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Biotech great Rodger Novak, Co-Founder and Chairman of CRISPR Tx joins us on the show. In this episode, we chat about bringing the first CRISPR drug to the market and why he thinks everything is wrong in bio in Europe besides science. Rodgers’ is a name everyone should know, having made it big in the global biotech scene. I first interviewed him back in 2016 at Labiotech. It’s a treat to be able to sit down with him again.

🔗 LINKS MENTIONED:

• Rodger at Hello Tomorrow 2022
• Rodger at Labiotech Refresh in 2019
• Rodger at Labiotech Refresh in 2016
• Rodger on the Between Biotech Waves podcast

Transcript

Rodger Novak: The other, the other thing, and I always refer back to my CSO at the time in Bloomberg, where a very experienced person, and the way I told him, listen man, we’re not in a candy store, you know, we could all look around and get nice big bright eyes and look and, ah, we could do this and we could do that, but man, the money is on hemoglobin alpha as we need to focus and execute on that.

 At least during the early years. And that’s what we do.

[00:00:38] Welcome

Philip Hemme: Hey, Philip here. Welcome to six episode of the . Flot.bio Show. We’re interview the best Europeans in biotech to help you grow. Today I’m in soup. Just next to Zurich to talk with Rodger Novak, who is one of the co founders and the chairman of CRISPR Therapeutics. And Rodger is really one of the few Europeans who made it really big globally in biotech.

We had our, actually our first chat on stage in 2016. And it’s great to be able to talk with him again today. We will talk about bringing the first CRISPR drug to the market, almost there. And why he thinks everything is broken in biotech in Europe, except science. So let’s head to the meeting room and talk with him.

All right, Roger, welcome to the show. 

Rodger Novak: Thank you for having me. 

Philip Hemme: Great to be in Zurich, it’s quite hot. I think the hot 

Rodger Novak: I’m really excited.

[00:01:45] Bringing CRISPR to the market

Philip Hemme: Yeah, so amazing. So yeah, I mean, for, for today, I think a lot of of topics to cover we could cover, but I, I wanted to start with with the CRISPR drugs and bringing the first one to the market, it’s, it’s think really close.

Supposed to be reviewed, I think December, you know, this year for for one invitation. And you have founded the company that is behind it. And I think my question is how, basically, how did you manage to go faster than everyone else in the space? 

Rodger Novak: Oh, okay. So the nice answer or the not so nice answer? No, I mean, I think, I think it’s a good question maybe to start.

Now it’s 10 years ago. So when we got introduced, or when I got introduced to the CRISPR technology. I think one of the very first things was really the question, how do you translate? So, so you have something in a really innovative, everybody or almost everybody starts to work on it. Many people get excited, but then the big question is, okay, how do you really make sure that you can translate this into some kind of, and I think there were two, three elements to this, which I think I’m not only applicable to CRISPR and the story, but maybe in, in general.

So the very first is we thought, Hey, we need to understand the technology relatively well, or at least better than what we read, you know, from academic scientific publications. And once we have understood this a little better, we also understood very quickly, where are the advantages at that stage of the technology and where are the disadvantages.

And so we said, okay, we need to make sure that we make use of, of, of, of what this technology is really good at and everything else so that we park this, but you know, we don’t put an emphasis on that at the beginning. So. In the end, keep it simple. 

Philip Hemme: Do you have an example around that? 

Rodger Novak: Yeah, the example is relatively easy.

 You know, people were excited in two ways. You know, they were excited that you can knock down something by having a double stranded DNA cut, which then gets repaired, and during that repair you have some mistakes, and with that you get your knockdown. And obviously the other approach is That you insert a DNA template with whatever kind of sequence you’re intending to put into the DNA.

The second one, even today, 10 years later, is still a challenge for various reasons and we understood this and I think others understood this also as well, that you’re young, that the knockdown is easier but I think. What we also did is then we thought more from a translational perspective about how may, how do you make use of this?

So we really ignored the insertion part and said, okay, so if we now knock something out, how can we do this? And there’s a second problem, which was very clear that time and still is a big challenge for FIELD and that was. The delivery is, so we, at the time in particular, yes, you know, we knew about mRNA delivery and LNPs and AAV and pretty much what we know today, I mean, today, I think feels much more sophisticated, but still the same issues, man.

Philip Hemme: And so it’s the same bottleneck. 

Rodger Novak: It’s the same bottleneck. Yeah. And we can maybe talk about that bottleneck at one point, but, but then we also said, Hey, so, why not taking something outside, so, so taking something from the patient, from the body, so cells, and manipulate them outside. And then, again, don’t insert anything, just knock down something, and, and then give it back to the patient.

Because that’s something we understood we can control pretty well. So ex 

vivo, knockout, vivo, in vivo, 

in vivo. So that was the one extreme, in vivo. insertion outside the liver, maybe even more. 

Philip Hemme: Which you are, I think from what I understand, CRISPR Cervix is working on it, but it’s still, even today, it’s still like super early.

Rodger Novak: It’s super early. And that’s something, if you want to talk about CRISPR and not only CRISPR, DNA editing, maybe RNA editing. That’s something we can touch on a little bit, because I think as I said before, the field has been more sophisticated, but the challenges are still very, very similar than what we have encountered 10 years ago.

And, and so, so we said, okay, we combine two elements. One is knock down and one, the other say it’s legal. And so now then look for an indication. And to be quite honest, if you, if you have these kind of two criteria, I mean, there’s not that much left, which then also fits a bit of that. You want to say, okay, I want to have a re approved content.

I want to have something which really addresses an unmet medical need. I want to have something. A market, I put this over here because it sounds a little bit you know, yeah, I would, strange because for sure we are dependent on investors and in particular at this, well all of us depend on investors, but in particular in the early stage, you have private investors.

So you for sure need to also bring them along. But then also how you execute a clinical trial, don’t forget that, you know, often, you know, they say, ah, you know, we, we have an orphan indication and we have this, we have that. And so it’s easy, but one has to be very careful because, you know, either a field is crowded, even an orphan indication, then it’s very difficult to recruit or you have so few patients, you know, that, which are illegible to, to whatever protocol you are.

So it might be an issue. So we said, okay if all these criteria apply, there are not that many diseases left. And one of them was sickle cell and B cell. And so. Which 

Philip Hemme: also other g and p companies also work. I mean like Bluebird 

Rodger Novak: Bluebird, that was an issue, quote unquote with the investors because investors were sure said, can you work on hemoglobin neuropathy?

So, so sickle cell and beath cell, it will be cured by Bluebird. Yeah. And so it was, and maybe that was something where other companies at the time, like Italia, yeahs sure. They considered also hemoglobin neuropathies. But then, you know, maybe they, they got scared and said, Hey, you know, how we can compete against a company and against programs, which are three, two, three, maybe four years ahead.

So we do something different. We want to, we want to be differentiated. And we took a different position. We said, Hey, the most important thing is we want to give this technology a chance. And so we need to de risk it. And we want to do something where in a field where we still feel there is an unmet medical need, despite the fact that Bluebird’s program was further advanced.

Today, we know with hindsight that this was probably a very, very, very good decision, you know and it teaches you a lot of lessons, you know, 

Philip Hemme: it’s crazy. 

It makes me think about, we watched the interview we had in 2016 on stage in Berlin, and you were saying like, We’re trying to go a bit slower, but more like, no, like a bit more conservative, but to win the race at the end and like have a more clear trajectory versus like trying to sprint and then Sprint s Marial, 

Rodger Novak: it’s a marathon 

Philip Hemme: and at the end, I mean, yeah, and look seven years later it, I mean, yeah, it was the right, the right decision was the right pace.

Rodger Novak: I, I think, I think, I think it was the right decision. I also think that, I think that’s important. When, and this has not, I think it doesn’t only apply to, to CRISPR. CRISPR maybe is a very special case because of CRISPR editing, because all of a sudden, you know, innovation, I always say this. At least in the early days, all the innovation or most of the innovation was driven by academia.

So we could benefit from that. We all could benefit from that. So, so it’s not like if you, let’s say have a great idea and you look for funding and you do some experiments, let’s say an academic setting, then you transfer it to, to, to attack, to a biotech setting. But often, you know, maybe you work with a modality, you know, which is known.

But then, you know, often you’re still alone with your ideas and, and, and how you, how, how you make, you know, progress. And then thinking the CRISPR cases was different because so many people worked on that. It made it also more complicated for sure, because also one thing, and this is clearly a criticism, is that people in particular, the academic field, very quickly for sure realized.

That if you want to publish that in high impact journals you just put a CRISPR in the title, and for CRISPR at in vivo or CRISPR and whatever kind of model. And then here we go, you have your nature biotech paper. And like often, unfortunately myself I come out of academia, but, but often many claims also around safety.

 Other aspects which were made through scientific publications, I wouldn’t say that they were wrong necessarily, but they were not to the standards we need in this industry, but they caused a lot of confusion with investors, even with regulators. And I remember many, many occasions where we had to either ignore it, yeah, most of the time we tried to ignore it.

Often you couldn’t ignore it and then you had to do your own work internally. So it was a very interesting time and, and, and a confusing time. The other, the other thing, and I always refer back to my CSO at the time, Bloomberg, where a very experienced person in the way I told him, listen, man, we’re not in a candy store, you know, we could all look around and get nice big bright eyes and look and, ah, we could do this and we could do that, but man.

The money is on hemoglobinopathy as we need to focus and execute on that at least during the early years. And that’s what we did. 

Philip Hemme: Sounds like, yeah, I like that a lot. I mean, I like the fact that it makes me think, I mean, everything you said, which even from an observer, it was crazy. I mean, CRISPR, I think it’s the first time I see this.

And I think even from reading about biotech history, I don’t think this happened very often where. There’s so much attention and hype and money, maybe comparable to like the early days of biotech with Genentech and the like biotech factory and it will like change everything within 10 years and it took a bit longer.

But it’s amazing with CRISPR and even like, you know, even the general public knowing all about about CRISPR and sounds like even for you guys, I mean, you were basically, you had like so much possibilities and then. But that’s also what you say. It’s very challenging to say no, no, no, no, no. And we focus. It’s, 

Rodger Novak: I think it’s a trick and I think, and, and 

Philip Hemme: yeah. And maybe also just connected to also you, sounds like you, it’s pretty clear that CRISPR was going to, like, was going to work or like what was like, that was a huge potential. So yes. Versus like, even MMNA, even though they are now, I mean, it was still very questionable if it was really going to work that big.

I mean, on hindsight it’s possible, but. I don’t know. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah. I think yes. I mean, mRNA is an interesting one. I think there’s another element which, so when I very, the very first time I joined the industry, the biotech industry was in 2006 and within the brief of therapeutics, which was in Austria, it was a small molecule approach and antibacterials.

Comparing that time to what we do today. In the industry it’s very different from a quality perspective. I’m not saying that the companies around that time didn’t meet quality criteria, but I think particularly when it comes to people, so who is working in the industry, whom can you attract that is a different and I think that was another very, very important point that from a leadership perspective at CRISPR in the early days.

So myself, I have a more of a, I would say, I’m an, I’m a medic, I’m. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been trained as a scientist for almost 10 years as a, you’re professor. Yeah. I was a professor, blah, blah, blah. But you know, with that, you know, I always considered myself more as a translational person. So someone who will see a scientific asset and, and then thinks about how can you bring this into clinical, say you never can do this.

You know? Yeah. And, and I think what is important with these startups also at the time that the leadership. Including the CDO, you know, unless for sure the person is able to build a different team, but. It, I would phrase it carefully, you know, I’m a little over the nose. So why is it holding back a little bit?

I think it makes a huge difference for really early startups when it’s about technology platforms in particular, that the leadership team, in particular, also the CEO understands or has a basic understanding about what it means to bring something into the clinic. What are the potential challenges?

Almost has a respect for that only then. The individual can recruit a team really fitting the needs on the assets or the platform. And that’s something I’ve seen repeatedly, maybe also to a certain extent with. With other CRISPR companies were in the early days, this didn’t have. And that, that’s something I think people and investors should really pay attention to.

I mean, when you think about the leadership changes in editor, all the individuals who have been there, qualified people I respect, but when you really look back and look at, hmm, was that the really right fit for a startup in a highly competitive environment where. You have all the ideas and the dreams about a game changing technology, but in the end it has shown nothing but some, some signs, cell and nature.

And so I think that that’s very important to almost have, yeah, the respect for what is about to come and then be very smart about it and, and get the wrong team to.

[00:17:33] Experience in biotech isn’t everything

Philip Hemme: I think, yeah. Makes me think that you kind of in the tech world, this experience is overrated, but I think in biotech, it’s a very good point, less overrated, at least than I thought.

Rodger Novak: I, I, I have, I have a view on that. It’s a very interesting, I cannot name or mention names that would not be correct. But I’ve, I’ve been thinking about that question a lot. Because I love to support younger people also leadership positions. I think that’s absolutely important. And, and then more recently in a, in, in a company where I’m involved, it’s also a tech platform, it’s stealth.

So nobody could do anything. Then you’re asking a very smart person who is for me, the scientific brain. Founder of Perceive Behind This approached me and said, Hey, you know, I’m going to be the CEO. And I almost fell off my chair. Probably 10 years ago, I would have laughed him out of the room and said, ah, come on, give me a break.

But then, you know, I thought about it and, and it came exactly to, to the conclusion you just made. Because he said, ah, in tech, we do this and you have all these young people. I think experience even in our industry is to a certain extent, a bit overrated in particular when it comes to very senior people out of pharma.

 I mean, we are, we should be a very dynamic environment and I think some people probably have a challenge with that. I’ve been in big pharma, so I know why that is. But at the very same time, Yannick, and, and this is because we are after, I think the aviation industry, the most regulated industry, say it’s nice to have good ideas and this and that.

 But, but you need to do this within a framework, you know, 

Philip Hemme: and even further than legal. And just the complexity of bringing a drug to the patient is, is insane. I can even relate maybe even from like being, being like a bit, I mean, a bit younger than you, less experienced. And my recent experience in Switzerland with Molecular Partners and, and even working with them, I was like, okay, I can still like, I was trying to spin out a therapeutics company.

But when I really put my hands on it, so, so, so complex. And even to see them inside trying to develop a drug. It’s so, so, so, so complex that, yeah, now it’s, it’s obvious that basically it’s a balance. So you’re… 

Rodger Novak: I think it’s usually a balance. It’s a balance. And, and for example, when with CRISPR, maybe RefiBot.

You know, I brought on board in the early days, I think after two years, Sam Kulkarni, who’s now the CEO for a while at Sam was very young and he came from McKinsey, yet very young. For tech, he was already an old man with like 36 or 37 years of experience. Yeah. So he had at least some exposure, but, but I, I, I got a lot of questions from the board, you know, because it was a C, C leather position.

CBO you know, should we do this and blah, blah, blah. And, and then, and so on and so forth. And, and I, I, I thought for sure it, I mean, it’s not that young anymore. But and I think the balance is the right thing to do. Because also I think in particular when you come out of pharma and into the biotech we can learn from people who have not been in the system because they come up with other ideas.

And in many cases where we develop drugs these days, in particular for rare disease, I mean, it’s not detectable. 

[00:21:35] How important is CRISPR?

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s right. We could talk about that. I want to continue in that, especially. Yeah, I want to continue on this because I think you are like, what I, what I love with you is that you have like, you know, when you start at CRISPR you had this like pharma experience, this biotech experience, very entrepreneurial mindset.

And I want to like get back to that after and like, what, what, what is that? What’s the lessons there are like a lot of things we can discuss, but going back to the actual like CRISPR therapeutic drug, one thing that even like, I mean, I have hard times to, to really like, you know, understand. is the comparison to, to Bluebird on the drug.

Because at the end, I mean, the CRISPR, I mean, it’s, it’s clear that it has changed everything in like academic, in ag tech, in even in discovery and tools. But then when it comes to actual gene therapy, I’m always wondering, like, how much is it, like, how much is it a game changer, how much improvement, and how important is the tool in the whole gene therapy approach versus a Thailand that is maybe a bit more expensive, maybe a bit more complicated, but from my understanding, once it’s done, maybe it can do the job.

But can you elaborate a bit on that? Like, yeah, for, let’s say for, for me or some similar people in the audience. And I guess you’ve got some clicker results as well to back that up. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah. I think, I think when you look at CRISPR as a technology, you probably have to divide this into different pillars. You know, one pillar is.

You know, more, I would almost say as a tool in the academic world but not only academic worlds in the CRO world where you, for example, use the editing to design whatever kind of animal model, whatever suits you. 

Philip Hemme: And by CRISPR is extremely fast and cheap. 

Rodger Novak: Or antibody production with cell lines. You can do a lot of stuff there.

Yeah. Maybe, maybe for the purpose of this, I think, you know, you’re thinking about CRISPR as a therapeutic. Yum. I think when you, when you look at this, what we have done so far and the field has done so far is mostly a focus on a combination of cell therapy with CRISPR technology, marrying it. So we take an HSC, so hematopoietic stem cell and edit that.

 And then the edited cell is your therapeutic, you know, when you think about immunoecology, for example, you know, same thing, you know, you, for example, take a T cell and design, you know, whatever kind of feature you would like to have with regard to a TCR or whatever surface antigens, you name it, or you do mutations, you know, in the T cell to prevent exhaustion.

Yeah. So many things. All that. Is very easily doable, at least at the bench with the CRISPR technology. You can again, also we use it for sure in the company as a tool to run our models. But then once we understand what kind of edits we have to do, for example, to, to have quote unquote the very best T cell for, let’s say an immune oncology indication then it becomes part of a product, you know what I mean?

So I think, I think, and when you mentioned talents. Or even zinc fingers from a, from a single knockdown or let’s say editing perspective. Yes, there are from a therapeutic perspective, there are indications where you absolutely could use a zinc finger or a talent. But the, I would call this the flexibility the speed, also, by now we understand much better from my perspective, preciseness of doing something. 

Philip Hemme: So, offside, offside. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah, offside, but that’s a very complicated matter and I think some people would disagree with that. We don’t have enough data anymore with Talents and Zeekfinger to really come to a conclusion.

But, but I think more that, you know, like think about small multitudes. When you do, when you work on small multitudes, you want to compare. You know, lots of leads, for example, or chemical matters for a given pharmacological effect. The more you have, the more SAR you can do. The better for you, the better is it in the end to find the right moniker.

The same thing is with editing. If you, you know, in your research have a tool in your hands where you can edit different sites, look for whatever kind of effect, biological effect, whatever it is, read out essays you have, and then pick in this case, the right guide to do this. It’s for sure has huge advantages over.

Not being able to do that and rely on one or two, maybe cuts or approaches. I think this is one of the huge strengths of, of the technology. 

Philip Hemme: But that’s still more in the, like, discovery phase, because once you’re in a phase one, 

Rodger Novak: sure, it’s, this is only to, to in the end, identify your guy. That’s what I, that’s a product.

[00:27:07] How to become best in class

Philip Hemme: But my question then, I mean, yeah, that’s makes total sense. But where, where I’m still like, what’s clear is then once the product is identified, Rubel has a product, and you go into a bit of the simulation. 

Rodger Novak: Well, they’re two different products. They’re very different. So, we have an editing product where we edit a promoter sign, which leads to the up regulation of tetrahemoglobinol.

So and Rupert does is, is kind of, you know, replacing, you know, a genetic default to overcome the J defect. Technically, this is very different and there are differences with regard to, and here you, you talked before about complexity, complexity comes in. Manufacture. So, you know, to manufacture what we do is only straightforward, but significantly more straightforward.

Then for example, what Bluebird does, you 

Philip Hemme: know, cause they also both Alex Vivo. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah. They also, yeah. So, so I mean, the processes are very, very different. And, and so, so in the end and then also you know, I mean, how to put this best, I mean, the reason why we went after the same indication Bluebird went after was, were different than they are today at the time we thought, Oh, it may be safer.

We can produce faster, we have less variability and, and, and these were the reasons we believed in. And try to convince the investors that this is relevant for all the reasons it might have been relevant to, to justify, to go after what some people call the me too. Today it’s, it is totally differentiated, but for other reasons.

Yeah. And so it’s also a lesson learned if you ask me, is that if you really believe in your product, even if another company is way ahead of you and you think you can differentiate, go for it. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, she can be, let’s say, best in class or like better at the end. 

Rodger Novak: Best in class or, yeah, it has to be best in class, you know, or at least, you know, get it close to that.

You need to be able to differentiate, but shying away just because someone is ahead of you. In particular, if you think you maybe have better target validation or whatever you do, I mean, think about it. I mean, you know, there are always reasons why you still could do it, but, but you obviously need to, to have a rationale for it.

Philip Hemme: It’s, I mean, even just the answer to that question, it shows also the complexity behind, I mean, the whole discussion of complexity and crazy, How complex it is and how, then the, I mean, you have to really boil down to really see like the, the, the difference. 

Rodger Novak: I, I, yes, but I, I think it’s another thing people tend to overthink,

you know, I think keep it, even now you have to keep it simple and you have to believe in something, you know, I mean. Don’t believe it. So that, that’s another thing. You know, once you have made a decision for a key decision, let’s say you go for an indication as a company or talk to your, to your colleagues you, you know, you’re really convinced as a team you know, defend it, fight for it.

But they don’t want to stick with it. Yeah. But, but you need 

Philip Hemme: to work with it as long, as long as possible until you’re ready for it. 

Rodger Novak: I, I, I, I would, I would, I would caveat this a little bit. Make sure that you qualify whatever you want to do as soon as possible. And you don’t keep something alive for the reason for the wrong.

So, I mean, everybody knows this in the industry. It’s not about killing it early that I don’t like this because you can, we, all these drugs. Yeah, also our CRISPR drug died easily 10 times, they all died, many deaths, but then again, experience tells you, can you overcome that death? Can you revive it, you know, in one way or the other, and is it worth it?

 And so that is by the way, a complexity, I think where again, it comes back to the earlier point I made. If you don’t have a leadership, a CEO can really also understand this. And drive it then how can that CEO who doesn’t understand it stand in front of the board and say, listen, I mean, I respect you, whatever, but I, this is what I believe.

And so I think the benefit is extremely, it’s an extremely important point that when, particularly when it’s around these complex platforms that you have a senior team in place who understands what they’re doing. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. No, that’s, that’s pretty good. I think what you just said, I think it, yeah, I think the more complex something is a project is the more you need like robust team and then some experience that even if you take the paradigm, I mean, launching a rocket SpaceX, you need like, Oh, like building, 

Rodger Novak: they’re not jokers.

Philip Hemme: Really good with nuclear power plant or whatever, whatever the. When you have a budget of a billion. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah. I mean, SpaceX is a nice a nice example. Not what I like. It’s a tech example. Yeah. You have obviously in that case with all respect to Elon Musk, a crazy guy with a crazy idea, but.

So when you look at the team at the senior leadership, this is a, this is an A plus team. I mean, I mean, and, and so there is a combination of dreams of vision, innovation backed by professionals. And that, that, that for me is an equation, which, which helps you, which you require for success, for graceful success tells again, how you define success, yeah.

But, but I think this is critically important, you know. 

[00:33:40] The secret recipe for founding a successful company

Philip Hemme: I like it. So do you, talking about this and going back to the story of like, to more, like less experienced founders that maybe would like to help or executives, do you recommend them to go after something a bit less ambitious or like moonshots and something a bit more like, a bit safer, less complex?

Rodger Novak: Not necessary. So first of all, moonshots. I’m not a big fan of moon shots because yeah, I mean, because you, who was it? I think, no, the Indian or the Chinese, I don’t know. Some, some, someone failed right now with the, with the landing on the moon. Anyway. No, seriously. No, I do not think so. I think we need these ideas.

We need also ideas where you think totally out of the box that we are, personally, I even think. Sometimes, and often they come from people who have no exposure to the industry. Yeah. So, and, and the founder, I mean, I heard this many times also when we did CRISPR, a founder is often not the right CEO that, that very much depends.

 But why I am a little skeptical and that’s something maybe, I don’t know if it, if it’s, you know, the, the, the bill or the subject matter is a difference between Europe and the US. What I have seen in Europe. Not always, but there is a tendency, I would say that academic founders, which some of them obviously very good and very interesting ideas very much misinterpret or underestimate the challenges ahead of them because there, there’s one thing, for example, not only about drug development, we talked about, this is another thing and it also relates a little back to crispr.

So you’re not a young guy, young lady, young, young, young man, whatever. And we say, okay, I want to build a company. The problem is you need good people because you yourself, you don’t know. Yeah. So how do you convince people to join you? How do you make sure that people believe you, that you are the person who can lead that effort when you want to recruit the very best?

It’s not possible. Yeah. So why would I join someone where. That person claims leadership and I right away understand, okay, he’s a very talented person, but, and it, it’s nice for the ego and whatever it is to become the boss, but why would I deal with this if I have so many other opportunities because, you know, there are alternatives unless that person, and that’s then the difference.

And maybe that’s a little bit of an advice, you know, understands quickly that being the leader is primarily being a, also a team member. Yeah. And that what we see in, I see in Europe often not at and in the US it’s easier, often academic founders, you know, really commission then professionals to do a bit and with that’s a little bit easier.

Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: I like that. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a good transition to, to, to the differences with Europe and you, and we can talk about what the, the, the people, but I think people is a, is a, I mean, makes a… It’s a key. 

Rodger Novak: It’s key. It’s everything. 

Philip Hemme: It’s key. It’s key, I think. So you, you, you sent me an email, I think six months or so, a few months ago.

[00:37:28] Everything is wrong in biotech in Europe besides science

Philip Hemme: And you told me everything is wrong in bio in Europe besides science. We can talk about it if you want. 

Rodger Novak: Hey, I was very proud to meet that. Yeah, about probably another search where I said, oh my god. Yeah, we, you want to talk about it? Yeah. Okay, I live in Europe, so I have to be careful about it. No, I mean, I mean, I think, I think it’s a little, it’s a little frustrating.

 You know that CRISPR is a, is a Swiss based company, but in the end… It’s in Zug. In Zug, yeah. Yes, yes, here, yeah. But, but for sure it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s almost exclusively when it comes to operations, yeah US based, yeah yeah we have people in Switzerland, but, but from an operational perspective you know, we have our board meetings here, key decisions are taken in Switzerland you know, IP is all of that, yeah it’s just as important, yeah, but, but operations are. In, in Boston or at the west? 

Now, and on the one hand, when you think about recruiting, for example, at the Boston area, it’s crazy because people are super expensive. You know, right now we have a different market. But, you know, during the times where biotech was booming a bit more, let’s say two years ago you know, we we also had issues to get really quantified people, even for a company like CRISPR or other really established biotech companies, simply because people could pick and choose.

You know, but you have a market, you have very qualified people sitting in the U. S. They’re not all American, many of them are European working. In Europe, it’s different. We have a number of challenges, from my perspective, or my, my experience. Let’s start with a positive thing. I think science in Europe is strong.

Philip Hemme: Yeah, yeah. I saw CRISPR, cRISPR in Mandela. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah, that’s that, that’s clearly a European story. For sure we have with Jennifer and others. You know, we, we have, I mean, science is international. We have a U. S. American aspect, but Probably a little less the way the Americans look at this. So I, I consider this at least the early days as a European science talk.

Many other things have been done in Europe. Now, the problem is how, how number one problem is how do you get these, these, this science translated into not only a drug, that that’s one thing as a job for a company, but more so how do you sense, sensitize, sensibilize, sensitize. I think the right word.

People, academics to think about, Hey, can I do, can I build a company? That, that, that is missing. We, we, we miss this a lot and it’s getting better and it’s missing. But these are not the big issues. I come to the big issues a little later. The next thing is you need to, 

Philip Hemme: how long, how long is the list? 

Rodger Novak: The list is long. I tried to make it shorter. The next thing’s for sure. In a entrepreneurial mine theory is very in like a very different, yeah, and it’s in many ways naive, which by the way is not a bad thing because what we experience in the US is not very nice because the very first, I always say a US founder always wants to see the cap tape at first.

As European founder, in 80 percent of the cases doesn’t even know what the cap table is. Yeah, so I know what it is. Yeah, because what is it? Now. I like the European approach much more, not because then we can take advantage of the, of the naivety. It’s not at all. Can I focus on the site? But, but you focus on the assets, you focus on the sites.

But the entrepreneurial mind is different. Also respect for what we do and what we in this industry is very different. I think maybe less than 10, 15 years ago, but I was still in academia where it was considered. You were considered a failure if you entered the industry. Yeah. And I think this mindset is still, still there.

So that’s one thing. Yeah. But then coming back to the very early subject, we had team and people to find European leadership, CEOs in particular, but also chief business offices is hard. It’s very, very hard. Not that we don’t have them. Many of them are in the U S and we do have some, but we can probably, I wouldn’t say can’t get them on one hand, but maybe two and a half hands.

I don’t know are sufficient when it comes not to startups. I mean, this is a slightly different game, but when it comes to people with real experience. 

Philip Hemme: Other, other words, just like the, no. Yeah, yeah. But so to say, having it a little, 

Rodger Novak: my, my, my background, you know, academic background, medical doctor, many years in bionic pharma.

Yeah. You know, mass gymnastic listed companies you name it. Yeah. Long, long, long time, or, A lot of experience with investors, being bankers, B, B, BCs, you name it. In the U S you find, let’s put it on the table. You find a lot of outcasts out of there in Europe. Yes, we have them, not that many. And that’s a charge.

Yeah. Because we need them. We need these people. Yeah. And, and not at my stage or at the stage of my career or end of my career or whatever you want to put this. But at least some on that. Where we can really help these companies move on because we have another challenge in Europe and we can’t change that.

We don’t have a NASDAQ. And, and so that, that’s a tricky thing because in the end, we always have to focus at one point to the US, different models to do that. But actually IPOing a company is one of the key exits for investors. Yes, you have M& A and, and all that, but, but I, I don’t know what the numbers are, but, but I, I do believe that.

An ITO right now, so that’s more tricky, obviously, but it will come back. You know, is, is one of the key exits, which also again, attracts, obviously investors when they see an opportunity. And if you, if you are on a continent, which doesn’t allow you for sure, you can go on, on, on, on, you know, local exchange what is the right word?

It’s a stock market. It’s a stock market. Sorry. In most instances, at least for the biotech industry, be some exceptions, but so you have to be listed at NASDAQ. And if, if that’s the case, you need to have a presence there. You need to not just fly over. Sometimes I meet some bankers or analysts. You need to, you need, you need to have some center of gravitas, which then moves attention away from European side.

So, so it’s doable, but it makes it more. 

Philip Hemme: Oh, it’s surprising. It almost surprises me. So there’s a, there’s a stock market in Europe, but even for biotech, there’s just not a like more European stock market. It’s, it’s, it’s crazy, but I mean, that’s that, but then, I mean, everything you mentioned also then it’s, I mean, it’s really on the structural almost level on the, like on top level, like, I mean, I mean, obviously you will not change that, but like how, how to really change these things.

Rodger Novak: I don’t know. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, I mean, obviously stock exchange. That was a word, sorry. That’s super hard and I don’t know. I think it’s almost impossible. But when we look at our industry, not only biotech industry, European industry, for sure there are pockets where we have tech industry and all that.

But, but I do think we do have a different mentality. It’s not bad, but I think our mentality is different, but it’s certainly also in other areas. much less entrepreneurial. And, and I said over time, that’s almost prohibitive when we think about, you know, how, how we, how, how do we, what is, what is the future?

How do, how do we manage this? How do we encourage people to take their life and their responsibility in their own hands and not be too afraid of, of the risk? Because for sure risk is an economic risk. 

[00:46:44] What can a young European founder do to bridge the US gap for biotech

Philip Hemme: I think, I mean, yeah, you’re talking quite a lot on the like. Also kind of micro society level across like cross countries.

Maybe if you look at it more from a micro level, let’s say, whatever, a founder or a CEO is 35, 40 based in Europe, what can he or she do about it? Because I think that’s also, because I mean. It’s basically a very stoic way of seeing it, like what’s in my control, what’s not in my control and just, I do what is in my control.

Same as you, when you started crystal, you and then Sean and Amanda, but when you started Crystal Therapeutics, you realized early on Switzerland is not enough. Let’s go to Boston. IPO direction. That’s like, you never IPO’d on the European market. I think if I’m sure I get to ask most of the team, they’re Europeans, but they’re all us based at the Europeans.

I mean, yeah this was this, there were decisions that were basically your control. Yes. And a European founder CEO could go after the same decisions. Like, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I’m curious how you, like, is there something more there you would see, like, I mean, what I mean, giving that the understanding the macro and then how can you apply to your to you or whoever’s listening.

Let’s say a founder, CEO, even an investor, how can they apply the micro understanding to a micro, like what’s in their control decision?

Difficult. Because that’s actionable. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah. I mean, I mean, my, my, my view is maybe an example. I work as a venture partner for a sub one, which is a U. S. VC group, obviously from the past from GSK, but they’re independent now, they’re raised now, they’re very successful. I think that the second fund and they have a European presence in, in the UK.

 And I always, when, when you look at, you know, when, when, when you, when you look how they look at European companies, startup companies, I often have the impression to look at them differently as if they looked at the US. And so an actual item, for example, for investors, just to check investors is can they trust these guys, trust also the younger people.

 Encourage them, you know, you don’t have different kind of perspectives just because it’s a European team, you know, yeah, things like that. But in the end, it comes down to ourselves as Europeans. And one thing is from my perspective, very, very clear. We need to be a bit more brave. We need to accept that failure is part of the journey.

 And also. Understand that it’s not about you. Yeah. You could argue Americans are, you know, they, they think it’s about them, but they’re smart enough to understand, you know, I can only win at a team. Yeah. I’m not saying that necessarily better team players. But I think that there is more tradition to this to understand, Hey, I cannot do this alone.

You know? And and with that, I think the system is a bit more, you know? 

Philip Hemme: What I, what I like, for example, if I, if I, if I look at myself, what I quite like it, I mean, I would basically agree with, with everything you said and it comes from whatever. I lived a bit in Boston and working. Once, for me, what I like is once I have this, like, macro understanding, then translating it at a micro level and what I mean, for example, at a micro level, I will work only with Europeans based in Europe who have understood this, for example, or like most.

And so, I mean, it’s not, but usually it is the case. And so for example, a French who don’t speak English, I will never work with like, oh, like very, very rarely a German who doesn’t speak English. So, if you don’t even work in English, Ah yeah, sure. Like, for example, Yeah, yeah. But you can already filter out, like, a lot of people, actually.

Yeah. And a lot of people who are not necessarily the best fit. And it’s not the best fit for me as well. Yeah. Maybe they’re a good fit for us. Or like, I tried to, when I, when I was, I was trying to looking for, for like my academic co founder before going to my co partners and I talked to like 16 of them. 15 of them, after 2 minutes, I wanted to stop the conversation. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah, they only talk about themselves, no? Ha, ha, no, that’s my experience. Themself in the end, like. 

Philip Hemme: Zero understanding of what’s company building was even about what sounds like zero, not even like, you know, being experts that 

Rodger Novak: they’re not. I mean, from my perspective, one of the key issues we have in Europe, the people really not, I shouldn’t say the people because there are always exceptions and fantastic people.

But if, if, if you look at the majority and I’m talking, maybe that’s too much, 90 percent on the academics. Sitting, sorry, I have to say that with all respect sitting in the ivory tower. They have no respect and have no respect for, for what is outside. And that, that they’re, you know, I, I joined just recently last year, end of last year, the Nobel prize ceremony with Emmanuel and a special guest.

So I had the privilege to be pretty much at all festivities, events, you name it. After a week. You know, I said, oh man, it was a life, once in a lifetime experience for sure, meeting the king, da, da, dee, da, da, da. But then, you know, I said, you know, wow, these people only talk about themselves. He had a, for example, a crisper, which was probably a pretty special Nobel prize because it was given early.

It was given to two ladies. And it was actually already translated into something, which was, by the way, the purpose of Nobel, yeah which you know, so not a

fricking single word about this. I mean, I mean, I, I was just sitting there and I was thinking sometimes, I mean, you are all probably bright people, but your horizon It stops very close to your nose, you know, to the tip of your nose or at the tip of your nose. And it was very enjoyable. Yeah, it’s not that, but they should open up because we could, we could need their help.

You know, when I talk and Emmanuel will forgive me for the forgive me that hopefully, you know, when I talk to, to Emmanuel about what we do at CRISPR, what can you do with the CRISPR technology, let’s say an immunology or whatever it is, it’s not a lot. Yeah I’m not even talking about Jennifer Dahl, who stands up at the Nobel Prize ceremony and says, we need to do more with CRISPR because so far very little has happened.

And I’m thinking what is going on here? And they, what are you talking about? And I think. In particular, in European academia, the respect and the understanding of the relevance, even from a scientific perspective of this industry is almost not existing and that’s a huge issue because without the innovation of academia, I mean, at least the startup phase.

We are lost, you know, and I, I have a lot of examples with academic funds where, similar to your experience, where I say today, not having seen a shoe, I’m not working with that, period. I need to be five minutes in a room, or let’s say half an hour. It’s very clear. Because. They only, they only consider their science.

They often don’t even know the science in a broader perspective. They, they think this is a way to get wealthy. This is not the way to get wealth. This is a way to have an impact and to change something, you know, for, you know, with respect to the benefit of, yeah, if you want to get wealthy or famous, well then do something else, go on a sitcom, yeah?

I mean, this is crazy, yeah? And so, so that’s something that there’s a totally wrong perspective about this industry among many, many European academics. And I, I find this is a pity. It’s a real pity. 

Philip Hemme: I hope academics are watching this. I feel sorry for them. But, but coming back to what you just said as well, like, I mean, you, you understand it on the micro level, but what can you do in the micro level, it’s a bit like harder, but on the micro level, even for you.

You know rapidly what kind of scientists you want to work with and you will just 

Rodger Novak: you can build companies by the way Yeah, so we are doing this right now. Do you only think are in the building? We might even in that building and all left in the building Not in this one in the building. 

Philip Hemme: It is like a nylon on my To be honest, by the way, I know exactly from that 

Rodger Novak: are not in this building So we we are currently building up and I think it’s it’s it’s absolutely doable but it’s, it’s harder, it’s, it’s more difficult, you know, and job.

And, and then it does have to do for sure, not only, I mean, we cannot blame everything on academia in Europe, yeah. But, but it has to do with the mindset, which is not only, and this is important. I mean, if an academic founder has a, let’s say, a bit different mindset, fine. Okay. That is not prohibitive for building a company and just makes it more annoying.

[00:57:01] The European attitude can get in the way of entrepreneurship

Rodger Novak: Yeah. What is a problem that many of the ideas we see never go anywhere because of, you know, whatever kind of attitude. What, what is, I think more, more difficult is, in, in Europe is that the, it’s not only academia, which has this, it’s also us as Europeans, we do not respect entrepreneurship the way Americans respect it.

And so even at the level of, for sure, we get good scientists. I mean, I have no, we have no issues to get good scientists in Europe. Yeah. But still, you know, you want to have also people who. It might interact at the more senior level with the investors, this is more difficult. And the reason why it is more difficult, you have less people who have done it.

And there are less people simply answering the poll because it’s not viewed necessarily as, Oh, wow, this is this is something you should do. I have a super nice example. About 10 years ago I had a birthday party. A very good friend comes to me and he says, tka, I need to talk to you. I said, sure, no.

Or you having some beers, and No, it was, it was good. Yeah. But age, he said, what’s up? He said, you know what? I don’t understand what you’re doing. I was at that time, and I was at, at some of. You’re not a manager, yeah, you are an MD. Why don’t you work, he, we wasn’t, or he is an MD. Why don’t you work as a medical doctor?

You should not be in this industry. So I don’t understand it, you know? And so I found this a little strange, you know, it was a job, you know. But then when I left, say, Sanofi, I was a global head at the effective, so a very secure, nice position. And, and, and started with CRISPR, I’d say 90% if, if people cared, most people anyway don’t care.

That’s fine. 90 percent of whom thought they care or thought they have to come and told me, what are you doing? You know? I mean, and and yeah, it’s probably a justified question. But in the U. S. I wouldn’t get that question. People say, Oh my God, how did you come across that? How can I, how can I invest?

Yeah, and we say, Oh, are you crazy? Why do you do this? You know, you can’t do this. Oh my God. You know, you have this nice company car. You have, you have your shares. You have this. And you live in a, in middle of Paris in the Marais. The company pays you the apartment. I mean, you’re, you’re almost God. So why do you do this?

What? And in the US people tell you, oh my God, what a great opportunity. Oh, it’s fantastic. You know, tell me about it. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. You know, it’s a diff big, big, big difference. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: Yes. At the end, I think you, you don’t regret the decision. 

Rodger Novak: I don’t know. I, I, I don’t regret the decision, but, but I, I, I think it, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s sometimes. Even at the personal level, it’s sometimes difficult because I, I live in Europe now, I have a twin brother, identical twin, and smart cookie and he decided to, you know, have a career in, in, in big corporate, you know, so he was at a big, big international insurance. I would clearly say that my brother, who’s my twin brother, identical twin, who’s pretty close to me, does not understand what I’m doing.

Yeah. And he’s just an example, although he’s close to me, I have a lot of friends or people that I know really well in the U S. You know what I’m doing, and not only out of the industry. You have a curiosity to understand what this is. In Europe? Europe? The guy made some money. That’s not. Yeah? Oh you know, maybe, you know, he has two apartments.

That’s a lot. Yeah? It’s a ton of… I mean, you have to, in Europe, you have to justify yourself. You have to justify yourself for what you did, and in particular if you have been successful. Yeah? And I think going back to our subject matter, when you think about being an entrepreneur, that’s totally prohibitive because for sure entrepreneurship has to do with risk, it has to do with independence, it has to do also with innovation, you know, and, and, and all these aspects.

And, and I don’t think that. I, I think that many Europeans do not really understand and how important it is for our society. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: What I, what I like in your example is, I mean, you cannot, and that’s also what makes us European. I mean, your family is European or some people close and that’s how, it’s not that much in your control versus, I mean, your, your friend group is more in your control.

Yes. Even for me, I mean, I just met my dad it took him a long time to understand what I was doing with my life, like, oh, well, okay. Do something in bed, but at some point, okay, it’s working, profitable, 10 employees, oh, okay, I think it’s good, at least it’s secure, there’s a job I wish I never had. See, even now, it’s like okay.

Rodger Novak: You know, I, I don’t have a specialization in medicine, yeah, so I don’t have what we call an internment Facharzt, yeah, because I went into the industry and my parents until, well, still way into the CRISPR story, asked me, how do you finish that, you know, I mean, it’s crazy, yeah, or, or, or now they’re excited, and I think it does fit, for sure it’s not tech, as a cousin, he’s much younger than me, and he has probably some boring job, I’m not exactly sure what he does, but also something with, with an insurance company.

And all of a sudden I see on Insta that he has a food truck. Yeah. So he now, I think it’s part time has a food truck. So I right away text him. What is that? Came and said, Hey, cool. You know, that’s great. Whatever. And others say, Oh, I see doing, can you make some money with that? And I was thinking, Hey, that, that is your, yeah, it’s always, someone does something a little different.

That’s a, that’s, that’s, it’s weird. You know, is it, is it really, does that make sense? And I think we should be more open. Yeah. And, and then, then if we do something, we should. Also push for it and be serious about it. We are not playing around. You’re not playing around with your company. I’m not playing around with my company.

We are very, we are dead serious. Yeah. But we do it in a different context. And I think we deserve, not that I look for respect, I couldn’t care less to be quite honest, but I think this deserves respect. And you don’t get it because people in most instances haven’t had the exposure. Yeah. And so that, that I think is, if you think about Euro, the West, biotech investors, Nasdaq, no Nasdaq, that’s one of our issues.

Philip Hemme: That’s a good one. I mean, on the positive side, I think it’s, it’s changing. And actually, I am positively surprised by how rapidly it’s changing. 

Rodger Novak: Changes. I do not agree with that. 

Philip Hemme: Ten years. And I feel like there’s a lot of vari variation between the countries when comes to mind in the uk that definitely, like I had and salt, like Berlin is the figure.

Rodger Novak: Oh, actually, but tech, the pure is actually this also better and tech, I think we see, I see this, you know, because again, now an approach because of ai. Yeah. I’m Toby Clueless. You know, I’m thinking, I, I, I totally believe that AI will have also our industry, huge impact. I just don’t know how, and I particularly don’t know who, yeah, because I just don’t fully get it.

I don’t get it at all. But I think our industry in particular is, and we have another problem, Vinci, we have one problem and that’s. Economic five minutes left. Oh yeah. You can count this all out. But that, that’s an important, it’s about economics. Yeah. Our industry, even the biotech industry has a bad reputation, a particular bad reputation. Europe. And because, and I think for some good reasons, pharma, the pharma, the, the behavior of pharma, the communication style of pharma. I think once that’s getting a little better. But man, you know, if I wouldn’t be in that industry, I wouldn’t like it either, to be quite honest. And we’re. And once people understand, ah, you work on drugs, you’re fine, but we’re not fine, you know, and that’s something also maybe we, us, as representatives of the industry, biotech industry, need to be, you know?

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s a good one. I think we can finish on this. 

Rodger Novak: Yeah, 

[01:06:20] Follow Rodger Novak

Philip Hemme: thanks a lot, Roger, for joining in. Yeah. Basically, I mean, we could talk longer and longer. Maybe if people want to follow you, to know more about you on some social media. 

Rodger Novak: Not really. I’m more mr. Browner. I stay away from this now. No, I, I, you know, I, I don’t do, do, do anything on social media.

I’m, I’m on LinkedIn, I think. Sometimes I updated sometimes, but, but yeah, 

Philip Hemme: they can wait for, I mean, you, you are, you are talking publicly from time to time. You did order to top hello tomorrow. You were on the, actually I forgot to mention actually on the biotech between the biotech waves podcast was shown.

And actually it’s a great episode and for people who want to know the backstory behind this story for the early days. And also you came twice to Labyrinthic Refresh and once 2016, once 2019, 20. Also great like background. So for the ones listening wants to go deeper from that episode, you can, I will link all the, all the I will put all the links in the, in the description.

Rodger Novak: So now I need to, need to leave Europe, you know, 

Philip Hemme: I need to help. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, I, I mean, on the, on the positive side, I think, I mean, you showed that it was, I mean, you showed that it was possible to bring amazing science. And right now you are also explaining what’s wrong now, people can work on it and you’re also supporting European funds. Entrepreneurs. 

Rodger Novak: Yes, sure. 

Philip Hemme: Blog members are like, I think, I mean, it sounds a bit, maybe a bit negative to describe the problem, but I think what I like is that you’re really doing something about it and you’re helping others do something about it. And that’s, 

Rodger Novak: that’s one of the reasons I came back from the US was because of European culture.

What I really to is the entrepreneurs in particular in maybe an industry which is not well understood. That’s from my perspective, a problem. And then also academia, but academia, I think the general aspect of academia, it’s the same US, Europe. I mean, this kind of, I call this to a certain extent, arrogancy, you know?

 And, but then the US Americans, again, are more entrepreneurial. In that case, probably more driven by economics and cap tables, which I don’t like so much, and the Europeans less so also because they know less. They know less about that system. And so that’s something I think with education and good examples.

And I’m tired, I’m tired. Yeah, sure, it’s a bit much better today than obviously 10 years ago. But I just said recently in experience with. 

Philip Hemme: That’s when you said music, right? 

Rodger Novak: They chat, probably. 

It’s all mine. You know, yeah.Philip Hemme: Alright, thanks for joining. Okay, thank you.

[01:09:23] Thanks for listening and follow Flot.bio

Philip Hemme: Me again. 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, what’s behind the show, I want to say a big kudos and, and thanks to the team. Kieran, web development Taswin in marketing, Marianne logistics, Wayne in editing. They did an amazing job and there’s a lot of hard work. I put into, into, into the show. So now what’s behind? So Slot.

Bio the company was founded in March, 2022. I’m one of the founder and previously I founded Labiotic. 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 the podcast.

We don’t want to create, you know, yet another podcast. There’s already a lot of them around. But we believe Europe needs a high quality, long form podcast to help most professionals and biotech enthusiasts be better informed. grow and just be better at what, at what they’re doing. And so that’s why we are creating that podcast.

We are selecting the best UPs in biotech we can find and we are interviewing mostly actually offline so we can have really the highest quality, both technical aspect, but most importantly on the dance and the content and the flow of the content. We release one episode, around 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 very sponsored. Messages, slots that you’ve seen in each episode. And we are sponsored by financial support for individuals and corporate. So anyway, I would not make it longer. If you are, I hope you share a vision and if you’re keen to hear more or you want to reach out or you want to share some feedback, please send us, shoot us an email.

Hi, at Flot.bio. Again, thanks for listening and see you in the next episode.

We’re back live and in Paris with our next guest, Johannes Fruehauf. We talk about reinventing the co-working labs for biotech startups, profitability in biotech, and much more. 

Johannes is the President, CEO, and founder of BioLabs, the biggest “incubator”, or as they like to call it “co-working laboratory”, platform for biotech startups in the world. Today they have over 14 locations, including 3 in Europe (2 in Paris and 1 in Heidelberg). He is also the founder of LabCentral and a general partner at Mission BioCapital. 

I’ve known Johannes for over a decade and almost worked for him when I lived in Boston. It’s been great to catch up and see where he’s at now.

Transcript

Johannes Fruehauf: In Europe it’s a little bit different in that the market is so much more nascent and there’s so much less overall volume going on. I mean, if you look at the numbers of venture capital funding that happens, I know the numbers for Germany, all of the venture funding for biotech companies in Germany combined is less than, like, if you look at any year.

Since 2016 is less than all the companies at LabCentral raised, like in one building of ours in, in Kendall. It’s crazy when you’re talking two, 3 billion a year. And in Germany, you, you raise a few hundred million in aggregate, right? So. So that’s sad. And we want to help that.

[00:00:49] Welcome

Philip Hemme: Hey, Philip here.

Welcome to the fifth episode of the Flot.Bio show, where I interview the best Europeans in biotech to help you be inspired and grow. And today I’m in Paris to talk with Johannes Fruehauf, the CEO of BioLabs. And I’m not just anywhere in Paris, I’m literally In front of Notre Dame and I’m going there where you have the BioLabs Hôtel Nieux, which is in the former hospital.

And I’m amazed that there is 10, 000 square meters of labs and offices here on the island in the hyper center of Paris. Quick words about Johannes. I’ve known him for almost a decade. I actually almost worked for him when I was living in Boston. And… Johannes is a German MD who then went on to found a biotech company after his postdoc at Harvard.

Then he co founded BioLabs and the sister non profit LabCentral. And he’s also a general partner in a seed fund. And today, Biolabs is the biggest networking or co working labs slash incubators in the world. Has over 14 locations in 10 different geographies, including 3 in Europe, so actually this one, another one in Paris, and one in Heidelberg.

 And today we will talk about Reinventing co working laboratories for biotech startups, like about money and profitability, and much more. So, let’s head inside and talk to Johannes. 

[00:02:19] How & why reinvent biotech incubators

Philip Hemme: So, Johannes, welcome to the show. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Good morning, Philipp, nice to see you and thanks for having me. Yeah, you’re welcome.

Philip Hemme: Great to, great to be here. It’s yeah. I mean, from the intro, people can, can see the, the, where, where we are. It’s amazing to be in front of Notre Dame. 

Johannes Fruehauf: They look like they have a great location. 

Philip Hemme: That’s unbelievable. Absolutely. I think, yeah, let’s, let’s actually talk about, I mean, start, start with this, not just Notre Dame, but talk about maybe from the zooming out a bit on how, how and why you managed to basically reinvent co working labs, co working space slash incubators for, for biotechs.

Yeah. Yeah, let’s, let’s start thinking. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah, happy to talk about that. So this, this goes back to. Really the financial crisis or eight or nine and the aftermath of, of this we, I had co founded a company previously that we sold in, in 2010 and that was done still in like the traditional format, right?

Like you raise a bunch of money and then you try to find a place where to do your science work. This all happens in Boston at the time. And so, yeah, we had, we, we were scientists, we had a good, I think, good piece of technology. There were some investors who put a bunch of money towards it, but it took us about a year, nine months, 10 months before we could actually do the first experiments because I had to go out, find lab space, get an architect to build a lab and get the permits to do the construction and then find the workers, et cetera, right?

Like all things that. are tedious. We are not experts, right? I make mistakes. I’m a scientist. I’m, I’m, I’m not a real estate person. And so we learned the hard way that it’s not a great use of time for scientists to be doing real estate. And then, so, but that company we saw, the company called Sequent Pharmaceuticals.

 We sold it in 2010 and I was looking what to do next. I had a, and a startup with a French friend of mine Philippe Langella, he’s at INRA here in outside of Paris. We had a cool concept. Microbiome, you remember that? Yes, yeah. By Thera doing, you know, engineered microbes for, for gut health and for inflammatory bowel disease and things like that.

 But it was very hard for us to raise money at the time. So what do you do? You have an idea. We had people, we had a small lab, and we had costs, but we had very little ways of raising money. We got a little bit of money from Johnson Johnson at the time. But this is now, we’re talking 2010 time frame. It was still very hard for people to raise money.

I think… It was comparable to the times we are facing now, you know, in the U. S. at least startups are having a very hard time right now. So we… We looked to, to supplement our income somehow and we, we did CRO type services for VCs and for other people on the side while we were advancing our own agenda and in the process, we worked with many founders and startups out of the venture funds, ended up needing space.

And so eventually we sold them to yours, use our existing mass. 

Philip Hemme: So you realized that the problem you had in your first. Thought that other entrepreneurs found or VCs had the similar problem. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah, well, it wasn’t a conscious problem because that’s the way you did things, right? It’s only sort of really in reflection that you say, Oh, this was a really bad way of doing it.

 And, and now, so, so while we were doing this, this work as sort of a CRO, and we were working a lot with the local VC firms, with all the big firms in Boston, They sent us things that they wanted a little bit of biology work done, a PCR, a QPCR assay an ELISA, some, some other like biomarker work. And mostly this was to validate academic concepts before they were going to make an investment.

 You know, 

Philip Hemme: We could use a few data if it’s, we could use, 

Johannes Fruehauf: absolutely, before you put the big money. Yeah. Right. There, there is this crisis of, of science where. A lot of stuff gets published that’s not real, right, or that’s not reproducible. Maybe it’s not outright fraud, but it’s so complicated that it can’t really be reproduced outside of the specific conditions.

So that’s what we were tasked with. And many projects that we tested and gave a green light for became companies. They got funding and then became companies and then they needed some space. And in, in the initial stages, they only needed like a bench or two and we had that in our lab. So we, we taught the newly hired scientists for this project how to do things and they, they grew in our lab.

And before you know it, you have five or six such other projects in your lab. They were all friends and clients at the same time. And then I started getting inbound calls from people who said, Oh, I hear you’re renting lab space. I didn’t know I was writing graphs. I knew I was doing like a service shop for the VCs and our colleagues.

And, but then over time, it became clear that that was actually a pretty good business and that there was a strong demand. Certainly, you know, we started in Kendall Square, which is sort of the hotbed. 

Philip Hemme: And 2010 was all on Kenneth Square was already pretty sizable. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah, yeah. Correct. 

Philip Hemme: As around, you know, the MIT was already there. Context and stuff. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah. The so, and, and, and we caught a period where it was hard to raise money or it was not impossible, but difficult to raise money. So companies and founders needed to be very capital efficient, right? So after a crisis, I think in a crisis moment, that’s when new things gets invented, new, new models get established, right?

Like people would have continued to do it the old and inefficient way, I think. But here there was a crisis and a challenge and we happened to have a solution for it. We didn’t like magically or you didn’t know the market. No, it’s just like the market came to us and showed us this thing and we were able to grasp it and grow it quickly.

Right. And so we were then adding more space than we needed ourselves to just build it out for our friends and then clients. And so the idea also what set us apart from other people is that We had, of course, the labs built for our own needs. So it was very close to the needs of our colleagues as well.

So fully equipped labs. We had the permits. We did the purchasing of our own chemicals and they could use our suppliers and everything. So it was very convenient for them because they could come in and do science on day one. That’s what we, what we scaled. That program is, is what we scaled. Like every three or four months we added more space and eventually we saw that this is the real thing and we had some very successful companies come through that raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

And so I was able to then take that to the state of Massachusetts and they gave us this grant that created LabCentral. That’s why we have these two entities, BioLabs as well as LabCentral. 

Philip Hemme: That’s right. And then. I didn’t even know it is a super early, early days, actually, because I, I, I, I, I, I was living in Boston.

We met in that central open that we have some, we did an interview there and I mean, that’s really amazing space. And I mean, I was really, I had, I had never seen something like this, really this. And I think what says also quite a part is, I mean, yes, there’s, there’s a very functional aspect of capital efficiency, but also there’s just an energy.

And the community that is really vibrant, there’s, there’s something, 

Johannes Fruehauf: yeah, so we, we now understand that. The community, the placemaking and the kind of connections that we are able to help create are as important as the space as the lab functionality. So I use this sentence when I, when I tell my people what they should do is we, we do two things.

We reduce friction and we increase collisions. So you reduce friction by building nice spaces. I mean, it will be functional labs, right? Like hopefully. We have all the lab tools and toys that you need to do your science and hopefully we build labs that are safe and we build labs that have the right corridor width and the right height of the tables and things, right and all the equipment that you require that’s reducing friction and then we increase collisions that’s not, not hopefully people carrying chemicals, but people meeting in our cafes and meeting at our events.

Thanks. And making more opportunity for this serendipitous connection between an investor and a founder raising money or between a scientist looking for work and a startup hiring a new team, right? And all of these, we don’t, we are unable to predict what and who’s going to meet, but we create the opportunity for it.

And we are actually fairly deliberate about it. Yeah. We have. Develop very stringent design rules about how we build our spaces. Use a lot of glass use a lot of common and open space. Sometimes it’s even intimidating for people who are not used to this because there’s not a lot of privacy in our space, right?

Like every conference room, every office you can look into. And that’s by design. Many of our colleagues are more introverted types, that’s why we go into science, not politics or sales, and so we can help them with with, with some of the way that we design the spaces after a, an initial period of shock and hesitation.

Most people love it and what you see if you go to any one of our labs, even here, which is the one of the youngest places now, there’s a strong buzz in the cafe, there’s people connecting and they talk about science, they talk about finance, but they also talk about private things like where they go on the weekend and that’s a wonderful way to make connections.

It’s a wonderful way to make connections. 

Philip Hemme: In the space, I was talking to him, meeting him like in the last year, and he’s just there. It’s 

Johannes Fruehauf: silly, right? It’s a really cool thing, this community of people, because we are pulling together the like minded people. So the scientists and engineers who have an interest in entrepreneurship, right now in Paris with this facility, we’re creating a place for that community.

Of course, this is still small and interim, but it’s got this big vision of the What will be the largest biotech incubator in Europe, right, in a few years when we build out the western wing of this. 

Philip Hemme: Yes, 2028, we’re opening two, two things. I’m saying in a few years. In a few years, another thing will open.

Johannes Fruehauf: The years is so far out that I don’t even know how to think in four years. But like in a few years, that’s crazy. 

[00:14:14] The competitors

Philip Hemme: And so I get what was missing. What I also curious as in today, I mean the community space, I get it, but then I’m curious also from in Boston, I mean, it’s a bit different formats compared to Europe as well, but from how, how do you like, what are your competitors today or what’s, I mean, I think a lot of starters artists would, would still have a lab space at the academic, at the academic lab and continue to do some experiment until they’re like big enough to rent a space at one of the hospitals here in Paris or whatever, some more like science parks or something.

Yeah, just curious of, is it the same, yeah, where, where do you, where do you place yourself there? Or like how does it compare? 

Johannes Fruehauf: Well, it I think we have to take each market by itself, right? In Boston, we were the first place to build this type of co working for labs. There had been incubators before typically done by universities or by real estate people and many didn’t really meet the needs of this community.

That’s why we grew fastest and that’s why we, our brand is still sort of a very well regarded brand in the, in the space because we are scientists and we are entrepreneurs and we build spaces for ourselves and that’s what people want. So if. You compare that with the pre previously existing incubators.

They typically did not produce very strong companies. They produced mediocre or weak companies. And so that’s like completely different in our case, I believe that has to do with who we are as a group, as, as a founding team and our own experience that sort of lived in the space and built on this. Now, that gave us an opportunity to be the first such group in Boston and in many other cities in the United States where we quickly expanded.

We are now in like eight states and 14 cities, I think, and we’re building more, but there are now people who see this concept and who do this themselves, right? It’s a little bit like, of course, my team sometimes is very upset when there’s a new competitor coming up to the market and I tell them, look.

It’s sort of like you invent the idea of a hotel, right? Okay, we, we did invent the idea of the hotel for scientists, but you cannot patent that. You shouldn’t be upset if other people see that this is a good model of information. Right. And so it’s a challenge for us. We have to provide better community, better service, better value for the entrepreneurs, and then they’ll continue to work with us.

 There are a number of groups I’m not gonna. Highlight them some are better than others none are better than us. But there’s also a, a lot of hype going on in lab real estate now. And just because it’s a cop and an asset class in commercial real estate. And so that means there’s huge money behind it.

And some people are trying to use our model or say that they have something similar to bio labs, but. It’s hard. Like if you’re a real estate person, it’s very hard to really learn the needs of the scientists, right? Or live the life of a scientist. 

[00:17:41] Entrepreneurship in Europe

Johannes Fruehauf: So we’re not so worried about that in Europe. It’s a little bit, so this is all in the United States in Europe.

It’s a little bit different in that the market is so much more nascent and there’s so much less overall volume going on. I mean, if you look at the numbers of venture capital funding that happens. I know the numbers for Germany, all of the venture funding for biotech companies in Germany combined is less than like if you look at any year since 2016 is less than all the companies at LabCentral raised, like in one building of ours in Kendall.

It’s crazy when you’re talking two or three billion dollars a year and in Germany, you, you raise a few hundred million in aggregate, right? So, so that’s sad and we want to help that and I don’t know the numbers in, in France, but it’s, it’s similar. It’s probably similar order of magnitude. I actually think that, I mean, we come off of a great event yesterday night where we opened this first phase of our hotel view incubator here.

 Bio labs. I think there’s a lot of good energy in France and I give the national government a lot of credit for changing the spirit in the mood. And we work very well with different levels of government. I’m still learning about them. It’s city perfect to or region and the national government, but they’re all very interested in this theme of innovation and enabling them.

Entrepreneurship and enabling a young generation of people. So that’s good and that’s very hopeful, I think. And France is on a good trajectory and they are performing much better than their reputation. Certainly in the U. S., France has a reputation as being socialist and terrible to employ people.

Strike, strike. But they’re really having really good policies, relatively rapid decision making and we’re quite happy with the way that it goes here. So, we are, I think, the first program of this kind in Paris now. And as you know, we have three locations around Paris. A site at Hotel Dieu, which is just currently office and some conference rooms and meeting spaces.

I don’t know if you will do a tour with your guests with your video. 

Philip Hemme: No, I took some shots. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Okay. Okay. And then we have a lab space, which is in different hospital of the APHP group. In the 14th district at Obit. , yeah. That’s small, but we hope to grow it quickly. It’s about two thirds full right now.

 Eventually we will be building a, a 10,000 square meters incubator in the Western wing of hotel. You Yeah. And that will be very big and massive, but we need to, that’s a lot of life. A few years odd. And we have an bio labs at CLE with the, the French Pharmaceutical Company survey. It’s on the Plateau de Saclay, and that’s brand new.

And this Paris 

Philip Hemme: Saclay is this huge campus build, yeah? It’s also a university where they group all the universities, a lot of big corporate research centers, and make this like massive. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Greenfield development in a way, I think used to be agricultural area. Yeah. And it will be a very big hub. There are many really brand name universities there and pharmaceutical companies.

And once they have the public transport going, it will be good. Right now, there’s only a shuttle, right, in a few years. It will, the, the tramway was promised to be completed in 2022 and then 2024. And I think now it’s still a few years, but the Metro 

is probably 

I’ve seen it too far. It will be, it will be good.

And, and so if some of your listeners are in the, in the force region, they should check out our bio labs at SACLI. It’s a, it’s a beautiful building. It is, it is accepting new applications from startups and you have the opportunity to be very closely. interfacing with the scientists of CERV E if you’re interested.

So if they want to have a research collaboration, if they maybe want to explore a program of, of joint venture of funding with CERV E, that’s a good opportunity for them. 

[00:22:11] Difficulties of Europe

Philip Hemme: We, we, we touch base on, on quite a lot of things. It’s, it’s interesting. Maybe some of the questions I had were kind of already answered or we can, we can take it further.

 One thing I had, which you touch, On it’s, on, on the difficulty, or like, let’s say on the specificity slash the difficulty to open in Europe, which was different. Yeah. I remember we talked for many years and you were working on opening something in Europe and, and you even told me, okay, it’s, it’s attitude, something like, I have a lot of respect for people doing business in Europe.

Johannes Fruehauf: Oh yeah. I

Philip Hemme: mean, I like that you have this view of like being, being German, doing business on both sides of the Atlantic was basically the similar product in a similar environment. And so. So what, basically, why, like, why was it more difficult? 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah, so I, I mean, as background, right? I’m a medical doctor. I’m not a trained business person.

I’m a, I’m a learned business person through, as I say, the school of hard knocks. And I, I developed all of what I know about biotech and, and venture capital. By practicing it in the United States. So even though I’m German and I studied in France for a while, I’m not as familiar with the system here.

And so then for me it was quite a shock to arrive here again and to try and do what I learned to do over there with a model that works and then to be facing obstacles that are not business obstacles, but bureaucratic obstacles. And… What I perceive to be unnecessary friction, right? The exact same thing that we’re trying to reduce for our entrepreneurs is what I experience here.

Bureaucracy, permits, delays, wait times, and mediocre administration proceedings that help nobody. I understand. That you need to have some regulation. I, it’s, we’re building labs after all. I understand you need to have safety rules, et cetera. I respect all of that. But if you have people enabled to put roadblocks in the path of an entrepreneur who wants to build something that add no value for anybody.

It doesn’t add safety. It doesn’t even really add revenue for this, for the government. It’s not, I’m not even complaining about the taxes. I’m complaining about the process load, right? That is really bad and Europe needs to get a handle on that. I, this is specifically true in my home country and yours, Germany.

 Here in France, it’s also there, there are also administrative obstacles and we are, we talked about some of them at the event yesterday. Even politicians are there to help us overcome them. Now, what’s interesting is that often you do have buy-in from. Like the strategic decision makers, but then it gets ground to a, to a halt in the bellies of the administration layer that is in between.

And so that’s something I’m, I’m a European. I want this place to thrive. I want this. I want our, our societies to develop better and, and to have economic dynamism. And I think we need to get a handle on this as Europeans, as, as Germans, as French. Yeah. Not, not everything is great in America, right? Like we know that.

 But certainly for entrepreneurship, America has a good formula, which is to a priori not think it’s a bad thing if people want to try something new, right? And so to, to let them go do it first, right? Until they screw up in a way, right? It’s just faster. People get employed fast. Of course they can get let go, but that eventually creates this, Economic dynamism that, that is, is very helpful.

I, I do have big hopes. I think I’m, I’m optimistic with the things I see in France now. And I’m optimistic when I speak with these young entrepreneurs that you met in the café now, right? They all are very well trained. They have a strong basis. The people that I interface with are all scientists or engineers, right?

There’s very good science going on, very good training. And now for the last five or ten years, they want to also do something with it. They want to become entrepreneurs and build their own ideas out. And that is, I think, a new development from several years ago where they all wanted to work for the Peugeot or for the government or for the big companies, right?

So it’s now cool in France. To want to pursue a startup idea, right? That’s a really hopeful sign. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, you put it really well. I think it’s one thing that at least, I, French government has played a big part, big role, but I think also more so of the whole startup success stories. Right. I give credit to women, but there’s probably also a big, like there’s a societal slow shift, societal 

Johannes Fruehauf: shift and 100% I think, yeah.

Who did the government create? Probably not. Probably the societal shift was then the government was able to somehow catalyze it or, or accelerate it. Yeah. And another I wish that in Germany we had. Sort of a dedicated effort to help startups more, right? It, it doesn’t seem to be as deliberate.

There are individual initiatives for sure. I’m still missing in Germany the initiatives that are focusing on biotechnology startups. And the fact that Germany had the success of Biontech. Should rather motivate them to do more than to say, oh look, we have BioNTech. Isn’t that great? Right. Like bte, Germany had BioNTech because of sheer luck, I wanna say.

Right. The, the science on the basis in the universities, in the research hospitals is phenomenally good. Right. And we are in Germany punching way below our weight in terms of translating that into products. Companies and jobs and economic wealth. 

Philip Hemme: Right. I mean, and I would say, yeah, I mean, basically if you take Germany, this is pretty much the same across Europe and UK usually has some trends, a bit different, but they’re pretty good in translation.

They’re a bit more business friendly with that year and the fourth opening thing. But yeah, no, I think, well, I mean, it’s, it’s a very complex problem, but it’s great that you guys managed to open the space in Heidelberg and to space here, I mean, two or two and a half spaces, and that you’re actually helping really bring that dynamism and helping entrepreneurs.

I mean, at least having tools and having more facility to start, I mean, I think. Yeah, it’s, it’s already, I mean, 

Johannes Fruehauf: when are you going to air this 

Philip Hemme: next week? 

Johannes Fruehauf: So, okay. Then we cannot yet make the new announcement. We have a new announcement, stay tuned for Germany but next week we can’t. Okay.

[00:29:37] People make it happen

Philip Hemme: Now that’s great. And just so, and also I was touched, I mean, I think you mentioned the people as in a special component, but this is really the team and the people at Veloz. I think that’s a big factor. And maybe we can talk a bit about people in general, people inside companies, people inside startups.

And actually, also in BioLabs, you have, even in the US team, you have a lot of Europeans in the team as well. I don’t know if that’s a success factor or not, but that’s at least a fact. But I think one thing that makes Biolabs so really special is, is coming from not just you, but even on the, on the top, on the top team is you can really feel this like authenticity and you came from the problem and, and, and there’s this relevance and you’re running it and, and, and, and, and can you, but can you touch a bit on this on, I mean, on, on Biolabs, but on

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah. So I think people are the, the beginning and the end of a, of a startup, right? And you can, if you had, you even have your, even if you have a genial piece of science and technology and you don’t have a good team to develop it, it will go no way. Right. But if you have a strong team. Even if they have a bad piece of technology, they will make a success of it because they will recognize it and they will improve it or pivot or bring in another solution.

Right. So I am a strong believer of primacy of team over technology. So people, people, people. People, people, people. And, and that’s the same is true. So we can talk a little bit about BioLabs, but the same is true on, on our venture side, as you know, I’m, I’m also a founder and a partner in a venture capital fund called Mission Bio Capital.

And they are the same thing is true. We, because we are early stage investors, we value the team and the coherence of the team and the professionalism of the team and the character of the team more than we do the, the technology that they have, of course, that needs to be interesting, et cetera, but. If, if there’s any doubt about the reliability of the team or the capability or the, the, or the dedication, it’s not going to be funded by funding.

So let’s talk about biolabs and lab centrals. 

Philip Hemme: Just for that, if you, if you have to rate it. If you need to put the percentage of the, on the team, you put like, whatever, like 75, 25, something like this. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Something like that. 

Philip Hemme: So really significantly. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Significantly. More. Because, because as, as VCs, so we are VCs that also, that, that invest and sometimes we, we, we want to be very active investors.

Don’t to be there, there are other firms like third rock and flagship that basically build all their companies in house, right? We don’t do that. We want to bet on the team. We think the team is, is, are the best expert in their field. And they also have the 110% commitment to their idea, right? So who’s better to develop it than, than them.

And so that’s our thesis. But that means we need to be convinced by the team first and foremost. And then, of course, we need to believe in the solution, et cetera. 

Philip Hemme: I guess you apply that also to Biolabs, as in when you select for tenants. 

Johannes Fruehauf: So in Biolabs, it’s, it’s, it’s like a hospitality business in a way, right?

It’s a little bit, we need people who can work with a customer, right? A lot of what we do is problem solving for the entrepreneurs. And so I’m, I’m very proud of the teams I have been able to build and and retain at LabCentral and at, at Biolabs as well, because it, it requires a certain skill set and sometimes it’s a little bit quirky people, right?

It’s not sort of the straight line people. It’s, it’s sometimes people who have done. Some, you know, some retail and they’ve tried to be an entrepreneur and, and failed in that, but they learned a lot of things, right? And so now they can connect much better with the other entrepreneurs that we have because they’ve got that background or they’ve been in entertainment or they, maybe they’ve been a bench scientist before.

So we try to build very diverse teams. And as you said, yeah, I tend to see value in having. Diverse experience, having worked in different countries is certainly a plus having worked, having immersed yourself in different cultures is certainly a plus if you apply with me for a job, right? Because I’ve done that and I think it’s hugely valuable to have lived In a bunch of different countries and worked in different cultures because it gives you a little bit of humility.

It gives you a little bit of perspective. What, what you grew up with is not what everybody grows up with. And it’s not the right thing or the wrong thing. It’s just different. Right? And so. So after living in, in multiple countries, you get to see that, okay, there are certain things that are constant between people and that are not directly culturally dependent.

 And then there are other assumptions where you think, Oh, but that’s not what I used to. That’s not what I grew up with. Well, that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean it’s good or it’s bad. Right. And so I, I like to encourage that in our people. Why? Because our user base is also very diverse. So if you, if you look at the companies that we work with in Boston they are 72% founded by immigrants to America or co founded, right?

Like the founding team or co founding team in 72. 9%. When we, we did a study on this, there was this big, you know, during the dark years in the last Trump years we had, There was a lot of pushback against immigration in America, and so we did this study to demonstrate how immigration actually contributes to the economy.

And so we had 73% of companies had an immigrant founder or co founder. And so it’s important for my team to be able to work with that group of people, right? So… If I hire Americans, I want Americans with a passport who have at least traveled abroad once or twice, right? And, and abroad is not Florida. I should go from Boston.

 So that’s an important mindset. 

Philip Hemme: So interesting that you apply both directions. I, I’m laughing a bit about this, like, I mean, at least me know about the people and, and what’s constant or not. I mean, now. I’m more exposed to the Chinese culture through my wife and it’s another like level of constant, but still, I mean, very different, but you’re still, you can observe really some stuff are really constant in human culture slash human psychology behavior.

Yeah. And it’s actually funny when you see something that looks so, so different and you don’t understand any of the rest of it. But when you see that some core things are still very constant, it’s actually interesting to see. Yeah. 

[00:36:51] BioLabs in Asia

Philip Hemme: And this makes me doubt on like how, basically, what about Asia for Violas, is it?

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah, I’m In a few 

years? I’m very interested in, in flying our model in East Asia, I guess, in general. So I, you know, I have a Japanese wife. And so I live between these cultures too. And I, we’ve traveled to Japan many times. And so I, I think Japan will benefit from our model greatly. We now have a very small…

BioLabs outside of Tokyo in Kawasaki. It’s a suburb of Tokyo. Okay. Yeah, for about 12 months. It’s been open. Okay It’s a collaboration with a local academic institute called ICON M. It’s an institute for nanomedicine. Yeah, they have a beautiful building which is just, if you ever fly to Tokyo, you may fly into Haneda Airport, so go by and take a look, meet with our team.

 It’s just like you can see the airport from the building and vice versa. It’s like literally across the river, like this. And we have a small number of companies there. Japan is a great study case for what Biolabs can do. Because… You have undoubtedly world class science, right, and excellent basic research and result.

I mean, they invented the iPSC technology that is now revolutionizing medicine, right? And yet you’re doing that in a culture that is as traditionalist and as hierarchical as they get, right? And where risk, you cannot take risk because if you fail, you’re done. You will not recover. So it is, I think, even harder by orders of magnitude compared with Germany or France for a young scientist to, to become an entrepreneur.

 There is a small and resilient community of entrepreneurs against all odds in Japan. I love these people, right? Amazing. And we, we gather with them and they have their own internal gatherings. We are invited to meet them every now and then. And it’s like a… Certainly less than a hundred people build that community, but it’s growing fast and there’s support, there’s strong support now from the government, the Kishida government.

 They have understood this to be a problem and they have a good initiative. At least they have a good political desire. To make progress, they have made available a program that’s equivalent of eight billion U. S. dollars. To support venture venture capital formation, to support startup infrastructure building and training programs.

And I think those are all the right. Now the question is, how is it translated into programs and reality and what’s the timeframe? I think in Japan, you will need a societal and cultural shift to allow for young people to take more risk and then develop a risk tolerance that also says, and, and a faith tolerance of failure where.

If you go out and you build your first startup, and of course it’s going to not be a great success, right? Like 90% chance of failure. Exactly. And it’s okay. Why? Because it’s sort of an experiment. A startup for me is like an experiment in, in business. Like we do experiments in the lab all the time. If they fail, it’s fine.

We learn something. But in startups, it’s sort of an experiment in business and you learn something and hopefully you’re successful the first time. Good for Mark Zuckerberg, right? In many cases, 0. 001 vaccine. So people shouldn’t expect that, right? People should expect that. Okay, you go try something. And in the path of trying, you’re going to learn a lot of things.

I like to invest in entrepreneurs who have failed once or twice because I’ve learned their lesson, right? But in, in Japan, that will be one of the biggest challenges for them to overcome, but they know it. To, to accept and, and even see as a learning the case of a failed company so that they can build on that experience.

Philip Hemme: And do you, yeah, it’s interesting looping by connecting it to what’s universal or what’s shared. Do you think that you think that the higher tolerance to risk is a good thing across the ball? 

Johannes Fruehauf: I think so. 

Philip Hemme: Or is it your bias from vc slash biotech and 

Johannes Fruehauf: of course everywhere. Each of us is 

Philip Hemme: because you have downsides, you know, 

[00:41:46] US culture

Johannes Fruehauf: I, I have I was not a big fan of America before I came there.

We went there not because of my choice. We went there because my wife had her postdoc and I wasn’t gonna be away from her for many years, right? So, I followed her. And I wasn’t a big U. S. fan. In fact, I was one of these typical intellectual Europeans that hated on the U. S. before. I now really respect the model and I really like the model that the United States has built.

It’s a very young country. It’s not an old country like this or 

Philip Hemme: almost younger than the Beatles, right? 

Johannes Fruehauf: And so there are still things that America has to and will improve. But certainly 

Philip Hemme: I’m wondering if it’s, if it’s like, if you can share it because I mean, I think one thing that. What struck me, I say it’s pretty difficult.

I mean, obviously me also as entrepreneur going to Boston, I mean, I loved it. And I learned a lot from that. And I incorporated some part of this like increased risk and, and, and different culture, but also one thing that is very tricky with, with the U S culture with Boston is that you have to also understand the bigger contexts and, and usually it, it, it connects in different levels and it works.

Because of, of the rest versus if you take just risk of error and you translate it, maybe it’s, it’s different, but that’s, yeah, that’s a bit where my question is coming. Like, is it, is it more like a fundamental thing that can work universally? Or is it depending on other societal? 

Johannes Fruehauf: So, so it’s very interesting to think about where is, where does this risk tolerance come from, right?

I think America is built by immigrants, right? Because the native population has been wiped out in a way, right? So all of what America is, is, is built by people who came, most came from Europe, right? And they didn’t have much to lose in Europe. That’s why they left. The aristocrats didn’t leave, right? They kept the bank.

Industrials in the 1970s, 100s, they didn’t leave. They had it good in Weimar and in Paris and in Lyon, right? They didn’t leave. It’s the people who had nothing to lose who left. And so those people, after they arrive, they had to build things with their hands. They had to build their, stake their land, build their cabin, and hopefully they made it.

Sometimes they failed, sometimes they were successful, but that I think that selected for a spirit of, okay, we have to try anyway, we have nothing to lose, we have to go forward, we cannot look back, we cannot rest, and it, it may be sort of glorifying the history of this, but I think that is still how the economic dynamism, as I call it, is, is preserved there, of course, in, also in America, there’s now layers of bureaucracy layered on top of this, and Rules and regulations, et cetera.

But I think the overall approach is a little bit different from where you, where this is coming from. And I, I think that’s why we see many immigrants in America still. There’s proportionally way more businesses founded by recent immigrants from. From India, from Asia, from China, from other places, Pakistan, they found businesses.

And why? Because maybe they don’t have a job that is the right fit for them. And they don’t have much to lose if they, if they start a company or if they start a little business of their own, right? And then some of them are successful and grow that. How is that? That is, I think, very specific in the U. S. So you cannot translate these things one to one. What I like to try to do when, when we open new sites is to see sort of what are the key learnings that Biolabs can bring to this community and then look at what is the given ground in that, in that place. What is, what is the culture, what’s the habit, what are the types of interaction that people have and, and see other learnings that are specific to our industry.

That because we have so much volume in the US because we have so much data now of what works and what doesn’t work that we can bring to Europe, for example, right? And just accelerate that so that we don’t need 10 years of trial and error, but that we can say, okay, these are the five things or seven, six, seven things that you have to do because they are known to work, right?

But of course you have to build it in the greater context of, of what’s here. 

[00:46:34] Does higher risk tolerance work?

Philip Hemme: So still going to back to my question, you, I mean, from, at least from your learning, the higher risk tolerance is known to work, at least in, in your case, in biotech startups, I think it’s, it’s something that’s house entrepreneurs and in general, and can be helpful anywhere.

I am challenging you, I bring the 

Johannes Fruehauf: venture, you have to, you have to have a risk tolerance you. So, of course, we build companies that have no revenue, they, it’s not like you have a product that’s already there and you have to sell it in a different city and you can predict how much you have to pay the salesperson to go to the different city and then sell more volume.

No, you have a thing that may work or it may not work. It, and it’s quite likely that it doesn’t work because otherwise someone would have invented that before. So you are trying to push the boundaries of what’s possible. But you have to believe that if it does work, it’ll be such a big paradigm shift or such a big market that it’s worth taking the risk at the front end.

And so all of what you do in venture or, or in startups of our type has to be built on a big tolerance of the likelihood of failure. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: And I think, I mean, for the listeners who are not just enthusiast or not like specific in biotech, I mean. What you just said also is, I mean, to appreciate how much risk there is, I mean, you talk always about software startups versus deep tech, but biotech in the category of deep tech is probably one of the highest risks possible.

I mean, you get a bootstrap with your biotech company. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Very hard. 

[00:48:22] Real estate can be profitable and exciting

Philip Hemme: Very hard. Especially on the therapeutic side. Yeah. No, that’s, that’s great. Yeah. On the switching of a topic on the, on the money slash profitability, you touch base a bit on it, that real estate is a big business, especially, I mean, probably it’s not anywhere in the world, but I guess in the U S there is also this like, Oh, biotech need a lot of lab space and we can make, make money there.

And I think you, you told me something like that real estate is boring or not the most exciting, but it’s very profitable. I mean. I would not call it, it was not the exact words, but somewhere in there, but I think what, I mean, you make it also really exciting, at least as, as a space, because it can be very dry, it’s like, you know, when it’s square meters, and I charge you.

The highest amount I can charge you versus here, it’s really, really different. So can you touch base a bit there on like, just, yeah, what’s how you see it, how, yeah. How, how you look back on it after 10 years. Yeah. 

Johannes Fruehauf: That’s yeah. So we. I, I said that and I still believe it that real estate is a really good way to make a lot of money if, if money is your sort of driver.

Enlightened real estate can also change people’s lives. You can build new areas of a city, you can redevelop buildings and that’s, that’s contributing a lot of value to to society. Real estate, if you look at the large fortunes in America that are made today, a lot of it is done. Of course, there’s the people that make a lot of money with tech, like you have Musk and these guys, a lot of large fortunes are made in real estate.

And that’s because you have the multiplier effect. If you have a big building, you know, the, the multiplier effect is very strong. And, and in most Certainly in America, but it’s also true in Europe that there are a lot of incentives from government that give you tax abatements, et cetera, to build real estate because you’re building infrastructure.

Now I also say that it’s a fairly simple business and it’s less tricky than science. Of course, there are layers of, of sophistication and specialization. I don’t want to discount that, but it’s. It’s a relatively small number of basic elements that drive real estate. I, I find it fascinating, the, the power to, to leverage capital and to build big projects is, is a fascinating thing I’m getting into and I’m learning about.

I don’t want to, though, become just a real estate person. I think. The innovation part is much more fun and it’s more fascinating and it’s where, where I’m home and where I come from. And so for us, we are bridging these two worlds of innovation and real estate and we’re building real estate to enable innovation.

Right. We have to get the balance right. It needs to pay for itself at least. It can’t lose money. But this way we, we are hoping to maximize our impact ourselves. So just, and 

[00:51:48] If you don’t have to, don’t take the money

Philip Hemme: the, yeah, that’s, but you, because I mean, Biolabs has been profitable from the beginning. I mean, you have never raised money. 

Johannes Fruehauf: We have not raised money.

Philip Hemme: You still haven’t closed the round at all. 

Johannes Fruehauf: We have not raised any external capital. Correct. We. It’s very liberating to be a profitable company. So it’s interesting because on the one hand I’m a venture capitalist and I want to invest in your company or in an entrepreneur’s company and buy their equity.

But if I have a choice, I will not take other people’s money if I don’t have to, right? And if you’re able, so a piece of public service announcement for any, any entrepreneur who’s listening. If you don’t have to take money, don’t take money, right? Or 

Philip Hemme: take the least amount possible. 

Johannes Fruehauf: To get you there. If you’re able to build a profitable company on your own, that’s a good way to do it.

Because then you have the decision making. Then you can pursue what you want to do. And, and sort of make sure that you have profits. Because if, as long as you have profits, You can rule your business and you can rule your life. And as soon as you lose money, things look very different. And as soon as you’re out of money, you have to shut the door.

 So it’s a, it’s a careful balance, right? And it’s not, it’s not a bad thing to take other partners into your business to provide capital, as long as. They, as long as you have a good arrangement with these providers of capital about like who does what who has what level of control, what are you going to use the capital for?

Are you using it to grow your revenues? Are you using it to conduct a piece of research and development, which will lead you to an, an increase in valuation and milestone? Are you looking to bring in capital that’s smart capital? That’s another big piece of like money is. Not the same from like the same dollar is not worth the same if you have an investor that brings in talent or connections or they can other non monetary value that can be very important and instrumental for your company.

Philip Hemme: Okay. Yeah, 

I like that. I like that. I mean, I’m with Struck bio now, really trying to bootstrapping it and yeah, making profit all versus lab where we raised money and we mm-hmm. took us a long time to be profitable. I mean, even though it was on the small scale, not hundreds of millions, but 

Johannes Fruehauf: it’s a mechanics, the 

Philip Hemme: mechanics similar. Yeah. Yeah. I have to say, yeah, it’s 

Johannes Fruehauf: sometimes it’s, sometimes it’s the same struggles. It may be easier to raise more money. Yeah. Then, so it’s, it’s the same, I mean, the overall, the same mechanics work, right? As soon as you have external investors in your company, they’ll want to say in where you take your company.

That’s only fair. Right. And 

Philip Hemme: it’s like a marriage. Yeah. Absolutely. For a long time. Absolutely. You cannot kick out the investor. 

Johannes Fruehauf: So it is important also for you, the entrepreneur to look very closely at who are the potential investors in my company. Hopefully you have a choice. Yeah. Absolutely.

Unfortunately, in many cases, our entrepreneurs have no choice. They have to take the money from the first and only one that offers them. But if you do have a choice, use it and, and be very careful about like, who do you allow to be on your board of directors? Who do you allow to have a blocking vote on, on your shareholder agreements?

Look into the head, don’t just say, Oh, I need the five million. I’ll take it from anybody. Be very careful, because it is like a marriage, it’s a relationship. Every day you’ll be having to run decisions by these people. And hopefully they will be supportive of your, of your decisions. Hopefully they’ll add value, but sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes they’re driven by other interests. 

Philip Hemme: Oh, it’s misaligned. Yeah. 

Johannes Fruehauf: You have sometimes the, the time horizon for the investment doesn’t align with your interests. Right. And, and then you’re in trouble. They, they make you sell the company, even though you, you want to build it further. 

Philip Hemme: I like what you’re saying.

I can, I can double on this. I mean, my experience was, it was laboratory tech, but it was definitely a big. Focus on people on who we let in. But I like your point a lot. I’m like, what are your options at the moment? And even for us, we didn’t have that many options, but we did say no to a few investors. Where we just didn’t feel like it.

And, and in hindsight was the right decision. Good. And especially, I think it’s especially tricky with at the beginnings. I mean, you see it probably

Johannes Fruehauf: in your, in Yeah, it’s definitely been two years. It’s like, two months. 

Philip Hemme: It’s hotter in Boston. Everything is faster. But once you get to like, challenging parts of like, a bridge, down valuation, or then a forced exit, or even just an exit. I mean, for me, one big reason was, once you have money on the table, people act very differently.

And it’s the same people. But once, yeah, it’s, it’s, and that’s where having selected the right people. And it’s not the right for everyone. It’s also really a fit makes a big difference. 

Johannes Fruehauf: And, and relationships, again, relationships matter. That’s where having been through this once or twice, relationships and experience do matter, right?

Sound like an old person now, but it’s, it’s, it’s helpful to have been through this once or twice. Because now you’re looking at the potential investor very differently because you, you know. What’s going to happen during the time of the building of the business. You, you know, what can happen during the exit of the business.

And some of these events can be pretty nasty, right? And at the same time, it’s hugely valuable to invest in relationships, to build a trusted partners like that. And if you find that group, you could invest with them, or you could have them invest in your ideas. In a serial fashion and they come back for the next idea, whether you make the money or not.

 It’s also as part of your, if you’re, if you’re an entrepreneur and there’s an investor that comes to look at your business, you should also do diligence on them. Right. And you should try to find the other entrepreneurs that this guy invested in previously, call them, find out what they have to say, especially with the ones that didn’t work and that didn’t work very well.

Right. Like what happened? Did they change management? Did they fire the founder? How did they deal with adversity? How did they deal with with trouble? And did they add value beyond the dollars? It’s very important. And it’s, I, I see the mistake often by young teams first time teams, that they, Grab the first money that’s on the table, and that’s not always smart.

Philip Hemme: I guess, yeah. No, that’s a good point. But I think it comes a bit with experience. But at the same time, you have also trade off on the experience, where you were like, look for the perfect person and already know, but that sometimes you also need to… It’s the hard part of look too much and look too few.

[00:59:15] Synergies between real estate and investing

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Maybe on the… No, that’s great. One, one thing I want to talk about synergies and one thing I like a lot was, was, Oh, and you touched a bit on it, but was by labs and that’s, you are here. We need to help entrepreneurs and you’re helping them with, with, with space, but you’re also helping them with capital which but also for you as an individual brings you your, your interest of helping on the real estate side, but also in investing in entrepreneurs, but also from a business point of view.

It also allows you to, let’s say, monetize or, monetize is probably not the right word, but You have, you are exposed to opportunities through the, through the labs, through the space. And this gives you access to, to people and opportunities. And if you can deploy capital there, you can also make big return or bigger return.

Yeah. So can you, I mean, that’s, and that’s it there. That’s, that’s already great. Can you talk a bit more there on like, I don’t know on the synergies on, on how you make it work, how did you get started? Was it obvious or not? I mean, like, 

Johannes Fruehauf: I’m happy to, to talk about it. There’s not a master plan. It’s really observation.

We started, so on the investment side, 

Philip Hemme: and you have 500 million in the management, 

Johannes Fruehauf: across five funds, 

Philip Hemme: just to give context as well. 

Johannes Fruehauf: So we have a venture capital firm that’s called Mission Bio Capital. We are currently investing from Fund 5. It is a 275 million vehicle that’s mostly investing in the United States, mostly investing in companies and entrepreneurs that we connect with and meet through our lab network.

Thank you. But it has made a few investments now in Europe and we’re growing our network in Europe as well. The investment, so the, the firm is founded by one of my mentors and myself and a few other people. Peter Parker, he was my first investor in our first company, Sequin. We mentioned it earlier.

And so since then, we’ve been working together. You’ve met him, right? He’s a very experienced venture capitalist. He had like 25, 30 years of experience in venture before we met and he. You know, when we built BioLabs and then when we built LabCentral, we saw, we saw many companies. And so he had that skill set of a VC with a very credible track record before.

And so we went out and, and use that and raised our first fund together. And so we found that the platform that we have is very unique from other VCs. There’s really no other VC firm that has this type of platform. VCs, they invest because they get a deck or they get an introduction and then they meet the entrepreneur and they look at a presentation.

But we do that differently. We meet entrepreneurs typically when they apply for space to come into one of our labs. And so during the admissions process, every company has to pitch Heidelberg or Durham. Our, my, myself, my partners, or some of our fund people will always sit on that selection committee alongside with a local team.

And so we get a first view, an impression of the team and the founders and their ideas and their ambitions. We ask them for key things like, what’s the idea, what’s the science, what are you, how are you going to make a business out of this piece of science? Who’s on the team? What have they done before and how will they execute this business plan and have they raised any money?

from a third party, or is this just an idea stage thing? That gives us a very good first initial overview that allows us to assess the company for a, if they are a good fit for the labs. Also, will they be good stewards of our, or citizens of our community? And, and then the, the bar is not that high to get into the labs.

Yeah. Depending on the fill rate, really. In, in some cases, we have very lower. Admission rate, like in Boston, we typically had one out of four, one out of five only accepted. And then in other places, admittedly, when the space is empty, we feel be a little bit more lenient to fill the space up. But that’s how we meet companies and entrepreneurs first.

And, and then if they need money, if they are raising now, we already know them and we can have a discussion about it. We have no rights to invest and we get no preferred terms to invest. They don’t ever have to talk to us on the venture side. We have a lot of companies and entrepreneurs that come with preformed venture syndicates from other places.

 And that’s totally fine. They can come into the labs. But we will have a relationship with them that way. And so, even though we are a relatively young firm, we’ve been able to build a strong network now of relationships and Also syndicate colleagues. We’ve, we’ve co invested with the very best venture funds and venture funds that are 20, 30, 50 years old.

And. We’ve quickly been able to make a good reputation also on the venture capital side. So I’m, I’m excited about finding opportunities in Europe now. I think they will need a slightly different profile for us to invest in. I think the science is really equally as good as what we find in Boston or Philadelphia.

 What is lacking in, in Europe and that’s true both in Germany and in France. Those are the only two countries that we currently have a is that the. The growth capital is lacking and that the management to take companies to the next step is lacking. And so we I think we can actually help with that.

We can bring. Connections with experienced managers, some of them are experts from Europe who want to come back and who’ve sort of built a career in the United States who can come back and apply this and they’d be happy to move to Paris or to Munich or to, to Berlin to work here and, and we can help with capital connections because we have our strong network, we can help take companies public in the United States if they want to.

 So that is a good opportunity that we will, build more of that strategy goes. 

Philip Hemme: I like that on the, on the synergies part, you, you are looking at the potential upsides, but you are not like you don’t bring any constraint as in like no strings attached or anything. 

Johannes Fruehauf: So for the labs, no. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, I mean, but you could, I mean, that’s where the, I mean, some synergies also where you can rapidly have downsides.

I mean, if you If Biolabs was very tight to, to mission by capital, it was like, then maybe other VCs would look at it as, well, whatever, more competition or startups would not apply because then they could not get money from other VCs. So, but you get it very like neutral and it’s only if they want to that’s actually.

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah, it’s another way, like. They don’t, I mean, beyond the selection committee, they wouldn’t ever have to talk to me. Right? We’re just here to offer support. Like, if they want an introduction with the head of, or with the chief scientist of Pfizer, I can introduce them because I know the guy was here on my panel yesterday, right?

And if they want an introduction with Novartis Venture Capital Fund, we can introduce them. If they want to talk to us about… Is this term sheet reasonable that they’re getting from another venture fund? I’m going to be happy to give them advice, unbiased advice, or if they need another syndicate member, we’ll look at it.

Philip Hemme: The most unbiased possible. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah. And, and we, you know, for the most part also, we don’t, I mean, we have on the platform today about 400 startups that use our lab today, right? And we’ve only out of the last fund, we’ve only invested in 20 of them. So it’s a very, very small subset. So most of the time it won’t be a good fit.

It’s maybe too much money or too little money. It’s a technology we don’t like, whatever. But so we are there as a resource. And, and I want to emphasize this again. Many venture capital funds have their companies in our network. I, I met the founder or I, I knew him before, but I saw him yesterday of AdBio.

 French fund. They have like seven companies already in Biolabs. Yeah, I’ll tell you. Seven companies out of like 15 or 16 companies. So they, they love this program and, and Sofinova has a few. And so we don’t even, we have one company that we have equity invested in. So of course we are looking to bring on the, the best companies from anybody.

And eventually we’ll make an investment or two. But that’s not a condition. And, and so that’s another, I think some, you mentioned earlier, competitors to biolabs. Some venture funds are embarking on this model where they build their own incubators. But then that sort of. The incubator to the companies that are in that VC fund, right?

And we want to be the Switzerland, the open shop, right? Like you come to us because you need space. You come to us because you want to meet a cool community. That’s also true on the pharma side. I don’t know if you mentioned that, but, but we have a lot of pharmaceutical partners that we 

Philip Hemme: Pfizer. Was like just announced 

Johannes Fruehauf: Pfizer is our ING sponsor. They joined recently. Yeah. And we had their French c e o here and yesterday and, and Schoenbach their CS o And we are super grateful for Pfizer’s support, right? Like their, their c e o Albert Bola is an overall c o He made a big commitment to r and d in France. Pfizer and I, I think this is already a demonstration of that commitment to France.

Is, is that they’re helping. To grow biolabs in Paris. We also have as founding sponsors, Ibsen, French company and Sanofi. These are two companies that we had worked with very well already in, in the U. S. Yeah. And then we also have Novo and Amgen and many others. 

[01:09:52] What’s in it for the residents?

Philip Hemme: Each time with these farmer partners, it’s, there’s no strings reattached for the residents.

Johannes Fruehauf: It’s only benefit attached for the residents. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah. And they, and they get what, I mean, what’s in for them, they get exposure. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah. So what’s in it for them? Let’s, let’s, let’s try to untie that. So one, the, the sponsors are sponsors because they pay money to BioLabs. And that allows us to pay the rent and to pay this and to not charge the startups a huge price, right?

The startups are paying. A price that is subsidized by the revenue that we are able to create from the sponsorship. Yeah. So it’s a good deal, right? 

Philip Hemme: So as is the state, all the pharma companies. Yeah. 

Johannes Fruehauf: So, so it’s being, in a way it’s being subsidized, right? Like if you, if you get, and that’s why we can be selective, right?

Because what you get here is, is more value than you have to pay for, because other people are also paying for this, right? So, and, and so that’s a big part of the value that the pharma companies provide to the startups indirectly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then there’s also very direct benefit because they have office hours where they can come in and they can meet the head of development or the head of business development or other people who are scouts for technology and, and make their programs visible to the big pharmaceutical companies.

There is a strong symbiotic relationship between the startup world and the big pharma nowadays. Most of the drugs that big pharma brings to market today. are developed through collaboration, partnership, or acquisition of smaller companies. And they’re not really internally developed or not internally invented.

Maybe they’re later developed if they take them over at phase one or phase two. So the pharma companies have a big interest in connecting with this innovative community of people because they, they need to feed the beast in a way, right? They have stuff that’s coming off patent and they need to fill the pipeline all the time.

So it’s a mutually beneficial relationship that we are in the middle of and we can help broker. Pharma companies, all of our pharma sponsors also have the ability to sponsor what we call golden tickets. So that’s a sort of a ticket, an entry ticket to BioLabs that Pfizer can give out a golden ticket.

And then they can give that to Philip his, your startup, and you can come into Biolabs, you don’t have to pay us, right? Because Pfizer will already have prepaid the year of residency for you. That’s the golden ticket. And in that case, the Pfizer or Novo Nordisk or Amgen, they can run their own competition.

They’ll do it outside and they will select the company that they like most. That has the best fit with their strategy. And then that company can come into biolabs for a full year of free lab space, 

Philip Hemme: which is equivalent to 

Johannes Fruehauf: 50, 000. This is proxy. And, and so for for the startup, this golden ticket process is very beneficial because one, they get to pitch two, they get to put the name of the sponsor on their website.

You know, these are typically very early stage company and they, they would go to the business plan competitions. They would go to hello tomorrow, they’d go to manage challenge and to Y Combinator and, and for them, they are still collecting labels in a way and endorsements. This is a big endorsement if you’re getting a big pharma.

 To give you a golden ticket, they only have one golden ticket per year to give out. So you win that comp, that’s a big piece, a big sign of endorsement. And then of course it, it’s up to the company to start up and the pharma sponsor if they want to make more of that. In some cases we’ve had strong relationships developed during that year of golden ticket and they ended up in licensing or collaborating or, or, or even M& A.

In other cases, they give you the golden ticket and then there’s no more contact. But that’s really… To the you, the entrepreneur and, and the sponsoring a company. That’s crazy. 

[01:14:01] Get a business coach

Philip Hemme: That’s crazy. On the maybe on the, on to finish on the, on the more personal note or more personal development note. I remember once when we met in Boston, you talked about business coach and And you were saying, yeah, it took you quite, I mean, quite a while to get the business coach and you recommended quite strongly to a lot of your portfolio companies and it’s pretty hard to convince them.

And that’s at the time when I was starting to work with a business coach as well. Can you, yeah, maybe a bit elaborate there or did you change your mind since, so what’s like, what’s your view there? I think especially in the biotech, the biocontext, I mean, general entrepreneurship, but biocontext. 

Johannes Fruehauf: I can only really comment in the bio context, but I think it’s probably true in every context is that we all need feedback, right?

 You maybe get feedback from your spouse on your daily behavior, but they cannot probably give you a lot of feedback on your business things because they don’t see it and they Don’t understand it. Maybe they’re in a different world. They may or may not understand it. And so. In a way, a coach can be a therapist, a partner, a mentor, and a teacher of things, right?

And I deal with a lot of employees or a lot of entrepreneurs who are not trained business people and who are not trained entrepreneurs. So they’re very good at science. They’re very good at a cancer pathway. Or they’re very good at engineering a certain electronic circuit, but they’re not very good managers, or they’re not very good salespeople of their pitch.

 Or they’re not very good understanders of their own self and how they come across to other people. And so that’s where having a business coach that’s on your side that helps you think through issues and maybe even practice is so valuable. So I’ve sent many of, of my. promising employees when they were scientists or engineers to basic business training where they learn things and this is even you can take sort of a course, right?

Like where you do things like how to talk with a difficult employee, how to have a difficult discussion with an employee, right? How Like all of these many things that, that you need to learn to become a manager, because no one teaches that to a medical student. No one teaches that when you’re, when you’re taking a PhD in biology.

The MBA part of, but not really, and it’s not really practical. Yeah. So, so the one is the, the management and leadership piece. And then there’s of course then there’s of course the sounding board for negotiation, how to, how to set this up. And then there’s, oh, it’s. The piece of personal interaction and, you know, business is nothing else, but, but also personal relationships now it’s about money, but the personal relationships that people have with their clients, with their investors, with their employees, they’re very real and they form their behavior leading to either success or failure.

In many cases, that’s independent of the business case, right? Just because people start hating each other and not trusting each other. Or they, maybe, maybe they’re too trustful, all of that happens, right? And so that’s where I have greatly benefited from the, I’ve had various people as coaches, formal coaches and informal over the years.

I’ve been part of groups of CEO roundtables. Also a very helpful setup where you sit with, we, we, we, you meet once a month or so with other leaders of business that may be in very different industries. And then you find out that the challenges that you have are oftentimes very much the same, right? I was with a guy who had an electric business.

Another guy was an air conditioning entrepreneur, big time. The other one had an, an ultrasound business or a healthcare consulting investment banker. We all face the same trouble, right? Like these employees that fit or they don’t fit the co investors or the business partners where we butt heads with.

Philip Hemme: At least on the general business are very similar. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah, I can only recommend that. And we, in some cases we know that entrepreneurs in our spaces have self organized to form those groups. That’s really awesome because then you don’t, sometimes it’s very expensive. You have to pay a moderator. But it’s completely worth it.

If you have the money in the company, it’s completely worth investing in yourself. A little bit of that by, by hiring a coach paying for some of that or joining one of these groups. 

Philip Hemme: I mean, and we call it business coach, but it’s not just for the business topics. It’s, I mean, it’s a professional coach, but can be on any kind of topics.

 But I find that maybe, but I find that not in, in the biotech context, I find that quite a lot of coaching, of course, that can be on general topics, but also on a, let’s say day to day, it rapidly goes into also strategic slash the management of employee has had, it has a bio or topical context. So I found it for info or my coach has a background in bio.

Okay. Okay. I’m not background in tech, which is very rare to find both an entrepreneur and multi producer. But it’s definitely very helpful, even just to understand the product you’re building, even though he might not help you on the product, but it might, it gives the feedback and think just more. So have you seen this or what’s like.

Johannes Fruehauf: So I, none of my coaches had been entrepreneurs in my space, directly. And so for me, it wasn’t mostly always the discussion about sort of the general business general and relationship and management things. But I’ve had these mentors that are expert repeat serial entrepreneurs or investors on my boards or as, as partners now in the Venture Capital Fund.

 And so I think it’s very useful for entrepreneurs to seek out these. People that they can trust, right? And, and build a relationship. You don’t go and say, will you be my mentor? But you, you build that trusted relationship and you get feedback and you check in with them on a somewhat regular basis. And, and that’s, that’s very helpful.

And it’s also important to pass that on, right? And I mean you’re doing that with your podcast, right? Like you, you enable people to hear from other people’s perspective. Which is very useful. And maybe what, what, what’s, what’s the one thing you’re, you’re working on at the moment of a personal development?

 I try to be somewhat patient in the face of headwinds and not freak out when the numbers don’t look as good. So we are currently facing some headwinds in the United States. As you may know, the funding is tough for our startups that translates immediately into worse. Year for us than previous years, right?

Because our clients don’t have money, so they can’t have as much space with us. And they can’t order as many goods and things and services with us. So I see this as a challenge to also improve our business. It’s always, I think really in times of headwinds and even crisis that you see, you know, is a business built well, solidly.

Or or not, and it gives you opportunity to maybe trim some fat around the edges and concentrate on, you know, are you building unit costs that are sustainable? And, and are you building a team and a culture that will also carry you through the, the tough times? It’s very easy to build a company in up years because if you build inefficiencies and you have growth, you won’t even see them, right?

Because the growth may be bigger than the inefficiency. But it’s in the flat years or in the down years where this comes from, 

Philip Hemme: just the fundamentals and the 400%. 

Johannes Fruehauf: 100%. 

Philip Hemme: How do you, how do you work on your patients in Chris? 

Johannes Fruehauf: I don’t know. I take walks. I work out. Those are the simple things. 

Philip Hemme: I mean, it’s, cuz it’s interesting.

I mean, patience always like, oh yeah, you need to be more patient. But when it comes to the how to develop, 

Johannes Fruehauf: I think it’s, it’s, first of all, it’s reflecting and not being too overly impulsive in your decision making. And yeah, so I, I know that you need to have a good balance with your physical situation.

Philip Hemme: Mind and body. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Totally, right? Like if you feel bad because your back is painful or you haven’t slept or… Then you, you aren’t your full self and you’re not going to perform very well, and maybe you make stupid decisions, right? I’m not perfect in that, but I try to, like, at least stretch and work out in the morning or go for a run.

And that’s very helpful. I have much better days when I have a workout in the morning than when I rush to my first meeting because I… I didn’t plan in for the time. 

Philip Hemme: I think we, yeah, we could discuss long on. 

Johannes Fruehauf: I know you did a lot on that yourself, right? 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, I, I, I experiment quite a lot. Huh. But for him on patience is very interesting on that.

I mean, first it’s multifactorial, but We did the how to work on it is, is, is, is tricky and to know, I mean, patience also is, has the two sides, usually, and any kind of quality has also upside downsides, 

Johannes Fruehauf: I’m not talking about complacency, right? Right. 

Philip Hemme: It can be complacency. It can be make you slower, slower decision making.

So it’s also like, and it conflicts with other values. So that’s why I’m also curious on like. But it sounds for you patients more so from the, you know, energy management overall of being more balanced and taking that decision 

Johannes Fruehauf: and not freaking out in in when bad news comes. Take a step back and put it in perspective.

[01:24:39] Follow Johannes

Philip Hemme: Maybe to wrap through, if you, if you, if people want to learn more about you or follow you, I think you’re quite active on Twitter. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Yeah, I, I used to love Twitter. Twitter is going path, path. I may need to look for a new platform, but it’s so convenient. 

Philip Hemme: You have Twitter and, and LinkedIn. You have, we have LinkedIn.

Johannes Fruehauf: LinkedIn, yeah. And that’s it so far. I, I read that there’s new platforms and I’m, I need to learn about that 

Philip Hemme: step by step. Yeah. Not great then, but Pete, 

Johannes Fruehauf: I’m, I’m happy. So if any one of your listeners show up, In Boston or there in Boston, they will always be welcome. They can, they can say that, you know, they looked at our podcast, they can come to LabCentral, any of our BioLabs locations.

They can easily link, find me on LinkedIn and say that they want to connect and we’ll have a chat. Typically, I like to meet people. in person first before I link with them. But so I’m, I’m fairly accessible in Boston. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. So basically reach out reach out to Johannes. Great. Thanks a lot for your time.

Great conversation. 

Johannes Fruehauf: Great to chat with you as always. 

[01:25:52] Thanks for listening

Philip Hemme: Me again, 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. What’s behind the show. I would say a big kudos and thanks to the team here and web development testing and marketing, Marianne logistics, Wayne editing, they did an amazing job and there was a lot of hard work put into, into, into the show. So now what’s behind. So slot bio as a company was founded in March, 2022, I’m.

One of the founder and previously I’ve founded labiotic. 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 the podcast. We don’t want to create, you know, yet another podcast.

There’s already a lot of them around. But we believe Europe needs a high quality, long form podcast to help most professionals and biotech enthusiasts be better informed, grow, and just be better at what, at what they’re doing. And so that’s why we are. Creating that podcast, we are selecting the best ups in biotech we can find.

And we are interviewing mostly actually offline. So we can have really the highest quality, both technical aspect, but most importantly on the dance and the content and the flow of the, of the content. We, we, these. One episode, around 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 messages, slots that you see in each episode. And we are sponsored by financial support for individuals and corporate. So anyway, I will not make it longer if you are, I hope you share our vision and if you’re keen to hear more or you want to reach out or you want to share some feedback, please send or shoot us an email, hi at flut.

bio. Again, thanks for listening and see you in the next episode. Bye.

In a virtual special, we welcome Bernat Olle to the show. We discuss the microbiome space, including Vedanta’s upcoming Phase 3, and how it feels to be a European founder in Boston.

Bernat is the CEO and co-founder of Boston-based Vedanta Biosciences, one of the leading microbiome companies. They’ve had a positive Phase 2 trial and recently raised a $107M round to run a Phase 3.

Bernat is a life science trailblazer. During his doctorate at MIT, he developed a novel method for large-scale bacterial culture. He’s been named “Innovator of the Year in MIT Technology Review Spain’s “Innovators under 35” awards and even has his own TED Talk!

I’ve known Bernat since 2013 when I was studying in Boston and he was starting Vedanta. It was great to catch up again and become inspired once more.

🔗 Links mentioned:

• Ep112: Bernat Olle on Microbiome Therapeutics – The Long Run with Like Timmerman
• Ending the War on Microbes | Bernat Olle | TEDxCambridge

Transcript

Bernat Olle: The, the Genentech Biogen Amgen Genzyme founders figured out that using recombinant technology and cell cell banking, you could make products obviating the need for human donors. The industry went in that direction and they never looked back. Today there’s more than a hundred more OC equals approved, and the main advantages were you control the supply.

You could scale it commercially. It didn’t depend on donors that may or may not show up at the donation center when you needed them, you eliminated the risk of transferring HIV Hep C and some of the pathogens that cost nine MAs in the eighties and nineties, and you had a product always have the same quality attributes.

Well, the exact same things apply here. The difference is the biospecimen, instead of being ized now feces, but you too cannot create the donations here and make products from cell banks.

[00:00:56] Welcome

Philip Hemme: Hey, Phillip here. Welcome to the fourth episode of the Flot.bio Show, where I interview the best Europeans in biotech to help you be inspired and grow. And today I was supposed to be in Boston, but I had to cancel my trip for for sickness. So I’m in Berlin and I will do this episode online. I will interview Bernat Olle, who is the founder and the ceo of Verdantta and Bernat grew up and studied in Spain before moving to m i t for his PhD in mba.

He then joined PureTech where he co-founded Vita and then transitioned to the company as a C E O. And today Vita is really one of the leading microbiome companies worldwide. It has positive phase two data and recently raised over a hundred million rounds. In part two, run the, the phase three.

I will not talk too much about his personal story in this episode because he did the episode with Luke Tillman, where they went quite in details. And I will, I will link in below, but instead we will talk about where, where does the Microbiome Ministry stands right now and how does it feel to run by the company in, in Boston as a, as a European.

So let’s connect online and talk with, be. Alright. So, Bernat, welcome to the show. 

Bernat Olle: Thanks, Phil for inviting me. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s great. We, we finally get to talk live as well, and too glad we, we couldn’t do it in Boston, but I still, still great to do it online next time. Yeah, next time.

[00:02:36] Zooming out on the microbiome field

Philip Hemme: So as I, I mentioned in the intro, I, I wanna start really with the kind, the big idea and starting on, on the microbiome field kind of as.

Zoomed out as possible. I think, I mean, it was a super hot field for, let’s say for the last, let’s say, let’s say last 10 years now you have these two drugs approved on market. It’s rev, biotech, fairing, and, and, and serious with that, you guys, you’re, you’re about to start your phase three. I mean, it’s coming really closer to like delivering patient values and, and, and, and like del delivering, delivering value.

So can you, can you expand a bit on like where we now, like where we, where we standing now? 

Bernat Olle: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I think you made this reference to the, the, the field being very hot in, in past tense and then, you know, reaching some maturity now. And, and I, I’ve been in the field for I guess 10 to 15 years now, and you can see two stories developing what’s happening in academia and what’s happening in the industry.

And those didn’t go exactly. Parallel to each other. I think if you look at the academic output the quality of the, the work that’s come out, the quantity too, and just the collective knowledge that’s been generated, it’s a fairly straight line. You know, from 2008 until now, you’ve, you’ve kept accumulating really good work in the field.

 And if anything, year after year, I think there’s, there’s more evidence and better quality evidence of which are the things that the microbiome do that are in fact important to health and which ones are maybe less important. I think in industry has been a different story because for good or for bad fear and greed are, are more of a thing in industry than, than in academia, although the latter is not immune to that.

And our field has gone through a cycle or a couple of cycles of hype. With, you know, some companies going public relatively early in their lifetimes having some negative clinical rates and then not affecting the field more broadly and then rebounding with positive data and brain, some repeat. But we have gotten to an interesting point in the field, in industry where there are now the first two drugs approved.

 There was an approval in December from our colleagues at faring biotics of a, of acal transplant based on an enema. There was an approval in April from serious therapeutics of a, of a fecal or derived drug based on, on the spore fraction given orally. Both of them are for CD vail infection, which is the best studied indication in the field, and those are good news.

It, it shows, you know, the FDA. Put the bar here in terms of that’s what’s good enough and that’s what’s expected in terms of efficacy, safety, and CMC in this field.

I think this also leaves a lot of room for improvement. I’m hoping we can come to a point in this field where we don’t have to give feces to patients as the basis of a product. We can make drugs that are based on pharmaceutical grade compositions that are always the same, have always the same quality attributes that are safer, where you don’t expose the patients to the risk of transferring pathogens and that are truly scalable commercially, where you can make drugs for not just thousands, but hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of doses, and do that in, that’s, 

Philip Hemme: that’s what what, where denta really differentiate or where, I mean you claim you’re the, the most advanced.

How you, for like gmp, pure bacterial banks or basically not fecal, there’s no fecal donors or no fecal derived drug at this, your most advanced trial in the world. That is, yeah, which is a big deal. I mean 

Bernat Olle: that, that is what we’re trying to do. We’re, we’re trying to make drugs that are defined in nature.

And what we mean by defined is that you bypass the need for a donor of fecal material as the source of the drug. And you instead make the drug from clonal cell banks by fermentation technology, giving you a product that is always the same. And so the ultimate drug that the patient gets is what we refer to as a defined bacterial consortia.

By consortia we mean that there’s multiple different species of bacteria that make up the active ingredients of the drug each of which is, is grown from clonal cell banks so that each batch of product is exactly the same. And by the fine we, we also mean that, right? That it comes from solve banks and not from donations.

And so the the three key points that I made where I think we can advance the field quality attributes, safety, scalability stem from basically taking the donors out of the equation. If you, if you make a drug that’s based on acal donation, every donation is in essence a different drug. So no patient is ever getting the same drug twice.

Right. And I 

Philip Hemme: remember on, on You, you made, you made that, that comparison with, with, let’s say the Genzyme in early days or any enzyme replacement therapy where it was made from donors and then they moved, moved on to to, to bio produced and bio reactors, and then the, the drug was standardized and, and you could deliver it at scale.

Standardized was, was always the same efficacy. 

Bernat Olle: Yeah, I think it’s a, was a useful analogy. I think it, it is a useful analogy. This is where the biotech industry started. Actually, my, my thesis advisor at Mt. Danny Wong, who, who unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago he worked in, in the early days, in the seventies and the eighties in developing fermentation technology and downstream processing needed operations so that you could make biologics starting from cell banks using recombinant engineering.

Before that, the biotech industry relied on plasma donations and tissue donations, either from humans or from, from or from animals to make the drugs, right. Hemophiliacs, septic shock patients relied on plasma donations, and there was a time when there was no alternative. It’s crazy. And, and today it still exists as, as more of a niche thing.

Like for example, during covid, you could see that plasma donations, the very beginning when we didn’t know what we were doing was, was the only way to go. But when the industry figured out that. I mean the, the Genentech Biogen, Amgen Genzyme founders figured out that using recombinant technology and cell cell banking, you could make products of creating the need for human donors.

The industry went in that direction and they never looked back. Today there’s more than a hundred more corns approved, and the main advantages were, you know, you control the supply, you could scale it commercially. It didn’t depend on donors that may or may not show up at the donation center when you needed them, you eliminated the risk of transferring HIV Hep C and some of the pathogens that cost nine MAs in the eighties and nineties, and he had a product always had the same quality attributes.

Well, the exact same things apply here. The difference is the biospecimen instead of being plasma, is now feces. But you too can obviate the donations here and make products from cell banks. And of course, that requires. Everything has its ups and downs, right? And that requires more technology, more technology to figure out how do you pick the right combinations of bacteria, and then how do you manufacture them reliably.

Philip Hemme: What about to ask what are, what does the down say? I mean, I bit what you were you first point as well. I mean, academia evolved rapidly, but also microbiome is, is such a recent field that a lot of the understanding, even though the fundamental understanding is, is like, I mean, there, there’s still a lot to discover.

So I guess even for you to translate that into manufacturing different strains, strains, population, whatever, I mean, it’s, it’s, yeah, basic has never been done. So it’s, there’s, I mean, I guess a lot of fundamental technology to understand, develop that can be, I mean, this is definitely changing bo 

Bernat Olle: both technology and biology.

You know, there’s some problems that we have that can be addressed with technology, and then there’s some areas of knowledge in the field that just need to be patched up with new biological insights that we just don’t have yet. 

[00:11:44] Standardizing the process and composition

Philip Hemme: And no, it’s and you mentioned, you mentioned, I mean, the, the risk of transaction, I don’t remember for which drugg, but for at least for, for fecal transplant, there was, there was a big crisis, I don’t know, a few years ago with some, some infections dealing to, to patient deaths actually.

 So I think, I mean, basically there, the pure fecal transplant is, is very, at least there is huge, huge challenges from a, from a, from a contamination point of view. But I’m curious with, for example, serious or some other drugs, which are, to my understanding, fecal derived, but still quite standardized and Leo ized.

And so can you, can you go just a bit in details to, from a, from a composition, where does it, like where Like, because they are a bit like, they’re a bit standardized, but standardized. Can you, can you explain bit in details or like Yeah, yeah.

Bernat Olle: I think the, the, the difference is are you standardizing the process or are you standardizing the composition?

Hmm. And, and the products that have gotten approved have attempted to standardize the process of making a fecal donation into a drug. So how do you screen the donors? What pathogens do you look for to disqualify potential invalid donors? How do you process the, the fecal donation? Do you use an ethanol treatment like Sirius to separate the spores?

Or, or, or you don’t do that? And then how do you encapsulate it in the final delivery system, whether it’s a cap a capsule or an enema? How do you store it? And then how do you transfer to the sites? That will give it? However, the composition will always be completely different from donation to donation.

Hm. With the donor drive approaches, there is no way to control that. Yeah. It is not standardized. In our case, the composition will always be exactly the same because you’re starting from cell banks. So the eight different bacteria, bacteria, species that are part of our product are always gonna be the exact same clones.

 And same for, for other products that we’re developing. And so when instead of standardizing the procedure, you’re standardizing the composition, then from a development and regulatory point of view, you care about different things, right? Since you, you, you now actually know what’s in the product. In, in some ways the bar is a little bit higher to try to understand and make sure that those specific eight bacteria in, in this case don’t carry in their genomes any Any features that could be problematic from a safety point of view.

For example, antibiotic resistance genes or virulence genes. You don’t have to really look at that if you’re making a product based on thecal donation. Why? Because since you don’t know what’s in the product, then what are you supposed to look for, right? But in our case, since we actually do, then there is also the burden of like, okay, now look and make sure that those genomes don’t contain anything that could be problematic.

 And then also, you know, the, the, the way you you manufacture batches of those different products also we’ll likely get looked at from regulatory agencies differently, right? In one case you’re making products for, from donations and you can contain, but you can never eliminate the risk of pathogens getting transferred.

So what you see some, some agencies doing like FDA is, is making sure that. The batch sizes are small, meaning one donation goes to only a handful of patients, but not hundreds, not thousands. Why? Because if there’s a pathogen, you’ll have some sense of containment. How many people are affected. Now that, that’s good from a safety point of view.

From a commercial scalability, it’s bad because you cannot get economies of scale. You cannot bring the cost of goods down by having larger batches. In our case, we can make batches that are enormous. You know, if you scale the the fermentation, you can make a batch that makes thousands of treatments. But by the same token, since this batch can go into many people, you need to raise the bar on how well you understand what’s in there.

And so reasonably, the agencies will tell you, okay, gimme a more full characterization of what you have in there. Make sure that you actually know what are the amounts of each of the different bacteria that you have in the drug. And. So just two, two different, two different ways to think about a similar problem.

Philip Hemme: But I guess, I mean, you, you have pretty much reached that now, not that you’ve completed a phase two with positive data. Can you, can you go maybe a bit more in the, the, or if you have some specific data to show, I mean, you’re saying, okay, we have more standardization, we can produce more, we can have economic of scale.

Can you maybe have some range, some like examples or, or how it compares or what are we talking about? I mean, are we talking about whatever, 50, 10% reduction, 50%, 80% from cost of, from cost of goods, for example. I mean, just to have a bit of an idea of, of how it compares. And I wrote down the date from the, from the phase two data, I think you were, you had basically was 50% chance recurrence was without your treatment or was, let’s say placebo and was your treatment, you were at 80 or.

81% sustained without recurrence. So, which was significant, significant difference. But can you Yeah, maybe just go a bit on the specific example and, and how, how it compares. Yeah. 

Bernat Olle: So in, in patients that experience recurrences with clo difficile, which is agram positive pathogen, that, that people often acquire in hospital settings, sometimes in the community, bigger problem for the elderly, especially 65 and older.

Yeah. If, if you’ve had an episode of c difficile infection and then you, you recur 

Philip Hemme: After taking antibiotics in most 80% of the case, it treats the problem or treats the, the, the strain, but then the infection, but then 20% will recur. 

Bernat Olle: Correct. Yeah. So, so if you experience the first episode, You will typically get vancomycin, maybe cin and roughly 80% of the people will be fined, will recover naturally, and the other 20% will experience a recurrence in that subset of the 20% that experience recurrences.

You’ll have people that that experience multiple recurrences whereby another cycle and another cycle of antibiotic doesn’t really help and they just keep recurring. If you take the, the average, an average of the population of patients that recur 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 recurrences what you find, at least in the randomized studies that that, that we have run and the competitors that you mentioned have run, is that if your average, average population has had maybe about three, three episodes on average, then the, the placebo rates of, of natural recovery after antibiotic treatment alone, Which is the control arm that we use are gonna be somewhere between 40 to 50%.

That means that roughly half of the people after an antibiotic treatment and some time will recover their micro, micro microbiome and not experience recurrence. And the other, and the other half will, will recur. And then the, the way our drugs are measured is how much better can you do than half right?

When you take the other half and shrink it as much as possible. And so what we’ve seen is we can take this other half and three and shrink it to about 13%. So the difference between the natural cure on placebo and this 13% in our cases, 30 points that’s the absolute risk reduction. And this is the largest that’s been seen in the field.

 For, for context, believe that the two drugs from mer Bezo, TOB CIN be Beb, which is the one approved for this indication, had about. 10 to 12 points of absolute risk reduction. So we’re looking at something that’s, that’s two to three times larger. And the fecal drive approaches have seen absolute risk reductions in, in the range from 12 to to 27% but with significant vari variability across studies.

So this is clinically meaningful because you’re, you’re reducing the odds of a recurrence for a given patient by about 80%, right? So if, if, if you would’ve been in the placebo arm versus a treatment arm in, in our case with high dose, then you have 80% better odds. Or in other words, another metric that physicians sometimes like to use is what’s called the number needed to treat.

Meaning how many patients do you need to treat to prevent one of the outcomes of interest in this case prevent one recurrence. And our number needed to treat is, is three, roughly three, which means that for every three patients that, that are treated or preventing one recurrence, And that’s a very good point to start as a launching path to run a phase three study to then validate it in a larger population, we, we preserve the signal.

Yeah, 

Philip Hemme: that’s very clear though. It’s great context on the, on the, comparing the, the different efficacy. So I guess you will be, you can, I mean, you have potential to be basically best in class and I guess also first in class as a standardized bank derived microbiome producting. 

Bernat Olle: Correct. 

[00:21:39] What’s the cost?

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And that’s, and and from a, from a cost of, I I, can you give a bit of a context there of like what does the cost of the, of the convert I the cost of the map from, from what or what, what the kind of cost we’re talking about.

Bernat Olle: Yeah. So cost of good information is very difficult to find because for understandable reasons, companies like to keep that, that information close to their chest. But you can do a little bit of back of envelope, of envelope to understand orders of magnitude, right? And on in our field if you look at some of the information that that store banks have published, and I’m thinking specifically about Open Biome, which was a store, bank in town and not a nonprofit.

And what they, they were selling their fecal procedures for tho those, those procedures were about $2,000 a treatment in a nonprofit setting. I think that’s a, that’s a reflection of how costly it is to identify donors that are validated and that I’m, that can give you donating feces, but are free of any of the pathogens that would disqualify them, any of the viral, bacterial and parasitic pathogens that, that would disqualify you from being a validated donor.

 And. If you cannot make your batches higher which from a regulatory standpoint, I think is gonna be difficult, then you’re gonna be stuck in this range where each, each treatment is, is in the range of several thousands of dollars to just make Yeah. If, if you’re relying on difficult automations, it’s a little bit counterintuitive because you’re thinking, well, feces are cheap, right? You can just go to the restroom. But it’s not, but 

Philip Hemme: the screening and the standardization of the process is super expensive 

Bernat Olle: minus screening. You have to maintain donation sites at different cities so that people can go and find, find the places you need the personnel to now to, to collect the donations on site, and then basically process donation by donation.

 In our case, we can really turn this upside down by, because, by, by using fermentation technology, it’s really about what scale you’re producing at. Right? Right now we’re making drugs for our studies. At the 200 liters scale. At 200 liters scale, you have a certain cost of goods, but you can use the exact same process.

I mean, in phase two, we’re doing 20 liter scale. You can then use this exact same question at 2000 and 20,000 liter scale, and then you really drive the cost of goods curve down if 

Philip Hemme: you manage to scale at 20,000. Not this, there’s some challenges there as well, but I guess so 

Bernat Olle: yes, I’ll comment on that because I think those challenges are I’ll comment on that in a second.

Yeah. But just, just to make the point that by doing that, you, you can drive the cost of goods by orders of magnitude. And so that becomes very meaningful if you’re in therapeutic areas where you have to make a lot of drug because you’re gonna give it, you’re gonna be giving it for an extended period of time.

Or there are a lot of patients who you need to be able to reach a broad, a broad population saying that tens, hundreds of thousands of potentially millions of patients or certainly. If you want to make drug for any country other than the us which has a willingness to pay for drugs, that is fundamentally different than what the US system is willing to pay for.

Right? So if, if you want certainly if you want low and middle income countries to benefit from ion approaches, it hardly can be based on fickle donation approaches. But you don’t even have to go to lmis, even Europe the markets in Europe you, you have to be, reimbursements are at a place where, where the systems wanna, wanna absorb, right?

And so the cost of goods are gonna be very important. Now, to your point on scalability, 

Philip Hemme: maybe just, just before scalability, just to, to zoom out on the, I mean, cost of goods, just to kind of summarize and, and add a bit of context. But what you’re saying is basically fecal based drugs will be in the thousands of cost of goods.

If you add to this 80, 90% margin margin, we end up in. Like whatever high five digits costs per year, probably somewhere there versus a drug, you can be more in a hundreds of cost of goods and you end up in, let’s say a high whatever one digit thousands. You can, you can, yeah. After margin. Just from a, from then a cost for patient or cost for insurance.

Cost for, for, for, for the system. 

Bernat Olle: Yeah. Yeah. I think to put it another way, I think if you’re making a drug based on fecal donations, the cost of goods will play a very important role on what do you think is, is the pricing that that makes sense. And if you make a drug, a drug that’s based on, on cell banks, you’re more in the, in, in the universe of small molecules and even, and even some biologics where you can look at what is the price level that you think is gonna get good utilization.

And in, in this case, in infectious disease, we have to think about things of like, okay. How many restrictions will payers put on on the accessibility of the drug? Really get step at it. We get payer authorizations, really get different healthcare systems outside of the US to wanna, to want to use this and try to maximize the impact of, of, of the drug without being limited based on it.

That good? That’s consideration. 

[00:27:16] Scalability

Philip Hemme: Let’s, let’s move to scale. Scale up challenges you. 

Bernat Olle: Yeah. So you, you had mentioned you know, go going to a thousand liter scales and beyond. So when you’re scaling fermentations one of the biggest challenges historically is, is gas liquid mass transfer, if the bacteria needs oxygen to to, to be metabolically active.

This oxygen fits to get in there through a gas, liquid mass transfer processes. And those are very difficult to scale because as you make bigger tanks the bubbles of air are still the same size. So you’re. You don’t get good surface area. And so you need to, to work with things like sporting surfactants and all different things to make sure that you’re still getting good, good mass transfer.

And sometimes you just can’t scale beyond a certain point without being limited by, by oxygen transfer. Sometimes the cells are very finicky. Like for example, mammalian cells. You cannot do any meaningful purging cuz you’re gonna break the cell membrane. So that, that also limits you. Here we’re working with anaerobic bacteria.

The challenge is not so much can you get, can you get oxygen in that without that Yeah. One unreal. The challenge is, is of the different nature, which is, is less scale dependent. It’ll be Okay, well can, can you run a process with the unit operations where in the right place you in fact are eliminating exposure to oxygen all altogether.

So if you, if you go into one of our manufacturing facilities, You’ll see, you know, lots of people in glove boxes dealing with bacteria in anaerobic environments. Right? That’s a uniqueness of, 

Philip Hemme: especially the, the bacteria. I mean, get gut microbiome, get bacteria hypersensitive to oxygen. I always remember my, my, my dad is actually microbiome research at, in, in, in Paris.

But always telling me like that you get out the bacteria and within like millisecond is basically dead if they’re in contact with oxygen. So I guess connecting this to your manufacturing forces, you must have like, I mean, it must be, there must be some challenges to keep the oxygen really Yeah. Completely out. 

Bernat Olle: Must, when you have your, your bacterial liquid phase, where, where it’s gonna be metabolically active, you have to be very careful that you’re not exposing to ox oxygen after your lifealize is a bit of a different thing because then they’re arrested. But yeah, so we’re thinking we’re, we’re looking at things like, okay, can you keep the inner operations really anaerobic?

The ones that, that, that need to be which are. The different growth median ingredients that those organisms need to proliferate when you cultivate them. Does it makes more sense to grow them individually or do you wanna grow them in groups? Do you, do you have the, the right cryoprotectant formulation so that when you bring them from a liquid phase to a solid form to a solid powder during this ization process, you don’t blow up their cell membrane or, or have it collapse.

Instead, can you use the right formulations to keep the bacteria viable so that yes. 

Philip Hemme: Still active when you, when you ingest, when you ingesting that they’re just active and repopulate them. So the patient 

Bernat Olle: Exactly. Yeah. So that if in this, in this lifewise matrix that they’ll, or powder that they’ll be given to the patient in inside of a capsule when they reach intestine, you know, you want the to be viable so that they can repopulate rather than that.

And then everything that I’ve told you, You have to multiply by the number of bacteria in your product, right? Mm-hmm. So for example, in our CVIS product, we have eight different bacteria. Yes. I b d product. We have 16 different bacteria. So you’ll have x different cell banks, x different fermentation runs and so on.

In addition, some of these bacteria forms, spores, those are difficult to clean. If you’re making multiple products in your facility, you need to have a very, a very good environmental monitoring and cleaning set up and facility design so that you compartmentalize and contain the, the bacteria and then are able to clean the materials that you used to make them.

Yeah. And so none of these things by themselves are, are rocket science, but there’s a a lot of in incremental things that have to be done to get the manufacturing right, right. Which has taken us years to, to, to really polish. But when you get it to work, it’s a beautiful thing because then you can really make a lot of product with, with quality and not At a cost that, that actually makes sense.

Philip Hemme: I guess you’re a very solid CMC team then. 

Bernat Olle: Yes. So CMC team is the largest part of the company. 

Philip Hemme: Well that’s, I was always curious, but I think you answered, but on the, on the low realization on how like, well, like, I mean, I guess it works very well and I was always curious about this, but I guess it’s, it’s works fairly well and 

Bernat Olle: well, it can work very well or it can work very poorly depending on whether you pick the right, the right cycle and the right cryoprotectant to maintain the bacteria viable.

This is an area that, that where we do research and all those do research too. If, if you, if you pick a, an anaerobic bacteria and, and you just lily them without putting much, much work into the formulation, the expectation is that most of it will be that like 90, 98% will be that. Okay. So that’s the baseline that you start from.

 Then if you can get a good portion of the bacteria to, to stay viable by using the right sugars and other molecules around then that, that’s the goal of lifealization research. And we spend some time doing that. Yeah, 

[00:33:05] The many microbiome companies

Philip Hemme: that’s, that’s great. That, that’s great. Maybe if we, if we zoom less from the product, but more to the, like, companies running micro, I mean, what’s there is, I mean, and also looking from a global, global perspective.

I mean, Sirius and, and you guys, you’re, you’re both, you’re Boston, Boston and then in Europe you have quite a lot of companies as well, and actually a lot of research done here as well. Yeah. But at least in the companies, they have not made it as far, at least not to the market market yet. I mean, I, I wrote down a few just do it by doing with preparing for the interview cause it’s, they, and until in France actually quit in France, pharma.

In the uk, microbio and Denmark Sniper Biome, I b t in Sweden. In the US a few more like what’s your, just for, for the audience also to get the bigger picture if they want to research a few companies down the line. But what’s your view there? Like first did I, did I forget anyone? Or and or like in your view, how does it compare or why, why didn’t they make it?

Like maybe on the market or other way close to the markets? I think I B t as a, as a phase three as well. So maybe if you, if you can comment on, on that, on the, of different side of that tension. 

Bernat Olle: There’s a lot of ground here because you’ve mentioned at least four or five different modalities, right? You’ve mentioned measure mentioned products based on life bacteria either based on fecal donations or defined, you’ve mentioned companies that are pursuing biologics and small molecules from MI affecting the microbiome.

You mentioned Uhgo so that the, then you’re getting into the bacteriophages and editing. There’s also companies doing genetically engineered bacteria likes Logic, Novo. And I think you mentioned that the Danish company, there’s also an element of, of engineering there. Yeah. And that’s a lot of ground to cover because each of these modalities have different pros and cons and different sort of strengths.

And it’s just the nature of, you know, how we use the word microbiome. It’s in a way, it almost like seeing genomics companies 15 years ago. Well, that could have, that could have, that could have touched just about every pharma that we’re using genomics technology somewhere in their pipeline, right? Mm-hmm.

So you know, I, I think all of these approaches have merit in different ways. And they’re all. They, they all should be studied. There’s gonna be multiple modalities that end up being useful to patients. Yeah. Fle derived the protests are already being useful to patients today. As, as two products have been approved and they’re being hopefully prescribed.

 We’re hoping that the fine bacterial consortia could be next. But, but as people continue to study the role of bacteriophages and how to engineer functions into bacteria and better understand the pathways that are involved in microbiome or signaling some of those other pro other approaches, including small molecules, will will also find good indications that are successful.

I think what you’re seeing is you know, this is a field that’s mature and yet is still relatively in the early days. It’s like we’re in like the beginning of our second decade and there’s still a lot of things that are, that are unknown. There’s been some first failures. For different reasons. You know, sometimes companies picked indications that might not have been the best testing ground for the hypothesis.

They may have been differentiated from what competitors were doing, but not where you had the highest probability of clinical success. That could be a reason for failure of otherwise viable modalities that maybe if somebody tries them again, another education will actually work. In other cases, you’ve seen failures because people skip steps and they went straight to a later study without understanding those response.

And then they turn out that those matter, they had to go back to try and board increase the dosing and get it to work in other, in other cases, companies did all the decisions, right. And they encounter very negative markets, especially in the US last two years just died from the ultimate cause of death of biotech companies, which is running outta cash, right.

Ultimately that’s, that’s the, that’s what all the, you think of a company as a patient, that’s what, what, what the ultimate cause of death. Al always is, right. But so, so I think, you know, in our field you have a, a, a, a mix of circumstances. Right now you’ve seen a cycle of hype with some investors being more bullies than others, depending on, on, on the timing.

 And then in the US specifically there’s been several macro macroeconomic conditions conspiring together. We first had a crisis in biotech that’s well into its second year, almost third year, year now. Yeah. That’s left the public markets in very poor shape and then trickle into the private markets at high inflation.

It’s been less, a little bit, a little bit less of an issue in, in Europe and Asia, but a big issue in, in the us and so and so high interest rates, investors less likely to, to invest in biotech whenever there’s high interest rates. That’s normal. So there’s less investors. And then on top of that, you know, we’ve had some positive news, but also some negative news in the field with clinical rates.

So you have to put all of this together in the back. And some of the circumstances are controllable by the management teams of a company, and some of them are outside of their control. And we’re basically, we’re all swimming in this sea of uncertainty, trying to find the best way for our modalities to, to be, to be advanced.

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. Yeah. You put it really nicely, the, the bigger picture. And I like also your comment on like, what’s in, in control, what’s outside of our control from a market point of view, from investor point of view, from a technology, I mean, still science and some things will not work, and there’s a kind of luck or out of control component, which I think is in biotech tends to be always a bit I mean, it’s very hard to measure, but it’s, it is very, it’s very high which doesn’t make it easier, but it’s, it’s kind of part of the game.

[00:39:43] EU microbiome industry

Philip Hemme: Maybe on the, just. On the, if you have a comment, not to compare, like, let’s say, or, or a comment on the European microbiome industry or what, I mean, you, you have partnered also with European research groups, I think in, not this, in, in, I think Paro and, and, and, and in France as well. Can you just, maybe if you have a, if you comment there, I don’t know, like if something you, you wanna share from, from comparing, comparing the two or, cause I, I mean just from, from covering the field in biotech, I was always impressed because microbiome was really one of the like field slash modality where, where Europe was actually like very not ahead, but almost equal level was, was the US from academic.

But even from a company building from investor, I mean, se venture was, I dunno if that le led Joran, but invested very early in Inver as well. So a French investor going to Boston to invest, I mean, it was one of the field where it was always quite, quite equal. So maybe, yeah, if you can just comment there.

Bernat Olle: Yeah, 

Europe has a, an the, the, the, the quality level of, and quantity of microbiome research in Europe is extraordinary. And I agree with you. It’s, it’s very much on pair with the output in the us, not just Europe. You know, I think Japan too is another area where there’s been traditionally very good expertise in microbiology.

 Some expertise in microbial ecology. And you know, we’ve had multiple collaborators in Europe. We’ve worked for a long time with a group, KU group at the Layton medical Center and with other collaborators in Catalonia, in France and, and the UK and elsewhere. So yeah, there, there’s a lot of, of good research.

The European Union was proactive in the early days of the field. To put money in, into, into research. And that paid out just like the NIH injected money into, into microbiome research about a decade ago. And so yeah, when we’ve looked for, for ideas, for, for good science, we’re, we’re never, we’re never focused on, in, in Boston.

The world is a very big place and, and research happens everywhere. And in fact, you know, a lot of the a lot of the technology inputs, intellectual property, early research that we’ve done, in fact did not come from the us in our cases. It came from Japan, it came from from from Europe. So yeah, I think, you know, per, personally, I stay very open-minded about where the, the research can come from.

In my previous life, before Vean, I worked in venture creation. And that’s a perfect ground to understand. You know, the world is much, much bigger than mit, Harvard, Stanford. There’s a lot of good research groups that are, are doing great work, and you really want to cast a very wide net to understand where good ideas are coming from.

You also mentioned the investment landscape with some European investors like Aventure, kinda building a name for themselves in this field. I think that’s another important consideration when, when you look for financing, it’s natural for us companies to look at US investors, just like European companies will look at European investors too.

 But the world is a big place and different geographies look for, or different investors look for different things. We, we’ve also had, had to cast a very wide net. When we look at, at investors for Banta, we’ve looked at, at US investors, but we’ve, we’ve, we’ve also brought in several investors from Europe.

No, it’s Sky was a venture and others as well as Asia, we brought in investors from Korea, from Japan, from China, and yeah, sorry. Some considerations. 

[00:43:51] Challenge of fundraising

Philip Hemme: No, that’s it. That’s amazing. Yeah, and actually talking about cash, I mean, I mentioned an intro that you closed the round or something hundred six or $107 million.

I mean, con congrats on this, especially in the thank you, and especially in the current times. I mean, closing such a big round is, is I can imagine very challenging and very crucial as you said, also to finance the, the phase three. But that’s, I mean, I think that’s still one of the advantage definitely to be in, in Boston slash in the US where at least some invest around, but also the public markets outlook.

I mean, when you look at the public markets in Europe at least in the 10 last years, it is, it’s incomparable to the Nasdaq and. Yeah, 

Bernat Olle: I’ll say can make it you know, I haven’t gone through the experience of having to raise a financing. So I’m from Catalonia. I don’t know what my life would’ve been if I had to raise this amount of money from Catalonia.

Maybe, maybe it would’ve not been possible or from elsewhere in Europe. But, but I think it’s, it’s fair to make a point that fundraising in this environment is not easy. No. No matter where you are. It’s not just like, because you’re in Boston. Somehow it’s gonna be easier that there are, there have been a lot of challenges by US companies during this period of time, too.

 It’s just like, you know, it may be harder to, to, to, to raise money if you’re a female CEO than if you’re a male ceo or if you’re like a 50 year old tray, a 20 year old CEO than if you’re an experienced 50 year old CEO that’s had several exits. But it’s still difficult. Like you talk to someone, the experienced CEO that have everything going for them.

They have the marching investors, they have the, the right age, the right gender, and it’s still hard, right? So I think bottom line is fundraising is hard for everybody and you, you have to appreciate that. But also understand that in some areas is even harder. And I’ll say, you know, we we’re very, we’re very excited that we, we put out we that, that we, we closed the financing and you know, everything, you’ll appreciate that everything looks beautiful when you put it on a press release.

You know, as a part of our company, you, you, you can choose what you, what information you should put out. And, and of course you say, we’ve raised 106 million and, and it’s like, oh, great. Reality 

Philip Hemme: running I remember didn’t round up. 

Bernat Olle: But my point is like, the reality of, of running a startup is it’s, it’s always, you’re always fighting fires and it’s always messy.

 But you don’t have to put that in a press release. You don’t have to say, we’re fighting a fire here on this day. I’m feeling down because an investor was. Was, was, was mean to me. The, the reality is you know, it’s, it’s hard for everybody in our financing. You know, we had to work harder for this financing than we worked for any of the previous financings, despite having better data than we have ever we’ve ever had before.

 Which ultimately is the currency of our financings. But ultimately we got what we needed, which is the, the right amount of money to be able to run essentially two, two mid to late stage studies. One late study in phase three for lead program in c difficile, which if positive, we hope could be the basis for our first approval of a defined drug.

Yeah. And a second study for our second candidate in inflammatory bowel disease V 2 0 2 which is just starting imminently in patients that have ulcerative colitis within the datasets from those studies will be the, the basis or the currency on which we, we, we can raise the next financings. And hopefully we can get either one or both of those two to work hopefully 

Philip Hemme: keeps fingers crossed, as mentioned before, that need needs a bit of like, as well, or let’s, let’s say that somehow everything works out.

I I like your, I like your, your, your honesty and, and I mean in general and everything you share, but just, just now the comments you made on like what’s the, the reality of, of running a company, biotech or not. I mean, in, in tech, digital or everything sometimes looks more rose you your thing, but it’s, it’s, it’s really not and maybe a bit more experienced there.

It’s, it’s really not. And when you talk when you talk to people and beyond the press release and the website and the, and the press article, it is, it is a very different reality. But I, I like that you, you share that. And I think it’s also, I it’s also important for, for, for our listeners as well to, to be, to be aware of this and, and sometimes also, A bit more compassionate also for, for the people running the companies, cuz I mean, it’s easy to criticize, but it’s very hard to make these drugs and, and run these companies and, and you know, the, like, the difficulty and the challenges I think and people that are really doing their best, especially in biotech people care and, and invest so much like energy and time and passion and they’re trying really their best.

And yeah, it’s there, there’s some respect to be, to be, to be given there and to be shown there and, and, and, and understanding. So it, it 

Bernat Olle: is a very difficult business as, as our chief medical officer, Jeff likes to say. Not, not for the faint of heart. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: But, but the, the upside is also amazing. I mean the, when you talk about it, but like, curing, curing patients, I mean, With where they, they literally have no treatment option available.

I mean, now you mentioned the two pro programs, but I mean, still like very little. I mean, it’s, it’s critical, critical unmet that can need, I mean, that’s also, it’s also amazing. 

[00:49:23] Running a company in the US vs EU

Philip Hemme: So switching to, to, or what you, what you said a bit, I mean, I, I wanted to get a bit your, your feeling and you, you, you’re the first, let’s say, European interview who is based outside Europe to run the car, to, to, to work, or based in Boston at least.

So I wanted to get a bit, the feeling from you on, like, and obviously you, you cannot really compare for yourself as then you, you haven’t run a company in, in Europe or, or in Boston. But just getting a feeling for, for how, how was it to, you know, to, to run a company as a, as a, or like to, to, to come here maybe without network and then, and then growing your network and running the company, funding the company.

 Do you feel differences? Do you, what’s your mindset there? Do you like try to just like be in a, in a very like US mindset and, and get more rid of the European mindset? Can you, can you, like, get, get a bit of like a feeling of, of how it was in the early days, how it is still today? Like 

Yeah. 

Bernat Olle: My impression is that in, in quote unquote normal times, i e not now in biotech a lot of the steps are necessary to start and grow a company are smoother in, in the us especially here in the east coast, in the west coast, than they are in many countries in Europe.

In particular finding the employees with a specialized knowledge of drug development quickly and and with the right, right, right. Expertise in qualifications. Some of this advantage has been eroded during Covid and with, with Zoom becoming an accepted tool and remote work being more accepted, but, but they’re still real to the extent that working in person is, is is not, not going away anytime soon.

Another topic. I think also the number and size of investment groups, the pool is deeper in the US and for many reasons they, they don’t always travel into other geographies to, to get to know companies. And so if you’re starting a company in Europe, you’re working out of a, of a smaller pool of investors, which in again, quote unquote normal times, they tend to be a lot more valuation sensitive.

And I would say run their processes of diligence a little bit differently than, than than US investors. Now that being said, is the silver lining view one for the European entrepreneur is that disadvantages right now are completely eroded. Hmm. Because it’s, they’re 

Philip Hemme: talking right now and in the past three years I guess, since the thing of Covid, I guess.

Yeah, 

Bernat Olle: yeah. Cuz it’s hard everywhere for everybody. So in, in many ways this, this hardened training of starting a company in Europe without being anointed with a silver spoon by well-known investors and doing all the hard work every financing round to have to hustle for every investor, to have to hustle for every employee hire I would think has prepared a European founders very well for those times.

And it’s, it’s good to see, you know, failure and to see hardship and to see difficulties early on in your career as entrepreneur because you know, when you have to make very expensive decisions for our companies, you’re get into later stages. The stakes go up in, in the, the risk of losing. Lots of money for, for lots of investors, only goes up.

Right. So I think that 

Philip Hemme: Can you make you stronger? 

Bernat Olle: Exactly. You know, I think if you’re, if you’re well prepared for this environment by this previous ex, by the previous experiences that you’ve had as an entrepreneur, then, you know, good for you. Mm-hmm. 

Philip Hemme: And, and for that, no, that’s, and, and for you, maybe personally, for, like, did you feel any difference from, like, from coming from a, from a European background and then, I mean, even when you were at EC or founding Vita, did you like have some like personal challenges there that are connected to your, to your background?

Bernat Olle: No. I think that my, my integration to the US was very smooth. I, I was here for grad school. My grad school colleagues were incredibly welcoming. It was a diverse group, but, but the, the Americans were too. And I feel like the integration in the work environment in the US was also very smooth.

 I think partly this maybe an artifact of Boston being a very international area already, but in general, my sense is that the US is a very welcoming place for entrepreneurs and for immigrants. Not withstanding what you see every once in a while in the media and the cycles that the country goes through as, as Republicans and Democrats fight for control.

None of that changes. The fact that integrating as, as an immigrant in this country is easier, no doubt than it would be for an American to try to integrate in Spain’s workforce. Both from a per per bureaucracy point of view, but also from a cultural point of view. Yeah. I think in, in the us if you, if you come with a, with an attitude that you wanna build and you wanna create and you wanna make a career for yourself, that, that is that in many ways makes you an American ultimately.

Philip Hemme: Mm-hmm. While I like that 

Bernat Olle: back at home, you know, I could imagine if, if you come from America, let me try to integrate you, you will always to some extent be the American and not and not this pioneered, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Just because, you know, historically there’s been less, less exchange and less flow of people, but there’s also some cultural values that I think are, are very conducive to entrepreneurship in the us.

You know, there is an appreciation for, for, for people. Building out their, their own careers. There is a little bit more tolerance to bo both in the legal framework and as well as cultural culturally to accepting complete blowouts and failures and then start again. It’s considered a good thing that, you know, you have learned something from your failure.

It’s not necessarily like a 

Philip Hemme: it’s not a bad thing. Yeah, I like that. 

Bernat Olle: But you know, that being said, Europe is not a thing. It’s like a collection of, of many different cultures or many different countries. And even within Europe, you would find dramatic differences, right? Like you, you look at some of the cultural values in, in, in, in Germany, the uk and you compare it to Spain, it’s just like almost to different worlds anyway, right?

So you know, you have to make these comparisons with caution. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. No, no. Yeah. I think it’s, it’s, it’s, I was, yeah. Yeah. I can, I can. I can come, I mean, yeah, back up or I, I have very similar experience actually coming and living, at least studying one year in Boston. And, and it’s very, you can, you can really feel, feel this and, and definitely can feel it less.

Again, Europe is big and depending a bit where Europe, definitely some cities are more international than others. I mean, say, I mean especially UK or even Berlin. But it’s, yeah, definitely different. Yeah. 

Bernat Olle: And another thing that I meant to add is that the density of entrepreneurs and how that affects the probability that you become one is actually a big thing, right?

I didn’t have an entrepreneurial background in, in my family. I guess the closest thing is my, my grandmother started the business to, to sell furniture to, to tourists many, many decades ago. But you know, growing up I never met any entrepreneur or didn’t really have any reference of a well-known entrepreneur in the country.

That was like a person that you look up to. You come here to Boston and. You know, you see entrepreneurs everywhere and they will include your immediate circle of people that, you know, if you studied here, I’m sure you know among your colleagues at bu you know, several entrepreneurs that you could name and you know what they did right.

And, and being able to see people your age, your degree, that look like you, like talk, like you go on and start companies, in many ways they, it demy, it, demystifies it, it, it makes it look less intimidating than than if you don’t have a, a reference. Cuz you can just, you know, kind of make the mental calculation of like, well if this person can do it, maybe I can do it to it.

And that, that is very valuable and that’s very much my, my story, right? I came in to do my PhD, my plan was that, you know, I’m just gonna go back to Catalonia and work as a chemical engineer in the petrochemical industry in tab. And that never happened. And that, and partly that never happened because one, I met my, my wife, which is an American, but two many of my classmates at MIT were, We’re starting by tech companies are their PhDs.

And I was like, well, that sounds very exciting. Maybe I can do the same. 

Philip Hemme: But what, it’s amazing what you, I mean, one, one thing that fascinated me, what you just said is, or two things. One was the amount of PhDs I met in the Boston area, American, or not American, who were entrepreneurial, was fascinating for me.

I, I met many PhDs in, let’s say in Paris when I did some internship and research and like, I was not inspired at all. And when, when I met them in Boston, I was like, wow, that’s, that’s crazy. And the second part is I can, when you, I think for, at least for people who have, who have visited Boston or, but I think when you visit, just, it’s, even if you visiting biotech, it’s hard to really grasp the, the, the, the magnitude.

But if you have worked a bit there, it’s a magnitude of, of talented people. In around Kendall Square, and it is just insane. And the change, the likelihood that you meet someone very inspiring and that you will start collaboration or anything, it just creates this like really, let’s say, really ecosystem.

Bernat Olle: And we, it, it really is extraordinary. 

Philip Hemme: Create opportunities everywhere. And that’s, that’s really infectious personally and inspiring and gives a lot of energy, but it also contributes a lot like to, to individuals and to companies. 

Bernat Olle: It, it really is extraordinary. It, it, it it’s impacting when you foresee it for the first time when you feel the delta, wherever you came from and, and, and you start living here.

 And for me, even after 20 years, you know, you don’t take it for granted. Like the, the privilege of being able to, to work in an area where there’s that density of, of really qualified, smart, ambitious people that wanna do in impactful, difficult things. Just very difficult to find anywhere else.

[01:00:30] Would you recommend the entrepreneurial path?

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. And I was about for, for the PhD students who, who are listening to us, if you, if you would recommend joining, let’s say like, I mean venture creation lab or more the, the industry entrepreneurial pass. I mean, pure PureTech is, is one example, but flagship is another one in, in Boston, but in Europe you have quite a few now doing it from Kumar.

And so Nova has one in MedTech. But would you, and I know quite a few PhD students who have done that actually. I mean, I guess you would definitely recommend it. Would you still recommend it today? Like, yeah. 

Bernat Olle: I, I honestly, I, I really don’t wanna recommend anything because I’ve seen so many people now do very well by picking different paths that, like what do I know?

 I, I, I’ve seen people do v very well by starting their companies Trade outta school. Hmm. I’ve seen people create great careers by going to a large company, learning under a great boss, going deep into material, and then becoming a great employee for, for a black biotech, and then becoming founders themselves.

I’ve seen people create amazing careers by starting venture creation, learning the ropes of what it takes to start a company, and then becoming more focused on being operators and, and growing companies, which is maybe an experience that you don’t get in venture creation. And there’s so many paths to, to fulfillment.

 I, you just need to be I, I was gonna give advice now, so I’m gonna stop short myself, but I think you wanna be mindful. Yeah. You wanna be mindful that it’s, it’s fine to experiment. You may not find the, the, the right job the first time around, or you may not find the right boss the first time around, but. You know, biotech, at least here, is a very fluid market.

So there’s lots of opportunities to try different things and know that in each of these positions, you’re making some trade offs, right? If you go to a, to a large company, you’ll have a lot of structures. You’ll have very solid training. You’ll learn from various seasoned people, but you’ll have influenza for a small deliver.

What the company does and limited bit of visibility on, on the, on the enterprise. If you go to a small company, you’ll have complete visibility in the enterprise. You’ll be in every discussion. You’ll be in the room where it happens every time, but you will be making a lot of things from the seat of the pans and learning things as, as you go with very limited training and support.

 And, you know, as a result, your career may be accelerated, but it could also be slowed down depending on which group of people you work with, right? And same, same with with the venture creation path. I mean, I, I love venture creation. I think it’s great if you have that curiosity of playing with different things understanding the first key steps of the process of starting a company.

 I, I love that and I think it, it prepared me well to be more effective when I did that for the second and the third time. But I never had the experience to work in a larger company and learn from a very seasoned mentor in areas A, B, C. And, you know, I, I have some colleagues that had this experience and made great careers for them so themselves too.

Right? So, no, 

Philip Hemme: I, I like, I like your answer. I like your answer that there’s, there’s many, many different paths. To even reach the same, I mean, there’s many, many roads leading to the same road of like building a, a successful biotech company. I don’t think there’s really an idea or like a very optimized, I think that’s, I mean, I, I, I saw it myself as well, and even for myself, I, I tended to like, overthink it or even always trying to find the best path possible.

But I like your advice of like, maybe I, let’s say light advice of like, there’s many options. Many options can, can be very beneficial and it’s important to try out and see what works and adapting it to your personality or to to person, facility and then, and then move on and, yeah. Yeah. I like that. 

Bernat Olle: And, and I, I think one thing I’d, I’d, I’d wanna qualify is I mean, you, you may hear what I’ve said and, and, and you may have kind of a kneely stone of like, nothing really matters that, that’s not what I intended.

I, I think it’s more like, yeah. I mean, if you’re gonna start a company yourself, then. It doesn’t matter who your boss is because you’re your boss, but if you will work for, for, for an existing biotech, for a pharma companies, it’s not like they’re all the same. There are better companies than others and they’re certainly, there are much better bosses than others.

Right. So who do you 

Philip Hemme: for oneself especially. 

Bernat Olle: Exactly. Yeah. So who do you choose with is super important. It’s, it’s not something that’s indifferent. They make a huge difference. It may make a huge difference in, in your career that you pick the right company and that you pick the right group and boss to work with.

 So I think this is worth qualifying that, you know, when you’re looking for your job opportunities, you know, referencing heavily the company and referencing the group that you’re gonna work with, just like they’re referencing you in their interview processes is a very important thing to do. Just like before you, you’re doing your p your PhD, you should be asking your other PhD students in the lab if they like working for, for that pi.

Right? Although many people don’t do that. And then they later regret it. 

[01:06:04] What can I do for my microbiome?

Philip Hemme: That’s a good one. No, it’s very good. I wanted finish on one thing that I really wanted to also like, and I think it’s a good conclusion and I wanted to talk with you and it’s bouncing off on your, on your TED talk and which gives a bit of bigger picture on like, okay, how to fight antibiotics or how to find the microbe resistance.

But I wanted to twist it a bit and like in a bit like the TED talk is, is meant for a more general population. When you go a bit into like what are some, like more, let’s say, actionable things that people can do when you think about, okay, me, myself, and my microbiome, what can I do? And I like the part in your TED talk of like, oh, My microbiome is like very or least very precious, and it’s, it’s my like immune system.

So I will not take antibiotics and I will let my microbiome fight the infection by itself. And then over time, my microbiome was solid. I, I, I’m paraphrasing and I remember your wife was going the opposite or like the opposite direction of taking me antibiotics upfront at least for the, for the same infection.

So maybe can you expand a bit on that, on like what you would like or what you see today? I mean, and also, I mean, sorry. And, and, and there’s many things in the microbiome today in, in terms of like microbiome testing, you know, in terms of like nutrition to get into microbiome. And I think there’s a lot of things that are maybe true, but really not that solid or like, or like still farfetched.

And I mean, I don’t want you to give like, medical advice necessarily and then, and be cautious there, but just. For like the person, the, the typical our audience or someone who like very biotech enthusiast or biotech person working in the biotech industry who kind of know what the bi microbiome is, but then when they need to take decision for themself on what to do, when it’s like kind of help cross microbiome, what would you like Yeah.

Recommend or at least give some like way to think about it or way to apply it. 

Bernat Olle: Yeah. The, the long story short is I would recommend very little I under underscore very little other than some very obvious things around diet. Go, going back to the, the TED Talk and antibiotics. The TED talks are, are very short and, and usually nuance gets sacrificed at the altered of expi to, to try to get a, a point across and I think, and the ones that is maybe not.

Not given the way in that talk is there’s a lot of antibiotic use that is absolutely necessary. And if, if your doctor is, is recommending you to take antibiotics, most of the time they’re gonna be right. I mean, unless you have a viral infection or unless they’re, they’re giving you the, the wrong antibiotic is they didn’t do the homework most of the times it makes sense to to, to do exactly as you’re told in, in my Ted talk, was describing a very specific, a very unique context, which is being hiking in the Himalayas, not being anywhere close to a hospital where you can actually diagnose what in fact is causing you the infection.

So you don’t even know if it’s viral, antibiotic and, and bact, bacterial or parasitic. And then having those options, only those very broad spectrum antibiotics that that, that have a, a whole set of issues with them. Right. I think this is a different, a far cry from, say being a, an oncology patient which has an, an infection in a hospital setting, which the doctor, the ID doctor has diagnosed, they know exactly what antibiotic they have to use.

You’re at risk, that infection can, can get into the blood and cause death and you should absolutely do what the doctor saying. So you know, just to make the point, antibiotics are a very important plus of drugs that are not going anywhere. They’re necessary. We, we need more of them. And, you know, I think the right way of thinking about microbiome therapies is, is as an adjunct to antibiotics in most cases, not as a substitute, meaning that, you know, patients that have active infections, a doctor needs tools that that can act very quickly in hours.

And, and those tools will typically be antibiotics. There is a collateral effect of using those antibiotics. Unfortunately, they’ll damage other microbial communities in the intestine and for num, for some patients, it’ll be a good option to chase the antibiotic with microbiome interventions that.

Hopefully undo some of the collateral damage of the antibiotic. I think this is a good setting for how microbiome therapies fit in, in infection control as they, as they get approved. And here I’m talking about drugs that demonstrate their efficacy and safety with the right studies, they get approved by agencies, et cetera, et cetera.

When you get into the world of nutrition’s, nutrition, medical foods, beyond just a completely different world, right, because

there’s just so much bullshit, sorry to be be, but it’s just impossible to know what, what, for a consumer, what has good support and what doesn’t have good support. The claims are not evaluated by agencies. When they are. It’s usually in the context of, you know, using the stick against the company and being like, you know, retroactively, you need to not say that, but in most cases you have these small companies.

 That don’t have cells that are big enough for FDA to even care or, or, or the, the food part of the FDA to even care to evaluate some of the claims being made. And as a result, you, you live in this universe of gray where, you know, some of these products are claiming to improve your immune homeostasis or your reg regularity.

And what does that even mean for, to a consumer, right? It kind of sounds good, but you know, if you’re a healthy person,

what do you need to, to change if you’re already healthy? Right? So on the other hand, many of these products have been used in ma, many bacteria have been used in, in dairy products, in yogurt, in kefi cheese, and they’re part of what’s needed to make the product, right? So of course you need them to make the dairy product, but do they actually help your health in any meaningful way?

It’s very questionable, right? And so I think if you like to take products that, that have microorganisms in them, And I do, I take all of those and all the by all means go ahead and do it, but do not expect any, any meaningful change in your health. And certainly not. If you’re already a healthy person, you have nothing to improve.

Philip Hemme: Right. Yeah. You haven’t mentioned pro probiotics, but I guess that’s along the lines. I mean, you haven’t mentioned the word, but that’s includes what’s your Yeah, yeah, 

Bernat Olle: exactly. And then you also mentioned diagnos diagnostic tests. And this is an area that’s been sore for our field because we’ve seen everything.

We’ve seen outright fraud with us agencies stepping in and seeing some really ugly stuff from companies. Basically really trying to mislead both our investors and consumers with questionable reimbursement questionable, questionable practices. And there’s also some good research. Right. So it’s, it’s, it’s, you have to be careful not to put everybody in the same bucket, because I’ve seen companies that are working on diagnostics that are, are doing actually credible, good work.

 Meaning using information of the bacteria that are in your, your fecal samples or in skin samples in saliva to to do something. And the something here is the critical part, right? I’ve had multiple relatives that did a microbiome test. They send me the test and they ask they tell me I’ve gone to the doctor.

The doctor doesn’t know what to do with it. Of course they don’t. What do you think about it? Since you work in the microbiome field? And I’ll look at it and, and I’ll be like, well, this is a lot of bacterial names that sound familiar, and you’re probably fine as you already knew because you’re a healthy person.

Why did you take the test in the first place? And they’re like, oh, there’s maybe two, 300. I think that, that where these, and I’ve taken some of those tests myself, by the way. I still do it. I think doing, taking those tests and using it as a curiosity, just as, as you can go into ancestry as a curiosity and say like, okay, court.

Who, who are my an assessors and am I 30% Irish? Or, or, or, or what am I? That’s, that’s fine. It is a curiosity and that’s where the field is at. I think where, where it really goes off is where some of those tests attempt to make claims that have any implication that you can make a decision about something that’s health related, or, I’m sorry, disease related.

 Either diagnosing a disease or monitoring how you progress on disease setting. Cuz the moment you put those tests in front of a doctor, the moment you put them in front of a gastroenterologist and the infectious disease doctor, they’ll say, what is this? Like, what am I supposed to make with this information?

Right? Where’s the evidence that having the signature of bacteria makes you more likely to have this disease or that you’re progressing better on a treatment and this evidence will emerge. There’s no doubt about that and there’s companies working on that doing good work, but it is not today 

Philip Hemme: have to be really cautious.

It. But I mean, these, some of these tests are claims that are sold like, you know, tens of thousand, hundreds of thousand times and it’s like couple of hundred Euro dollars to, to make the test. I mean, it’s from, from your answer. I mean, and I think it’s, it’s kind of almost also my personal opinion, it’s have to be very cautious as a, to be, to be very cautious. And it’s very hard to even understand. 

Bernat Olle: Yeah. Like if you don’t know what, what do I do? Right? A little bit about the field, what do I do? I’ve taken those tests. I think they’re interesting. They’re curious. I I, I was, I was curious to know. That’s it. I’m not making any decision on my health based on those And, and I’ve been taking antibiotics as doctors have prescribed them almost all of the time as as you should.

Philip Hemme: And I think I, I think, 

yeah, I mean it, you made a very good point of this differentiated sick setting or therapeutics, prescribe setting and a healthy, I want to optimize my gut microbiome or health setting, which are two very different, very different things. 

Bernat Olle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole, like, how do I optimize my microbiome?

 You know, if, if you’re a healthy person, the answer is you don’t, you’re fine. Just like, or something else. If, if, if you’re a C cell patient, then that is a very different discussion, right? Cuz there’s a play for that. There. There’s a, there’s a place there for microbiome products. But, you know, I think that the most uncontroversial piece of advice is, you know, have a very good diet, eats lots of fiber, lots of fresh foods that look green.

Philip Hemme: And that are five fruits and vegetables per day. 

Bernat Olle: Yeah. Yeah. If, if you, if you have many different sources of fiber in a, in a large amount of fiber in your diet, that’s the good thing. That’s a primary food for your bacteria. It will, it will contribute to having a more diverse community of bacteria that’s less likely to, to be populated by pathogens or by opportunistic pathogens.

But let’s be honest, we already knew that before the microbiome research, you know, pointed that, you know, nutrition is already knew that you, it’s better to have, you know, a certain amount of fiber in your diet. I think this what’s, what this research has done is help explain why and help illuminate how important it’s to bacterial communities.

 Which is not to say that there isn’t a lot of potential. I think there is a lot of potential for personalized diets, and I really like some of the work that, that some companies are doing in this field. It just hasn’t come yet to the point where you’re like, okay, I’m ready to use that for myself because.

I’m learning something from this tool that I didn’t already know. Like if the tool is gonna tell me to eat more fiber, I was like, okay, fine. I already knew that. Yeah, 

Philip Hemme: that’s a good it’s a good, it’s a good, very good conclusion. The question, I think I, yeah, I think we, we are also running out of time and ready to, to wrap up.

[01:18:06] Follow Bernat

Philip Hemme: I was a great, great discussion. I mean, I loved how we covered from the whole microbiome space. Zooming out to, zooming in, zooming in on, on Denta on your experience as, as a European in, in, in, in Boston and even at the end on, on actual insights for, for let’s say healthy microbiome or for individuals and in the microbiome.

 Maybe just to, to finish, I mean, where can people like learn more about you and, and follow you? What’s the best, the best way? 

Bernat Olle: Best way, so I’m on LinkedIn, I’m. As potty user of Twitter, I’ll, I’ll be out for, for weeks at a time, then come back in and take a look. So, and if you wanna, if you wanna learn more about the company, then on our website we try to update all, all of our major news and development.

So that’s another good place. 

Philip Hemme: No, that’s great. Great. Thanks. Thanks Bernard. Thanks a lot. Thanks. And yeah, next time we do it, we do it offline then. 

Bernat Olle: Very good. Very. Okay. 

[01:19:09] Wrapping up

Philip Hemme: Me again. 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 would help us a lot, especially this early in the show.

 And before telling you more what’s behind the show, I wanna say big kudos. And, and thanks to the team Kiran Web development Catherine in marketing, Maryanne Logistics, Wayne in editing, they did an amazing job and there’s a lot of hard work I put into, into, into the show. So now what’s behind? So, flood Bio the company was founded in March, 2022.

I am one of the founder, and previously I founded Lab Biotech, but you, 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’s already a lot of them around. But we believe Europe needs high quality, long form. Podcast 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 really the highest quality, both technical aspect, but most importantly on the dance and the content and the flow of the, of entering the content.

We release one episode around 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 messages, lots that you seen in each episode. And we are sponsored by financial support for individuals and corporate.

So anyway, I will not make it longer. If you are, I hope you share our 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, hi@flot.bio. Again, thanks for listening and see you in the next episode. Bye.

It’s a treat to welcome Ingmar Hoerr on the show. We chat about building a 20B dollar biotech startup, almost dying on the job, and why people skills are so important in biotech. 

Ingmar is a pioneer in the EU biotech scene, revolutionizing drug development with mRNA therapeutics. He and his team created the initial technology used in mRNA vaccines and submitted the first patents for its use. CureVac helped other mRNA companies such as Moderna and BioNTech successfully solve the Covid pandemic. Ingmar is very inspiring, as he is visionary and bold while remaining humble and caring. 

I’ve known him for almost a decade and each interaction with him was memorable. This long episode, and the lunch that followed, is yet another example. Enjoy 😉

Transcript

Ingmar Hoerr: And one day before I was nominated officially as a ceo, I, I had this honor in Berlin. So I was 

Philip Hemme: You basically almost, did he passed away? Was the job almost 

Ingmar Hoerr: passed away? Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: It’s crazy. 

Ingmar Hoerr: It’s crazy. Yeah. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: I mean, and yeah, I remember she telling me about it like last year when we caught up and I was like, wow.

Like I mean, I mean, you just told me like that’s 13 one 3% survivor weight, which is basically miracle that we are 

Ingmar Hoerr: miracle sitting. Yeah. Or that and this condition as I am in condition, quit to have been in a wheelchair. So Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, but somehow I accept it. It’s kind of my life.

[00:00:53] Welcome

Philip Hemme: Hey Philip. Welcome to the third episode of the Flot.bio Show, where I interview the best Europeans in biotech to help you be inspired and hopefully grow. And today I am actually in Berlin and actually at my home in my living room to welcome Ingmar, who was the founder and the longtime CEO of of Curevac.

And this time I will skip a long intro about him because I kind of structured in the, in the beginning of the interview, but what we were talking about will cover how he build this like almost 20 billion company while at the same time he almost died. Why it being ceo? And we will touch why people skills are so important in, in biotech.

So I will go open to him. We’ll sit down in Seattle.

[00:01:54] Background

Philip Hemme: Welcome to shk. Looks like you, it’s a bit special not to be, to be in my, in Berlin in, I think it’s, it’s, it’s great to be, we managed to do it and it’s great to have some, some, some time ahead to, to discuss many topics. I mean, on on the, the, the main topic I wanna start with is that it’s amazing that you have built, I mean, one of the leading in Kiva from Willy, the, almost the garage.

Remember you send me this picture with your old school computer was in, in the garage up to like, it was almost a 20 billion company. Now it’s, it’s a bit less obviously, I mean, help pioneers, mRNA field, almost solving the pandemic at same time the crazy water coaster. So the end. So but I, I wanna really start with that.

I mean, start really with the beginning. Can you go back in, in this, like this picture that computer. I think was doing your PhD. Can you, can you go back there where, like, what happened and what made you actually, what made you like staff? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Well, that’s a long, long time. Well I was also different in my personality at that time.

You know, I was kind of student. I, I really have, was a kind of really free student to do what I want. And I got good connections to my professor saying this was very important at the beginning. You know, you need always attachment to personalities who inspire you. And this I got from Boose, from chemical department profess and also from the department.

So this, I think the two together, I think they made me a driving things forward. And of course it was really hard to, to get PhD contract from, from both of that. So I was actually attached more to the chemistry because they had more money. So and I was with Gunda also from my diploma thesis.

I was attached to the chemistry department. I was quite out of of chemistry. I was just one of two biologists in this department of containing about 20 chemistry guys. It was really fun because They, they were different, had a different spirit than biologists. You know, they were kind of celebrated celebrating chemistry.

So when there was lab meetings, there were always beer and things like that, you know, it was really big fun. And then Hans Gil lab meetings were also had to attend. It was quite severe things, you know, he was really asking people and he was grilling people. Okay. So it, it was, it was really, it wasn’t a pleasure.

You really had to be prepared very well in front of sks Ram lab. So I think this kinds of flex where I’ve been, you know, a complete freedom on the one side, on the other hand scientific excellence on the other side. So I, maybe my personality, I was really looking for both, everything. I really want to get to the, to the borders of things, what could happen, and which also made me kind of strongly seeing a lot of things in, in my life.

Also, India, for example, I also went to these scientific anthology department with Professor Steven Cohen talking about myth, long about Hinduism, things like that. So this, we will, so, so, yeah. Yeah. I think when I, when he want to get to the start point, I have to reflect this as well because this was everything contributing to my mindset at that time.

Because, you know, you might wonder why nobody did it before it was discovered already in 93, that RNA can be transfected or RNA can be given in cells or even in my. And they do a immune response, but then there was nothing happening afterwards. 

[00:05:53] The mindset to make change

Philip Hemme: I, I heard you say on one, one interview, actually I thing that you gave a lot of interviews in German recently and I, millions of views, but I didn’t find anything in English.

He told me it’s the first one in which is great. And I saw you ever in one, you said I was crazy enough to immunize the mice and to think it could work. Yeah. And then Yeah, that gets you started. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. Yeah. Actually it was, it was somehow from Hans or provinces mindset. He went to a conference in, in, in the states where he went, Eli Gbo Scandinavian researcher doing in experiments when cells, so immune cells, so he wasting tend cells with rna, so putting RNA into cells and then re-inject your cell under mice.

And Han scale said, well do it directly in mice, you know, we shouldn’t do this in cells. Although we didn’t have any research what was going on in the nineties at that time, you know, in 2000, even the night or in, in the end of nineties even the beginning of nineties were far away. So therefore we were thinking, okay, let’s do it directly in mice.

[00:06:59] Early days of RNA and mice

Ingmar Hoerr: And this was kind of key experiment or key essay I was doing that I was using also the naked rna. So I was using liposome and inject RNA liposome from NDAs from the chemistry department. Yeah. This was also great St. Testis, you know, as chemistry and immunology together. And I was also using a D N A as we know every, everything was done in, in D N A at that time.

And I was using also naked r n a. And this was kind of interesting to see the naked r a, it worked very well, much better than the encapsulated R N A or even than a DNA bla think why it could be like that. You know, RNA was regarded that unstable all the time. Maybe also the reason why there wasn’t coming anything behind the scientific studies in the nineties that everybody was cared about.

RNA was saying, no, it can’t use this. It’s not, it’s not a kind of treatment molecule. Can’t do anything with rna. So therefore maybe I was kind of naive enough to think about, well, still is negative. And then I was seeing this negative control was really highly positive. So then I was drumming on it.

I say, well, that’s great, you know, you can use RNA as a therapeutic molecule for everything. Even cancer sci viral diseases, bacterial diseases. But, but, but nobody really was believing in me. And of course also at the journal where we were publishing was European trouble of human immunology, not nature, not science, you know?

Philip Hemme: Mm. I guess PhD students. Yeah. Yeah. 

Ingmar Hoerr: But, but even the potential was not there saying, okay, this guy is inducing tit toxic T-cell. Okay. That’s what, what, what, what, what should we learn from this? You know, why we should delete this kind of stuff. So this was the real evolution. Maybe I’m not this maybe the inventor of RNA based vaccines, but maybe I was really, the guy was pushing things into kind of commercial aspects and, and, and when, 

Philip Hemme: just from the date we are talking like early two thousands?

Ingmar Hoerr: Yes. It early 2000. 

Philip Hemme: 2000. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yes. 2000, I think 2002. It was first foundation of Curevac 

[00:08:55] The beginnings of CureVac

Philip Hemme: Incorporation. Yeah. And can you go there? And I mean, especially in the 2000, I mean, it, it’s, it’s, and it’s fascinating to, to look back at it from now. Yeah. It’s, it’s crazy. Yeah. And, but even on, I mean, on many topics, but on this topic as well, on incorporating as a young PhD student even today where it’s, I think proportionally probably easier and more common.

It’s still extremely difficult. Yeah. But at that time, and I can imagine also let’s say in Germany where it’s a bit more risk averse in general than compared to the us. For, I don’t know the how entrepreneur they were, but I can imagine that’s the environment. So how, like what happened there for, I mean, yeah, what was your, what, what happened?

What were your mindset to really get into a commercial company? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. Well and the first thing I didn’t thought about founding a company myself, I wanted driving it to the pharma companies. You know every PhD, especially from Good Young’s lab was going to the pharma companies the chemical chemistry companies and things like that.

So I was also applying in a lot of pharma companies, but I want to take Dr. RNA approach, you know, say, okay, I want to start this job this stop this description, but I want to take my RNA here as well. That’s say, no, you can do this job description, but we don’t interested in this RNA stuff, I guess.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. No, the chemistry would 

Ingmar Hoerr: Exactly. 

Philip Hemme: Would be interested. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Exactly. So there was a reason why. Well you know, if I don’t do it, nobody is doing it, so I have to do it kind of pressure. So I wasn’t an entrepreneur from the very beginning. It was just in my, in my head. I, I can’t, and I was doing also an MBA because I was thinking let’s, it’s even, just think about it better.

We can do it by yourself better. You can find a company. And so I was doing a p M B A. In a kind of period for one and a half years where I did a, a mini job at a university or in a small company where I get a little money to spend to the mba because I was really taking time to think about how it’s going on, on this.

And after the mba I was quite sure I can do it myself. Okay. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: And so you, I I didn’t, that’s it’s, I didn’t know the mba, MBA path. But so, and I guess also, I mean, that’s one thing that is very underrated, that’s all very underrated as a entrepreneurial, and especially in the young entrepreneurs, I think, I mean, I can talk for myself as well, it’s usually we don’t have that many option plaza.

It’s like, I mean, and we are whatever, early thirties or the thirties, it’s not like there’s like hundreds of people approaching you to build something and you have like hundred job offer like your project or one or two options, and usually also choose what’s your best option, I guess, for you. Once you evaluated the mba, maybe that was the realization.

Okay. It’s realistic enough. It excites me. It’s the best option. Yeah, let’s go for it politically. Yeah. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Well actually one of the driving point was a program for, which was a half position at a university which we gained from the land. Barton Berg. Yeah. So this was kind of money. We, because we need money, you know, without money you can’t do anything.

So at least this was enough to survive a bit. But we couldn’t invest in our company with this money. So they were, we were seeking a lot for venture capitalists, but we, we, we always were was, were, were, were pushed back from this kind of guys. They, they, they don’t believe, and also maybe my personality was not enough was maybe I was too pushy.

Maybe I was too visionary and a small guy of tubing. And who is this guy? He wants to save the world. We don’t believe this guy, you know, is always crap. So it’s, it was, it was really, they were speaking like this. I was speaking like this. So, so we couldn’t match. Maybe that’s, that’s different in the states.

I don’t know. Cuz we also went to the states afterwards. It was also kind of difficult because everything’s, every, everybody thinks in states is quite easier, but you also need network in the states, you know? And since we don’t have any network this was maybe the, the main, the main thing. And also nobody was believing in vision at that time.

You know, the, the market crashed so kind a lot of times that, so everybody was scared. 

Philip Hemme: I guess the new market, 

Ingmar Hoerr: the new market crashed 

Philip Hemme: 2004. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: Just around when you started. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, it was, it was kind of simultaneously. So There wasn’t kind of risk taking approach from the ventures. 

Philip Hemme: It’s, yeah, that’s, and I guess the venture money available in 2004, five 

Ingmar Hoerr: is also not enough.

No. 

Philip Hemme: Probably almost 10 x compared to guess something like this. Or five to 10 x. 

[00:13:39] How to survive while founding a company

Philip Hemme: Yeah. So, so you had this like, just trying to like move forward. So this part-time position basically at the University of Ukraine, which allowed you to live and to build a company, and I guess share had a bit of research budgets attached to it.

Ingmar Hoerr: Were not much, but we could lose the, the rooms and and the materials like from the department. Yeah. Okay. 

Philip Hemme: And then, but this, and then how, how long did you do that? What was the next step then? 

Ingmar Hoerr: So it, it was, you know, it, it, it’s, let me just talk about successes and new successes. I think it’s, I can just remember times where I was down, you know, really down and sleepless nights and things like that.

Looking back, I, I, I, I’m wondering myself why I, I wasn’t quitting. You know why I was saying, well, I, I should continue. It’s, it’s, I think this first step was that we engaged with people. So we had our offers, people involved to this project technician and PhD students mainly so that I had responsibility for these kind of guys.

So maybe that’s was driving me, say, I, I can’t, I can’t now. Go, go, go away. I, I have to continue because of these guys, at least for two years that they gained their, their their PhD still on the research budget. 

Yes. Yeah. 

[00:15:03] Where did the money come from?

Philip Hemme: I’m trying to like find where is the Yes. Where the money’s coming from. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. No, no.

It was, it was a U grant at that time, a research grant so we could engage this PhD. Students pay paid his PhD students and we have a little money from the young innovators. And we also had a business angel, but he quit Curevac, so he was kind of nasty guy. We also had some funds from the gaba, so just loans.

Yeah, we had to pay back. So, yeah, so it was, it was really hard, a hard time. And if, if, if I just si thinking back, I just see a lot of negative issues. I don’t see really issues where I could jump on at the, the only event was really important to us that they met Fred Refund Boen. He was from dni, it was before he met Di Moop and because before he did Dini investments.

So 

Philip Hemme: for, for the, so not German, one of the sap. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. German beer gates. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: German mill gates. One of billionaires. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, exactly. 

Philip Hemme: Who, who We invested few billions in biotech. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Lot of biotechs. Exactly. Exactly. But the thing was that further was before that. So we had somehow our, our finance manager or finance, finance guy with Klein he was in the States at the conference conference.

Bob was a waste of money, but of course we had to go there. And there he met an lawyer and attorney who worked with Fredrich really founded Lion Bioscience, also an, an company crashed in the market. And then he was saying, well Wolfgang get in contact with Fredrich. Fredrich is looking for new things to do.

And that was a reason why Fri approached to us in Curevac and without Fred. I think we would have, we wouldn’t have survived at that. 

Philip Hemme: That’s amazing. Amazing. 

Ingmar Hoerr: No, it was, but the last maybe money was just lasting for another two or three months. And so, and Fred then jumped in and he was the first guy seeing the potential of RNA vaccines.

You know, it was, I, I was talking a lot about it, but, but this is in my, in my brain is really somehow quite intensely covered. The, the first meeting of Frederick when he just went through the doors he’s getting, where’s the meeting room? I wanna see Tigger. You know, he was quite a really 

Philip Hemme: he’s quite intense person in.

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. 

But he really wanted to hide his emotions, you know, he was really wanting to hide emotions. I, I, I saw that. And and then I really see, see this process when I was talking to Freddy, showing the data how he’s really waking up and, you know, his, his eyes are blinking. And anyway, and then it was a moment after maybe half an hour of talking that he was really going like, if this really works, only half it, it’ll be a evolution of everything in the world.

Say, yeah, Fred. Exactly. That’s it. And you got it. So there was a first spirit where we have really a Synchron spirit together and it like, yes, we have to do something. We have to do something. I will invest my private money. You know? 

Philip Hemme: He is quite well. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, it was quite well he was selling kind of pictures from his grandfathers as our grandfather.

And, and so he had that little money maybe he was investing, I don’t know how much it was, maybe a hundred thousand euro or something like that. 200,000, this kind of level, a kind of business engine love. 

Philip Hemme: But, but come back to this. Nice. 

Ingmar Hoerr: I just wanna say that’s the first, was the first believer in it.

Yeah. The, the very, very first believer from outside. 

Philip Hemme: It’s crazy. It’s fascinating to me also how, how in this moments you have a very little event of very like, it, it, it’s a very little thing that makes it, yeah. First lab biotech was to say we were two months away from bankruptcy and we had the first lead investor who signed and West A Ventures in Berlin.

Actually Edin made us, yeah. Continue. Alright. It’s crazy. 

Ingmar Hoerr: And it’s fascinating coming from 

Philip Hemme: and how you cannot plan this. So 

[00:19:19] The key to getting the funds

Ingmar Hoerr: you can’t run coming from a source you, you didn’t expect at the beginning. You even didn’t know that there’s a source or where, where it comes from. You go to different angles. And I think the, the only solution thing is really talked to people as much as you can.

Go to conferences, go to get to connections, as many as can, as you can. Maybe that’s, that’s the only thing. And also undirected connections. Maybe connect with people who are not in your field. Yeah. Maybe just, just people who are interested in how people, maybe they connect to you, to another guy who they know.

And this guys maybe then make the difference. Yeah. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: We can talk about the lesson and the lesson. And I think, I mean, one thing I wrote down that we will come back here is I think this, this perseverance, remember the, I think, I mean we’ll talk about perseverance to two. Like go is extra step goes is like first to start and then these like extra six months, extra 12 months and push it to the limit of the limit.

And that’s when you met the right person and then it took off. And when it’s working, we talk about it. It’s a personal experience there. 

[00:20:22] Getting the lab running

Philip Hemme: But let’s talk, so then finish signs. So first check, basically this allows you to be incorporate, to hire first employee what were from the timeline, what’s, what’s covered, right?

Ingmar Hoerr: At least it, it, it allowed us To to build a GMP lab clean room area in the new technology park where we were the first in this technology park. So this was also a misfortune for tubing and because they built a lot of, they did a lot of investments in biotech especially the building.

And there was nobody there coming into that, you know, 

Philip Hemme: so it was good for you. 

Ingmar Hoerr: It was good for us actually, you know, because everything broke down on only we were left there and we got a lot of money from British so that we could then trying to get this GMP lab running, which was in very regressive for clinical trials that without that you can’t do clinical trials, so in need a g p facility.

So it was the first GMP process on, on rna, we have to say, in the world. So, 

Philip Hemme: and this just from okay, that’s from the, I’m curious on this hundred check, I mean, from the valuation point of view as well. He took significant stake, I guess, let’s say. 

Ingmar Hoerr: I, I, I, I, I don’t, I don’t remember much. Of course, he was taking some shares, but of the end the, the, the verse of the company was close to nothing.

Yeah, yeah. So, so we had a couple of patents, first patents, but also not granted, so it was just applied. Okay. So. The value was, was close to nothing. So therefore it, it was okay for us 

Philip Hemme: that yeah. But then still a hundred thousand euro from personal is, is quite a lot from a Yeah, yeah. Compared to, 

Ingmar Hoerr: I’ve thought about how much you get, but of course you could get some, some significant amounts from, from this, from company.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And just curious on, on what was the stage of the company? You said you did have a pattern, granted, I guess you had the paper you had the team, you had the vision, but, and then you had some mouse data, basically. So animal data. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, we had animal data. Right, okay. Yeah. So it was a kind of seed stage each stage.

[00:22:34] Advancing RNA for humans

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And then, okay. Just from, also from the audience, I think, to understand where was the, the science, and then you got that lab and then, so then it allowed you to do gmp, I guess go closer to, to humans. Humans, 

Ingmar Hoerr: yeah. That was important. Also, we did some adaptation of the RNA research. So we found ways how to stabilize the rna, to encapsulate the rna, also sequence dependent modifications on the rna, no chemical modifications, but sequence modification, which also increased the expression and stability of rna.

Though this were our firsts patterns on that. So was also kind of great thing that research was ongoing. You know, it was, it wasn’t just On this GP thing, how to get to the clinic, but also our mindset was that we want to drive this technology forward and find really solutions to stabilize this molecule.

Philip Hemme: I mean, you, you needed this technology as well Yeah. To make it work. And of course, like 

Ingmar Hoerr: Of course. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: I mean, I remember even looking forward, yeah. I mean, a lot of the work was done on the, on the encapsulation. Yeah. On, on the modification. Make it more stable. I That’s huge challenges as well. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, no, I really thing breakthrough for us was actually see enrichment, so guino, cine basis because they’re bound together with three hydrogen bounds against hay and, and you and so chemically this gc enhancement was stabilizing the RNA very much.

So this was our first patent, which was so important to us, and I haven’t seen this before. So we were the first doing this approach, and this was, I guess around, around that. So this gives also five, a unique selling proposition because now we had a kind of patents, which was important for investors as well, that there were patents protecting this technology.

[00:24:29] Becoming a real biotech company

Philip Hemme: And then, so taking, so going towards like 2010, What’s, what was the step, I guess, that allowed you then to have a bit more, let’s say data? Yeah, that the ability to raise money and then 

Ingmar Hoerr: of course, so after HOP was investing we didn’t have to raise any more money, so I was there. 

Philip Hemme: Can you tell a bit more about this?

I mean the, what happened to this fundraising for Help to invest? Right. 

Ingmar Hoerr: So, so timeline, it was kind of a complete switch of the company. After we get the money from Deep Moop, we reinvented us ourself to a real biotech company with a lot of resources and lot of money to hire the right people also to conduct clinical studies.

This was very important also to work more on these technology things, to work more on their gmp. Before that, we also were doing service business. You know, we like you, you guys, we really want to get money from the market, you know, selling RNA at that time, but it was also too early because nobody was using rna, so it was of useless.

So we, we, we have, we got one, one uni, one guy from a university, I think in SPO or I don’t know this kind of guy who ordered some R rna which was then okay for us because we got a little money, but it’s not, wasn’t really a, a real business issue to pay some bills, but what you, but you can see, you know we were really looking on another angle on things, how we can get money into this company, how to, to, to, to buy machines and things like that from customers money, for example.

Yeah. And this also was kind of professionalizing ourself because though now we had to do project management, now we do have to reimbursement things thinking about quality, you know, which wasn’t a part at the very early startup days. We were, weren’t seeking a lot of on, on quality or on customer issues.

So maybe this was also driving us more into kind of more professionalized business. Mm-hmm. The beginning. 

Philip Hemme: I have to, I have to take attention, but you know, that talking about service, I mean, when we started at Labiotech and you, we will talk 

maybe more about you were organizing mRNA conference was, was modern and bartech and one was in Berlin and, but Farmer were very interested in m and a.

But they needed some people to kind of see what was happening there and telling them, and actually that’s, we usually didn’t do any service, but water farmer offered us so much money that did the service. This is partly what helped us survive. 

Ingmar Hoerr: So it was the RNA field. Really good. You helped. 

Philip Hemme: Glad they paid us like something like, 

Ingmar Hoerr: glad to hear it 

Philip Hemme: was few thousand.

There was like something like five to 10,000 euro just to report on the conference, which basically organized and was before we had any money. So you, you also helped us get this a service, which is actually crazy. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s weird to see it, it now the world is 

Philip Hemme: really small, like 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You see, you really see it now how, how vi vibrant is this conference with a lot of people from all over the world, especially from Asia sitting there and writing. 

[00:27:31] Surviving the startup phase

Philip Hemme: We’ll talk about this as well on how that’s also fascinating how you manage to, to, to like be in a friendly competition with your other as a field and how it contribute to the whole field and to also solving the, the bang.

But I think this will be a few steps ahead, but it was just a kind of a side note. I think maybe also some takeaways even today for entrepreneurs, even in biotech, I mean service can maybe distract you a bit, but doing it a bit, when it’s very well bathed, sometimes it’s also, it helps your Cassius Cash and Cassius King, especially in the early days.

So, I think it’s, it’s awesome, 

Ingmar Hoerr: especially being professional, you know, if you don’t have any contacts to customers you, you’re kind of messy. Mm-hmm. If you just write reports for projects, things like that, it’s not a real business. 

And just, and just writing an invoice, your actual company making money, I mean, that’s still, you need to make money to, you have to satisfy customers to be very careful in trading customers.

And I think this helps you really to, to be out of your bubble of startups. And if you can succeed in the Berlin environment, for example, there are a lot of startups they’re really in a bubble. Mm-hmm. They just together with themselves, you know they have venture rounds say they, they invest money into the future, but they don’t really have attachment to any customers demand.

That, that’s a real issue in my eyes. Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:54] Investing in vision

Philip Hemme: Yeah, we can, let’s, I will write that down to, to talk with further even in biotech and stuff. But let’s, let’s get back just from a chronologically to the timeline. So hop, I mean, you said he invested significantly, so it was Freddi because Fibo ended up working with him.

So what was the, the story there and then how much he invested? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. So, so so when Freddi started with ourself, he took his own money. And then there was a coincidence, which was really helpful for the biotech in, in Europe that he met with De Mo Hop. And De Mo was saying, well, quite, I’m interested in biotech, but I, I don’t know anything about it.

Can you help me about it? How to find investments, things like that. So DNI was founded, okay. Couple of months later when after Politic invested ourself in our company. So therefore, it was clear that LY presented our company to lead Mob. And we also went there doing face-to-face mob and which was also of their first investment.

It, it was one of the first, or it was the first investment actually, you know maybe Heidelberg Pharma was the same time. I think this was the reason why di Moop was interested in biotech because there was a Heidelberg company. I know he was a, was, was approached by this company and then he was asking friendly whether he could help him.

Yeah. And, and I like always the personal interaction with investors and especially with investors who were investing by themselves or were building companies by themself. 

Philip Hemme: This, we can talk as first. It’s quite unique actually to have in, in, in the world slash especially in Europe. It’s, it’s quite unique actually.

It’s unique. Yeah. invest in, in, yeah. And that another two, two billionaires invests in in Biointech. Yeah. It’s, it’s very unique as well. 

Ingmar Hoerr: You know, it’s, it’s very interesting actually, looking back, I always failed with professional venture companies. I, I couldn’t really get these guys trusting in our knowledging, trusting in me.

There, there were always a lot of sinks or risk they seen us. They was a reason why they didn’t take risk by themselves. Although they’re, they’re kind of risk investors. Yeah. Venture capitals. And the, the only guys I got a match was the guys who were building themselves something like really his own company or Dimar or, or Bill Gates or El Musk.

So this, this guys you, you know, it’s, I don’t wanna, wanna, wanna sound selfish somehow, but, but sitting in front of kind of these guys, you really feel kind of flow, you know, and energy flowing. So then there’s not only about risks not only about money, there’s really about how you wanna build, how you wanna change the world, you know, what do you really do changing things.

Yeah. How you, how you can make this happen. And they believe little more in the visions than just, you know, in, in, in kind of the booklets you write about technology. And it was always a kind of talk about vision. When I was talking to De Mok, it was about the vision that we can do kind of it business in terms in, in biotech RNA type of, of code.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so it’s, it’s, it’s it’s kind of sap of biotech thing and. And this was great because now we had kind of communication on a level he, he was into. Yeah. Yeah. This is always good. If you can get in this kind of level. Very definitely confident. I’m com competent in, in asking 

Philip Hemme: questions.

That’s amazing. I this definitely listed as well through to go back to because I think it’s, it’s a huge, huge topic. But here, I mean, you were basically super lucky that you met Fe that Finnish met, that hop invested. I mean, you don’t have like 10 hops in Germany, right. European lot. 

Ingmar Hoerr: It was, it was really lucky.

Philip Hemme: It’s kind of a perfect fit for Curevac. Yeah. And then how so how much he invested, you remember? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Kind of millions, but I don’t know if dozens of billions. It’s now, it’s, it’s about more than billions to, at that time maybe 10, 10 millions was already a lot of money. Yeah. So kind of five to 10 billion. But, but was at that time it was, it was wow.

You know, it was a huge investment for us. 

[00:33:06] Getting proof of concept

Philip Hemme: So it made you go from like Yeah. Very like lean hundred K investment to 10 million rebuilding. Can you go a bit a bit about this and, and what was to the next kind of big milestone next, next big inflection point? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Well, I think as we told to Dimar that we wanted to achieve clinical data, that’s important to see the proof of principle or con concept, this technology.

Therefore, we were really investing into clinical trials at that time in melanoma. Although other cancer diseases like prostate at that time, which of course was, was hard. And we didn’t have in focus any vaccines, you know? And I think maybe this was a mistake but, but we were trained like that, that nobody was interested at that time in, in vaccine development, you know, everything was there already.

So why, why we should invest with this kind of novel technology in vaccines. Yeah. So we, we, we also did some flu things. Universal flu. Yeah. Flu, short lasting for five to 10 years. It was also, I think this was the only one vaccine project we were into, but it was always, 

Philip Hemme: you did a bit, but on the side, 

Ingmar Hoerr: but it was just on the side, you know was also kind of proof principle to get some, some data that you can, using wound responses and things like that was helpful.

But in terms of the cancer diseases it, it’s very hard. It’s very hard to see any effect because the patients, they all treated, you know, the, in the end of their diseases, you can’t approach the, the, the kind of fresh patients, patients, they said early stage of their cancer. Therefore, therefore, they, they couldn’t really induce any wound response anymore because the body was somehow pumped with a lot of chemotherapeutics and th radioactive six.

So this was looking back, this was a kind of big bit mistakes. 

Philip Hemme: So you, you struggled in oncology. It’s really immune response. And at the same time, well, vaccine was not 

Ingmar Hoerr: responses. That’s, that was feasible, but we didn’t see a clinical effect. That’s, that was the issue. Yeah. 

[00:35:15] Phase one

Philip Hemme: And so from the, from the timeline, just can you walk more molecule milestone wise?

I mean, what that, your phase one then the early phase two, I guess that’s where you had some results, but just from the timeline, where were we? Was it not too late? I mean, I, this pasted 2010, 2000 somewhere there. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Well, I think off first tried there were investigator address from the university clinic.

Yeah. So we just supplied them the material GMP material. So they do it by themself without this, this approval things. So kind of high fork, which was at that time possible at a university with a few patients. So this was the first ever shot in a, in a human. Maybe about 2005, something like that.

Okay. And only Steve or at that time our c o was shooting himself, but it was kind of illegal thing. So that slack, 

Philip Hemme: he was, I think I saw LinkedIn post saw him that he was a first, so he was an injected patient. He was the first not patient. 

He was volunteer 

for the first human, human, 

the first human thing.

Yeah. So this was, but you can’t do it professionally like that. It’s not possible. So it was kind of a start startup atmosphere at that time. Yeah. No, but, but somehow this was helpful for us that we could access patients through the university. Yeah. Without any professional approval which was done afterwards.

Yeah. And then I think the first trial was with melanoma on prostate carcinoma. I think so. But as I said, the issue is that you don’t get any clear results. So if you just look on, on survival data, it’s hard to see a difference because there’s no control. Yeah. 

Yeah. And so, okay, so then at that time, and the team was beloved I mean, Chris actually to grow also bit on the team, but I remember then up to, I mean, you, you are finance, basically evergreen, massively finance, which is, I mean, amazing position to be in.

[00:37:35] Phase two – failure is important

Philip Hemme: And then I remember. Is that what you’re referring to in, I mean, in oncology you had a basically a, let’s say negative phase two with very little efficacy. Yeah. You it at the JP Mors. Remember, we, we actually interviewed you. Yeah. And this was 2000, what? 16 something? Somewhere 2017. Somewhere around there.

Okay. And then how, how, like, I mean, that’s a big, big setback. So how did you bounce off from that? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Well, actually because of our investors, you know I think dni was really into that. And they had no doubt that it will be successful just to think how we’ll be successful and when be successful.

And also in the market the market was bullish because there was Moderna out there, there’s there, there was BioNTech out there. They heavily also get heavily funding from, from a lot of things. So I think there was no doubt out there anymore that, that the, the vaccines or the rna will work in some of the diseases.

So therefore, It, it wasn’t a real setback with with Dini at that time. It was kind of learning curve. Also. Friley was telling. Yeah, it’s, it’s normal. You know, we, you have to learn cannabis, you know, it, it cannot head heads, you know, it’s from the first. So he always looked on Genentech, you know, he was the big thing for him, the Genentech story, and how, how often they failed.

Mm-hmm. So so therefore he says, well, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s biotech that you have to fail. And also we have a cut DPA funding at the time before from the military in the states where we had our counterpart from DARPA sitting on the table. We weren’t there for the first meeting with a lot of results.

And he was listening five minutes saying nothing. And then he was just bombing on the table saying, well, stop this shitting up here. I wanna see our misfortunes. What, what failed? I wanna know what failed, not what, what was going well. Okay. Just switch. That’s crazy because, because if you just tell me what’s going well it, it shows us that you don’t go to the borders.

Yeah. To, you don’t go close to failure. And via dpa, we want see failures. We want to go, go down. You wanna see the edges, what’s, what’s the capabilities of the technology? This is what we want. That’s the reason why we invest money. Wow. So that was a really flip. So it wasn’t it And and, and then, and then, yeah.

Clear. But different. But, but it’s the right mindset actually. That’s the right mindset really. And when, when we started E I c, European Innovation Council, I was also now coming from, from this DAPA perspective, saying, well, DAPA world, we wanna see misfortunes, wanna wanna see failures and wanna analyze that.

And I wanna learn from that, you know? And, and we also have, in Europe, we have to get the same spirit, the American spirit that we talk also about, or we have to talk about failures first before we talk about achievements. So, and, and, and this was kind of really important story to me, that we also invented it into the company that we really wanna go to the edges.

And if we have misfortune, we say, well, yeah, of course. But it somehow, it’s also a good sign that we tested really in a, in, in a way that we know this way is maybe blocked. We have to go the other way. Mm-hmm. So therefore also now coming back to your questions about the the, the misfortune in the trial it was the same thing that we say, well, yeah.

So it’s, it’s not going this way. But nevertheless, we tried again the other angel now. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: I actually remember reading how, how you announced the news there was, it was very. Very different actually from many biotech, the companies where most biotech companies, especially Europeans, will try to hide or fail the phase two.

Like there will be no first release or like, but like, and you actually super open about it and you took the call, announce it and really explain why it’s okay. That’s was one hypothesis and now we know what not to do and we have other hypothesis and we were explored. That’s yeah, I mean, makes a lot of sense.

I didn’t know the no mindset, but 

Ingmar Hoerr: it makes really, it wasn’t really a kind of marketing campaign, you say, well, tries to try to be open. And then it’s not that harsh anymore. It was really coming from, from from our mindset at the company trained by dapa that, that you have to envisage this kind of failure things and talking about that and really also try to talk to to the, to the public that other companies learn from this as well.

Yeah. Open your, your data at That others can look at the data and that the field can learn from it. Yeah, and this was also the reason from the RNA health conference that we, we saw at that time, you know, we had to be open with a lot of things because we wanna get the field revolutionized the world.

So that was the reason why we did it. Yeah. 

[00:42:51] Pharma partnerships

Philip Hemme: Yeah. That’s, we’ll get back to con, I, I want to still finish with the, the, the, also the Keva or wrap up the Keva story. One part also was pharma partnerships. You, you started having partnership. I think I wrote down 2014, you had a, I think it was a deal, was Boeing, it was a 35 million upfront, I guess at that time.

I mean, Moderna signed a huge deal with, with AstraZeneca I think was Alex as well. I mean, you, you, you started to have some pharma interest in it. Believe also it helped a lot that other companies ideas helped you and everyone basically benefited from it. Can you go a bit in that also in how farmer were started to be interested and how it helped you or how was the collaboration there?

Ingmar Hoerr: When, when we needed Farmer at the beginning, farmer was not there. We could have learned a lot from these guys. You know, we had to build up everything by ourself with, with no guidance. Or if we had to get guidance, we have to pay them with a lot of money. So this is a bit weird that it was, that we weren’t accessible to pharma and even, you know, The, the deals would’ve been quite inexpensive for pharma at the beginning.

You know, they could have a lot of, they could have get a lot of upsides from, from it, even technology done fair. So if, if pharma would’ve jumped in 2010 on, on only technology, they would be number one, even more in Moderna, because pharma has the potential and the money and the, the, 

Philip Hemme: and they would’ve paid times less, but in five 

Ingmar Hoerr: 50 times less, less 50, 50 times less so.

But, but, and, and the same was with Behringer. It’s, it’s, it’s a kind of different mindset, we have to say, you know? And, and this was kind of challenging for both of us, you know? Mm-hmm. That farmers used to, in invest in programs where they see kind of step by step, step progress. Yeah. And then they define really things.

If, if we see the result here, they must stop it. Mm-hmm. And they don’t go the way around, like dapa, you know, say, well, it’s fine they stop it here, but go this way. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And when we talk to management of farmers, it was always this kind of sinking in that, that we have to fulfill this milestone, this milestone, this milestone.

And then if they don’t it, the milestone, they stop these things. And from a very young technology where you don’t have a lot of data it’s, it’s not feasible to do it like that. You know, you have to be kind of open and, and seek for solutions if things are not going well, how we can solve it together.

Mm-hmm. And get expertise from both angles at the table. This wasn’t the case somehow. So I’ve never seen a kind of solution seeking table where a lot of experts were sitting talking about a problem was only one-to-one. Some kind of project leader from the farmer say, well, this is bad news guys. I’m quite sorry.

We, we can’t go further like that. I think we have to cease now. We have to close the project. So, and I think this was kind of really big issue for pharma, that they’re not prepared for this kind of new technologies, how to handle this kind of technic because they, they come from, from the existing collaborations with other farmers.

You know, obvious university grants where you have grant structure and then you get the data and in the end nobody cares about the data anymore. You know? This is, is always like that. Somebody started something and then three years later nobody knows about but what, why we started this kind of thing.

Philip Hemme: Sound late. 

I mean, some frustration and no, 

Ingmar Hoerr: it not, it’s not a way frustration 

Philip Hemme: critique on the system. 

Ingmar Hoerr: I’m not frustrated with farmers because 

Philip Hemme: it’s just how it is. 

Ingmar Hoerr: You know, like Pfizer, biotech, Pfizer started when things were already done from biotech. Then Pfizer was jumping in the kind of mindset of farmers that they they don’t wanna take risk, they don’t wanna do this research at the beginning from things they want to get already digested things proven things.

And then you pay a lot of money for that. They’re prepared. Be a lot of money. Yeah, 

[00:47:01] Flu, rabies, and covid

Philip Hemme: that’s definitely, we could have a, a deeper, I mean, I added it as talking about pharma on the later point as well, but Yeah, I, and I, I have some, some thoughts there also, just maybe from observing we, we, maybe we can take it after, but Daisy, I mean, just to still try to get on that timeline and, and, and, and get to the, let’s say to today.

I mean after that

20, I mean, going to 2020 before the pandemic was any like, milestone between the, the phase two setback and the start of the pandemic? Well 

Ingmar Hoerr: I, I think flu was quite working well. Yeah. So, so Cause flu, universal flu thing was a, a big topic I think was the biggest one in the vaccine field.

Yeah. Rabies was also something because we wanted to learn from rabies. So we, we got, or we Curevac at that time which was we, no, it’s not anymore. We, yeah. Cubic got data which was kind of encouraging and continuing this track. Yeah. Before the pandemic, there was also a reason why it was possible to jump also for biotech, biotech the jump on these vaccine things because everybody was working on that before.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. I guess also that’s I think very important to, to mention as well before the pandemic. I mean basically, let’s say I mean let’s say roughly from 2050 to 2020, there was starting to be a huge interest in mRNA. The potential, there was huge investments that people started to really believe it. I mean that’s also, I mean, just from a, from a context really you want there and then cuz the pandemic, the pandemic hits, can you then walk through that?

I mean, that a would be, could be one of the solution. Yeah. Can you, so what, what happened then? 

Ingmar Hoerr: What’s, what’s clear to, to everybody? For, for, for us in the com this, that, now we have to jump on this covid since, well, in my case, you know, I was already in the and on the board and yeah. So it wasn’t anymore really in the operative mode in the company and.

After this time, 

[00:49:33] Stepping down to add in USA spirit

Philip Hemme: when did you step down operational? 

Ingmar Hoerr: I, I think in 20 or 19 or already. 

Philip Hemme: Okay. Just before. Yeah. Yeah. 

And I don’t, okay. When, I mean, that’s, 

Ingmar Hoerr: and then, and then there was Ella coming from the us 

Philip Hemme: what, what happened actually for this way? Why did you step down operationally? 

Ingmar Hoerr: No, because I wanted to step down because I wanna overlook things more on, on a different angel.

I don’t wanna to be in the day-to-day business anymore. Okay. I did it a long time and they agreed, investors agreed to do that. So I was then leading the the board. 

Philip Hemme: Okay. So, chairman american ceo, 

Ingmar Hoerr: and then it was American Boston. Cause there was also something that people were thinking, well it’s, it’s important to have the American spirit into the company, which can be good or not good.

As a German company, we have to say, well, it’s, it’s maybe not always working as you think about, you know? Mm-hmm. But it was also kind of influenced by British. He went to Boston. He stayed there, I think in three years with his family there, running business from there, from the Boston area side.

And he was really keen about it, how the American spirit is spreading things, working things together. And so we thought, well, this maybe something good in CureVac that we also get a kind of American spirit into the company. But I think it’s, 

it’s kind of 

Philip Hemme: American global. I mean, Boston is American, but also global Hot Hot Center Super com complex.

We can 

Ingmar Hoerr: discuss, you get a lot of P peers there. You get also kind of people hiking higher in the company. So, but do you know the traction was t intriguing and not in Boston And that’s maybe one of the important things that the CEO always has to be there, where the technology is going forward or is evolved and not sitting somewhere where maybe the clients are sitting or customers are sitting.

Yeah. So there was an big issue and, and this, this was a reason why I, I was then was then proposed to be again the ceo because I have to be on the spot. That was also the reason. It was not really a kind of misfunction or something like malfunction of, cuz media were reporting that he met Trump things like that.

Trump wanted to buy CureVac and things. It wasn’t, this wasn’t really the reason why we decided I have to go back because I was in the technology and I was at the hotspot in tubing it. Mm-hmm. So if I wouldn’t have done it somebody else would’ve done it in tubing. It. 

Philip Hemme: So this was, it was true this Trump story. There was some truth. 

Ingmar Hoerr: So No, no, 

he is okay. Crazy. As you know, and as everybody knows now today, Trump is talking a lot nonsense. You know, it was kind of also nonsense there because the main investors in Cubic were still hop and hop would never have been would never have Pop sold the company to the states.

It’s complete nonsense sense. I mean, but it’s for the press. For the press, it was of course a great, it’s great story, you know 

Philip Hemme: Sad because it’s a lot of noise and lot of distractions. It’s okay if you, 

Ingmar Hoerr: if you, especially if you think about involved and build environment that they need these kind of stories.

Mm-hmm. That’s, that’s their life. So they jump on it and that’s, that’s okay. Well, 

Philip Hemme: yeah, we could talk about media critics, but I think that’s a Yeah, yeah, yeah. Deeper topic. But then on the, again, so you, then you wanted to come back, or you were called back from operational as ceo 

[00:53:01] Close to death

Ingmar Hoerr: and one day before I was nominated officially as a ceo, I, I had this aneurysm in Berlin, so I was 

Philip Hemme: You basically, almost did passed away.

Was the job almost passed away? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: It’s, I mean, I mean, I remember you telling me about it like last year when we caught up and I was like, just wow. Like I mean, you just told me like that’s 13 one 3% survival rate, which is basically like miracle. That we 

Ingmar Hoerr: are miracle sitting.

Yeah. Why that And this condition, as I condition quit, have been in a wheelchair, so, Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, but somehow I accept it. It’s kind of my life, you know? 

Philip Hemme: Can you talk a bit more maybe about the, I mean, for the audience and so far, what was the, what, what happened? What was the reasons and a bit like Yeah.

What, what happened? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Well, a lot of things were coming together to do one spot on the 13th of March and 2020 in Berlin, or when I got this Aism in, in the hotel room in the early morning, and I was then rescued by my assistant Marina. She phoned to the hotel that I’m not in the plane, so they should look after me.

And then they found me in the room con unconscious. I thought, wow. So, yeah. And be before that, before that yeah. So things were really happening on the private side. You know I wanted to go with my family on a boat. So we bought a boat already. And we, we were in, in the boat show in, in Disor in a big conference on Mess Trade Fair.

And then I was phone, get a phone call from Berlin and they told, you know I should come to Berlin, I should speak about the Covid things. And so then I flew a couple of days later to Berlin. Mm-hmm. And I had a lot of struggles with my wife saying, what, what does this mean? You want to go back to, I can come back as a ceo, but what’s about us as family?

You know, we thought that we do this family event now. Mm-hmm. And I say, well, I have no choice. And then she was very angry with me. Yeah. So I also kind of lost my family trust. And then I was in Berlin speaking about rescue of the world somehow like that, you know, what you can do to rescue our, our to, to rescue Germany and Europe from this covid pan pandemic.

And altogether it has been, that’s how I, I I can see it now, you know? It was too much for me. It was too much for a human person like me. And so I must pump and then my body tell me, you know, it’s enough for you. You know. It is, it’s, it can’t go further like this. So crazy. Yeah. So this, this was and for me, it was my, my biggest issues in life much, much bigger than everything else.

And so it was a real fight again. And as I told you already, I, I fought a lot of battles in my life, but not no battle that was so important as this one. 

Philip Hemme: But you, you made it. I mean, and from, so introduce, you said you were three months in coma. Mm-hmm. At the Char Big Hospital in Berlin. And then in rehab for many, many months.

We get the, at the lake and Stance 

Lake, 

Ingmar Hoerr: the Lake stance direct, 

Philip Hemme: which is, I mean, many, many months. But then you, you really recovered and now yeah. I mean, I mean, if you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t know. Yeah, just remark. I mean, it’s just really miracle level, like Yeah. 

Ingmar Hoerr: And it was always in my mind to, to come back to, to vac.

It was also maybe something which protected me from, from dying or giving up that I say, well, I wanna go back and working on this RNA space further. But then I, I recognized also the, the re re rehab in the rehab. That’s, that’s, I’m, I’m not the same guy in, in logical thinking anymore as before, you know?

And, and it’s, it’s, it’s hard really to get, go back into this really big job where I do a lot of, I have a lot of responsibility. And this was making me thinking about can I really take this responsibility? I’m really the guy for this, you know? And I also wanted to avoid that it comes a second time like this.

So then I really had to change, and then I, I decided, no, I don’t go back to Shewe. This was the decision. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, and also, you know, 

[00:57:49] Coming to peace with a new role

Ingmar Hoerr: and, and, and I also, I, I also was try to involve me in this company, but I also see kind of hesitations of the company side that don’t want me letting and wolf much.

So I can imagine stock noted, you know, we are an nasdaq, we can’t tell you. And, and of course I appreciate it, but on, on my founder brain, you know, I think can’t tell me. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t tell to others, you know, we can do a confidentiality thing, you know, there was, we can’t tell you about it. So this was also annoying a bit for me.

Okay, same. Okay. If you don’t tell me, then can’t, if you can’t tell me that’s, that’s, it’s okay. I have to accept it, but then I also am not going to involve myself in this further things. 

Philip Hemme: Okay, so you were, even if you were not issue already, you say you would, you wouldn’t miss, or you were trying to help them basically.

And they basically, I, I 

Ingmar Hoerr: was proposed to come back in the board, you know, okay. Not, not, maybe not as share but a board seat which I was thinking, okay, this could be something. But on the other end, as I told you already, things were already happening when I was in coma things I couldn’t change anymore.

Mm-hmm. So the strike was already there. They had to go this strike. And I say, well, this is hard to take also from the board seats perspective, responsibilities for decisions. I, I wasn’t there. And, and it’s, it’s quite a hard thing. And so then I, I was really thinking about is this reflecting my personality?

You know I’m, I’m a kind of direct guy. I’m speaking directly with people Am I really made for a kind of board position where I have to be silent where I can’t talk to people, well, this is a management task, 

Philip Hemme: do the things I can 

Ingmar Hoerr: budd things, do things. And, and also in the board there were a lot of mindsets of people.

Yeah, there were pharma guys doing a lot 

Philip Hemme: both things and people board 10 people. 

Ingmar Hoerr: They were with things from, from investor perspective. It’s, it was also also a big task when I was a chairman to guide all these guys and, and then find solution, common solution and know what was our decision now, how we should do that consensus and consensus.

And thinking about the, the things and about my experiences in both parts of the CEO part. Also in the board part, I was thinking, this is maybe too much for me. And it’s not, maybe not my life anymore. And I maybe have to accept that it’s a new stage in my life where I have to do different things.

Philip Hemme: I mean, I can, I can relate and understand it as in, I mean, it’s partly trauma, partly burn, partly there’s a lot of fear involved. Lot of, and also, I mean, what you just discussed with your personal situation, personal family, you wanted to take care, your family, it must be really hard. Really, really tough decision actually.

I can imagine. But it sounds like you’ve really accepted it and digested it, which is also, I guess, very hard as well. I mean, I mean, from the founder, it’s cr I mean, building a company, it’s what we, we usually say that like baby I mean that it’s like our baby, but it really is like, there’s, there’s a just a really deep attachment, emotional attachment, but also more than emotion.

I mean, emotional attachment, but on many, many levels. And I can imagine for you from like, basically almost 20 years must be like, like even harder to take that decision and, and and and accepting that 

Ingmar Hoerr: that’s, well, but it, it helped me a bit that I was at a board perspective so that I was chair chairman at a board.

So I wasn’t doing any ative things. So therefore I think there was already kind of leading in the right direction. So it would be, it would’ve been much harder when I was in a, in a, in a CEO position. So it wasn’t a CEO position actually. Yeah, 

it out a lot. 

Philip Hemme: You already had a, I say, well, but still because Yeah, that’s, that’s right.

[01:02:06] The pandemic

Philip Hemme: Just to finish the story. So then basically your CEO of Fran Vena, I think Fran took, took over basically CEO and then tried to develop through the pandemic. I mean, then we know the story now, basically. I mean, CureVac probably did. This, well, I didn’t manage to to talk at least modern and Pfizer and biotech.

I don’t know. One is not necessarily right term, but at least from a commercial point of view, 41. And I guess on that, you, I mean you mentioned in a few interviews as well, there are some, some choices made at Keva that were going for different priorities, let’s say from the just ate still vaccine stability at four degrees versus minus 80, and that this would be easier to distribute and especially distribute and in, in high urban, less develops countries.

What’s your, I mean, what’s your reflection there when you look at, when you were not in the, in the driving seat, but when you look at, from, let’s say the whole pandemic period and everything I just said, like, 

Ingmar Hoerr: well, I, I, I can’t can just emphasize what, what I have done what I would’ve done myself when I would’ve been in driver’s seat.

So I would’ve also gone in the other direction. So not only Monodirectional, I would also have used this modified basis since there, there was access on QX side on this, I was negotiating myself years back that Quebec can obtain a license for, for the sine modification. Yeah. So for sure in the common sense for me, it’s clear that you have to go in both ways, especially if you know that your competitors were doing the same.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So BioNTech was also using non-modified RNA as a kind of control thing. So I would’ve done kind of control is modified RNA and then, and phase one, seeing what, what’s going better, the better way. So to sing is not this technology itself. The sing is the immunogenicity. So RNA is kind of very moon because it’s clear the body wrecks quite in a danger of manner if RNA is going into it because it, it the body thinks it’s, it’s kind of virus broaching the body.

So therefore you get a lot of danger signals activated in your immune system. And it is clear that there was a reason why Catalin carer was inventing that because they want to avoid this dangerous signal. They want use RNA for kind of therapeutic, not per Maxine. So for more kind, more kind of molecular therapy things, kind of ipo, things like that, insulin, things like that.

So and in the tests for bio, I’m quite sure that they tested also non-modified RNA and they see, well, the modified one, you can get higher dosages, which is important to raise immune responses. Yeah. So there was no dose or there was less dose limitation as CureVac. They couldn’t go into higher doses than the seed saw already in phase one.

And my question is Yeah, 

Philip Hemme: but I mean that, yeah. Okay. So I, I, I 

Ingmar Hoerr: can’t, if more can just say what I said, I say, well, I I, I would’ve questioned that. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: What I, what I hear is, I mean, that’s what you would’ve done, Tracy, but if you, if you, well, if I, if I we phrase it the right direction, the right decision, at least to make it fast was not, the one basically was, was using modify thena.

That’s what, what then our, our biointech did. And that allowed them to go really fast. Yeah. And they also went all in, I mean, whenever was, was crazy to even start first right away and it’s clear and go crazy fast. But this was also, I mean, from a, from any point of view, I mean, was was insanely was just worked.

I mean, if I hear, and, and 

Ingmar Hoerr: I also regard it not as a mistake it’s more kind of missed option in my eyes because now I do it again, they do it. Also now maybe even Covid is not, not an issue anymore, but they, they do it also with modified rna. It kind of missed, was a missed opportunity. Cubic was also fast.

And they believed in their technology. Mm-hmm. What they invented for years, even what I invented together with Cubic. And I’m not really criticizing to focus on that. The only thing is I speak about a missed opportunity that at least a small angle in the trial you could have done with modified things of control sense.

And then seeing the data in the humans, you might have switched them. Yeah. And after phase one, when they see the stores limitation issues, that could have been a point where they could have turned to, to the approach of BioNTech and this was kind of missed. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. I mean, the wording of what is a mistake or miso, or, I mean, 

Ingmar Hoerr: because it, it’s hard to criticize I mean, the guys, I’m not into, you know, I can criticize my own decisions.

That’s right. But 

Philip Hemme: I can’t. But even without, without criticizing just from a observation, just from a factual observation, fact of observation, because they were not doing, because I didn’t go there. Yeah. All those were faster and at the end. Yeah. But to the market, I mean, without, like, then it’s very hard to say, would you have taken that decision or not?

I mean, in the moment, very hard. It’s, it’s very, not the pressure, but just in the, in the backside when you look at it, the fact is, 

Ingmar Hoerr: and it was easy to, to see what would would’ve, would’ve been decided and not it’s, it’s not, not easy really, if you’re really into this, this war thing. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: What I, what I heard, what I liked, your, your, your reflection a lot also on, I think was an interview, speaking, interviewing in German, that, that told you, like, did you have any like, regret or anything that at the end, Made much more money than Kevi.

And the first thing you said was like, we solved the pandemic and, and congrats to U Tote. And to be, I mean, and it’s also true at the end, if you, if you talk about from a vision point of view, I mean the most important is still curing patients, solving the pandemic and Yeah. So maybe you, you can go there.

[01:08:35] RNA people

Philip Hemme: I mean, and even when we, you just arrived, you said that’s, that’s like your, a admiration for them. And it’s, that’s, I find, I find that amazing to not forget the, what’s the end goal versus being in a race for a race and making the most money of beating someone else. I mean, at the end, the goal is still to, to Woodstock.

Can you expand a bit there? Like I found that very Yeah. Human very like having the practice rate and Very Yeah. Can you like, expand? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Wait, it’s more about this technology. I’m a, I’m a RNA guy, you know, and therefore also I, I I, I invented the the acronym mRNA people or the, the RNA people Cubic. Yeah.

Because from the very beginning I was kind of RNA guy, RNA people. So because it, it’s, it was a forgotten molecule. And I, I told you already about the situation 20 years back. It, it’s, it’s really a, it was a really a forgotten molecule and. So I’m, I’m really more into this molecule. I, I really I’m so proud on this molecule also that RNA can fulfill so many, so many issues.

Health, health we had so, so, so long. You know, and especially the cancer thing, I’m, I’m, I’m really optimistic that RNA will not really cure car. It’s hard to say about cure cancer, but at least to help together with other technologies to that you can live with cancer longer time. Okay. And, and I think I, I’m so sure about RNA Will, will do a lot of here in this kind of space and sense and, and this I like very much especially if you c the, the hurdles at the beginning that, that people, they didn’t believe you you were thrown away by a lot of people and you were regarded as a complete mad guy.

You can see, well now the vision is really getting into, into, into reality. It’s not any more vision, it’s reality or now. And this makes me really happy and strong and I don’t really not determine between BioNTech, Moderna, or Cubic. It’s, it’s the RNA field. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: That’s amazing. That’s a, that’s a great and great wrap up on the, on the whole Keva story.

[01:10:51] Moving on from CureVac

Philip Hemme: And then we have a lot of topics we can jump on, on the, just I forgot to mention as well, but you are not attached to Curevac anymore. You have sold your shares, I guess, 

and 

Ingmar Hoerr: Oh, we still have not, we still have safe shares and then options, but we sold some of this. Yeah. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: And you personally actually made very well.

Ingmar Hoerr: I mean, well, it’s, it’s, 

it’s, oh, not as I said, it could have been much, much more, but you know, I’m, I’m, I’m quite humble and I don’t need a lot of money for, for myself and the rest of the money. We are also doing in the foundation, we founded a foundation where we spend the money. So therefore I’m fine.

Yeah. So I, I don’t, for my happiness, I don’t need more money I have already. 

Philip Hemme: You you, you did. It was, it’s not public. It’s what, what you moham how many shares you had. I guess this was public at the 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, yeah. But they are all from options as well from the investors. Not only the shares, of course shares are really diluted.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Very, very much. I guess you add two or 3% at the end or something 

Ingmar Hoerr: maybe even lower than 

[01:11:53] Creating a foundation

Philip Hemme: Okay. I mean, the typical biotech CEO rounds things. Yeah. Okay. So I guess, and you have enough to to, to live and live with all family and do the foundation work. Yeah. Right. Maybe again, we can, we can finish there as well on the foundation.

I mean, you’re doing the furnishing profits work and reinvest, as you said, reinvesting from, from the vac shares and a lot in developing dev in the developing worlds. Can you touch a bit then also, and I would Yeah. Touch a bit on, on what you’re doing. And, and why you, you are doing that versus other things you could be doing.

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. You know, I’m, I’m a kind of founder or not a kind. I’m a founder and I’m a startup guy. So therefore that, that’s my, my really self in this space. And I missed it a long time, you know, not being anymore in this kind of startup, our thought partner can really sniff and see what you do or you see the effect already mm-hmm.

Coming to you. And you also interact directly with people you into projects as well. This wasn’t the case in, and that sets something. Okay. Yeah. Also the criticism that founder of a startup is not really, maybe not really their CEO in the future. And like this, Tek is one of example that it’s possible doing like that, but maybe also because he wasn’t really a, a founder like us in the very beginning because he were much, we was much better equipped than we were.

And he also had his position at the university as a conductor possibilities. So he wasn’t really jumping on on one saying, well, I’m doing this. And he was also kind of secured having his university job. Mm-hmm. It’s different. Mm-hmm. So it’s different. So For, for me, it’s really important that, that I really get this founder experience, touch and field, Andes Isor 

Foundation.

Philip Hemme: So more, you’re investing in founders, but non-profit? 

Ingmar Hoerr: No, no, no, no. We, we are not investing in founders. We are investing in projects and house projects. And I’m also very happy that my co-founder of LO for Naba is there as well, and his wife, that we to a kind of new foundation, another foundation as we did it already in the past with, and we are more interested in the, into projects health related projects like water, for example, India.

They’re kind of water monitoring projects where you can also find germs like Covid in, in, in, in, in water analyze analyzer for example. And also happy to use my old contacts in the area and space and bring people together speaking to it to each other. This is something which I’m like very much, we are kind of catalysts and doing options.

And this, we doing quite well in my opinion that we, we find solutions which weren’t there before. So it’s not just only because of money. We give money to something. We also give knowledge into projects we know about a lot. 

Philip Hemme: Now I’m cur No, that’s and so just from today, I mean, how, basically how much.

How much are we talking about? How many projects, how much money has been donated? Like just from a rational situation? I mean, you started one and half years ago. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, one and a half years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Actually the foundation is, it’s, it’s much less than we expected because we thought cubic is doing much better.

So this is, but on the other hand, as I said, you know I have all money. I, I wanted, it’s just the money going to the foundation and it’s depending on the stock exchange and cubic how much money can go into this foundation. But even with, with less money, we were doing, as I told you already, we are doing kind of meaningful, meaningful things, which are not only dependent on money, which also depending on knowledge.

Also on the other part, in the cultural part my wife is, is doing together with Flo’s wife. Does also a lot of engagement since from her experience at the Stut where she was involved personally into the things, you know, and going with, with children from schools and kind of problematic environments and trying really to find out what you can, but how you can help self confidential children, you can build on this and in doing culture things.

So what I want to go in, in basic that we will We wanna involve ourself in this projects. And we, we do bring some meaningful here as well. It’s not just the money, money helps us, so for sure. Yeah. But the most thing is really that we want to fulfill our own knowledges into different subjects. We wanna bring it back to society 

[01:16:48] Freedom

Philip Hemme: on that. I remember we, we talked one year ago and still was one point. I, I, I challenge you a bit, but I would still challenge you and I’m still like,

it pu it, the subject puzzles me a bit. I mean, not whether or puzzles me, I don’t know how to express what’s the best emotional, what’s the best word. But your, I mean, was was your experience and with your history as in being a, a, let’s say visionary founder, believing in your technology and with the struggle you had there, I can see a perfect fit for you to also help, let’s say, next generation of certain founders.

I mean, investing or not, grants are not, or helping or not, but I can see a lot and I can see set as, as a, a big missing area, let’s say in Germany or in Europe. We have really successful founder cEOs, company builders in biotech who give back and who help the next generation. I really like, it’s, it’s a bit, ah, like why is s or doing, especially with, with your co-founder from, co-founder from Keva, Flo, I mean, you are two, like super solid biotech IT guys, one you’re doing a bit more to give back in biotech not to make money, but to help the next generation cures.

Ingmar Hoerr: Well, it’s a, it’s a good point. And discussion is obvious. It’s,

you know, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s going the direction that you can’t do another Qve story anymore. It’s not possible. And we have seen so, so many things and we lost a lot of energy as well. You know, we, we, we, we, we, we, even, I for example, lost my life already in, in this almost my life and into this kind of subject is, it’s too much personal.

It goes too much my personal direction and I wanna avoid that. Okay. So therefore I wanna go more in directions where I’m not personally that involved anymore. And also things which are very important is freedom. You know, as I told you, I’ve never been free in what, what I’m, what I was doing over 20 years.

Mm-hmm. So it’s the first thing in my life after. Being a student, a PhD student, that I’m free again. Mm-hmm. And attaching it to things where I have to involve myself. And since I invest money, I’m responsible as well for success. That’s also kind of hinders me that I don’t want to involve myself again into things where I’m forced to do things.

I don’t, I don’t, I don’t wanna do. So from this angle, I think there’s coming my Okay. Kind of pressure because it’s, it’s not really related to freedom. It’s not to reiterate to my freedom. 

Philip Hemme: There’s no way to, to find there’s no way to, to find a balance where it’s, but you still have your freedom. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Not now.

Not, not now, not now. I, I still, when I just here myself, I still feel that I am, I, I, I like my freedom so much. Yeah. That I don’t want to be really interrupted. It could be that it, it’ll change. It could be that I gonna be approached by a very interesting person. I, I like, and of course with very, very good opportunity where we might fit together.

And we might, I can help also dependent how I can help, you know? Because my network is, is is, is not anymore there in the finance way. It’s also mm-hmm. Dini is not investing anymore. You know, and, and the other guys, I can’t approach anymore. I can’t approach Ellen Musk, for example. I can’t, I can’t write an email to, to this guy.

I can’t approach Bill Gates anymore. So I’m not in a position to also open doors for, for people less, less position. No, not only less. And nothing, it’s, it’s, it’s far away, you know it’s five years back that I was really in direct contact with these guys. Mm-hmm. So it would be an over promise if somebody now relies on that, well, Ingar is interested in me.

He will want to help, or if he likes to help me, and I, I can’t really fulfill the expectations in me. I, I have also the feeling because you’re really strong. If you’re the field, you’re really strong. If you know the founders, if you know the investors from a day-to-day basis, if you can really tip people say, well, hey, I have a hot thing for you.

Please look on that. Believe me, look on that. And then we can decide, you know, I can’t approach any money, anybody like that. So, and, and I don’t. 

Philip Hemme: Less, less or less. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. But, but you know, really my, my, my, my, my personal disruption was so, so big and so high that I didn’t have any thoughts about in this kind of area anymore.

And I’m, I’m not into this area anymore, I have to say, you know? And. It’s kind of a cut thing. I don’t know. Yeah. First one, psychological things that also want to have this cut. Not going back into the things where things were kind of under a lot of pressure. Pressure was then getting that high that I was close to death.

I don’t want to get any more into depression type of things. I also want to avoid responsibility. That’s also something I had so much and so many responsibilities in my life, that is also something where I say, now I don’t want to do this anymore. Mm-hmm. I’m responsible for myself. I, I really wanna take responsibility for myself for the first time after 20 years.

The, the, so that, that’s kind of, because now I’m reflecting why I’m kind of hesitant in really helping founders and, and opening doors and things like that. That’s some of the reasons that I’m, I’m searching my own personality now. I’m still not finished in this kind of process. You know, I really don’t ought look where I want to go, what I wanna do for the next 40 years.

Philip Hemme: I mean, it’s a lifetime. It’s a life. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Life. It’s a life. So, so I, I just take, take a couple of of time and if, if people now are hearing that thinking, well, okay, Ima is lost. You would never anymore go into our direction. I’m happy to get in contact with people. Still, I’m happy to get in contact, you know, but I’m not jumping on things and, and opening myself.

Say, Hey, if you have a great idea, police approach me. I wanna help you with things. This, I won’t do that. Yeah, yeah. 

Philip Hemme: No. Makes, I mean, makes it’s, I, I understand it better now. And I mean, the, the personal fit is, is just so, so important. So if you don’t feel like doing something, it makes everything so much harder.

I mean, anything in life, I would say in, in, but in work as well. If it’s something you feel like, if it’s something you don’t feel like doing, I mean, for me, the same, I would already not do it. And if it’s, that sounds, if there’s already like this, like not sure and not feeling, then it’s, 

Ingmar Hoerr: I also want to avoid these problems because the problems are always the same, you know?

Failures and, and essays not enough money problems with people in the company. These are all this, these are all problems I wa really want to avoid because it gets me, again, back into things in my, in my thinkings, which were very hard in my life. Yeah. And, and you get involved in this kind of thing.

So I want to really avoid also as well the, the dark area in my mind about this kind of things. 

Philip Hemme: I see, I see the dark areas, but I see also there can be a lot of. There can be a lot of quiet things. And I mean, yeah, from knowing you and from our discussion, even now, I can feel like there is just such a deep and breath and, and there’s also amazing memories and amazing success.

I mean, you, I don’t know to watch percentage, but help solve, solve Covid. I mean it’s amazing. I mean the, we talked consequently what Moderna showed in that why was the check money s and having whether it was 30 plus percent increases insane on, on cancer. And you were like, you had like a double digit significant percentage there, which is, to me, it gives mes It’s like amazing, amazing, amazing.

And so, yeah, I like, but it’s, it’s a, it’s a very personal, I mean, I don’t know if I feel like it’s like like a way to like, not force you, but like give you a, like what it’s, I, I, I, I want, I dunno, I feel like I want this in you. You can, you have a lot, a lot you can bring, but that’s maybe me, myself, but it’s, I can, yeah.

And I think you still have like lots you can bring, and even though for sure for your network is a bit lower. And I can feel this, I can relate to that as well. I mean, I left lab biotech, you know, now I’m starting again back in media after three years. And also I felt, ah, I must, whatever me, media, the people will trust me.

And they do. It’s amazing. I mean, you, you’re coming here, we talk long time to do that interview, to share those people. First interview was from, from Sophie Nova. I mean, literally, I wrote him an email, had like nothing, no product, nothing. Like, Hey, oan, do you wanna do a podcast? And he was like, yeah, let’s try it out.

I had had like, the email was three lines, nothing. And he took like one hour at that sonova’s office. And I feel like that, like she was reestablishing and especially biotech. I mean, we talk, we can talk about that further, but I feel like people are, are care a lot and and for the very long term and people I would say quite more open-minded and of course forget, but also remember very fast and very rapidly.

And yeah, I maybe it’s comes from there so that I connect to what you’re sharing with it. So I want to share that to you. But I feel like it’s, but feel, but I mean, at the end it’s, it’s, it’s your decision and I think, yeah, it’s your decision. And, but I completely understand 

[01:27:46] Biotech people are risk takers

Ingmar Hoerr: you, you find a lot of risk takers in this, in this business area.

Seeing that’s, that’s united our, everybody with all of us. You don’t find this guy sitting in it or in kind of ordinary branches. I see. So every biotech guy knows about failures, you know, knows about risk taking. I mean, that’s amazing. Knows about data of trials which are not good, that going the right direction about how to communicate.

So that’s our area actually. You know we, we, we fail, but also we can jump really high on, on skyscrapers. Like, and that’s, that’s, there’s nothing in between. Some, you know, you can’t be kind of ordinary, you know, else, let’s increase our business for 5% this year. It’s good. Or sales increase about about 10%.

That’s great. 10%. Andrew, you really on a skyscraper or are you down in a deep valley, you know in a shadow. And you completely, you don’t really know where to go anymore. So, and this personalities you find in our, on our branch, I don’t know any other branch where, where you, you, you get the same personalities.

And that makes this kind of interesting because in, in your format that you will focus on people because it’s about people. Mm-hmm. It’s really, I really believe that it’s of, of course, it’s own teams. Teams is really available, but it’s, it’s dependent on personalities of people. Mm-hmm. And if you look at Stefan Banzel on the ante guys war and You find it.

Mm-hmm. You find it? Yeah. You know, if you speak to this guys, you know, how this company is, is, is, is going and how this company is operating. Yeah. 

[01:29:29] Sharing inspiration

Philip Hemme: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Definitely I need, your eyes are shining when you talk about it. It’s just always a very good sign. I think. I mean, coming back also, you, I mean, I have a bit silly challenging question, but like, but I mean, you’re, you are taking now the time also to share your personal story and your story of Quebec where you’re at dark moments, but also, I mean, I’m curious on why, like, why, why do you wanna share it with others?

For example? Why you, why you are sitting here basically? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Well, well what’s, what’s deep deeply in me is just my own, my, my own living or where I come from how I get to this personality. I, I am now, today. And this goes into childhood. And when I was in childhood I had also people I, I was looking on them, at them and I was very fascinated by them.

And these were very, my guides in, in my life and my early life. And nek for, for example, survival pioneer this were, this were the guys I want to, to go in the same direction as these guys and. These guys were opening my mind. So I, I wasn’t really in an environment where I had personal interaction with people.

They inspired me. I, I was in a kind of rural area in Germany, in, in a middle school. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. With this kind of really ordinary things and not really visualized things, right? So I was really getting my energies from books from this kind of people. And the thing is really why I’m open that I wanna, wanna, wanna do the same, you know, if, if somebody is interested in how, how was Ima doing things or what, why, why Ima did this kind of things, how he started, things like that, and give some inspiration.

That’s, that’s just the reason just because it’s comes from my own life. And if only one attaches to that say, well, that was, Ima was doing it, it’s kind of good. And I also also want to look at that, or I’m, I’m, maybe, I’m, I’m going to biology dialect direction of biochemistry direction because I liked what, what they, they doing also, biotech and Moderna, these kind of things.

Maybe it attaches me as well that would be already enough to give enter exploration. And I think especially you, our in, in our surroundings where we have a lot of negative influences from a lot of things, climate change, Ukraine, things like that, it’s so hard to get inspiration and positive inspiration.

Say, well, well what, what should we do? How we can make things better? And I would just get to this new generation and say, well, it’s your hands. You know, you, you can change a lot of things. You can do a lot of things, which are you good in going on your strengths, for example. And there’s also important I learned also in school, that you don’t really put too much issues on, on, on, on, on your weaknesses or put a lot of things or try to enhance, try to fix, increase your fixing in weaknesses, go to your strengths, you know, just go to your strengths and where you’re strong, you’re happy and you should feel that and go further.

You know, also doing kind of apprenticeship or, or studies just do, even if it’s something odd like enology or Greek language just was, I don’t know, just go in the direction you want to go, you know? And never be shy. And, and I think this is really important. And in the eighties I got a book from Berg.

It, it was the title was Let’s Fitz, let’s Make It Happen, you know? And the eighties was also kind of dark ages. My, I think it was before you 

1991. Oh yeah. But, 

but, but, but the eighties you know, there were kind of dark things. It was kind of East and west conflict atomic things, a home weapons.

So if I remember bad it was always a dark skies. Yeah. Never sunny skies. 

This was somehow to remembrance in the eight days, is it you 

Philip Hemme: and you got a bit of bite light from certain people and inspiration, and this helped you really? 

Ingmar Hoerr: They help me, helped me really to figure out what, what I’m really into where I want to go to.

And this also gets some, some, some push into going to India. For example, in 88 after the school, I went by myself for three months to India. Of course, I money, I have to work on holidays to get money. But then I really went for three months to India because it was also kind of a knee bear thing, you know, as that, that I, I go into crazy environment.

I wanna already see how I’ve self will react in this kind of environment. Mm-hmm. I still get it today. I still have it in my mind today. This three months. They were so impressive for me. as a young guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It, it was so impress, especially this environment India, we will never understand, you know, we will never understand.

It’s, it’s, it’s so, so it’s, it’s so astonishing in this kind of country, which is completely different to Germany. They do everything the, the, the other way that the Germans do. Also, you know, having health issues, diary and, and things like that. So, so it. It really opens the world for you and your eyes.

And this is so, was so important for me as a young person to see myself in this kind of new world environment where I had to survive somehow. Mm-hmm. And where I have to adapt to, to new things to to, to new, to new space which I’m not used to before. And that gave me strengths that I could survive that.

And even I liked it very much, you know, being in kind of intense situation. And out of the comfort of the comfort. Out of the comfort. And, and this inspired me in my whole lifetime being always out of the comfort and going into really weird situations. No, nobody, I, I’ve been before that in this situation because it’s, it was so inspiring for me.

Philip Hemme: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s amazing. 

I mean, the, like, the inspiration is also, I mean, sharing inspiration is, I think it’s just so important and showing sharing knowledge. And I think it’s, it’s amazing that you’re sitting here and taking them to, to share it. And that’s also really one of the goal of, of the Flood Bio show, of really having the most inspiring people in biotech in Europe and to, to, to share inspiration, knowledge to help, to help the audience grow.

And I think it’s something that, especially in Europe, especially in biotech in Europe, is done less. And I think that’s where I saw some people enjoy a lot the show and enjoy the episodes. And I think it’s just, yeah, at least very important. And I enjoy that a lot actually. I enjoy the interview we are having here and I enjoy the idea that maybe a few people will benefit from it and will help whatever outcome it means.

It’s from me, as you said. Like you know, students who don’t know really where they’re going, but also professionals and also even like, even, I mean, sea levels are, lots of sea levels are, are listening to it and it inspires them in taking different decisions for the company or financing it differently or starting a company or working for more inspiring at all.

That’s a bit of a judgment, but working for a company that has maybe a bit more vision and impact versus a company that is a bit more safe or taking more risk or it’s, I feel like it’s, it’s very, it’s very powerful as well. It’s gonna be very powerful. 

[01:37:28] Reflection is key

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. And I just walking in my shoes, so it’s, it’s I can’t walk in other shoes, so therefore I, I also can’t get any recommendations to somebody.

They have to find out by themself. It’s important. It shouldn’t do the same as I did, you know, it will be a failure. It has to be really, they have to look into their self. And also I think it’s very important that as you know that you, that you take some time for this mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That you’re not really completely in, in, in, in the daily work.

And, and you’re not really looking further. And I think it’s also very important to have reflection zones and reflection times where you just think about really what, what is it? Right? How do it feel where I wanna go doing am I doing the right things, you know or this kind of question marks.

Mm-hmm. This helped me a lot as well. That in India was clear to me that I have to get this kind of times where I just do nothing else than just thinking about this critical questions. 

Philip Hemme: I think we, it’s, it’s a great we, we have topics. I, I think it’s a great transition to continue to a bit on a personal level, a bit on the mindset personality, on the mindset.

I like this, like self-reflection slash time to think. I think I had one quote, I don’t remember who was it exactly? I think it was somewhere connected to Jeff Bezos slash some others. It was like that good thinking takes time and you cannot think properly without spending or focusing and spending time on, on the thinking.

Very connected to meditation. I dunno if you’re meditating, it’s probably in, in India, you, or at, let’s try that out. We got whatever to being present to giving time to our brain to reflect. Can you expand a bit more on that? On like

Yeah. Can you expand on it? I don’t know, in whatever direction you wanna take it from, how you are using it today, how you are using it during the, during the, the job, how you got into it, whatever mean this was relevant. 

Ingmar Hoerr: What I want, one of the biggest issues in my life was some are facing decisions and not deciding somehow properly.

Mm-hmm. And once it’s not really decided, it will pop up again and again, and again and again. Especially in decisions where you don’t really go into. And, and this was something I learned also from, from a, from a, from a class where I went to that the coach was saying, well, you have to decide. You, you really have to decide in your life, otherwise you gets a mess.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Philip Hemme: So not deciding gets really messy. Half decision is not, 

Ingmar Hoerr: is not really helping. And I think this is something helped me a lot in really making a kind of list and things I am not wanting to decide, you know? This pops up. Every day this pops up, every week this pops up every month. It’s not decided it’ll pop again.

[01:40:42] Making decisions

Ingmar Hoerr: You know, I have to make this, this, this as a decision and saying, well I go somewhere. And you have to find places where you feel quite well you really with you and going to this places and then have this list with you and you say, well, you just go, when you decided about this, you know, you have to make a decision whether it’s wrong or or not wrong.

It’s, it’s, but it’s decision. 

Philip Hemme: So you’re literally curving out hours, days, yeah. 

Ingmar Hoerr: To take decision. Yeah. Even, even and if I don’t feel well, I sleep on it, you know, and I, I really find out why I don’t feel well. Mm-hmm. Because if you don’t feel well, it’s a, it’s a critical sign. You know, something is, it’s, is so freak.

Some something is, is really more deeply to be analyzed. Why it is, is decisions where I feel, well, it’s easy, you know, and it makes you happy. If it is really smiles, they will decided. And whether this, the great thing, I will do it exactly this way, miss my, all my energy. I would put in this because I know it’s right.

Most of the decisions you are not solve, they’re critical decisions. You’re not really into it and easy. And I think this, this helps quite a lot. And also thinking about if it’s decided you can’t re decide anymore, it’s decided. Stick out sticking to it. You’re not only if, if something really conditions are changing, then you have to re decide, but if conditions remain the same, you don’t re decide it’s decision.

Decided. This also makes pressure on you that you do everything now for good. That is a good decision for you and amazing. And yeah, and sometimes it takes only two hours, then it’s decided and I feel will it, it’s decided. And I, I’ll live with it. And I, I will, I will I will take the outcome as it is.

I I don’t wanna negotiate again on it. And some decisions are quite hard and, but it takes long and it tends, especially if, if professional decisions, you know, with kind of colleagues you, you, you have issues with colleagues and things like that. It’s not one-dimensional, it’s multi-dimensional. You know, you have to do a lot of angles and say, well, is it me or is it this?

Or is it kind of pressure for up or from, from down? So you have to analyze things and you have to do this, analyze this in a very well thing. And then when you feel, well, this analyzes and it fits then you can decide and just think about these things is, is helpful. But the most helpful thing is really that you as you have to force a decision and there’s no, no, no, no room to take a longer time for it.

You have to do it. 

Philip Hemme: It’s very hard to. It makes me, I mean makes me think of a lot of things, whether they find it very hard to to not overthink certain decision, but at the same time not under thinking. So basically where, where is the cursor and finding the right cursor, because I mean, certain hard decision if you rush into them and you just take a decision, there is not enough thinking.

But sometimes you can also overthink. I mean, I’m typically thinking like maybe with examples, even with biotech examples, like, okay, launching your next company, next startup. You can think it’s so complex you can analyze in every direction and talk about, but at some times, at some point you need to also make a decision.

Yeah, yeah. Can you maybe go into one example, if possible, a bit more biotech, let’s say bio biotech related? Not this is science rate, but bio was biotech related. Where you you managed to find this? Like, or how you managed to find this middle grounds of good amount of reflection time and good dec Oh, rapidly to, to decision making.

Ingmar Hoerr: It, it, it wasn’t much really about biotech deep di biotech decisions because I’m, I, I was quite sure science, I’m, I was quite sure where to go and what to do. Yeah. It’s more the personal things. Exactly. So the, the coworkers Or the core ceo, for example, they installed and say, there, there has to be somebody who knows about pharma industry and you have a core CEO on sitting on the same table as you, having the same power that you can you work with this guy or not?

Or if not, what’s the solution? Who I want to go? And this is one example which was I was doing in, in this kind of sync tank for me, where I really was structuring things why I don’t like this guy, why I can’t work with this guy. What happens, what’s, what’s the region? And really try to structure it is, is a kind of personal thing or is a kind of a science based thing.

It it, it’s a kind of behavior thing of me or of him or, and then really, really, really find to find out these points and, and try to solve this different points and, and then come to, to a solution. And could, could be you try again. You, you, you, you change your, your, your strategy. Do something else or you don’t try again and get rid of him.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. And the first issue was try again. I felt kind of things maybe I, I didn’t maybe try hard enough. Mm-hmm. And again, I really tried to, to to analyze as well what, what drives this guy? You know, why is, is, is this not really working? Is it on a personal thing or not? So I, I needed to more, I needed to have more data more than this, this process.

And I really tried to get to achieve this data, say I wanna maybe also I, I can push him in this, this kind of di direction that I see his reaction out direct on this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this was kind of things where I was also kind of not playing, but I really want to get into, into more deeply into, into his mindset doing different things and then waiting for the response coming from him.

Mm-hmm. And this was I analyzing and this was really and done and at this meeting or this, in this reflection so on where I was saying, I need to get information about this, about this, about this. And I got this information. And I, one months later I was going again, you know, that, and I was doing this decision and say, well, okay, no how to, what, what to do here.

Philip Hemme: That’s amazing. 

Ingmar Hoerr: And then I was deciding there’s so many weird things going on here. I, I can’t work anymore proud of with him. And I decide, and I have go to the to the board and say him or me. Yeah, okay. And I accept it when they say, well, Ima go, then I will go, yeah, 

Philip Hemme: you made the decision to the end and you define it.

The, the worst case and best case you accept, you pre 

Ingmar Hoerr: first the best because it was so in me that in front of the board that they, they were saying it, it’s, it’s, it’s serious about it. It’s very serious thinking about it. He will do this. He will move, he, he will leave the company. And it wasn’t just a kind of game where I say, well, I, I would wanna put him under pressure.

Saying, well, I’m, I’m leaving and then I don’t want really leave. Yeah, I know. No, no, it’s, no, I was really like this. 

Philip Hemme: It’s powerful. I feel like when the decision has been thought through Yeah. Analyzed and when you already have accepted, we accepted the outcome in both cases. Yeah. It’s very powerful. 

Ingmar Hoerr: I really walked in this situation, say, well, I, I have to leave this company the next day.

What I’m going to do there and how, how do I feel? You know, and really try, really need to get in the situation and see this, allow these feelings in your, say, cope with this feelings. And also thing about is it, is, it is okay for me, eh, do, is it really okay? Can I really stand this, you know not being anymore ceo and this guy is the CEO and I’m out of it.

Everything. I say, can I really stand it? No, not, I wish to stand it. I can I stand it? What shall I do? I say, well, okay, then I move to India. I go to India for three months, you know, and try to get kind of distance to everything and, and getting more kind of inspiration by India. This was kind of my, my certainty how the cope is dead.

And this made me also then, okay, I can’t face this decision because I’m prepared for it. I really prepared for it. 

Philip Hemme: That’s, I, yeah. It’s it’s, it’s fascinating. The, I like that, that very analytical part, but also analytical. I mean, and this comes also from very bio, I mean, Biotech, not the science method, but from a, I can feel like a very science-driven dec or evidence-based or science-driven decision making.

I mean, having this level of analysis, but also this level of understanding on the psychology aspect, on your own psychology or personality, the others psychology, personality and having this, and the clever is, is actually really it’s, it is actually, I mean, impressive and super powerful. And it’s very powerful in life and everything, but also building businesses 

Ingmar Hoerr: and, and I, I adapted it from the MBA studies where this was the most interesting part, you know, how to solve these problems, not the business things or the, the, the, the calculation things.

It was really more how to interact with people. And we also had case studies with our group where we tried and, and played this kind of things. So this bad guy, it’s a good guy, what you do. And so how to analyze this? Stop it, stop it. No, not further. No, you have to reflect. And so this, were kind of training things in a kind of new area for me because I was a scientist.

I wasn’t into this subject I wasn’t trained by that. But this MBA enables me really to structurize things and they are kind of matters, cities and structures which we can adapt. And this was a, this was exactly what was I I adapting from, from what I’m, from my, yeah. 

Philip Hemme: What you needed to build correctly.

This is fascinating. I mean, even on the, on the, on the show and the, I mean, Trying to also get like personal mindsets. Obviously some mindset that apply across industry, but also how, how it applies to, let’s say, biotech in a very large life science factor. Because I mean, the decisions are not necessarily the same.

The mind of the people are very scientific minds. So how do you like approach that or how do you learn that skill? But what I’m still fascinated is that, is how much of, of is transferrable from others? I mean, for other industries or other people I, this, I mean the decision making, what you just described, the decision making process and the psychology such ity is basically having very similar you can learn in the mba, whether you’re a biotech or not working biotech or not.

[01:51:37] People are important

Philip Hemme: Which is fascinating on point point. But and, and brings me also to one point, which is I feel like, and we, we discussed that a bit before, before going, coming on the record, that at the end, the, the people aspect, especially as a manager is just super important. And they also, and then drives through it also.

You mentioned that the people aspect in the biotech is just super important. Maybe there on. Can you, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even know how to phrase, it’s more reflection, how to phrase it, but how, or maybe let’s, let’s try this way for the secret of someone who is, let’s say, a manager or directivity level in the, in the forties.

And and how, how to make them get that the people aspect is really crucial and will, will make, will help a lot. So how, because I feel like when you come from a science background, you tend to overestimate the science, underestimate the people. Yeah. And one thing I’ve seen in biotech is that the people aspect in a very broad definition, as I just used, is super important.

So how, yeah. How to make to, how to bring that actually, 

Ingmar Hoerr: yeah. I think designs part there’s no question behind. Yeah. We are all used to, as a scientist, you’re used to interpret the results. You exactly know where to go. And you find also support because other, often you find, mostly you find support because it’s clear where to go.

It’s logical. You have, if it’s not working like this, it has to work like this, you know? And you have to. Maybe change the buffer concentrations or you have to do the essay more sensitive or something like that. Yeah. So it’s always clear where to go and, and therefore a scientist often is lost if it’s not very clear in this kind of as I said psychological situations, situations where you have issues and don’t know exactly where they come from.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Why it’s like this and why this is, this is not understanding a guy, this guy is doing this, or, or, or why this is the complete mess here, you know? And so therefore, I, I, I, for me, it was really fascinating in this mba to, to learn about it and to, to get it also known, because I didn’t know it before.

That is an issue if you don’t, so you don’t really in this kind of group, and as a scientist, you work always for yourself. Yeah. In your own projects or Exactly. You have a project plan where you have to fulfill exactly the plan and but you’re not in a kind of multi dimensional of things like, like in a kind of CEO position of a company where you have to go in all directions and all angles and and, and therefore that makes it available for me because I really learned from this MBA also to get other mindsets together on a table, you know, not in, in your own scientists, talking to scientists, but scientists talking maybe to a.

A psychologist or to a historic or what, and you see really this completely different how they, how they interact with problems or how to, to take it to solutions. And therefore this post fund from the, from the uptake or from the taking from me that I really, really, when there’s a problem, I really want to get a lot of different people to the table from different mindsets to enlight all the areas which I can’t really see in with my own knowledge.

And, and that makes it also kind of kind of available because if, you know, get into transition process, you really see, okay, we checked this already, you know, and we really see it has to go this way. Mm-hmm. We are all confident here because we, we also went in other directions, which I haven’t seen so far, but this directions also won’t work, so therefore we can confidently now decide we go this way.

Yeah. And then we, we make a decision, you know, and then we don’t really challenge this decision until there are other circumstances coming up. And again, this freeze you because your table is then empty for this issue. It’s soft. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: And you’re bringing up another point, which is taking your own personal decision, but then bringing to a group decision and it’s as a manager or leader is crucial 

Ingmar Hoerr: because we also have our, our, our, our our focus and it’s clear that that if we don’t get off our focus, we will do always the same kind of decision where we feel this is something which, which fits in your focus, but not fitting the real issue of this project.

Philip Hemme: So, going back to my example, so say someone around 40 who is in this very analytical mind and doesn’t understand the is or confused word, or let’s say humans and psychology of people, you would definitely recommend someone to do, I mean, MBA maybe, or partly, or, or working on this topic. It 

Ingmar Hoerr: is mba. You know, it, it takes you two years. It’s a lot of you, a lot of energy you have to spend on. That could be also other areas where you can work or, or kind of workshop things where, where you can get in the group things or group dynamics, how to steer this dynamics or how to lead people. There are some courses and classes where you can learn about these principles, how to lead people.

There are different ways to do it in my, in my circumstances. First the MBA field. And again, I was doing the MBA because I thought, well, I need to get a business into, or I get knowledge about business, how to do business, how to calculate things and kind of things. Math, mathematics, business plan, writing on the, on the, and and, and in the end it was more the other thing, you know, it was more the interaction between people, which helped me.

Philip Hemme: That’s actually the, I think one of the big underrated part of mba. We always think, oh, it’s about like finance plan and accounting and stuff like this is a bit like science. I mean, it’s, it’s math. It’s, it’s, it’s not super, I mean, it’s, it’s not market science. It’s, it’s, it’s learnable actually. The, I I learned a lot from the, the, there’s one famous course, one part from the Stanford MBA or business school mba, that Stanford, which is called Touchy Feel.

It’s I think inter interper. I mean, the nickname is Tai Feel. I think it’s Interpersonal Connection. And one friend who did it send it to me and if think you can find it online as well. And that’s just about this particular about managing others personality, talking like, and at least I, I learned a lot of it and I think I can recommend it to, to anyone.

It’s what you’re saying. I take one part more like interpersonal relationship or personalities or thing. And, and actually I can talk about the personal examples. For me, it, it’s funny because I, I come from a very analytical engineering mindset, extreme and and also for my upbringing and like. My, my, my, basically my dad, very emotionally illiterate, like scientist, brilliant, emotionally less, less literate and basically, and I, and, but I was really in engineering and in my, myself and very robotic optimizing productivity and, and really hard going.

I mean, it does, it does quite work. And I remember when I stepped down from, which was basically shared a bit, she said that I took three days off, no, like on my laptop, but click from internet. And I just go, went through the decision and I take three days, three six months of thoughts and data and just took the decision.

But I I, and I was doing it at one of my mentor’s place in south of France. And I, I still remember, and it, it, when it changed completely, she told me, yeah, I’ve never seen someone so optimized on productivity, mmk, but on emotion. You have a bull, like a in France, but you have so much space to grow and she discovered the term in emotional intelligence.

Yeah. It was two years ago. Yeah. And obvious all the work I’m doing is in psychology, in emotion and it’s insane how much there is and how much it brings on everything from her founder leader. Decision. I mean, it, it just impacts so much everything. But I have to say a bit what you said as well is like, it’s very frustrating field and very hard for me to get into some, some aspects of it because it’s just not a science.

Mm-hmm. And it’s not measurable in many ways. It’s multifactor or it’s super complex, very unknown, but I still think it’s really, really worth it and going into the best possible. It’s just super valuable. And I can talk. I also on the personal side, struggling my mental health and I’m working with psychologists for two years and, and I am learning a lot there, actually.

Surprisingly, I would, yes, in the next 10 years. That’s where a lot of comes is like, should this, this work and I’m learning about myself, you know, psychology and directly. And that’s, and I would, I share with kind of recurrent to everyone to have some kind of psychologist, not necessarily when they feel bad, but just from learning how our brain works and how psychology works.

It’s, it’s fascinating actually. And translating it to business is actually, anyway, next step. But I think emotion intelligence for the people listening, I think if, like me three years ago, you’ve never heard about the emotion intelligence, Google it, ask church, pt, whatever. There’s a book Emotion Intelligence from a Harvard psychologist, which is amazing.

And that’s, I think very. That is valuable. Even when you’re in biotech, it’s, 

Ingmar Hoerr: it’s, it’s important for, for, for all people in a company that they get kind of a reflection or they can, they see more than just a manager. They see really person behind it, you know, what drives this person? What’s the spirit of this person?

And this opens a lot of energy and, and levels of people that they do more than just what is required in their job. And I, I felt it over always. You know, I, I always saw as a team, even when, when we were 200 people it was kind of, of team saying. And this is for example one, one Christmas party in the club war.

I, I was doing a speech, speech on, on Shackleton I dunno whether you heard about it. Mm-hmm. Shackleton, he was at the at artist. He was and, and, and, and take off. 

Philip Hemme: I think I heard. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah. So, so he, he was, he was at the Anis, and then there was ice at the board, and the board was not anymore functional.

And then the board was smashed by the ice and the whole crew was out there in the, in the cold. And, and 

Philip Hemme: they did a football party for something? 

Ingmar Hoerr: No, no, no, no, 

no, no. He, he then they had only a small board and then they went for. For rescue quite far away. And it took them about months to reach the rescue thing.

And then the the, the people there somehow survived. And it was kind of really depression because there was no hope that they ever get rescued. And Shelton was so powerful to drive the boat to the next island where they obtained rescue. Nobody really understood how he did it.

And it was just because of, of the mindset that he felt the responsibility for his people and that he, he has to do it and achieve it, that the people get rescued because they trusted him. Yeah. Oh, I see. He was at a command, and this was kind of things coming up to me. I, I, I, I saw a movie about him and then I, I, I did a talk in this Christmas Eve about checker and, and thinks what what’s the situation?

Kind of Cuba this is also a kind of checker situation. Are we also stuck somewhere? You know, and we need rescue and we need also a kind of psychological hope that somebody will rescue ourselves. And this kind of pictures, they came to me and I wasn’t really I, I didn’t have any agenda that I, I want to brainwash people with that.

It was just, I wanted to tell about it because I, 

Philip Hemme: it came from here, 

Ingmar Hoerr: from the heart because we were in a same, kind of, same situation at that time. Lack of money, you know, lack of of, of success data were not good. So we were at the same kind of mission in that. And so therefore, and I was just reflecting to that and saw some slides about the boat, about the people and things like that.

And even 10 years later, people were remembering that and saying, this was so, so impressive. I will never forget about it this evenly. So it’s, it’s, and this was not really intended was just wanted to, to, as I said, for my heart, I was just a part about the current situation of Cubic. So it, this reflects, you know if you kind of open mind and people know how you, how you, how you, you, you deal with the situation by yourself, then people will really align together and say, well, we, we have now to power.

You know, it, it, we have to do that. We have to do this checkout mission. 

[02:05:39] Strengths vs weakness

Philip Hemme: I like that a lot. I, I will check out, I will check, I will check, I will check this out as well. It, it reminds me, it connects me to two things, which is one, what you mentioned and what we wanted to listen on, strengths versus we have this, and I think, and.

Then I said in the last episode about these things, you cannot fake it. You have to be authentic. I mean, you cannot like ask a, consult, whatever consultant to bring you that story. It, the story resonates because it comes, it, it resonates with you so deeply and that when you share it with your heart, it resonates and it’s you.

Yeah. It’s authentic. Can you, and, and I think one thing that I see that’s you, and that’s you and you have a common with, with amazing entrepreneurs in biotech and not in biotech. As you, as you mentioned, you know, macOS, a visionaries, is that you, you put your heart and you lead a lot with your heart as well.

I mean, you still lead with your brain and you’re still rational, but you lead a lot with your heart. I think that was one of your great strengths. Can you expand a bit there on like strengths versus weakness on like maybe doing more with your heart or trying to cultivate that aspect? Or like, was there, was there some, like how, how like Yeah.

Talk about all these topics and what, what comes to your mind there? Yeah. 

Ingmar Hoerr: Well, I, I realized very soon that I’m not a scientist itself, so I can’t do the science job. I’m more powerful in really in bringing things forward and working with energy. And working with visions and 

Philip Hemme: energy. Energy of people.

Ingmar Hoerr: Energy of people or energy and projects as well. Mm-hmm. So kind of energetic. Yeah. Making people feel there’s energy in that, you know, there’s a lot of energy here mm-hmm. And, and makes the motivate, motivation. And so then I, I went kind of in a leading part and it was clear to me that I’m, I’m shacklet now.

I I have to lead this kind of sunk trip, which we were all the time. So, yeah. No, it, it’s, it’s, that’s, that’s our perspective. When I just look back, it’s really this perspective that we were the second ship. It wasn’t really like BioNTech or like Moderna. Yeah. From the very beginning very successful. It, it, we, we came from this kind of area, from this second ship and, and, and therefore and 

Philip Hemme: there it can be strengths.

Ingmar Hoerr: It, it, and exactly. I want a very survival method. I want, I wanna go into strengths, and this is, this, this is really strengths because I don’t know whether the beginning of the RNA technology, everybody would’ve been survived like we did. But because it, there were so many mistakes and so many misfortunes in the very beginning area of area, and there were lack of data, lack of comparables of others doing the things.

So you were kind of really in a, kind of an arctic field where everything was the same, you know? Mm-hmm. And a broken ship and everything. And you really have to struggle to survive the rescue to ship. Mm-hmm. So this was my strengths, my area where I was really into, in this kind of danger area where you have to be really in a kind of rescue mission.

I, I, it is not really into when it, it went to, into normal business things. It, it wasn’t really then the strengths in me anymore in a kind of ordinary management things. I, I’m really good in kind of rescuing things Yeah. In a rescue mission. So, you know, I’m also trained as as a ator, as an ambulance guy, rescuing re so this was my civil service on also earning money in my studies doing this kind of things.

So I’m quite used to this kind of situation where we have to act fast and we have to do the right things in short time frame. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then you can also leave it behind and apart. I also can leave things. Yeah. And I, okay, this is soft. I can leave it. And this was also good. And this were my strengths.

And when I’m coming back now to strengths and weaknesses it, it was clear to me that I have to work on my strengths. So it is kind of implement or rescue. Things. That’s my strengths and getting people aligned, doing the right things in a short time period with lack of resources. That’s really my strengths.

And all the other things are more kind of weaknesses of me, analytical things be making business, planning and, and controlling and why this happened. And this is not, this is not so therefore I, I surrounded people they’re good in this kind of my weaknesses. Yeah. Like Roy I talked already a lot about, he’s really analytical.

He’s working hours and days on, on one problem and issue and analyzing, you know, why and what and how and so on. This is kind of really opposite of my thinking where I’m really jumping on things without then thinking later on that was it right or wrong. Mm-hmm. Because I just felt I have to do with it now.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. And this maybe was from the beginning, kind of the success of Cubic that I was sure and drained by the nba, by Sure. But my strengths and not sure, but my weaknesses and that I’ve compensate my weaknesses and getting the right people surrounding me. And 

Philip Hemme: I, I like that. I like that a lot.

I mean, there’s this personal aspect of knowing your strengths, knowing your weaknesses. Focus on strengths, focus less on the weakness or at least balance. Sit out knowing yourself. What I like about what you just said also is from a knowing, what does a team strengths or team culture, what are the strengths of our culture, which is the weaknesses.

And what I like a lot is, is and we didn’t, we were supposed to talk about it on, on your, on your team, especially the core team and joined was very complimentary. Can you talk a bit more there on like the, on the people aspect, especially on the founding team? Yeah. But in, as we said, people are the most important.

How the people aspect the strengths versus weakness in the core team. Yeah. How 

[02:11:32] Creating a common culture

Philip Hemme: And how did you manage to, to bridge that gap between, cuz I guess you were, I mean, how did you manage to bridge that gap between the other parts of the company and the science to align and have a common culture that’s 

Ingmar Hoerr: well, to select, to select the right people in in in, in, in, in, in the leading jobs profile.

And to separate the people who are not fitting into this mindset. The separation is quite hard, you know, because also terms of the of the board telling, well, this is a great scientist. Why, why you, you, you kick them, kick him out, don’t fit. Yeah. They don’t understand that they said that’s not fitting in color.

Then make, make fitted in culture. And I, I did it all. I did it also. I built the company around the scientists at the beginning. Mm-hmm. Where I think this is what is not leading us to anything because he’s doing science. He’s not doing any, any, any business or, or no business aspects behind. So this was in, in our biotech field.

This is really a struggle and what we like to hear LAN and, and all the others appears how they act with this kind of issues and problems. I dunno whether this is still in thing because maybe universities are also changing and they’re not anymore. This kind of structures I knew from, from a long time.

I don’t know whether this is still there. But things are really an issue. And when we started the company, we also got training. And for my MBA also, I, I wanted to have not a serial thing. I want to have more kind of department things, you know, a kind of networking things. 

Philip Hemme: More slight model ing directing structures.

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, no, really. So, but it’s a kind of in between area. You, you can’t really avoid this kind of structures otherwise things getting messy. It is not possible. You need to have also responsibilities, clearly define responsibilities, service people. But in terms of science and this is my really, my last things, it, it was always a struggle.

The whole, the whole lifetime in, in Cubic. And, and this costs a lot of energy as well. Or we could have put this energy in other things. Then in just in this kind of personal issues, and this was my, my most efforts, I think maybe 70% of my time was in kind of this kind of struggles in the company.

70% and the other service wasn’t representing the company outside. Yeah. So, but, but 

Philip Hemme: that’s a lot. 

Ingmar Hoerr: 50 plus was really this struggle. Six. 

Philip Hemme: Like what you, I mean, I mean it’s, it’s sad to hear, but at the same time, I think because you put so much focus on it as well, I think it was a probably significant factor that helped Keva.

I mean, reflecting what you, I think for my observation, I come from a very like tech startup side where we don’t have that much science, so we optimize operation and management in general. And you have very little startups who are very top down. And just because the data, it doesn’t work, the, the most efficient way to run a company is more flat.

You can even go, I mean from more flat to extreme, like no, no hierarchy at all. And what does I have a blank on the name. Oh, like just 

Ingmar Hoerr: matrix. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. No, not, I mean, you can have, matrix is basically demonstrate measurement that you need a matrix, otherwise it just doesn’t work. But you can have very flat, I forgot, but anyway, you, you have just a chairman ceo and then everyone is, has no even job titles.

No. 

Ingmar Hoerr: So the MBA learners is called Matrix and then, and, and this kind of where you don’t have a really hirai where, where, where you can also have teams together change the teams always. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: But so I mean, the extreme part is where you really have, you don’t even have C levels. You have CEO and then everyone does whatever they want.

And just to trust that you hire the right people and the right culture and then things come up. But what I found, what I find fascinating as well is that it’s, and it goes a bit to what we just discussed in psychology as well, is it. It’s not exact science management, and there is no exact formula of this is the most efficient.

It depends on some manufacturer, but there are some big trends. Well, there are also some hype, but there’s some big trends that show, okay, this works better than others, especially in very high intellectual, creative industries like biotech. We need someone who is highly creative and sci scientists who has more freedom, will just develop better and bring, bring more value out than someone who is just forced What to do.

This you have for image, like so many examples now. And what you just said on some biotechs less, I think it’s, it, I mean from my personal experience from companies I worked with or from seeing, it’s still really much the case and it’s cr it’s actually pretty crazy. But on the flip side, I see, see some comp, like modern is a good example.

I mean, they’re organized more as a tech company and Stefan and from the early on it’s amazing or fast running. I didn’t know Kiva was organized in a similar fashion, but I think it’s, it’s one thing that helps a lot the company to whatever you wanna say from a capital efficiency, from reaching the milestone from delivering value.

I mean, and I think it comes down to same fingers. I mean, on the, if you go on one higher level topic, what always fascinates me is how much when you build a biotech. How much of the success factors or how much of the are not on the sides? 

Ingmar Hoerr: Yeah, it’s a good example. Moderna. Moderna is a good example, and Stefan is a pharma manager of his mindset.

But the, the real opposite of Qve Moderna is a real opposite of Kve because Quic is a foundered different company doing research for the first time, everything for the first time. Moderna is an adapter. They really sing, see the right things, and put the right things together and adapt these things and build these things like a conventional farmer company building their projects.

We, we, we, we, we, yeah, we, we, we, we really didn’t know you know, how, how to gain success. We, we had to really learn in try and error in try and error things. In, in. 

Philip Hemme: I would challenge you a bit. No, no, no. But you started from Ziba, but we started from a bit from 

Ingmar Hoerr: No, no, not a bit. They, they, they really started from a high angle.

We, we already did our first trials when clinical trials, when Moderna started. So they, they knew exactly how GMP is working, how to fulfill the criteria of the authorities reaching the levels, endpoints and things like that. You know, it’s was completely different with Clear. Mm-hmm. Completely different.

Yeah. So, so, so there wasn’t any example. So we really had to do everything by ourselves and learn from ourselves, and we couldn’t adapt from, from anything. We, we, there, there wasn’t. Even there wasn’t a peer in Indian biotech field doing the same thing from the groundbreaking things then than we did.

That’s crazy. It, it was really a crazy thing to, therefore the structure of the company was completely different. And we really had to go in a lot of directions and seeing a lot of things together, and we couldn’t really fo focus on, on one thing and building the blocks like Stefan could do that.

And therefore the training of Stefan from the farmer was perfectly fitting into this kind of, of scheme. But I, I, I doubt whether, first, whether, whether Stefan started cubic with, with this amount of money we did. Yeah. For, for sure not, but also being in a kind of area where it’s a lot of fo fog around you, you know you even don’t see any lighthouse where to go.

And, and, and this is also not in, in, in the, in the mindsets of, of the pharma industry. So therefore he’s doing the, the right thing. And the, and he’s the best equipped guy for this kind of job following a technology fastly and doing it. Avoiding the mistake others did. Yeah. Doing it the right thing. So therefore it’s, it’s hard for me to compare.

You can even compare pan a bit further with Cubic, but even there there are also differences in that, but Moderna is completely different. Yeah. So, so now I think research was, what Moderna is doing is, is also very brilliant. They’re doing also a lot of things. But really building things coming up to a Covid vaccine, for example, was 

really Okay.

Philip Hemme: No, I mean, you, yeah, I, I mean, I, I see the point from a technology development. I guess my point was more from a company culture slash not too much hierarchy from a like, management experience, I can see some similarities, but you make a good point also on the, from a technology development and from a risk level and exploration level, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s definitely different.

Now that’s, and also even, I mean, we, we talked just before also from even focus on people told me, you know, biotechs, it’s all people, people, people. So it was real estate, location, location, location. And, and here has an amazing like, focus on, on people, which I think, I mean, from what you said, it, it sounds there is a, there are some similarities when different people, Boston people or whatever.

And also Boston, I guess turnaround of people as well. I mean, there’s different, different situation, but 

Ingmar Hoerr: I think he, he really could fulfill his training from the farmer because he has all the resources building up a real big pharma company. Yeah. And, and, and he’s, he’s with strength in that as well.

I don’t know whether I have strengths because I’ve, I’ve never seen this before, so I’m more really a startup guy. And this differentiate differentiates me from Stefan. He’s a farmer guy and he’s exactly doing this, what he’s good in, and I’m more a startup guy. Mm-hmm. Bringing things to, to life and trying really to, to build on, on things which burnt there.

You know, this, this is a, a, a, a big a big difference. I, there was also the reason, there was also the reason why I was stepping out of a CEO e position because I was thinking I’m, I’m not a really CEO for the next, for the next phase of the company. So it should be somebody like Dan Mini, a kind of trained farmer manager who really knows how to, to, to bring and build things on, on an existing platform.

Philip Hemme: I like, I mean, I kind of want to defend to sign a bit. I, maybe because I know him, but, but it doesn’t really matter. I mean, 

Ingmar Hoerr: I think there’s no, no defense needed because he’s a great guy. So I, yeah, he’s speak, speaking about from the, from the, from the founder’s perspective, 

Philip Hemme: more from like, I still defending him more from I think he still, he really still started with I mean definitely found, I mean, he and Al really found the mindset, even though they were very good, well financed rapidly, but still.

And they went really fast, but still started from like not much when there was not much belief in the minute. Much more than when you started, but still very bit for sure. I mean, he had great experience at Italy. Italy and was CEO of, I mean he had already like a, like a we manager or bank, which probably made it also easier to then scale instead of when now the company, which is crazy.

Which is crazy. I like your point also about like, I think it’s, it goes to knowing your strengths and weakness as well of like, are you a, a founder CEO that goes to watch stage? I use the best to do it. And, and then are you at what stage you are to, to continue? I, I tend to be, I mean I, I’m similar to, I guess similar to you as well.

I, I mean I love building things since I’m 10 years old. I create things. I was this urge to create project for companies and I’m very good at the starting probably less good at the like managerial position and growing 10% a year, which was actually is extremely good at this. That was extremely this stop.

But I still, I would think, do you, do you think it’s possible? It’s some open thing. I meant thank you. Like is it possible to run into that world or arm and as ability Father 10, you settle, Gwen thinks there.

And I’m thinking of some examples of some seed founders like that. Typically very visionary founders who managed to glitch that gap between Hector the early days and then running, really did big companies and was a big example, but

one of them, but some others. You think it’s, it’s possible that, like, do you think it would’ve been possible for you 

Ingmar Hoerr: personally? Thinking not, not really thinking about the others. Like, like who or Stephan? It’s possible to adapt, to answer your question. They, they enjoy it. It’s possible to adapt.

See, the other thing is whether you want to adapt and there and this is kind of more possibilities, is a part of possibility, more kind of personal question. And you can c really show that is doing a marvelous chart. The committee good, great organization. And it comes from really scientific angle because post founders are scientists in a very storm in that part.

Yeah. But nevertheless, they, they they managed a big billion dollar company like I BioNTech. So this is really a great achievement. But it’s somehow not in, into my personality really. That’s, that’s because I really see me like a founder as I, I picked it. Let’s talk about about the, the events and the company about Ready is to moving things forward, to going the risks to, to, to, to, to, to go with risks, you know to align people, to feel it to fulfill the spirit of the company, to be really close to everything to, to encourage people taking risks and going the way forward.

So this is really it’s kind of my soul. Mm-hmm. I really want to want, I’m really dedicated to, to, to this company. And I think the company felt that also end beginning that it was a kind of personal issue with, or personal thingk. There was no doubt about that. 

Philip Hemme: I, I like this, that it’s possible, but it’s tremendous on choice and yeah, I mean, there’s no optimal and I, 

Ingmar Hoerr: I felt it.

So, so it’s, it’s, it’s often like that, that founders, they can adapt to a bigger company. But in my, in my case, it was clear. And again, I, I, I’d made this analytics where we’re sitting, what I want do with Kvi and where I wanna go with clevis, my strengths of this company. And I felt now it comes more kind of weakness part, you know, you have to do meetings, you have the plannings, you have to be controlling.

There was only a few positive parts, which was presentation of the company, talking with investors, talking with people about this vision and things like that. This I liked very much, and I think this also kind of strong part in my life, but the rest of it was really a kind of weak part. And then I was deciding, and it, I shouldn’t go in this kind of leaking things.

And then this was one of the reasons why I decided to go into the digital board. It wasn’t really a lot of energy or things like that. It, it was just that I felt I’m not really into my strong part anymore. 

Philip Hemme: It’s amazing to hear where I think we are not running out of time, but I think we need to wrap out.

Uhk was a microphone, the record Thisk according out of battery. But I mean, it’s a pleasure to talk to you and think it’s, it’s a great conclusion is well, let do it. I mean, it’s, its amazing what you amazed by what to already went through. It is so. Then which sing is so inspiring? Self-learning, self-reflection figures.

The level of inspiration went from this conversation. Thanks. Thanks to nothing for, for joining. 

Ingmar Hoerr: No, thank you. It was good energy. It helped me a lot closer talk about topics I wouldn’t have taught. When you’re ready, going to the deep of people strikes. Thanks a lot. Yeah, 

[02:29:11] Thanks for listening

Philip Hemme: me again, 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 what’s behind the show, I will say big creators and, and thanks to the team Kiran web development cast in marketing, Marianne Logistics, Wayne in editing, they did an amazing job and there was a lot of hard work put into, into, into the show.

So now what’s behind? So Flood Bio as a company was founded in March, 2022. I’m one of the founder, and previously I founded Lab Biotech eu. 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 that’s already a lot of them around. But we believe Europe needs a high quality long form podcast 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 that podcast.

We are selecting the best Europeans in biotech we can find and we are interviewing mostly actually offline, so we can have really the highest quality, both technical aspect, but most importantly on the dance and the content and the flow of the, of, in the content. We release one episode around 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. That’s a sponsored messages slots that you see in each episode. And we are sponsored by financial support from individuals and corporate. 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 hi@flat.bio.

Again, thanks for listening and see you in the next episode. Bye.

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

• Fireside chat with Werner talking about AI in Biotech in 2019 at BIO-Europe Spring in Vienna

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.

For our first episode, we catch up with Antoine Papiernik, the chairman of Sofinnova Partners, one of the top EU biotech VC funds. We chat about building billion-euro biotechs in Europe, being listed on the Midas list (without letting it go to your head), the importance of being good at selling, being lucky, and how to balance all this with family priorities.

I’ve been lucky to know and be inspired by Antoine for almost 10 years. Over his successful career, he has invested in over 500 companies, focusing on platform companies and entrepreneurs. He currently has over €2.5 billion under management in several funds, both early and late, in drug development, industrial biotech, and medtech. Antoine is a remarkable speaker and a good fun person.

Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Antoine Papiernik: One of the things I always ask myself, and I, I really tell everyone that they should rethink this way is what if they’re right, not trying to find. All the reasons why they’re wrong.

[00:00:27] Welcome

Philip Hemme: Hey, welcome on the first episode of the Flot.bio podcast where I interview remarkable Europeans in biotech to help you be inspired, grow, and just be better at what you do. I’m Philip, I’m your host and I will tell you more about the show at the end of the episode. 

So today, I’m at the Sofinnova headquarters in Paris to meet with Antoine Papiernik, the big boss. So I’ve known of Antoine and Sofinnova for almost 10 years and they’re really one of the best VC funds in Europe. The fund has been around for over 50 years, has invested in over 500 companies and has, 2.5 billion euros in the management. Antoine is a remarkable speaker and also really good and fun person.

So let’s head upstairs.

So, welcome to the show. 

Antoine Papiernik: Wow. Thank you for inviting me. 

Philip Hemme: I was dreaming of having you for the first speaker. It worked. So, 

Antoine Papiernik: Wow. You know, thanks so much. So I’m it’s not so often that I make someones dream happen. So thank you for making that possible for me. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, you’re welcome. So, yeah, I want to discuss, I mean, I wanna discuss so many things with you and, but I will try to focus.

So we want to try to focus on what’s most valuable for our listeners and I’ll try to, to get into three parts. Yeah. First part, kind of on, on your career, second part on your mental systems, third part, more on the industry. Looking at the industry. Let’s see how, how far we go and what’s the most interesting.

[00:02:17] Background and serendipity

Philip Hemme: But first on your, I mean, on your career, you, I mean, you did an undergrad business undergrad, and then MBA in the US, Warton, and then you jumped very quickly into investment and then now you’ve been over 25 years at Sofinnova. But can you start maybe with the, from the, from the, start at the beginning when you, from your studies, like how was it and how did you make it into life sciences?

Antoine Papiernik: Serendipity is probably the single most important thing. And luck for sure. Yeah. And I, I say this to everyone that that I meet when I hire people. I said, I would never recruit myself that’s so familiar today. And then the question I ask is really annoying. I said, are you lucky? Because luck just plays a huge role in, in life and, and you know, the Americans say, you know, you make your luck, but still, you know, it’s just you need to recognize when something is happening.

I think that’s probably one of the traits that I try to cultivate. Is trying and see the patterns when things actually are different than, than what others are seeing in that, that pattern may be something that we wanna pursue as a life point. I think that’s, that’s one of the things that I’ve pursued.

So yes, business, undergrad, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I went into consumer goods. I worked for Unilever. Yeah, it was a very important step for me . First because I met my wife in England. And you know, that led to three amazing kids. And if you think about what’s important to me that is the basis of, of everything, I think that’s pretty obvious.

But I might as well might as well say it. And that’s the reason of existence in general. 

Philip Hemme: You still care about some time on your new business schedule. 

Antoine Papiernik: I mean, as much as you, as you could. Yes. And my daughter was here. She works, she’s an amazing embroider, fashion embroider, not really fashion, but she’s an artist. But she works for money, for a fashion house. And she’s in the fashion show here in Paris. You know, I don’t see my three kids are in London. I don’t see them every day. But it’s not about how much time you spend is the time that you spend. You need to make sure that counts. 

Sorry, to start about the family. But that’s the core I think of the values that I’ve tried to live by. 

So business undergrad, starting marketing, consumer goods marketing, which also I think is something that had to sell something is pretty important in life. Then I went to work for an MBA. I had no idea what I was gonna do. And this was 90 to 92. This is when the Berlin Wall fell and I thought, wow, Eastern Europe, that’s the new promised land and it happens that my family is originally from Eastern Europe and I thought, okay, this is where I want to be.

[00:05:25] Getting into investment

Antoine Papiernik: And I ended up in Prague of all places. Working for the French government and a very large institution called Caisse des Dépôts, a very large financial institution, CDC . And that’s how I started as an investor within CDC. That was, 92, 93, 94. And what was, 

Philip Hemme: First it’s great because you’re answering a few of my questions which is great, but what was the like, so decision making for going into investments and then I guess for joining Sofinnova, was there rational or was it just like, sounds interesting. 

Antoine Papiernik: You’re in, I mean, you’re in business. I worked for, out of my MBA for the French government, which was absolutely not planned.

I mean did I wanna work for the French government? Absolutely not. Someone offered me, and I said, OK, Sounds interesting. And, I did this for a little while, but very soon went to work for CDC, which is an investment house. So what do you do in an investment house? You invest. So that’s how it came about. It was, that’s why I said serendipity. I, you know, I didn’t plan it at all. It was more about that’s a very interesting thing to do at the time, what was going on Eastern Europe. 

Philip Hemme: You enjoyed it. 

Antoine Papiernik: I enjoyed it. 

Philip Hemme: And so you continued. 

Antoine Papiernik: You know, Prague in 95 was just an incredible place to be. So, and then, but then my first daughter was born. Talking about, you know, children are pretty central in your life.

And I thought, well, maybe I should go back to you know, to France or where I come from to have a normal job. And at the time, CDC set up in 95, a fund called CDC Innovation investing in venture. And I was given the choice, so do you want to do tech or life science? And. I said life science, of course.

[00:07:23] I wouldn’t hire me

Antoine Papiernik: And I said that because my two parents were physicians. My mom was a physician by an immunologist sort of a researcher. And my dad was a physician obstetrician. So for me, you know, the idea that you had to take care of patients, the fact that you had to innovate in science was, you know, 

Philip Hemme: You, you were exposed to it.

Antoine Papiernik: I was exposed to it. You know, but without any of the training, of course. And training is pretty important. Hence my comment about never recruiting myself at Sofinnova. But anyway, this is how… 

Philip Hemme: I was always convinced that you had an MD for some reason. 

Antoine Papiernik: Some people call me doctor, professor. But no, I mean doctor by German standard maybe. But no, I have no scientific I’ve got a Bachelor of Science, but in international management. So it’s absolutely nothing to do with true biology. 

Philip Hemme: It’s actually pretty surprising. I mean, especially in life sciences, especially in the VC fund today.

Antoine Papiernik: Impossible, except if you have which we do, we have some people who do very late stage. You know, pre-IPO public, then you have to have the knowledge about the public market. You need to have been an analyst. You need to have been a banker that’s doable. But in the early stage of the, of the business today, it’s much more difficult.

I was making the count. We have 15 PhDs, I believe. 10 postdocs. We have seven physicians, 30 masters of science, at Sofinnova, it’s just that’s an amazing mix. Some people have multiple diplomas, of course, out of those, but that’s the people we recruit today. PhD, postdoc.

Philip Hemme: So you recruit yourself. 

Antoine Papiernik: No, never.

Philip Hemme: I don’t think you would have missed on the next. Today you couldn’t miss on. 

[00:09:23] Are you lucky and curious?

Antoine Papiernik: I mean, so hence my questions. Are you lucky? Because you need to be lucky and you need to look at patterns because you don’t have to be a scientist to be, to have curiosity.

And curiosity is the single most important thing. And the ability to also, well wonder whether the fact that you’re being pitched a deck could happen. Meaning, one of the things I always ask myself, and I really tell everyone that they should rethink this way, is what if they’re right, not trying to find all the reasons why they’re wrong. So if you don’t start from this premise, you know, if because you’re a PhD, postdoc, physician, MBA, you know, with 20 years of operational experience, you come into a meeting with a young scientist and you think you’re gonna tell him or her the way it’s done, you are wrong.

So the real first premise is what if they’re right? And, and then if at the end of your diligence there’s nothing that proves you that they’re wrong, then you should do the deal. So, but that’s a really, it’s a mindset. It’s how you should do things. 

Philip Hemme: I like this mindset of like, I mean, coming into when you meet with someone or investment, coming in, excited and more willing to do versus coming in like, oh, just trying to say no, or trying to destroy the deal . Which I see a lot in VC, especially in Europe, I see that quite a lot of people are way more conservative and way more just trying to say no. So I don’t know if that’s, 

Antoine Papiernik: But it doesn’t mean it’s easier, you know, we see 2000 deals a year. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. I mean, your job is still to say no, but the mindset behind…

Antoine Papiernik: I’ll give you a few examples. Because for me, they’re the most it’s always better to talk about real cases, but one of the companies, it hasn’t been as proven of success yet, but I love this company in my reflection, medical, which is a big capital equipment, something that in general, in the VC says no, no, no, no, that shall not invest in capital equipment. In radiotherapy, which has also been plagued by a lot of difficulties in the past.

But I met this entrepreneur. I met him. I met him because it called Sam Amazing. And I met him because someone I trust asked me to meet with him. And I looked at the, I looked at the, I scanned through the one page, and I said, no bloody way, honestly. I mean, come on. So I will do it to, to please Jay, who’s an amazing guy.

So I meet with this entrepreneur. Stanford PhD and he tells me what, what they’re gonna do. And, which is this idea that instead of using traditional ways of doing radiotherapy, where, you know, a radiotherapy basically looks at a tumor on the PET scan, and then the limits on the CT where, where the tumor is and tells the machine how to to shoot at the tumor.

Here you will inject a PET tracer into a patient and the PET tracer, because that’s what PET tracers do, goes into the patient’s tumor and then emits some lights and the machine will find the light, will recognize the light, and shoot back in real time at this, at the signal coming from the tumor, basically tumor saying, I’m here. Shoot me down. Super simple idea . Everyone they saw for years told them this cannot be done. You know, it cannot be done. And 10 years later, because this is 10 years later, so to tell you how difficult our job is well, the company obtained FDA approval last month for their system called Scientifics, Syntex, sorry, or biologically guided radiotherapy. Which could potentially revolutionize the life of metastatic patients in particular, because you could shoot 10 metastasis at the same time. 

So, back to what I was saying, if then, I mean the normal thing to say to Sam, would have been no, you know, just not for us. I mean capital equipment, radiotherapy, all the way from Paris to the Bay Area. There’s no way we’re gonna do this. And then we said, what if he’s right . And we actually did the diligence and you know, today have an amazing machine that is installed, commercial in a number of key centers in the US soon, hopefully in Europe. 

[00:14:27] Joining Sofinnova

Philip Hemme: Okay. Wow. That’s, yeah, I like that story. Makes me, I want to bounce on that question on, like, I will jump after, but just to keep the travel, then you joined Sofinnova 25 years ago and then you climbed all the way to basically now being, being the chairman? So like, can you, like a short, like short description of how it went and what was kind of one or two key lessons there, like, I mean, 25 years…

Antoine Papiernik: Well the reality is I was at CDC and a firm that is not Sofinnova asked me for, us to hire me out. And at the time my, as I told you, my first daughter was born, my second daughter was on the way and, well, I yeah, I needed to, I needed to see how and I needed to feed my family.

That’s as simple as that. So this other firm was proposing, I’m not gonna tell you who that is, but I basically hired me or proposed to hire me at a much, much higher salary to be a, not to be an investor. I was an investor at I was a partner, if you want. There was no term for partners at the time, but I was, I was doing, doing deals at CDC and they were offering me to be in the investment team, but not as a partner.

And I said, yeah, I need the money. I’m gonna do that. And then I met with the at at Sofinnova, and he said, what? It’s a stupid idea. You should come to Sofinnova and you gotta be a partner. So I said, yea. 

Philip Hemme: So you switched after then? 

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah. It’s a much better idea. So that’s what I did . And so I joined as a partner.

Philip Hemme: And again, the same, like luck or being open to opportunity and… 

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah, to say, is that the right thing to do? Yes, of course it’s the right thing to do. It’s not just about, it’s about giving, being given an opportunity. And I was given an opportunity at the time to be a partner at this firm . Tony was the only guy doing life science at the time, and we basically partnered from that day, from that day on 25 years ago.

And so I’ve been a partner in the capital fund. You know, we were investing at the time we had Capital One, which was 38 million Euro. Capital two, which was 47 million Euro. 

Philip Hemme: That’s good. So now, compared to the amounts to date… 

Antoine Papiernik: Basically two and a half billion in the management. And you know, more to come.

So, yeah. I mean, but look, we grew as a firm. And therefore we, you know, we made mistakes, but we made more good things than we made mistakes. It’s a balance. If you manage to learn from the mistakes you’ve made, then you are better. You are better at judging what makes a good deal, what makes a good entrepreneur, and try and enrich your ability to do that, that you’re good at.

[00:17:38] Becoming Managing Partner

Antoine Papiernik: And that’s what the firm as a whole did . Certainly not. And then you know, I’m one of the Managing Partners and, you know, I was proposed to be when… 

Philip Hemme: When you stepped down, proposed. 

Antoine Papiernik: When he stepped down he proposed that I would become the next chairman.

Philip Hemme: Which was when? Five years ago? 

Antoine Papiernik: I became chairman about seven years ago. 

Philip Hemme: Seven years ago. Yeah. 

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah. And he’s been retired since then. Yes. 

Philip Hemme: I remember that’s how I met I met when, actually when we filmed the interview. That was eight years ago. I think. That is Dan. And the funny thing is that I think we were, with my co-founder, we were the only ones entering his office in shorts. Ever. Because we were doing the tour de France on the bike, and so he still remembers us as the guys in shorts . But it was, it was funny. Okay, cool. And so… 

Antoine Papiernik: We recruited one of the partners… 

Philip Hemme: In short. 

Antoine Papiernik: Well yeah, Tom Burt who’s a partner in the, I’m not sure that people know that. I’m not sure he’s gonna be happy for me saying this on camera, but he was coming to interview and he was on holiday in Spain, and, with his father, and his luggage got stolen. So he arrived in shorts and flip flops from the beach in Spain.

And he said, I really apologise. I don’t know if he had a shirt and a tie with his shorts and flip flops, but he still got it acquired. I mean, still got the job hired and he’s done, you know, done very well. 

[00:19:10] Midas List

Philip Hemme: That’s really, that’s a good story. And then just on the, I remember for you, you got talking about the Midas List.

You got listed twice and I see that, oh, you are one of the only ones listed. And actually what’s funny that I came across, you I think it was an article in the LIGO because of this listing, but I think over 10 years ago. So it’s actually, it has some exposure. I was just wondering, does it really matter? And how much does it matter to you? 

Antoine Papiernik: I mean, look, it’s always nice people recognize what you’ve done. So I think I got yeah, I got chosen 2011, I think something, or 12, so over 10 years ago. Yeah, I mean at the time they were looking, you know, there was very few of us in life sciences that had a track record that that would fit with the Midas List constraints and, you know, got lucky.

So the timing, so bad timing, you know, so maybe the bar is so much higher now, I don’t know. But I’m happy to have been elected, twice on that list. And yeah, I mean, it’s always nice when others, think that you’re doing something good. 

Philip Hemme: It doesn’t, like, impact how you see yourself, let’s say humility, ego, like, I mean, I can feel that from quite a lot, especially in tech VCs.

It’s crazy how like they give so much importance in the Midas List and being like… 

[00:20:41] You’re only as good as your last deal

Antoine Papiernik: I mean in our business, and it’s true for, for tech as well. You’re only as good as your last deal. This is what people say. In fact, there’s a scientist that did a study, his PhD on the return of VCs according to time.

And you’d be surprised because of course, as you gain experience, I, this is something I’ve actually shared with the whole firm because I was past the peak by a long shot when basically this guy demonstrated that you increase your return as you start in the VC world for 14 years. That’s what this study shows.

And after 14 years, 

Philip Hemme: you decline.

Antoine Papiernik: You decline . And I think the way they were explaining this is initially you don’t know, you work harder than anybody else, and you gain experience and then your return increases to a point where you think you are on top. And then you start being, you know, not diligent enough and you trust your gut a bit too much, and you take bigger bets, and then you fall.

[00:21:45] Equal opportunity

Antoine Papiernik: So I’ve always reflected on this because, as I say, in our business, you’re only as good as your last deal. By the way, this has shaped also, not just this, but the way that we think at Sofinnova where the partners are equal partners in the firm, in the funds in which they work. So for instance, I may have 25 years experience, tomorrow if we either hire or promote a partner into the fund, that partner becomes an equal partner in the fund.

Philip Hemme: So equal partners means the shares of each… 

Antoine Papiernik: Same carried interest in the fund. So it’s not because you’ve been here 25 years that you are owed more of the carry of a new fund and the concept is you start from scratch. You’ve got a new fund, you’ve got 4, 5, 6 partners. It’s equal opportunity.

Everyone should work towards the same goal. You are all holding each other by the chinny-chin-chin. You are all in the same boat here. It’s not because you have five years experience or 25 years experience that you’re, that you should be expected to do more or less. So that’s a principle in our shop. Not everyone does this, but it, by the way, I benefited from it when I was a rookie with milk coming out of my nose 25 years ago. Yeah, okay. I got lucky. But you know, this, I still had to build the experience, but I was given the framework where I could actually excel for the organization.

Philip Hemme: That’s interesting. 

Antoine Papiernik: And I think that’s what we look for people. I know that I’m actually, when I look at the people we hire I’m thinking they know so much more than me on the understanding of the life science. I can, you know, bring some something to them by the shared experience, all the things, all the good things, the bad things that I’ve experienced over the last you know, 25 plus years since I’ve been in, since 95 in this business.

But as I said, making sure that everyone is on the same footing is I think one of the conditions of success at Sofinnova is that we are trusting that even the young partners in the team will, you know, they don’t know, they will work a lot more. 

Philip Hemme: How different Is it, versus other funds, let’s say?

Antoine Papiernik: Look, I don’t have the other firms where, you know, if you’re a junior partner, then you don’t get the same share of the carry. And that works as well, what I’m saying in our shop, the system is different. 

Philip Hemme: But so, and so the compensation basically is the same for Junior Partner as for Managing Partner. 

Antoine Papiernik: I mean, in other business… 

Philip Hemme: The carry. But I guess the salary is different.

Antoine Papiernik: Salaries is different because then, yeah, I mean you grow into a firm and then you assert your position in the firm, but the carry is the most important thing for people because this is where you’re gonna, it’s gonna take some time, but this is where you know, that’s where the real money is.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. To pay it. So basically you are, what you’re trying to do is from a compensation to get it, to get the levels more close together from, the differences closer together versus in other funds where, maybe the Managing Partner will earn five, whatever, five times more than the Junior. 

Antoine Papiernik: Yes. 

Philip Hemme: Okay, cool. That’s interesting.

I mean, I guess it’s the parallel with some, even some biotech or pharma companies where they try to reduce the lowest pay to highest pay, to try to reduce it a bit to have more cohesion and more connection. 

Antoine Papiernik: But it’s also about having, I mean, making sure that everyone’s motivated about the same thing.

It’s about aligning interest. You know, if everyone is, you know, the good thing about the equal carry in our shop is my deal is, the other partners deal if he or she excels , I, you know, I’m an equal benefit holder of that and vice versa, which means my network is his network or her network. And so we share, I think by design you share more because you benefit more.

Philip Hemme: It’s much more equal and fair and I guess you don’t, you skip all the discussion of like, oh, I have five years more experience so I should get a bit more carry than you, and 

Antoine Papiernik: Yes. 

Philip Hemme: And it’s impossible to really quantify. 

Antoine Papiernik: The flip side. Yeah. The flip side, by the way, if, not the flip side, but one of the things that is also very important here is you know, because, I mean making a great deal is so important in our business for, for one’s ego, for one’s reputation. You know, the track record that you build, how you make those decisions in general. I mean, here we have a investment committee that takes decisions. Everyone in the investment committee has a vote, everyone has a veto. Which you can exercise if you want .

The reason I’m saying this is… 

Philip Hemme: It’s the same for everyone. 

Antoine Papiernik: It’s the same for everybody, junior, senior, which also means if there’s a fantastic deal, one that reimbursed the fund, it’s everyone’s deal. And of course, there’s always someone that, that carries the, you know, the carriage. But I think it’s more important if there’s a lousy deal, because that happens too. No finger pointing.

It’s not, because you’ve taken the decision. You had your chance of a veto and you did not take it. 

Philip Hemme: It’s also your responsibility. 

Antoine Papiernik: It’s your responsibility. So no finger pointing on a crap deal. Which is I think, fundamental because everyone will be exposed to something that goes really, really long.

Philip Hemme: So it’s part of the… 

Antoine Papiernik: it’s part of it. 

Philip Hemme: of the Job. I like to come back to what you said. You ‘re only as good as your last deal and crossed with spotting opportunities, spot was, you learn a lot of things, but if you, and of course if you think with overconfidence, all that, how did you, like, you yourself, how did you, how do you deal with all of these components?

[00:28:03] How to get funded

Philip Hemme: And I can see like a DJ like a board with like, you’re trying to ponder with everything and giving importance to the red signal. Like how do you yourself kind of from a mental system, align all of that, all of these parts. 

That’s the magic. I mean, 

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah, and sometimes I’m thinking because another scientist actually has an edge because, I mean, you need to go through me, I need to understand what this is about. Sometimes it’s actually quite complex, so you need to be able to dumb it down to my level in a way. But it’s not so silly because, you know, you think this company might actually come to the public markets. Yes, you have analysts that are incredibly shrewd, but you need to be able to explain something complicated in a simple way. And I think for me, that’s a filter. And it’s a filter for the entrepreneurs because you know, you may be the most amazing scientist, if you’re unable to translate what you are doing into simple words, you won’t be able to explain it, to our, you know, I own investors, you know, we bring our entrepreneurs to our LPs, who are total generalists. And you see it. You can see it, you know it in fact, ahead of time when a CEO just does not do a good job of explaining that, what he’s doing.

It could be the new epigenetic editing platform, whatever, you know, you need to be able to explain it to people who have actually no background in science. If you don’t do that, it’s unlikely you will be successful. 

Philip Hemme: It’s, yeah, I’m always amazed that, so like I mean, I think I met a few, like biotech entrepreneurs and CEOs, you have quite some differences. But usually the one that stands out and sometimes it’s kind of correlated with success or like with at least success of companies, there is a skill to like, to sell, but also to sell to people who are not specialists.

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: I think you, I mean, you need it to convince maybe generous investors. You need to convince the press, to convince, to hire people, non-technical people to, 

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah. So I think that’s, so to me, that’s a sign. And sometimes people, some people don’t have the skill, but you can compliment with people that have, you know, not everyone can be everything.

Philip Hemme: Probably good enough. First, you don’t need to be excellent, but being like good enough. Yeah. 

Antoine Papiernik: I mean the CEO needs to be able to sell the science. If the CEO cannot sell the science and needs a his or her, you know, CSO, CMO to do that, then they have a problem. But the CMO CSO needs to be able to just sell the business. At the end of the day, this is a company. That ultimately, if you go far enough, we’ll do turnover, that’s not a slight swear word in our, in our business, and will, you know, could become a major company with you know, with you know, thousands of employees and billions in sales.

So if you put yourself in that framework then you need to hire the people that will make that happen. 

[00:31:12] Europe vs USA

Philip Hemme: That’s interesting. And it’s a perfect transition to more looking at the industry and even like taking a bit of review. But like, that’s one thing that shocked me when I studied in the US in Boston, the difference to be able to sell, like, I was meeting people in Boston, like, I felt like everyone was, I mean, really good at selling, even the PhD is super nerdy. You can still like fit really well and I mean there’s some downsides to it, but there’s some upsides. And then the vice versa in Europe. Some of it’s really hard to like even understand, even us as media sometimes it’s like really hard to even like, get excited by something.

It’s hard. Like do you see that like, I mean, you invest on both sides of the, I mean you invest on both continents. Like what’s your perception there? 

Antoine Papiernik: You’re totally right. So And that’s… 

Philip Hemme: Do you try to bring some of this like American setting to your, 

Antoine Papiernik: Of course. 

Philip Hemme: European portfolio companies? 

Antoine Papiernik: For sure. Including in bringing, we use consultants in the US in Boston to help, you know, sort of deliver. It’s almost like a baby. You need to deliver a presentation that epitomize what you wanna say. That may not be. So we do that, I think translation, being able to express yourself and what is it, what is so unique about what you’re doing?

Essential. A lot of people don’t know how to do that. So but that’s, look, that’s not rocket science. That’s easy. You just need to do it. I mean, there are people that are professionals that do that just to bring them to a company, whether it’s in you know, or in in sago. You who cares.

You know, you have to use the same tools they are, you know, it’s the same price for everyone. And, but I think the benefit to a European company is bigger because they come from a low point in general. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And you differentiate from other European companies who are not able to sell it.

I like on the industry, I like one thing you said, I think when we met was in the blog post that you want to invest in companies or you think someone in indigenous or wherever, should be set up as a company in Boston. Could you expand a bit on that and what’s behind, what’s the rational behind?

Antoine Papiernik: Well, the rational is that Europe has, equal science to the US, if not better. That’s just every data point leads to that. So if you start from there, everyone, it’s equal opportunity for a European company, wherever it is in Scandinavia, in Southern Europe, in Spain, in Italy, in Germany, in France, in the UK, to position itself as the best of breeding its field. It’s not, you cannot compare yourself with other companies in Europe. You have to compare yourself with… 

Philip Hemme: Globally. 

Antoine Papiernik: with the global companies. It ‘s simple, but it’s, and you know, in the field from CRISPR to editing to antibody platforms to the next antibody drug, can’t conjugate, to anything. Any technology, in general was born on both sides of the Atlantic. The IP is on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Philip Hemme: mRNA, mRNA. 

Antoine Papiernik: MRNA. So it’s the same. So if you start from this principle, the question is, if you, and then you put yourself in the position of Fidelity and Tero and Janus, what do you need to see? What’s the, back to the pedigree or, the elements that you need to see…

Philip Hemme: The cocktail. 

Antoine Papiernik: When the company comes and presents to you?

It’s completely out of the box because it’s, I mean you know, see barely speaks English or just, you know, these slides are really all over the place and it’s not clear. So, but that is on us. This is on our companies to put themselves in a position to, make the location of that company irrelevant.

That is the only, doesn’t mean it’s not good to be, you cannot just copy Boston, pretend that you’re Boston. But the location of the company should be irrelevant. I say this even though I think in fact, being in Europe is in this environment is a plus. You know, if you think about the cost of the PhD in a biotech company in Boston, 

Philip Hemme: That’s crazy.

Antoine Papiernik: It’s a plus. You know, it’s like the efficiency of a discovery team in Paris or Milan is much higher than in Boston, which is cost. I mean it’s a, so… 

Philip Hemme: Efficiency per capita. 

[00:35:54] How Europe can do better

Antoine Papiernik: Efficiency per capita. So as long as you have the people with the same skillset. So how do you do that? So it’s, you need to do that. You cannot, it’s gradual. You cannot pretend, you know, you’re a Boston based company just by saying, having a registered office in Boston you know, you need to bring the skillset. 

Philip Hemme: It’s a Mindset. 

Antoine Papiernik: It’s a mindset. You need to bring those skillset. And if you need your CSO in Boston, because you can’t find that person, just hire that person.

Doesn’t mean you need to flip the company to the US. But hire that person who will bring you and bring this organization to a position where you could actually be in Boston. And that’s the work that we need to do. And that’s the workflow on the management side. That’s the work on the board of these companies. You know, bringing those Boston based, Bay Area based, bold members that have seen so much, into our companies. 

Philip Hemme: And I guess it’s part of your decision making even upfront by investing, like, is this management team or this company, will it be able to be location independent? Will it be able to be global level?

Antoine Papiernik: Yes.

Philip Hemme: That makes sense. 

Antoine Papiernik: That also means you need to be able to hire if you’re a manager, people that are better than you. That’s a skillset that, it’s true for every continent. 

Philip Hemme: That’s good. I’m seeing the time and I think we’ve just one minute left. Lot of things I wanna discuss, but just like, do you want to share one final thought on whatever the three parts we discussed, one thing that kind of resonates with you, you wanna share with the audience?

Antoine Papiernik: Well, look, I’m a European. No. I’m a believer that we have an amazing chance in Europe to build an industry that has the same quality companies that we have in the US. So I actually, that’s what I believe in. I mean, I’m a, I mean, I’m general optimist but at the same time I’m also a realist.

Philip Hemme: A rational optimist.

Antoine Papiernik: Well, I say I’m a paranoid optimist. I’m Quite paranoid. 

It’s a paranoid survivor. 

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah. And in this environment, you know, this is not a simple moment in time and for having personally seen 2001 and 2008, the, here the opportunity is so much bigger. The risk is so much bigger. Because we’re in a, so better, you know, so much better position than we were 15 years ago. So therefore it is on us to make sure we don’t mess up. And that means that the degree of, you know, the thought process and the fact that we all need to up our game. The entrepreneurs, the investors, you know, everyone needs to up our game if we want to make sure we actually translate all the things that we have created so far into amazing companies for the future.

So the you know, the ability to fund our companies. Is not trivial in this environment. So we need to be very focused on that. The ability to fund ourselves. I mean, we’ve raised a lot of money over the last five years, but the ability to convince the limited partners, the investors in our funds, that’s gonna be, that’s gonna be a very important subject for the whole community.

[00:39:27] Crossing the chasm to the future

Antoine Papiernik: And that’s not gonna be, so you have to be optimistic about the future because I think, you know, the technologies, the companies, the entrepreneurs with experience are here. But you need to absolutely be, very conscious of all the challenges that we have, and work double time, I would say, to sort those out in order to cross the chasm over the next two, three years.

The financing chasm, both at the company portfolio, company level, and at the, the fund level. We have a hundred companies in the portfolio today. A hundred. 

Philip Hemme: That’s a lot. 

Antoine Papiernik: It’s a lot. Or I’m not sure if it’s a lot. It’s a number. It’s a lot. But imagine the number of, and we have, you know, fortunately, you know, a lot of value here.

72 people at Sofinnova today. 72 people. It’s, it’s a lot. So you know, some of them of course are not all that are in the investment team. We have an amazing corporate services team that helps us do the work that we do. But you know, a hundred companies that need to get to cross that chasm, the third term I used… 

Philip Hemme: There’s work to do. 

Antoine Papiernik: There’s a lot of work. 

Philip Hemme: I mean, that’s the, I mean, the message kind of, if you wrap up, like be, I mean you sound very optimistic about Europe, about the industry, about everything, but still be very kind of paranoid or pragmatic.

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah. I mean, there’s dangers that loom in front of us. And don’t be, 

Philip Hemme: Don’t be overconfident. 

Antoine Papiernik: Yeah. Don’t be overconfident because it’s gonna be, you know, not everyone will win. That’s for sure. So it’s… 

[00:41:04] Follow Antoine

Philip Hemme: Very good. Maybe a last one, just like where people can learn more about you or follow you.

You have a Twitter account now? 

Antoine Papiernik: I’m sure that’s, hmm? 

Philip Hemme: You have a Twitter account now? 

Antoine Papiernik: I do. I do own a Twitter account. It’s not hugely active. I do comment on… 

Philip Hemme: on LinkedIn. 

Antoine Papiernik: On LinkedIn quite a bit, but and I’m learning every day. 

Philip Hemme: Great, thanks a lot Antoine.

Antoine Papiernik: Well thank you very much, thanks for inviting me.

[00:41:35] Wrapping up

Philip Hemme: Hey, me again. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and thanks a lot for listening till 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 what’s behind the show, I wanna say big kudos and thanks to the team. Ciaran for web development, Katherine in marketing, Maria in logistics, Wayne in editing. They did an amazing job and there’s a lot of hard work put into the show. 

So now, what’s behind? So Flot.bio, the company was founded in March, 2022.

I’m one of the founders, and previously I founded Labiotech.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 that podcast. 

We don’t want to create, you know, yet another podcast. There’s already a lot of them around. But we believe Europe needs a high quality, long form podcast to help both professionals and biotech enthusiasts, be better informed, grow and just be better at what they’re doing. And so that’s why we are creating that podcast. We are selecting the best Europeans in biotech we can find. And we are intervening mostly actually offline, so we can have really the highest quality, both technical aspect, but most importantly, on the dense and the content and the flow of the, of the doing the content. 

We release one episode, around 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 advertisements. So it’s the sponsored messages, lots that you 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 hi@flot.bio.

Again, thanks for listening and see you in the next episode. Bye.