It’s great to have Werner Lanthaler, the CEO of Evotec, one of the largest biotech research companies in Europe/the world, on the show. We have known each other for almost ten years now. He’s not only sharp but also friendly and easy to talk to. In this episode, we chat about leading AI in biotech, the sharing economy in the industry, how to be authentic, and more. Hope it helps you learn, be inspired and grow 😉
📯 LINKS MENTIONED
Transcript
Werner Lanthaler: That’s why I would say a minimum of efficiency gain is north of 30% that you see by, by just implementing these tools. That’s, that’s
Philip Hemme: huge. I mean,
Werner Lanthaler: especially, it’s huge when you know that a drug in its development is 2 billion, and if you take 30% out of 2 billion, and if you take 30% off more than than, than 12 to 14 years at this stage, then it’s really reaching all these dimensions where at the end it will have a true impact on, on cost for patients.
[00:00:37] Welcome
Werner Lanthaler: Hey,
Philip Hemme: Philip here. Welcome to the second episode of Flot.bio Show. We’re interviewing the best Europeans in biotech to help you be inspired and grow. Today I’m in sunny, but also a bit windy, Hamburg at the headquarters of Evotech to meet with Werner who is the big boss. I’ve known Werner for many years, almost a decade, and we have been on stage a few times.
And he’s really a brilliant speaker and not only because he’s really sharp, but also because he is really, you know, friendly, accessible. You, you just want to talk and listen to him for a bit of background. Werner has actually a degree in psychology and, and business and has no bio background, which is pretty rare in, in the industry.
He was then CFO of Intercell, which is one of the biggest success stories in Austria for almost 10 years. And after that, so almost 15 years ago, he became CEO of Evotec and the company went into fast growth with him went from. 500 employees to almost 5,000 from 50 million new revenues, annual to now 750 and has today a market cap of between three and, and 6 million euros.
And today, Evotec is a mix between a CIO and a drug development company. The CIO side as, as Werner told me was, we can do any experiment under the sun. And on the drug development side, they co-own and co-develop close to 200 assets. That’s it for now. Let’s head inside to the.
Let’s head into the building, meet with Werner, and discuss many things from AI and biotech to his mind, to many, many things and exciting things. So
Werner Lanthaler: let’s go.
Philip Hemme: So Werner, welcome to the show.
Werner Lanthaler: Thank you so much for having me. Yeah,
Philip Hemme: thanks for welcoming us. Wonderful. Hamburg, some sun even.
Werner Lanthaler: Oh, I made the sunshine for you.
[00:02:49] AI in biotech
Philip Hemme: It’s always great to talk with you offline, online. I mean always amazing discussions. Today we see a lot of things we could cover. But I wanna start not with the IT attack that we just had a quick talk about this. I don’t think it’s the most fun topic, a lot of the most interesting, but, I think one that we can start off is AI in biotech.
And if you remember last time we talked in, in Vienna, actually by Europe. I watched the video and we talked already quite a lot about AI in biotech. And that was 2019. And I, I will link to the, to the video and what’s, what’s amazing is that you slash evo tech have been in advance on that topic quite a lot, especially in the biotech industry.
It tends to lag quite a lot into it and, and software. But obviously now, I mean, T Deep Mind Alpha Falls, I mean, in the last six months is crazy what happened. So I was just wondering like if you can dig into it, let’s say from 2019 to now and how you integrated, let’s say the last, the last big
Werner Lanthaler: development.
Mm-hmm. So first of all, thank you for recognizing us as a true leader when it comes to AI and machine learning in our industry. Why do I say this? Because we have always understood AI and machine learning as an integrated part of a new normal when it comes to drug discovery in drug development because a tool in itself has no value.
Mm-hmm. But a tool when it makes outputs better, has enormous value. And that’s why we have decided already in 2017, 18, when we saw the first. Processes arriving out of machine learning and ai, that it has to be an integrated part of our drug discovery and drug development thinking and not an isolated software-driven offering.
And today, I would say that every process is driven more than ever before by cost pressure and efficiency to come to drugs faster and with this more cost-efficient. And that’s what AI and machine learning effectively does that you can accelerate an experimental cascade to a wet lab experiment. With AI and machine learning tools.
Yeah. Significantly faster. And that’s again, where I’m coming to the integrated approach of this because isolated doesn’t make sense. And
Philip Hemme: significantly, how much are we talking about? Because is it, you know, 10%, 30%, 50% to a hundred percent? No. Depends on which approach I guess. But like if
Werner Lanthaler: it really covers three dimensions.
It covers the quality of the experiments that they’re doing. It covers costs and it covers timelines. But it’s important that it covers all three dimensions. Mm-hmm. And if you take it, and this would only be a marginal help, it wouldn’t help anyone. Mm-hmm. But I’m so convinced about this because it’s a substantial help to make drugs more precise and faster.
And that’s why I think some of the experiments are only possible now. So it’s not a question of making something 5% or 10 or 20% better. It’s only possible because we can accelerate and analyze so much more data. Mm-hmm. And the other thing is it will have a huge acceleration aspect when it comes to, for example, prioritizing experiments.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that’s why I would say a minimum of efficiency gain is north of 30% that you see by, by just implementing these tools.
Philip Hemme: That’s, that’s huge. I mean, Especially,
Werner Lanthaler: it’s huge when you know that a drug in its development is 2 billion, and if you take 30% out of 2 billion and if you take 30% off more than than than 12 to 14 years at this stage, then it’s really reaching all these dimensions where at the end it will have a true impact on, on cost for patients.
Philip Hemme: That’s amazing. And I’m curious about this integrated aspect as well. I mean, so if I summarize, instead of saying, okay, it’s like you have the software division or like one another software silo. The software is actually horizontal and spread across every different division. But, and then what I would be curious about is, is how you do the development slash integration of tools.
Cause I guess you don’t do all the AI machine learning models necessarily yourself. There are probably some blocks that you take into. Can you go a bit. Over there and I mean, and there is a huge complexity there as well. And it’s a different job. I mean, probably open AI, it’s a crazy number of, of engineers as well.
So can you just go there like how you, how you do the development, how you integrate it, how, yeah. All these aspects. I’m curious.
Werner Lanthaler: I mean, very often we think that in biotech we have to reinvent every process where the tech industry has already been sometimes three to five years ago. And if you look today at the AI machine learning tools that tech companies have integrated into their search engines, into their optimization algorithms, then you can imagine that we don’t have to reinvent everything.
Mm-hmm. We can really accelerate our learning by learning here from many of the tech industries. Having said that, Our world is significantly more complex because biology is a totally different dimension of complexity. Mm-hmm. And optimizing chemistry is a totally different dimension of complexity. But message number one is we don’t have to reinvent all of this.
We can learn what the integration means from others. Mm-hmm. Message number two is when you are building experimental cascades, it’s always a very rigorous, standardized process that you go from a target that you have identified to optimize a target. Mm-hmm. And in optimization of a target, if you can do this with an integrated algorithm and you can prioritize, for example, 10 targets in 10 dimensions via an algorithm, all of a sudden a lot of manual work.
Falls completely away because you just will not work on the ninth priority. You will only work on the top three priorities. And that’s, I think, how you should imagine how, how this, how this works. And it’s really optimizing these bottleneck processes that we’re up to now, significantly higher, manually done than we what we will do in the future.
[00:10:08] What AI means for staff
Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s interesting. And you were, you were talking already 2019, that it’s not about replacing Evo tech scientists or Evo tech staff, it’s about augmenting them and allowing them to do many more experiments. How did that change between 2019 and,
Werner Lanthaler: and now? I mean, in total in 2019, we were probably 3,600, 2,700 scientists in the company.
Now we are close to 5,000 Yeah. Scientists in the company. And despite that, there is a tough funding environment for biotech. We are recruiting this year quite heavily. And it’s especially, These processes that we are augmenting. Mm-hmm. Where we see, for example, in a massive effort when it comes to data aggregation and data analysis, bringing here a platform together is just, doesn’t exist on the planet.
Mm-hmm. And that’s why, for example, a tool that we have developed called Pan Hunter will be super important for the whole industry once we have fully rolled it out. Because then people can just understand way, way, way faster. Where does their molecule sit in the whole universe of data analysis that they can access?
Awesome.
[00:11:27] How are biotech companies using AI today?
Philip Hemme: Yeah, I, I mentioned the growth of, of EOTech employees. We could, we could touch that a bit later. It’s crazy how, how fast you have, you have grown and, and consistently and fast Maybe need to stay a bit more on this topic on there. I’m curious if you, if you zoom out a bit, I mean, Ivo Tech, obviously you have it integrated.
I’m curious like how it, how your stack or how your AI ml capacity compared to, let’s say, others in the industry. I’m thinking about some like kind of ai, biotech integrated capacity. I mean, Accenture comes to mind, but you have invested there so for, you know, you know pretty well what’s going on and all this.
Probably some complementarity, or I’m thinking about Moderna who have also their own stack and super automated, I mean, pretty crazy even like three, four years ago, what you like, everything super automated was in-house software. I was, I’m really amazed when I, when I saw that for four years ago. I, I’m curious like, in your view, how, how, basically, yeah, how do you, if you, if you take a bit of zoom out approach, how, how, what, what’s the picture basically?
Werner Lanthaler: First of all, it’s only natural that many companies are taking the approach to understanding AI and machine learning and implement their understanding into their processes. Yeah. Every company will do this. Mm-hmm. Every company. So I think it’s not is Moderna doing this or, or not. Every company at the end will have to do this because otherwise who is doing it Well, Don.
Yeah. But I think also here, people will learn from the best and then it comes down to where do you achieve the best synergies? And as you mentioned, for example, Xenia, we are partners with Xenia, where we really have synergies in drug discovery projects where something that has to be done is way better in their hands.
Then in our hands. But if you put it together, it makes what we always called the shared r and d paradigm really work when it comes to AI machine learning. One of the important aspects is, and that applies to many, many of the diseases as well. The starting point is understanding molecular data. The starting point is who can, can analyze molecular data fast and precise enough to make this a starting point to feed the algorithms.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So that’s why we are not that much focused on optimizing the algorithm of only, we are focused on how good and how well organized and how, how fast can be accessed, biology driven data. Into these algorithms. And that’s where molecular patient databases are for us, super important. And they will be super important for the whole industry because that’s where you wanna start a drug discovery campaign at a human molecular patient data point and not at some random, I don’t know, animal data point or, or, or just an, an unproven target that you find somewhere.
Yeah.
Philip Hemme: That’s interesting. I mean, yeah, I mean, at the end, these models need like huge amounts of data. I mean, so data probably are already available. And then I think you mentioned also that some data when you need to generate them, I mean, the charge GPT is is amazing because you can, you can do your loops like in vitro, like basically running them.
And then the model improves very quickly. But once you add I guess a wet lab experiment in there, then your loop is just so much slower. Exactly. But can you expand a bit there like. Yeah. How, how do you optimize this looping? I guess there’s also some automation needed, so then the loop is accelerated bit,
[00:15:28] Biotech – a sharing industry
Werner Lanthaler: it’s actually at the end it’s much more trivial than it sounds.
Okay. Because once you have built, and let’s go to a simple example. Once you have built, let’s say, an AI enabled prediction of safety data on a specific organ Yeah. Where you say, let’s take dili as a, as a readout for for kidney diseases you want to see dili talks as fast as possible, and you want to predict certain targets on their detox profile.
Every time you can add one target or one molecule where you can say, this has deli properties. Of course your whole system is learning and, and that’s why. A little piece of information that is wet lab proven, or that is human proven. Yeah. That goes back into the system, makes the prediction quality significantly better.
And that’s why I’m always coming back to this sharing principle of our industry because it does not make sense if only one company is optimizing targets for daily talks. Mm-hmm. But if you are having these capabilities to predict something like that, and then you are sharing this amongst the industry, then it becomes really powerful because then really the whole process for the whole industry gets more efficient.
And every individual also gains by knowing that the platform that they’re using is better and better and better.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. But then, yeah, let’s, and that’s super beneficial for I as a. No. That
Werner Lanthaler: forms that petition. No, that’s, and that’s, that’s my point. It’s beneficial for the industry. Yeah. Because if you can exclude safety liabilities.
Yeah. Let’s say a year earlier, that typically means 5 million. Earlier in, in the early drug discovery, in drug development process, it augments your opportunity costs. Yeah. By 5 million where you are depro this experiment and you go to the next experiment. So that’s where really everyone wins. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: But still, if you are, I mean still if you are tech a company who has, I mean who has a toxicity prediction platform, you will still capture some part of the value as well, even though on the total.
Everyone will win.
Werner Lanthaler: This is a for-profit business and we are not naive, so let’s not go there. Yeah, yeah.
Philip Hemme: Okay. No, it, and it, it, it’s, it makes me also think about, makes me connect to, let’s say quite some farmers outsourcing there and d slash even selling part of rdi Invotech. You’ve bought at least the, the site in Touse, I think you from Sanofi you bought recently.
I forgot which big pharma last month’s. No, from, from Gallup. I goes in Paris,
Werner Lanthaler: I think. That was not us. Not you. No.
Philip Hemme: Oops. I guess you were on the maybe that’s, but anyway, you, you bought quite a few, like a and d capabilities slash zero capabilities from, from pharma. And then new in essence are like you, you, you do it in-house.
Yeah. How, what, can you like,
Werner Lanthaler: expand a bit there on, let, let’s, let’s step back here. Two seconds. Yeah. What I always thought is the most inefficient way of trying to, to do what we all wanna do in this industry, we wanna solve diseases. Yeah. Yeah. And we wanna make medicines that matter for patients. If you have a disease which is enormously large, let’s take Alzheimer.
Yeah. And everyone tries to create a silo to solve that problem. It is per se, inefficient. And again, this is not naivety here where I say let’s share everything. I’m totally fine with being competitive and the fastest should win. And innovation premium should go to the fastest and the best in the industry.
But, What we all should share is information that is helpful to everyone. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s where, if you think back to the r and d centers of pharma in the past, by the way, they now are so much better than they were. Mm-hmm. 15 to 20 years ago. Now they’re really high, high, high performance organizations.
But if you think back, yeah, you had an r and d center, which was a cost center, and which was only productive to feed one pipeline of one company. That there is a match of the capacity that you have. Yeah. And the capabilities that you have with what your pipeline need is, is, is a very rare instance. And it’s very hard to keep it up.
And all that eTech has been doing in the past is to say, okay, why don’t we create internal cost centers and make them. Profit centers that are not only there for one company, but that are there for many companies. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And if you follow that principle, then all of a sudden an internal r and d center from former GSK in Verona.
Yeah. Which has enormous capacities and capabilities. And if you open that to many players, becomes not a cost center that is quote unquote seen as how can we ever make this productive? It becomes a very productive profit center for many companies. Mm-hmm. And that’s why we are just as a collective industry, starting to learn these principles of the shared economy.
And that’s why we are trust at the beginning of what we are doing.
Philip Hemme: That’s interest. Yeah.
Werner Lanthaler: It’s interesting. And it’s, it’s one of the rare examples, patients will win. Biotech companies who work with us will win. Pharma. Companies who work with us will win. And foundations who work with us and academic institutions who work with us will win.
Philip Hemme: Everyone will win you. I’m still thinking of playing the devils on the world. Who, who will or who, who is
Werner Lanthaler: losing what? You’re the nicest devil I’ve seen so far, but, but and if the devil looks like you, then welcome to hell. Then we should all go. Probably that. No, but again, it’s, it’s also something where you should never underestimate how big the non-ed market opportunities.
Mm-hmm. We are. I would totally agree with you if this would be a limited world where market opportunity is very small. Then of course you have many downsides because then this ends in typical collusions. This ends in price competitions. This ends in many, many stupid things that markets do. Mm-hmm. All understood.
Yeah. I even started this in my past, but if you’re talking about wide open underserved markets, then we all have all reason to go there, especially when you know that 3,300 diseases are currently not treatable or only under very, very symptomatic versions treatable. Yeah. So that’s, that’s really where I think the difference in our industry, and that’s why this whole sharing economy is just at the beginning.
Mm-hmm.
Philip Hemme: That’s interesting. I, I, I’m still thinking of some parallels in some, I mean, if you take, probably the car industry is very kind of very open with a lot of providers and integration. But then some players, let’s say Tesla, are very integrated and have also very good
Werner Lanthaler: at like Yeah, the kind industry is very complex and, and I never really understood it because I don’t like it so much, but there are other industries which are much simpler.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Think about the oil drilling industry. Yeah. No one. No one. Yeah. Today is stupid enough to say I drill a hole into the ocean alone anymore. Yeah. Everyone has established a value chain. Yeah. Where you say, okay, this is core expertise of this company, this company, this company. And even the risk to drill at the wrong position you are sharing with others.
Yeah. And if you hit the right point in the ocean, benefits, everyone wins. Or think about the movie industry where not every movie is a success. Only one out of hundred. Movies is a real success. Yeah. And only one out of 500 is a true blockbuster. So no one today goes and makes a movie alone. Yeah, yeah.
But it allows you to try it much, much more often. And with this, a whole collection of companies who are in this movie world together is winning time and gaining time to, to come to success here. That’s interesting. Yeah. That’s,
Philip Hemme: that’s it. The, I’m curious about one thing I like talking with you also because you have really a big picture view of the industry and like you can.
Which is, which is great, and I think great for the audience,
Werner Lanthaler: but after 25 years of being in this, I think it’s about
Philip Hemme: time to understand a little Yeah. You, you understand, but you have a clarity to explain it. And you not only, I mean, you look good at the bigger picture. Maybe also from your background, we’ll talk about it from being more from a business background than a pure science.
[00:25:32] Trending back to integrated companies
Philip Hemme: I don’t know. It’s, you have this, this big view, which I like. You, one thing that I saw recently was from the number of drugs developed by who developed the drug and then who launched it? I don’t remember. I think was a McKinzie study. Which is interesting. I mean, it’s been 10 years that you always hear, okay, all the bio biotech is a powerhouse and most of the drugs come from biotech companies.
And then our house license to pharma. But I think in 2022, I was super surprised, I think was somewhere close to half of the. Product launches were made by biotech, like larger biotech organizations, which means it’s not only the development now, it’s also more like the, the commercial launch. Can you like comment on this or do you, do you see this also as a, as a Evotec working more with actually biotech organizational, larger biotech firms versus omni big pharma?
Like how do you see that that
Werner Lanthaler: point of the industry? I mean, this trend back to fully integrated companies launching drugs is of course a function of orphan. Diseases to start with. And it’s also a function of people who have done something and see and seen something very success successfully happening in large pharma or in mid-sized pharma companies.
And then repeating this in in biotech companies because was dcs putting them, which, which makes a lot of sense. And if you look at the success of Alexion, or if you look at the success of rgs, or if you look at the success of many of the companies who basically were very clear in their vision, what does it take along the way you train and what do we have to build and what don’t we have to build?
For example, if you are making a drug, making your own manufacturing, Is a very, very important question to answer because building GMP systems that’s super in manufacturing is a high hurdle to jump over. And that’s why many of these companies said No, we’d rather go to do the clinical regulatory and then sales steps first.
Then creating manufacturing infrastructure or creating a discovery infrastructure. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is also something where you say, why not doing it? So that’s why where Evo Tech is going is totally clear. We will create a multi-modality team. We sometimes named it to Cures, which is a data driven, yeah.
Multimodality platform where we can offer everything when it comes to optimizing a drug target to bring this into clinical. Situations. Mm-hmm. And then manufacturing also this either small molecule or biologic or cell therapy into the future where eTech will not go, we will not go into running clinical trials on our own.
That will be the exception also in the future. And we will definitely not go, is into selling our own drugs to go commercial. And there’s a very clear reason, which is not limited by that we wouldn’t know how to do this, but it would change the culture of the company dramatically if you all of a sudden have a regulatory sales environment in a marketing environment from product launches.
Yeah. On, on top of the culture that we want to create because we are creating here a science-driven culture where. The, the 5,000 people that we have are roughly 4,000 scientists and and thousand people doing other things in, in SGNA functions or supporting functions. But we have more than 35% of PhDs in the company.
This is the highest density of PhDs in any biotech environment that I know. And I think that’s gonna be our key strengths also into the future, to keep the science power and run the platform business science, power, and then really go for our co-owning model with our partners who then have the strengths in commercialization, who then have that.
Having said that, of course, there’s a paradigm, which I completely understand. If you are one of these biotech companies who has a drug in their hands, which has a, a targeted market then it is today easier than ever before, to also go all the way through the market. And that’s why this paradigm will come back and we’ll see more.
Yeah, that’s, I mean,
Philip Hemme: that’s basically what the study also shows. And I guess cross was like having more experience, the pharma executives running some of the biotechs. It’s also more, I mean, easier to go into commercials. I have some
Werner Lanthaler: experience. Must be smart people at
Philip Hemme: maybe sometimes. But no, it’s, but it’s interesting.
[00:30:46] The global EU biotech industry
Philip Hemme: But maybe you can reflect also what you’ve seen in Europe. I mean, you have, you, you have quite some, I mean a few biotechs in Europe who have made it to commercial and usually, I mean also huge value, infection point. And also in terms of exits, sometimes most, I mean quite often. I mean, agen X is a great example.
I mean, I don’t know where the market cap is now, but I think north of 10 billions or very pretty, I mean amazing. Same with like Italian, same with the Genmab. I mean, Can you reflect a bit, maybe more like you, yourself or you used industry, let’s say, on the, on the last few years, especially as your European industry?
Like, yeah, bouncing on what I just said. What’s
Werner Lanthaler: like, what’s, I mean, first of all, all these companies that you mentioned don’t have anything in them, which is purely European or. Or purely driven by Europe. Mm-hmm. And that’s, I think, always my starting point. If you look at the successful companies, they have a global scientific lead with a global mindset to win global markets.
Mm-hmm. And if you look at Jan Funk and what he has met out of meb, there is a Danish company that is a global leader. Mm-hmm. And if you look at Algens, that’s a Belgian company that is a global leader, and that’s how it should be because there’s only one disease and that’s globally the same. And that’s why our industry is the worst advice industry.
If you go to anything that is national driven or whatever, what makes sense is you have to have scientific hubs and biotech hubs where more energy is coming together than in places where people don’t understand the dynamic of this industry. And that’s why I, I think there’s a A function that we are experiencing now, where Boston, San Diego San Francisco had really this, this huge advantage about 10 to 15 years ago that biotech hub was happening there.
Mm-hmm. And that’s why collective learning was faster happening than in remote places in Europe. Like, I’m kidding. Hamburg use, I’m kidding. I’m kidding. No hum. It’s, it’s a, it’s a fair comment. Yeah. Has, has less
Philip Hemme: proportion,
Werner Lanthaler: has less biotech. It’s an absolutely fair comment. And that’s why for us, networking homework, Into the world of drug discovery was an absolute must from the very beginning.
And that’s also what we have done from the very beginning. And that’s why, for example, at our site in Hamburg, you will hear everyone talking English to you. Even the signs
Philip Hemme: in the street,
Werner Lanthaler: I think is in English. eTech is built for a global company that people can come to Hamburg and feel at home and integrate it.
Mm. Yeah. Because otherwise there is no Hamburg based drug that you can sell only in Hamburg that will ever make it remarkable. I think that’s clear to you. Mm. But, and that’s why I, I typically don’t like it to reflect on Europe because you have to be competitive on the global industry. Yeah. But maybe not
Philip Hemme: the like success or like, I mean, I, I like your answer and I mean, I share it completely.
And even when I was running lab biotech where we, you know, European slash global from day one and very like always speaking English like. And this is, I think, fundamental, but I don’t think that many, I mean, not, not everyone in biotech in Europe is, is doing this, which is a bit, a bit surprising as well.
But I think the, the best ones are doing it and it seems like pretty shared among the best, either the even small biotechs, big form, any anyone that in thing.
Werner Lanthaler: Yeah. But it’s like a one-on-one recipe for everyone who starts Yeah. And that, don’t say this because I, I wanna be here. We know it better than others, but it, it limits you immediately in your growth.
For example, if you are company culture is French only. Yeah. Yeah. And our. People in, in France didn’t like this at the beginning, but now they understand it. Yeah. Now they totally understand it and they, they understand that if we wanna be competitive, then we have to be open-minded. And you will see if you go to Ivo Tech in, in France, it is amazingly international.
Philip Hemme: Even Intru, which is not the most intentional French
Werner Lanthaler: city. It’s an amazing city, by the way. Yeah,
Philip Hemme: I guess it, I mean there I just looked up coming to Ambu that you’re the, the Arab site really close by. So I guess the Arab site also Intru, it’s kind of a connection of sites you can share the planes, the
Werner Lanthaler: No, we don’t because we are data driven.
They, they, they take planes.
Philip Hemme: No, that’s, but no sound. I mean it’s fair, but I was more thinking for, for Europe on how you. Well, I mean more quickly, not, not really looking at the success or what, what’s the success factors or how the comp from inside, but more seeing the ecosystem.
Werner Lanthaler: I’m very positive. Yeah.
[00:36:03] A brighter funding future
Werner Lanthaler: Yeah. Because you have seen the worst funding environment in the last two to three years. Yeah. In the US but also in Europe. And nevertheless, many very, very good funds have come together in Europe now. And if you look at the talent pool of the, the top V see groups in Europe, this is amazingly cool people.
And on top of that, you had a cash inflow from private equity funds who understand that biotech and healthcare will be their future key playground and they haven’t been here so far. Mm-hmm. So I think there is really a flow of capital. Waiting to find the industry opportunities that they need to see.
And here I think Europe is, is open for that because the classical VC sources are not operating. And, and that’s why I’m actually here from all the science and the science projects that we see matching this with, with the flow of capital and also the, the newly raised funds of VCs. It could be a very, very good next 10 years coming.
Hmm.
Philip Hemme: I had a question on the, on the private equity part of, because I mean, you had, I mean, we talked with Antoine from Sofinnova where some, some money from, from private equity, but still only, and, and opened the capital to private equity, but didn’t like sell the phone versus some funds where sold, say lsp, let’s say,
Werner Lanthaler: LSP became part of eqt.
Eqt. Yeah. And you have worse, worse became
Philip Hemme: So like, and then as I had a discussion with one lot of private equity, were also investing in healthcare, but, but more general like hospitals and, and I know that a lot of CROs also owned slash one by by by private equity and that, but on that side, I heard not necessarily positive, and I hear that it’s, it’s like, Basically printing cash and doing that.
So what’s, I mean, I guess private equity in general, I mean, there is for sure huge influx of capital, but there can be some flip sides. Like do you see that? Do you like,
Werner Lanthaler: I’m concerned about, I think it is. I’m no, first, I’m not concerned when anyone understands that investing in healthcare is, in general, the best sectors that you can deploy money with.
Mm-hmm. Because there’s a, a real need that can be solved. If it is solved, it creates value. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that’s why I’m always surprised that many people still have not realized how big the overall opportunity in healthcare. Mm-hmm. Much easier. In our industry, I think to create value then in the fashion industry.
Yeah. Where you are competing brand versus brand and where you’re competing season versus season and where you have volatilities, like
Philip Hemme: especially from a human, like even society value versus that’s
Werner Lanthaler: even monetary. That’s a different topic. Yeah. But, but also don’t want go there. But I think that that’s clear.
And what is also clear is if you look at healthcare that so far all these funds have only been able to dig deeper into business models that had a top line and they had a bottom line. Yeah. Of course if you go to true innovation business models, a top plan in the bottom line in that format don’t exist.
Yeah. So that’s why I think you see here in evolution that private equity started to understand the c o industry faster and better because there was a top plan and bottom line, but the underlying science. Yeah, will automatically bring them earlier and earlier in the value chains. And that’s why you now see these moves of the private equity funds into the venture funds as a hedge to not only take one company, but take portfolios of companies.
Mm-hmm. And that’s, I think, a great starting point. And many people expected that this will turn on the pipe of money within a quarter or two. No, it’ll take one to two years, but then it will be a constant flow. Mm-hmm. Because that always happen when private equity enter the new industry. Yeah. I guess enter four then seven to 10 years.
But, but it now takes, but now it takes two to three years for them to fully understand these industries and then to fully understand the dynamic of these industries. And then you will see there’s a new flow of capital coming in, which will be very good for many. That’s interesting. The flow of capital that unfortunately has stopped.
At this stage is public money. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s why I think it, it will take both for a full recovery of biotech, it will take the flow of private capital and it will take the flow of, of public money as well. Yeah, that’s interesting. I
Philip Hemme: like you. Yeah. Interesting view. Very. Yeah. I’m always a bit reserved, but I don’t know.
It’s my, a bit personal feeling with private equity. But yeah, it’s let’s see. I mean, for, for so far, at least bringing capital and, and still the, the visa, I mean, I guess if, if it’s like making return, but not like outside outsized returns.
Werner Lanthaler: Yeah. But I think also here, if you look at the business model of venture capitalists over the last two decades, you have to, to really look behind the curtain.
Not every VC fund was, was OUTSIZING successful? Yeah. Yeah. Many of the VC funds didn’t raise a second fund because they trust lousy returns. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So don’t be fooled by the product. Good trees and armanis Yeah. Of also the VC industry who had very good successes. Mm-hmm. But then they first have to repeat the successes from fund to fund.
Yeah. And secondly, yeah, you should not underestimate how hard it is also for VCs to make a sustainable business model of that. Yeah. And that’s, again, for
Philip Hemme: the VCs, not too worried. I guess more from like it’s more like I’ve seen so many, like bad example of private equity funds who, you know, biocompany and then five, seven years and just half liquidated or half like dilute and extract lot value.
Werner Lanthaler: No, but that’s, but also here, I think no one if you go to the Roman Catholic Church, you should not be surprised. Yeah. If someone says amen in that church. So the rules are clear. Yeah. Yeah. So if you’re talking to private equity, the rules are clear, and if you are not certain about what the rules are, then you should stop the dialogue.
Mm-hmm. But that private equity is there to make money with investments and smart guidance of companies. That’s their business model. And that these are business models that have time limits. That’s their business model. So I think no one should be naive here. And that’s also not what I’m sensing. Yeah.
That, that people are naive on this one. Mm-hmm. That’s right.
[00:44:01] Background on Werner
Philip Hemme: I’m curious no, that’s, no, that’s that’s good and enough on this topic. Maybe we can switch more to, to you yourself. You we mentioned it briefly that you’re very good, like overview and understanding the business landscape. What is, I mean, when, when we discussed you, you, you don’t have a bio slash biology or biotech like diploma background.
I mean you come from psychology with business. How like, did that and, and when I talk to you, I feel like there is a lot of, like, there is a, you are talking differently than someone who has, who has listen biotech background or like, you understand very well and, and good enough, but it gives you also this like bigger picture and also psychology.
I can, I can sense, so I can feel some, some things there. Like can you walk us a bit through of like how, how was it to get into the industry and to like get this like expertise. Until now, how it helps you or how you deal with it, how you deal, like currently to not necessarily have this like super deep biotech ground, even though I think you fully acquired it, but can you walk a bit through that?
I mean, it’s pretty rare in the industry to not have with your scientific background, so,
Werner Lanthaler: so I’m in this industry for 25 years. Yeah. And I now can really say that I fell in love with this industry 25 years ago because before that I was a consultant in many different industries, which already gave me the advantage that I have seen.
The pulp and paper industry, I’ve seen the rail bay industry. I’ve seen as a consultant, I have to, to to, to say the top of aspect of, I’ve seen the insurance industry and I’ve seen the banking industry and they’re all wonderful industries. But if you can see the magic. Of what, for example, an antigen and an adjuvants do in making vaccines happen.
And if you can be part of that, then all of a sudden all other industries to me were no longer so attractive. Attractive. Mm-hmm. Then I entered this industry, which is I think also important via my core competence because I’m a finance guy. Yeah. You’re a CFO at, I was a CFO of inter inter cell and that’s also then I think quite interesting.
You can then have a, a different path as a CFO that you get totally fixated on the core business substance or you try to understand the dynamic of your numbers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that’s the beauty of our industry. The dynamic of our numbers is driven by science and it’s not driven. By interest rates.
Mm-hmm. Science is a so much more powerful tool than interest rates. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that’s why I really understood, probably relatively fast as a cfo, that if I don’t believe in the science that we are making, we will never be a successful company. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that’s why I started to simply talk to the people who do the science and, and that’s the beauty of, of my life, that I just get excited when I hear a scientist talking about his latest experiment, knowing that not all of them with work, but you can see why people are doing this because most of the people in this industry are truly motivated by finding.
A drug, finding a solution. And yes, it’s not always that esoteric that you’re only thinking about the drug out there, but you also have to Oh, just doing amazing science as well. Exactly, yeah. But you also have to do sometimes a, a very tactical job, but it nevertheless feels so much better in this industry than what other people can do.
And that’s why it’s a privilege to be in this industry.
[00:48:12] From no science to CEO
Philip Hemme: And so over 10 years, you kind of got yourself into and understand, I guess, was vaccines in Interal, the vaccine science. And then how did it help you, the jump to, let’s say, ceo, where you were managing much more than the finance, like of the whole company.
How does it help you
Werner Lanthaler: today? At the end, you have to find a business model that you feel comfortable with, that you are representing. Yeah. And at Divo Tech we. We are representing a high science driven r and d model that is linked to a partnering model that ultimately will result in a large royalty pool.
And I think in 2009 when we started or restarted Evo tech in a way that was for me very clear that that’s the way I want to go. But it was also very clear to me that this is the long run. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because there is no royalty pool in three years happening in three years, and there is no royalty pool happening without volatility along the way.
And there’s no royalty pool happening if you don’t fail. Mm-hmm. But what was very clear to me is that it will only work if we are creating a sizable portfolio of options. Mm-hmm. Yeah. To really leverage against the risk. That many of these things are just not scaled enough. Yeah. And, and I think that’s all it took to, to make this transition.
Transition. And now it’s about having an organization that, that is efficient together with partners finding drugs.
Philip Hemme: We’ll go back, I mean, I think we’ll continue on Evo Tech as an organization, but on, on you yourself, it sounds like it was the right fit for you as in like being pretty like very knowledgeable on the business side of like, okay, sharing the world is making partnerships doing this whilst the, still having a science foundation versus maybe developing the next mRNA therapy and being the year of that kind of company.
Werner Lanthaler: I would not exclude that, but it’s also, yeah, it’s something where that you are. Exactly there at the time of a drug where it shows that it’s not only a good experiment, but it will be a product that sells. That’s a very, very rare moment. Yeah. And that’s why, for example, is very rare, first, that products go to the market.
Second, that it’s a company that brings that drug to the market, which has done this from the beginning to the end. And thirdly, that the company who does this makes this in a repetitive fashion. Yeah. And, and that’s where, for me, it was very clear that it needs scale in, in a business model to have these opportunity spaces open.
And that’s, that’s why again, I’m, I’m open for many things, but what we are doing at Evo Tech is trust. A very, very good business model. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. I’m, I’m still sorry, I’m still block trying to stay on the like, Maybe not just your background, but where you are staying today of like your, your skills, still trying to get picture of yourself as your skills.
Werner Lanthaler: I can make good PowerPoint
Philip Hemme: with ai. No, but still with, just because for example, I feel like you, you have, I mean, it’s, I mean, trying to Yeah. To understand where, where your, your skills are, like where, where your personality and skills and how, how it connects to background that maybe it’s not necessarily to your background is maybe how, how you as a person.
But how, like how do you see yourself, let’s say, from a skillset, personality to do that role as c e o compare?
Werner Lanthaler: The, the biggest ability here is that you have to be able to surround yourself with people who are better than you are. Yeah. And I think that’s for me so humbling every day that I know that I’m one of a team and I have so many people in the company who are in many, many areas so much better than I am, but I can trust them.
Yeah. And for example, I, I really have the tendency to work very long with the people who wanna work with me because that’s, I think an ability that I, I really value a lot that I can trust in long, long term. Long term. Yeah. I, my c o and I will, are working together now for 11 years. Mm-hmm. Or our COO and I were working for a decade.
So there’s, there’s just, because that’s where you then become all of a sudden as a team efficient. Having said that, it always is. Important that teams don’t become complacent. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So having here this dynamic that you still have a good fight as a bad, yeah. That you still have a good fight and not everything is, is happening at the lowest compromise.
That’s important to make an organization grow and to push an organization forward. And at the end, you always have to question yourself. Are you still the right leader for a company for the next phase of a company? Are you? I am totally.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. And so you maybe how you, how did you this question, I mean, I think, I mean, it’s a very hard question, bit challenging question, but how, how did, did you answer that question?
I mean, when you got in, I guess you had already a very long term vision, but I guess you had some milestone of say, whatever, three to five years maybe. And then you, we like iterated. I mean now it’s been five, 15 years. How did you go, like was there some big milestones, some cycles, like
Werner Lanthaler: there was very big melt at the beginning where the idea of discovery can be a profitable business did not exist in 2009.
Yeah. Yeah, because discovery up to that point was a cost center and was a loss making part of the industry, which was highly disregarded. So that was really a first milestone to say, okay, can we make a business model happening where discovery highest science is appreciated as a profitable business?
Mm-hmm. And that was important for, for us. And from there on we really wanted to explore, especially platform worlds where, where we are leading the field. By not only going after one target or one idea, but really building a platform. Yes. And I start with omics driven drug discovery and drug development, where eTech today is building the most comprehensive, systematic and unbiased world to understand proteomics, genomics, transcriptomics, and translates this via disease models, but also starting with molecular patient databases in more efficient processes than I think anyone else in the world.
But we build a company that is, that is fundamentally believing in omics. Yeah. Yeah. And why do I say this with, with all this emotion in my voice? Sorry about that. Because it was a very radical decision in 2014. To say, okay, we believe that omics will be the future where the computing power was not there.
Not clear where the data was not there, but where it was clear that we will understand biology down to its single cell one day. Yeah. And that’s where we were coming from and that’s what we built as panoramics as a platform. The second platform that we built was really a full belief in a switch away from not very telling animal models to I psc, so induced pre potent stem cell driven drug discovery, and I P C driven off-the-shelf cell, the piece.
Mm-hmm. That was a decision that we made in 2012. Shortly after Yamaka got his Nobel Prize to say, okay, we gonna go down that path. Because if this is true, then many diseases will not end with symptomatic treatments anymore, but they will be able to be cured. Mm. And that was the paradigm shift. Yeah. And the third platform that we have really a lot of confidence in is to build a completely new excess world for biologics.
And what I mean with this, with what we are doing in just etic, biologics will allow us to make antibodies, not antibodies, not only more. Manufacturable and more efficiently usable. But also it will allow us to make cost of goods for antibodies happening. That will be first, allow many disease areas also to be treated with biologics, which today is not the case.
And secondly, which will allow us to make drugs at significantly different costs and price points in the future. And with this, you give wider access to biologics and that would be trust, an amazing contribution of vitech, not only for the company, but also for the world. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: So if I understand well for you yourself, there was a lot of my tied to the company of like, Will we achieve this?
Will that decision bring fruit? And then this brought back to you yourself of like, okay, do I want to continue or not?
Werner Lanthaler: No. For me, it was always, is there still enough vision in myself? Yeah. To go to work every day in the morning and see where we are going and you wouldn’t believe it, but we are trust at the beginning.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because there is a market environment of 140 billion spent every year in research and development. Evok Tech does not even have a billion in sales at this stage, but we are owning some of the core technology platforms that, that we can bring forward in the future. And this together with our partners will be very powerful.
Mm-hmm.
[00:59:04] Staying humble
Philip Hemme: I still want to stick a bit what with you than, but I mean, I, I, I feel it very, feel it amazing. I mean, I was meeting another student in, he had very, I mean, he was very happy I was going to a team and to the organization and not necessarily talking like even not that comfortable talking about himself, which I find very also a very good sign actually as a, as a leader to, to, to see much pasted ourself and very little ego.
How, how you wanna define ego. But still, I want to understand a bit, like what’s, what’s, what’s behind you. Maybe that can be one point, like you, I feel like you’re very even said it, an intro. Very accessible or friendly, humble as a, as a person, it’s a compliment, but I, I really feel, I feel, I feel that, and I’m, I’m very curious like,
If you are, like, if it’s just who you are or if there’s like, you are like trying to maintain that, or you’re like, is there something around there or something you can share around this notion of like, cause I think it’s a, yeah, it’s something pretty unique with, with, with yourself and, yeah.
Werner Lanthaler: Can you, yeah.
So first of all, thanks for saying that and for obviously feeling it that way. And secondly, I just don’t see any fun in pretending anything that, that is not authentic to me. Why should I do this? Yeah. And, and, and it’s, first it would be completely inefficient. Secondly, it’s not what I wanna do. And, and thirdly, I always hope that everyone who I’m.
Friendly or clear to is also friendly and clear to me. And I say this because I make decisions Yeah. A lot. And many of them unpleasant for an r and d project. And, and, and, but what I’m hopefully doing is not making decisions without rational and not making decisions on a, on a two personal basis. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And of course we all have our personal biases, but, but I try to be analytical to the decision and then people can take decisions and then they perceive them as not totally unfair. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, as you just mentioned it before, when you’re in crisis mode, you have to have a different speed of decision.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And people will then only trust you that you’re doing the right thing if they have experienced you. Right, doing the right thing also in the past. So that’s a bit where I’m coming from. And that’s also, I hope, at least how I behave, not only in the company, but also outside of the company. I don’t wear different coats outside of the company or inside of the company.
I don’t talk differently. I don’t, you know, for me it’s, maybe it’s too close because I don’t have this differentiation of private and business as much as probably I should have it. But, but that’s why I, I’m quite balanced also on, on that front, that there’s not a second, second Werner somewhere. Yeah, there’s no avatar.
Philip Hemme: But is that something, I’m still curious, like how much, is that something that you had like inside of yourself or is something you cultivated or is that something you tried to work on? Or is it just like kind of very natural? Listen to you, your,
Werner Lanthaler: I probably also, when I think back when I was 25, I had this idea of I wanna have a a big career and big career was then associated.
I wanna have a big car now. That’s the worst dream I can have in my life. Yeah. To just what, why do you do it? Yeah. What’s the, what’s the prize at the end? Yeah. And that prize at the end has, for me totally changed. Yeah. That now it’s for me to say, okay, I want to build a company that has true relevance Yeah.
In this industry to our partners and to patients. And if I’m the one who can drive this, and if I’m the one who can do this together with our team here, then it’s, it’s a privilege to, to get the buy-in from others. To do this together with you, and you even get paid for that privilege. Yeah,
Philip Hemme: no, that’s fine.
[01:04:06] Mindmaps for motivation
Philip Hemme: And the why, yeah. You sound like you’re clear, clear wise, but still, I’m still curious on the, like, on how, like how you Yeah. How you cultivate or not cultivate or where it comes from or how is it like
Werner Lanthaler: it’s a so much easier mind map to create for yourself if you are running a portfolio of 10 neuro projects.
Yeah. And we do this together with bms where you can see, okay, this could be the next generation of neuro projects that really make a difference in a world where there’s no cure. Yeah. And not even a treatment. Yeah. And. If you understand that this is the core business, that it’s all centered around, then the rest becomes significantly less important because that’s then the core, and that’s where then that’s what drives me, that I say, okay, do I see the core of what we are doing or don’t?
I see the core? And the core is not that you have a fancy dinner at some place, which I also like by the way. But, but that’s not the core of this. It’s not the goal of, of the, the industry. And it’s definitely not the core the goal of the company. And that’s why coming as you want to have it personal, as long as I feel this when I go to work that the core is exciting mm-hmm.
Then it’s not, then I don’t need a motivational trainer or a psychologist or anyone, then science is motivating in itself. Mm-hmm. That’s amazing.
Philip Hemme: That’s the Yeah, that’s amazing. I’m, I’m for that. I hear still, I mean, it’s, it seems very obvious to you and very deeply integrated and I mean, probably also is experience.
There is some, it, it brings it as well. I mean, even
Werner Lanthaler: what, I’m old man. I do this for 25 years and of course there is a, a different tone to this than 20 years ago. And I made more mistakes than many other people in my life. But at least I tried to not to repeat them too often, and I tried to learn from them.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if you keep this ability then, then you can always test drive yourself and say, okay, am I still doing the right thing? And that’s for me, not a question. Yeah.
Philip Hemme: Still sounds like it’s, yeah. I mean, even me personally, I, I, I reflect on this and it’s. I think like
I don’t tend to be very humble or like, it’s something that I don’t, don’t tend to be super humble or in the past 10 years
Werner Lanthaler: you speak Chinese, you should be proud.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. Can be proud. But I’m not necessarily super humble about it or like, and when you, or if, yeah. Anyway, it’s, if something is important, how do you, can you like, you know, mi like not mimic it, but like make it more important or work on it or change some aspect of your personality.
It’s, it’s something that maybe I also work on what clearly
Werner Lanthaler: does not work. It’s, yeah. You cannot do something which has a long time horizon and not be authentic about it. Yeah. Yeah. Because then it kills you. If it would for me be hard work. To believe in what we are doing every day. Yeah. It kills you. If, for me, it would be hard work to con to be convinced about the company and try to get, go to an investor, it would kill me.
You know? Mm-hmm. At this stage, it’s not even, I, I perceive it as a, as a privileged dialogue because there’s no, there is no hardship. Yeah. There is no pain. There is. It’s, and I think that’s, that’s a bit where if you want to go into advice mode here, that’s a bit where I would advise anyone to go to say, okay, you have to really believe it.
Otherwise it’s, otherwise it’s too hard. Yeah. So,
Philip Hemme: yeah, believe it. And it sounds like a lot of the things you do basically daily just fits really well with your whatever system, whatever value. Whatever your
Werner Lanthaler: call and whatever challenge that comes, it fits really well because there are, in our world, there is a challenge coming every week or every day or every month, where you say, now I’m really fed up.
Yeah. But if what you’re doing is, is giving you this light at the end of the tunnel or this, this picture beyond that, then it’s so easy to motivate yourself. And then you say, okay, there is a drug that failed, but that should not stop. Hundred 99
Philip Hemme: others wait. Exactly.
Werner Lanthaler: Yeah. And I guess it’s, that’s why we also, and I, I, I really, I’m kind of proud about this, I have to say, in 2009, I wrote our, our slogan mission.
Never research Never Stops. Yeah. And, and that was, and it’s still, it’s still, it’s the, still the same tagline I would write today. Yeah. That’s amazing.
[01:09:27] A typical day
Philip Hemme: That was already a great fit 15 years ago. Yeah. No, that’s great. The what, maybe the, maybe one thing on a bit personal, maybe what’s from a like day to day, what’s your, like a typical day in in ve nic shoes or what’s your typical day?
Werner Lanthaler: Vienna gets up at, at about six o’clock in the morning. Do some pushups. Yeah. He doesn’t do pushups, but, but you do. Yeah. Sometimes he managed to run. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which I like a lot. And then I try to, to emails at home. Then I go into the office where I have the idea cultivated that I try to be. As much as possible outside of the office.
Mm-hmm. And that doesn’t mean they’re not working. But my work is better done when I am with partners at conferences when I am with investors, when I am on site of one of the 17 sites that Evo Tech has. So that’s why I’m rarely in my Hamburg based office which makes me nevertheless be fully connected.
And that’s maybe another thing. We created a virtual management team structure way before Covid in 2015 already, which makes us also as a team be quite efficient that we can work together despite the fact that we are not on the same places all the time. And then I typically work more than eight hours a day.
Mm-hmm. And. Most of the times and somewhere north of 12 to 14 hours a day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I never count and would not know who to tell. Yeah. What I’m counting. Yeah, that’s
Philip Hemme: fine. And you sound pretty in your day also pretty balanced or that this not like somebody will, let’s say, relaxed about it or like very, not, not relaxed, but balanced.
I think
Werner Lanthaler: if you don’t have stress, you don’t live. Yeah. If you’re not excited about certain things, then they’re not an, a good enough challenge. It doesn’t overpower you. There are moments when you are afraid. There are moments when you’re excited. And that’s again reflecting about it. If you are not excited anymore, if you are not feeling.
Kind of lump and fever anymore. When you go, I don’t know, to a discussion meeting or to a negotiation, then you probably shouldn’t do it anymore because then you don’t have the, the, the, the stamina to do it anymore and, and, and the energy to do it. That’s interesting.
Philip Hemme: Yeah. It’s it rings a lot of things in my mind.
[01:12:33] What’s Evotec building?
Philip Hemme: But no, that sounds, sounds very good. From you wanna maybe, I mean, we can start to, to wrap up. We, we touched, I mean, on Evo tech just from, from a wrapping up, but we, you touched quite a lot of things on the different platforms you’re building. I walked around the building just there, but the new I PSC building coming,
Werner Lanthaler: I mean, yeah, that’s a good example of something where when you take the risk, it’s 10 years ago, it’s quite, when you take the risk of building a new building.
Yeah. Where the, where it takes three years to really have from scratch a building done. How many things do we know that will happen in three years from now and what the experimental cascades will look like in three years from now? Yeah. So that’s And the world. And the world looks like. Yeah. Yeah. But again, that’s why making these long term CapEx driven decisions is something where I’m totally alert about them.
For example, we are at this stage investing into just Evo tech, biologics, our J pod infrastructure for lowering costs for biologics, $500 million. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and that’s a lot of money where the underlying hypothesis that this will create value and this will be highly profitable. That’s a big, big, big decision.
Yeah. That’s a really big
Philip Hemme: decision, I guess. No, like not really. Miles. I mean, the go no-go is like really, I mean, building a building is a really, like building a building is easy.
Werner Lanthaler: Many, many, but, but creating a, an authentic business plan that utilizes Yeah. Such infrastructure. Yeah. That’s, that’s where I get really excited and say, okay, do we do this now or not?
And again, creating $500 million for novel biologics as an infrastructure and creating 600 jobs. Trust for that is, Is also the responsibility not only to your shareholders who give you that money to do this, but also to, to the people who you say, this is gonna be your future. It better be be right. And not everything will work out.
I’m also sure, but on just direct politics, I’m sure that it will work out. Yeah. You
Philip Hemme: sound pretty confident. Mm-hmm. It’s, I mean, also what I, what I mean is that it’s not like a, let’s say in a, in a more, it’s AI or software where you, every six months you can reevaluate. And you can pivot. I mean, here it’s like a, it’s really big commitment and a very long-term credit.
And you, until you see if it works or not, it’s like which belong.
Werner Lanthaler: And that’s also, that comes down to the business model. If you are Sanofi or BMS or whoever you want to work with a partner who is just as long in the game and committed to the game as you are, because otherwise, No one would be well advised to work with us.
If they have the feeling tomorrow, they will go away, or tomorrow they will just exit, or tomorrow they will switch from this modality to that modality. So this is also building the trust to our partners. And this is also the reason by once partners work with us, they have a very, very high retention rate to come back to us.
And they are also happy to, to acknowledge that by paying prices that are probably sometimes a a bit premium compared to others. But then they, our, our people understand and our partners understand what opportunity costs are. I think that’s the easy phrase for that.
Philip Hemme: Sounds like. Yeah. It’s a good, good, good way to, to, to, to wrap up on, I mean, sounds like I, I like this very long term vision and I mean, crazy also.
How it worked from, you know, ipss 2012 until now. It’s crazy how, how a lot of long term BES worked and how you yourself also think very long term and how you, yourself think also very long term from a does it fit to yourself? Like, can you, like, well, like you wanna add something there on the, on the, on the long term thinking or how you cultivate it,
Werner Lanthaler: how you like, I mean, IPCs is a very good example for that.
Yeah. Because I, of course did not understand everything that was behind IPCs, but I completely understood for the last years already that we as an industry are, are just not evolving if we are basing our decisions on animal models that are completely dis linked very often from the diseases that we wanna solve.
And if there is. A model system out there, which is directly from the human modeling to the human, then this is a clear evolutionary step to, to make. And I was actually totally surprised that not many more people have done it. Now, I am not surprised because it is hard to do this. It’s hard. It takes time.
You fail a lot. But if you are getting there, then you are leading this, this, this platform. And that’s why you have to, to reduce this to the simple question, do you trust an animal model more then a human model? Mm-hmm. Yeah. If this is giving you education for a drug discovery process, and that’s a clear answer.
Mm-hmm. That’s
Philip Hemme: a good yeah, I like that also, the shift from animal to human based research. And it will come more and more with wrapping up on like one AI ML enabled research. I mean, a lot of exciting times. Exciting times.
[01:18:32] Follow Werner and Evotec
Philip Hemme: Then maybe as a, as a finish, if people want to follow you or learn more about you or yourself or eTech, what’s the best way to, on
Werner Lanthaler: Evotec, we are very prominent on LinkedIn, and if you wanna write me, I have a temporary email address, which is Werner point lantech.eu, but my permanent email address is Werner point lantech.com and I, I don’t.
I don’t have an Instagram account or something like that. I think yeah, you share on LinkedIn maybe. I, I do LinkedIn. LinkedIn, but I don’t have a thing where people can follow me. I only like others on LinkedIn. That’s great.
Philip Hemme: And no, that’s, that’s good. And actually, I haven’t seen many or I haven’t seen any podcasts or where you were, we call any podcasts.
Think it’s another first time. It’s a premier, so I hope as well and we can do that again sooner. Pleasure. Thanks
Werner Lanthaler: Thanks a lot. My pleasure. Thank you so much
Philip Hemme: again.
[01:19:42] Thanks for listening
Philip Hemme: I hope you enjoyed the conversation and thanks a lot for listening to the end. If you’re keen, please hit the follow button somewhere, maybe, or the like review share button. Share it with some connections. It would help us a lot, especially this early in the show. And before telling you more about what’s behind the show, I wanna say big kudos.
And thanks to the team Ciaran in web development Katherine in marketing, Maria in logistics, and Wayne in editing, they did an amazing job and there’s a lot of hard work put into the show.
[01:20:20] About Flot.bio
Philip Hemme: So now what’s behind? So, Flot.bio. The company was founded in March, 2022. I’m one of the founder, and previously I founded Labbiotech.eu and we started the company building a marketplace for the biotech industry, but we didn’t have enough product market fit, so we decided to pivot to a content business with the first product being, being that podcast.
We don’t want to create, you know, yet another podcast. There are already a lot of them around. But we believe Europe needs high quality, long form podcasts to help both professionals and biotech enthusiasts be better informed, grow, and just be better at what, what they’re doing. And so that’s why we are creating the podcast.
We are selecting the best Europeans in biotech we can find and we are interviewing mostly actually offline, so we can have with the highest quality, both technical aspects, but most importantly on the dance and the content and the flow of the, of the tune, the content. We release one episode on one episode per month on all the major platforms.
Money-wise, we are financed by our own private investments and our business model is based on advertisement. So it’s the sponsored message slots that we see in each episode. And we are sponsored by financial support from individuals and corporates. So anyway, I will not make it longer. If you are, I hope you share a vision and if you’re keen to hear more or you wanna reach out or you want to share some feedback, please send, shoot us an email at hi@flot.bio.
Again, thanks for listening and see you in the next episode. Bye.
