Hodits: billion. About 3 billion euros is, I think, what the- Yeah … land number was.
Philip Hemme: Across two funds. They don’t want to detail which fund is how much. But it’s pretty amazing. And then you Jato had Red Pascal on on the, show as well.
It was a billion euro closing, and then Novo Holdings also. It’s more evergreen, but I think they invest, what was it? 500 million a year, 20% in, Europe. So it’s a, I don’t, in that, in, in a similar range.
Regina Hodits: Yeah.
[00:21:51] Forbion and Jeito’s Mega-Funds: Democratizing Europe’s Biotech Capital
Philip Hemme: And I’ve seen also you are quite active in the… You’re, active in general in the venture community, not just in, in your own venture fund of bringing more money also in, into the biotech industry in general.
H- how just how do you feel about- the capital deployed at the moment, how do you look at it? What’s your, like, how do you, yeah.
Regina Hodits: No, I think it’s an amazing success for Europe that we actually have funds of the size of a Phobion and also of a Chether and, all of the other larger funds around.
Yeah. And big pockets of, capital available to invest in our later-stage opportunities helps us tremendously. Yeah. And what’s still important is that we actually keep a vibrant ecosystem, and we see actually those mega funds also make fundraising for the smaller funds not easier. Because the other thing not to actually say is it is a numbers game.
Having actually a big success also depends on having enough shots on goals. And the smaller your fund gets, the more concentrated also your investment- Yeah … strategy usually gets. And so it is very, important that you motivate institutional money to invest broadly also in European life sciences.
And for that, as we are also part of the European Life Science Coalition, something that especially also Novo, Phobion, Sofinnova have started because they actually feel that it is absolutely necessary to have more institutional money than the sources that are already there and that are going to the very established players-
Philip Hemme: Yeah
Regina Hodits: Support the industry going forward. And if you actually look at, least on the paper returns, there’s a broader universe of funds that actually deserve attention and deserve investments, but there’s very few geographies that lend themselves to actually raising money. And especially the Benelux and France always had a good turnout of institutional investors that actually were prepared to support in general venture activities, but also especially life science activities.
We see much le- less of that in the UK, we see much less of that, definitely less of that in Germany. Yeah. And in the Nordics, it’s there’s a couple of pockets where it actually works and, of course, the Novo universe- Foundations … which is important there. Yeah. But they cannot carry the whole universe by themselves.
No. So we still need more institutional money. We, because we still don’t have the endowment funds as we have in the US, we still don’t have kind of a rule that pension funds need to invest a certain amount into innovation. We still have no incentive actually for the large capital sources to invest in innovation, which are things that we’ve been working of.
Also, I’ve been the spokesperson for the German industry from for, quite a while, from 2015 to 2020. Yeah. Where we managed to get a lot of government money mobilized, and they have since also built a growth fund on top of that. But that invests very much also in those mega funds, and they are important, but now it’s really about democratizing that and making sure that the supply of institutional money is there to really feed the industry.
Philip Hemme: Yeah we just on that note for the audience that’s curious we talked quite a lot with Sander about that more in depth, and also on- On what were the returns compared to other verticals outside life science, and how do you convince LPs to actually invest? That, that’s we can move to another topic for, for people can check the episode.
[00:25:15] Regina Hodits Offers Lessons for Venture Investors
Philip Hemme: I’m just quick, one more on the, personal lessons. You mentioned a, a few things but And now for, for an adventure what, were some of the, or mistakes you have learned for some, some lessons you had there? Maybe for people who want to go into venture
Regina Hodits: So for people that want to go into venture is a trade.
Venture is something that needs to be learned. And also seeing this now at, at Angelini Venture with some colleagues that come more out of operations, our industry still has a dissymmetry of information. And as much as you can do with actually data out there, relationship matters, relationships get built from the start, and younger colleagues that join the industry, you nee- everybody who’s listening to that, build your network with the colleagues that you have around you, on the science side, on the pharma side, on the VC side.
These people will grow up with you, and they will be your friends forever. Yeah. And make them friends. Make them not only colleagues, make them actually people that you can call on, if you actually are in need of an information, basically want to have their honest opinion. Yeah. And I think this is something which in my view is really important on that side, so the network, the connectivity there and making sure you put enough time aside to, to really do that well.
The other thing which is important is to have access to domain expertise if you don’t have it yourself. Couple of the younger colleagues have very good domain expertise. But keeping that, network to people that can supply that, it is still a data-driven science project that we’re usually managing.
And if you try to do that by just purely economics, it’s not enough. You need to actually know what you’re dealing with, and if you n- don’t know yourself, you need to be able to ask the right questions to the right people. So it’s not just something you can drive by financial returns, but what you can do is you can mess it up.
And I think this is the one thing where the good funds really, when you do an analysis, the really good funds, they do really hard-nosed portfolio management. And I’m sorry about the biotech guys out there. You’ll have some funds, and especially the ones that are larger and that are successful, that at times may say to you, “We may have invested in your last round.
We’re not investing in this one.” And there may be good reasons for their portfolio management side, and even better reasons for the company to say, “But if you give us the money, we can really get further. We can draw the card.” But people that actually look at this on a portfolio level and say, “Honestly, there’s a cutoff,” a little bit like pharma portfolio prioritization.
It’s never fair for the ones that actually just fall out. But this is a- You have to focus, yeah. You have to focus, and you have to also make sure that your winners have enough money. Because the problem is if you finance all your portfolio, and all- Yeah … of those companies never get to the point where they need to get to, then actually you lose.
So there is no spray and pray in biotech. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:06] Quick-Fire Questions
Philip Hemme: Good one. Let’s finish with just more quick-fires or quick questions, quick quick answer. One, one deal you passed on and you regret
Regina Hodits: Tobolisk Sophia asked us and we didn’t go in because we didn’t believe they were to do the pipeline prioritization the way they did, and they managed perfectly well with others.
Philip Hemme: Dominic was on the show before and it’s amazing. How hot is the biotech market right now from one to 10?
Regina Hodits: Depends on the subsegment and the rare disease segment we like is red hot 10, and the average I would say seven
Philip Hemme: Two. One mistake you made in the past 12 months
Regina Hodits: Maybe trying to do too much at once and actually not getting back to all of the people that have supported me in the transition, and a big apologies to all of the people I didn’t get back to.
I love you all, and I will get back, and I’m trying to stay more focused.
Philip Hemme: Good message. I think a few will, will probably watch. Last one one of your biotech heroes or mentors
Regina Hodits: That’s a difficult one because there are many out there my absolute hero, of course, is Gregory Winter, who actually brought me to biotech. Not only a Nobel laureate, actually single-handedly really helped to build what is right there now around Cambridge in the biotech world, and also in kind of all of the kind of antibody-based constructs out there based on the science that came out of l- the lab, but also the translational spirit that he had.
And up to now, still being active at Immutrin, I think my vote goes to Greg.
Philip Hemme: Wow. And you did your postdoc with him, yeah?
Regina Hodits: Yes.
Philip Hemme: Wow. Amazing. Great. Perfect. Thanks, Regia.
Regina Hodits: Thanks for having me, and it’s so great that you do that, and I’m sure I said a lot of things that a few people would have said differently, and whatever is it out there, it is my view, and people can always come and talk to me about it.
I’m happy to change my view on the input of data.
Philip Hemme: Great. Thank you. Thank you
I’m impressed by what Regina is building at Angellist Ventures and her commitment to bring more money into the European biotech ecosystem. I’m also impressed by her intensity and sharpness. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the like, follow, review button. Any of these action help many more people discover the podcast.
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