so here it is the final episode of the
0:06
year in review recording 20 22. the year has come to an end on
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December 31 in the western world and also China had its New Year's Event
0:23
last weekend and so also is our year in review recording coming to its
0:29
traditional land but not without one final epic episode in the previous
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episodes we have explored the cutting-edge Innovations and Technologies shaping the future of the
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Biotech Industry with some of the most Brilliant Minds in the field from
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quartella of AET Health to Albert misbecker from fionnostics Carolina from
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the new Meat Company Mauricio agudelo and Lena Toro from beer Tech Kimberly
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cornfield from the UCL call enabled from
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worked only from TSD antiviral we have had some truly enlightening
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conversations but we saved the best for last I am thrilled to bring you again Dr
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Thomas Schubert CEO at two band a provider of biophysically Outsourcing
1:30
solutions for the drug Discovery and biologics Fields to bind has a track record of over 1 400
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successfully completed tasks in research projects with over 350 customers in the
1:47
last 11 years learn how they are revolutionizing the way we study
1:52
molecular interactions protein stability and much much more so don't miss out
1:58
this episode it's the last one of the young review recording and you wouldn't
Unveiling the mastermind behind 2bind, Dr. Thomas Schubert
2:03
want to miss it join me as we dive into the world of biophysics with two band
2:12
Thomas good to see you hello hi folks they're coming now from antiviral
2:19
infections to the world of biophysics maybe you say some some words to
2:25
introduce you to Guido yeah so first of all Guido I also have kids and I can just completely share the point about
2:31
the respiratory diseases in the moment it's crazy kindergarten so also from my
2:36
side please speak there's a need I will I will it's really
2:41
annoying so everything is in the kindergarten it's crazy yeah um my name is Thomas I'm a managing
2:49
director at two mind we are a company in close to Munich in Regensburg and we're
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biophysics folks um so we are offering Outsourcing solutions for drug Discovery
3:01
and Drug development and basically Supply people with um yeah an analysis
3:07
formats and Essay formats um so uh that's that's who I am and uh I I was
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really amused and it was very nice to listen to you Guido about your approach
3:19
and uh yeah crossing fingers for for every new thing that you are going to develop really cool thank you Thomas
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it's very nice to hear I'm very curious to learn what you guys are doing sure
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perfect um yeah uh I think uh first of all
3:38
Christian thanks for the opportunity welcome uh it's really a pleasure I mean
3:43
uh our last discussion is I think like four or three weeks ago I guess so it's
3:48
nice to be back and and have this um yeah it's it's Pleasant to be here again really cool it's it's good it's
3:56
good to see you again I have a question to you too we were talking about entrepreneurship today and I have two
4:02
entrepreneurs now in the car um the same question to both of you so when
Insider tips for starting your own biotech company
4:09
a person is scientist approaches you and asks you for advice from your experience
4:17
um what's the single most important advice you would give to a scientist who would like to found a company
4:26
no I have to go first you have to go first okay I also have to think about it but
4:33
um I think um foreign good ideas there are several good ideas
4:39
out there um but sometimes um the business model is not clear
4:44
um I think scientists don't consider that um bringing an idea to Market really needs
4:51
more than an idea and there are Financial aspects behind and you have to have a proper team you have to have the
4:57
environment to do so and sometimes a good scientific idea is uh honestly not
5:03
good enough so surround yourself with um well known people from from the field
5:10
and discuss with them I think that is a very important advice that I could give
5:16
even though I'm you know our business uh is uh is maybe more easy because it's a
5:22
service fee for service business model that we have but for example um with a classical drug Discovery approach I
5:28
would definitely first of all talk to a lot of people um before I do anything an idea is not not enough
5:36
I mean I definitely couldn't agree more Thomas I think you know while you were starting out I thought is that about
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pretty much the same that and I think um Christian we talked about it last week as well that you know sometimes when you
5:49
start out with a company or a spin-off or you you want to start something of your own you think that the idea is kind
5:55
of the big part of what you're going to be doing right but the very very big
6:01
part is actually like the larger part the larger fraction um is actually ahead of you of you still
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right and it's um something that is heavily underestimated um but
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I I I think I also want to want to finish with what we talked about beforehand be aware of your optimism
6:21
bias talk to people in the field and talk to people in the field try to get
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some you know objective resonance from what you're planning to be doing
6:31
um and uh and yeah I think talking talking talking makes a lot of sense you need to be very I think the singer
6:38
singer most important characteristic of an entrepreneur is to be proactive
6:45
um and this is what you need to be doing right proactively talk to people go out
6:50
there shape your idea and be aware that it's going to be a very
6:55
too long long and but probably hopefully a very um also a fruitful path
7:04
it's not entrepreneurship it's not the way to quit money playing the lottery is much faster
7:11
last week I had Chivan from play fair capital and she also emphasized product
7:17
Market fit so I couldn't agreement so what you say thank you very much for your time I wish
7:23
you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and let's catch up in the new year and maybe we do a podcast episodes
7:29
together about your company it was great talking you might all the best merry
7:34
merry Christmas and happy New Year to both of you as well have a great time
A glimpse into the future: 2022 for 2bind's CEO
7:39
Thomas it's good to see you again absolutely because yeah how was your
7:45
2022 uh how was my 2022 I'm good I think overall
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um so I'm really happy uh it was a challenging year um for us as company
7:56
um as to bind um indeed it was challenging uh there were challenges
8:01
starting with a Ward and covet lockdown and um you know inflation recession combined
8:08
all those things but um still I'm very proud about the team here at turbine um
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even under these challenging conditions we made a brilliant job very happy um yeah good good year
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what's excited you the most in 2022 what excited me the most um first of all
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I mean honestly on a trivial level uh it was very exciting to go out again and
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meet people that was also a little bit the the thing that we had in our podcast if you had some weeks ago it was really
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I'm still excited about this it's really a pleasure to meet people again
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uh all good also like now having this podcast together in the Stream format
8:54
it's great but um you know having really some some person in front of you and
9:00
really having a good chat uh this is something I really missed and I was very excited to have that back and of course
9:07
um yeah this excited me personally best exciting as I mentioned I was really excited about how things went here um at
9:15
the company and how we developed this was exciting for me too and um yeah I
9:21
think that's it yeah I couldn't agreement when I think uh last year and the year before it was mostly sitting at
9:28
home because everything everything was shut down and closed and now I can go to
9:34
a restaurant around the corner uh invite some people have a lunch have dinner or
9:40
just going to the gym meeting people or also conferences we met at the bio
9:46
Europe in Leipzig it's so awesome to have that back absolutely I miss this a
9:52
lot it's also on a personal level really I missed the connection to a lot of like
9:58
um friends in the business realm that I really missed and um of course you can write and you of course you can even you
10:04
can even have a digital beer together but the real beer is is the better way I don't know digital beer um it's uh yeah
10:12
yeah exactly that's yeah but you know having a real line over here that's much
10:17
better I mean I think um for me it's I think it's a good balance to have some
10:23
conversations uh digitally like recording video podcasts um it would be
10:29
very very challenging to fly all people in and uh to exchange information but uh
10:35
once in a while meeting in person I think it's it's necessary business doesn't flourish without that
Navigating the digital world: Pros and cons of technology in biotech
10:41
I can absolutely agree to that it's like it has to be a good mix yeah because what what I can't replicate with the
10:48
digital world the digital world is great when I know people are ready so reaching out to people I know and uh inviting
10:54
them to a podcast as possible um we met basically the accident uh
10:59
Sarah typically this was a pure chance that we didn't agree to meet in Leipzig
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yeah we just pumped into each other yeah that's true and this this doesn't happen I never found a way to replicate that in
11:11
the digital world did you find a way to do that no um I mean there were some
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approaches also to to have this kind of digital meetings in and at conferences
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but I had the impression that this is not really uh leading to the right direction it's it's because people sit
11:31
at home and the daily work is ongoing and so it's just another you know date in in the time slot where you have a
11:38
meeting and there's not not you know when we met at Leipzig it was like prompting it into each other as we as
11:44
you just described it was because both of us were there and we were interested in learning about new people and not
11:51
about specific topic but just like who are you what are you doing and this format is I think that this is difficult
11:58
to find a this informal just being friendly hey how how are you doing uh in
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in a digital world I'm not sure if this is possible I don't know but
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I haven't found a way the metaverse has I mean um the technology already existed 20
12:18
years ago so it's basically nothing different than what people used in multi-massive online role-playing games
12:24
it's uh fun it's entertaining but it's still not the same so still this
12:30
community also thrived on meeting in real life and when I go through the last
12:37
20 years when I was in business I think most of the business evolved really from real life meetings that we are not
12:43
really planned at conferences or even events or lunch events and the minority evolved from set up
12:50
meetings through conference systems yeah I I think for for from for us at
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least because we have a clear uh uh profile of what we can do and people can
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can read up on that and it's it's clear that people come to us for outsourcing Solutions and biophysics there's no
13:09
misinterpretation possible so some of those those those meetings and when you lock them in a meeting conference
13:17
um or account this can be very efficient but I fully agree um the best
13:24
um let's say long-term relationships came from a situation uh which is
13:30
different from that um on a meeting but evening event or yeah it just met and uh Had a Good
13:39
Chemistry Between each other and um then there's some interest in each other and you learn and you like each other and
13:45
then suddenly it happens that you work together so I fully agree here both aspects but both possible and important
13:53
the the thing is with innovation in my opinion so with companies most of the companies I work with are trying to
13:59
start something new and uh sometimes when people start something new
14:05
um it's not really clear what they need and which help the needs because it's inability it's a new idea so the plan
14:12
has to be made yet and uh very often people are the first time doing this
Overcoming obstacles: A look at 2bind's supply chain challenges
14:17
thing and most entrepreneurs in deep deck are first timers because it's a very novel idea it's a noble technology
14:24
so what I found very helpful is uh meeting random people at events uh to
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just be creative together and you can do that in five minutes or by coffee this
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is what I'm doing this is what I'm looking for and then the person says okay I know this guy or I I it's a
14:43
similar thing in that way maybe you talk to this guy and I never found this happened really in the digital world
14:49
yeah yeah I fully agree this is this is a spirit of just you know like having
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a close idea and um yeah bringing this to some point um this is difficult in in
15:01
a digital world in my eyes yeah when we talk about the big lessons besides
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digital worlds and uh real-life worlds what was your biggest lesson of 2022
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that you learned um I think there were two lessons uh one
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lesson is a lesson on a let's say a learning from a negative situation and
15:24
the other one is from a positive situation and the the negative situation is that um you you mentioned it just in a
15:32
second uh at the beginning of the discussion in a in a small sentence is Supply chains so we really learned the
15:39
lesson that Supply chains are difficult in a globalized world um and specifically in an instable
15:46
political situations um Supply chains are extremely important and um you know our customers they they
15:54
uh drug Discovery guys that work with molecules from all around the globe and
16:00
and they send it to us to to to Regan's work to our laboratory and we analyze
16:05
these things so the samples come from different areas and so we had a lot of
16:10
molecules coming from close to Kiev from a large supply of chemical matter in our mind they had to temporarily shut down
16:17
because of the war so it was really taken a lot of uh you know effort
16:23
to solve that in the same moment few months later there was the Shanghai lockdown and every protein that that was
16:29
produced in Shanghai was stuck there so it was really a lesson what I I mean
16:35
it's not my personal level because it's a decision of of the customer where to purchase these things but my lesson is
16:42
um that um short supply chains and and accurate Supply chains
16:48
um that you you should prefer that and not go only for other
16:54
um yeah factors to decide why you choose this or that supplier this was a lesson
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that was hard for us because of course we would depend on these things and obviously we need to organize ourselves
17:06
according to when samples arrive at our Laboratories then we can start out our
17:11
job and if the sample doesn't arrive then we cannot do our job so it was a lesson that I learned and um yeah
17:20
a good lesson was on the other hand side that um just like two weeks ago
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um we we had a internal um customer survey so we sent out a
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survey to our customers and um first of all um from 70 customers that we approached
17:38
uh more than 40 answered which is already a great success and then what they told us was extremely positive and
17:45
the lesson what I learned from that is that we are at most of the points that we are wanted to you know addressed in
17:53
the last years we're on the right track so there's a good lesson so I'm really happy about this so these two kind of
17:58
lessons I think I learned from from this year that's great that's great to hear
18:03
that your customers love what you do things you're always good to hear that you know and so for us it's only an
18:09
internal thing we share that with the laboratory and with the with the staff because uh this is for our internal
18:15
revenue or you know recapitulation of what we do and um so the feedback was
Game-changing developments in biophysics for 2022
18:21
extraordinarily good and so um I think there's we do something good I guess yeah this was cool when we think
18:29
it's of the world of biophysics what were breakthrough moments in biophysics
18:35
in 2022 um um I I think application of biophysics I
18:43
would say break breakthrough moments for applications and biophysics I think that's maybe the better wording
18:49
biophysics itself of course it also changes there are new technologies coming out and indeed um very
18:56
interesting ones but I think um the importance of biophysics um in uh 2022
19:03
was even more pronounced or more let's say valued
19:08
um the reason is because first of all a lot of different approaches now need a direct binding
19:14
determination drug Discovery antibody development and so on and so on and it turns out that this is extremely
19:20
important and um I think that is definitely a breakthrough and that the biophysics 10
19:27
years ago it was more a side life science part and now it's getting more into the center of drug Discovery
19:34
projects and getting more and more important um of course to be fair it's not just
19:39
2020 effort it's already started before so it is a constant increase of
19:44
biophysics need it's not just the 2020 year that made all that but I think it
19:50
turns out that this is more and more important and I call this a breakthrough let's let's go through yeah I also was
What's next for the industry? A preview of biophysics trends to come
19:56
amazed at the biophysics podcast has a very good reception so I saw it on uh on LinkedIn that many people liked it and
20:03
then listen to that um it seems to be more and more interesting the industry around this
20:09
topic which was uh which was very great to see um when we talk about the future Trends
20:15
now about biophysics uh where do you see this area heading to and first of all um
20:23
that the throughput will increase so throughput means that you can run more
20:28
samples in a shorter time and um by doing that you can of course achieve more and achieve more in terms of you
20:35
can screen large libraries or you can make more detailed analysis and this
20:41
means it will get more share on on the complete analysis Market let's call it and um here there is definitely a Trends
20:49
going to higher throughput and even throughput that could match up with some of the biochemical essays where
20:54
enzymatic activities are read out so this is something that definitely is something that is coming there's a trend
21:01
and the other trend is to also use biophysics in more um yeah difficult environments so far
21:08
biophysics has been done always in the in a context of in vitro uh artificial
21:13
buffer systems where a completely random buffer is chosen nothing to do with the
21:18
cell and um the trend goes towards more let's say close to Native analysis or
21:25
even analysis on on whole cells so there's for example the creoptic system
21:30
that comes out or is just came out five days ago officially launched
21:36
um uh which is now uh the Helix cycle it's called which can analyze kinetics
21:41
on a cell which is amazing so you can read out an antibody binding to a cell and this is just mind-blowing the
21:49
opportunities that now opens up so this is really cool too therefore there are these kind of Trends
21:56
in biophysics indeed what it is uh breakthroughs come from why didn't we see that what was the
22:04
change in technology that was necessary to generate this breakthrough um
22:11
because of a growing need over the years more money went into that area and then
22:17
I have to also say that in the last let's say 10 12 years quite a number of very Innovative new companies have been
22:25
brought up um like Nano tamper queer Optics uh DBS
22:30
and and others which are really uh like Innovative per se and they now benefit
22:36
from from having uh you know this this settled by physics Community but now
22:43
growing with new technologies and I think that's where the Innovation come from very good people together with a
22:50
growing need so you said uh as the first sentence first there's more money flowing into
22:55
this area um so money seems really to be the fuel necessary to to uh to bring technology
23:03
to fruition yeah every the need of course I mean if there's a certain need and you and and
23:09
if a good scientist um has a sense of Entrepreneurship as well yeah that's
23:15
also needed uh and and there's a potential situation where also money can be earned and then I I think that's also
Peeking into the crystal ball: 2bind's plans for 2023
23:22
part of the fuel yes not not purely money but um part of the fuel is also
23:27
money of course sure what are your plans for 2023 with your company
23:34
we have actually uh indeed a big plan so um we will move to a larger lab space or
23:41
at least we start to to restructure our laboratory we will get a new lab space with more than a thousand square meters
23:47
and this is of course quite a big part of what we do next year at least on my end because obviously this has to be
23:53
coordinated and uh yeah building up a lab is is not easy but it's a great
23:59
achievement and we're really looking forward to that and um then of course it's also getting more people in there
24:05
and there are also some ideas to bring in more um yeah Technologies in here um to be able to support our customers
24:12
even in a better way by having more than that that than the other 11 technologies
24:17
that we have in the moment so that's the plan for next year and and also the plan is to visit more
Mark your calendars: Upcoming conferences featuring 2bind in 2023
24:25
people and enjoy the conversation that's a that's a very good plan which conferences do you have from your
24:31
program and so the buyers I I will definitely go to the buy convention um it's in Boston I will do some medcam
24:38
approaches the Festival of biologic uh conference is the Festival of biologics
24:44
and Basel um we'll be there um I'm at the bio Korea I'm not sure about the bio Japan this
24:51
year next year I'm not not fixed on that um so until I think it's seven six or
24:57
seven conferences I I can do I have to admit I I also need to take a little bit
25:02
care about the family but uh yeah I think uh this is
25:10
definitely um something that I'm excited about next year anything body parts do you
25:16
mentioned bio career what's so special at the Korean ecosystem that's right yeah for your company absolutely good
25:22
question because um the Koreans start to build up quite intense and and and
25:29
um yeah versatile or let's say Lively biotech community so um they really
25:35
um now push push companies by very interesting let's say uh concepts of how
25:41
they can build up their business and career and of course there's money starting to go go in there and also larger companies
25:48
are now settling there and so there's a new ecosystem um being developed and um of course it's
25:56
a good approach to be there early on and um yeah to to be present so we have
26:02
already some very um good connections to Korea and a very successful work with those guys and it's
26:09
a good opportunity to go there to visit them first place and then of course buy a career itself it's a good opportunity
26:15
to present ourselves to the um yeah new environment that is growing
26:21
there North Korea is a lovely country the last time I was there I think was in 2017 so
26:26
it's a couple of years ago uh what the grades would be great to to fly there
26:31
um you mentioned before your um supply chain problems I had this a couple of times in this recording
26:39
session um was it really that's the challenging uh price wise and Logistics wise
26:47
um I mean I think you have to differentiate between two different kind of Supply chains the supply chain for
26:54
our consumables in our material that we need for our analysis internally we had on a good control so here
27:01
a few plastic where uh stuff was was a little bit troubling troubling to get
27:07
um this was not a big challenge I would say but this is also due to the fact that most of our suppliers are from
27:14
Europe um specifically from Germany so and they are quite reliable so here from this
27:20
perspective it was not a big challenge but as I mentioned so our customers which are drug developer which you know
27:27
solves their molecules which we do we don't produce molecules we don't we neither produce proteins nor we do
27:34
produce any chemical matter we don't do that so people need to send us these
27:39
things and they purchase this in different countries and obviously then
27:45
there was the the Suez Canal thing then there was the Shanghai lockdown then there was the start of the Ukraine war
27:52
and all those things come together and then suddenly a situation emerges that nobody can tell you when samples arrive
27:59
and here um minimum I would say five to eight to five to even ten boxes of with
28:05
dry ice full of molecules arrive every day and so the logistics team had no
28:10
idea where things are or at least tried to get figured out but nobody could tell
28:15
them the package is here and you have to do that because there was chaos so
28:22
um this was troubling so it is modeled supply chain of bringing together the material that we need to analyze so this
28:30
this was the trouble not the internal resources so principally
28:35
unpredictability of the supply chain so not knowing when when what will when
28:41
arrive in both States and Weeks Later months later exactly and of course by
28:48
biological material is not super stable so you need to refill dry ice you never know how does the sample arrive here is
28:55
it still in good shape you don't even know if there was at some point maybe no dry ice in there anymore and it was just
29:02
added nobody tells you so this is difficult and if uh you know uh really
29:08
like the the high quality packages which uh have a temperature
29:14
logger in there they are simply very expensive a lot of people send this by other means and there is no control of
29:21
what's in there so you don't know what how the temperature changed and you don't know how the biologics react on
29:27
that and so this was a bit challenging and I have to admit um so for for for us
29:32
for the customer of course because um they end the same boat as we are so we would love to start they would love
29:39
us to start but nobody could start because the things are not here so I was yeah a bit a bit annoying I have to say
29:46
but we found uh very good solutions for that and um the team did an incredible
29:51
job and the the result and the present that the customer gave us was was this
29:57
incredible survey at the end of the year so everybody's happy which is a good sign
30:02
but it was challenging do you see did the supply chains are going back to normal or are there still some
30:08
challenges left and there are still some challenges left but everything goes better now
30:14
um it seems to be more predictable so as you mentioned the unpredictability was
30:20
the main problem because you never know what happened and now things are getting more ordered and more in a clear way and
30:28
I mean everybody can you know agree that a package is sent to you maybe a week
30:33
later if the package a week later will arrive so then it's fine but if it
30:39
doesn't arrive a week later and maybe also two weeks later not or even three weeks later not if this is the problem problem so
30:46
um yeah no everything is now getting uh back to normal I would say at least is
Bold predictions for the biotech industry in 2023
30:52
that this is what we see Thomas I'm coming to the end of this recording session from uh about uh 12
30:58
p.m this afternoon to now and I can ask the final question now to you uh your
31:05
big prediction for 2023 what will happen in 2023 what will happen in 2023 uh who
31:12
open big question at the end so first of all from a perspective of
31:18
Bio physics and bio technology and so it is I think overall one can say that I we
31:24
think that the investment landscape will change a little bit um I think uh there might be overall
31:30
less money in the market for us as a company as a zero as a provider for analytical Services I doubt that this
31:36
will really harm us because people when the bill probably still do a lot of Outsourcing even more pronounced so I
31:43
think that will happen um uh but uh of course my hope is of
31:48
course that people try to or should try to listen also to the silent voices uh
31:55
not only the the loud and strong voices are that one that you should be listened because sometimes these strong voices
32:02
don't have very uh or maybe they have very weak ideas so I hope that this will
32:07
happen that people listen more to also science courses so yeah I I hope for
32:13
that but it's a hope I don't know if it happens I couldn't agree more just because
32:18
somebody is loud and outspoken doesn't mean that he or she is right correct
32:25
that's the essence of all that's I think a great great final word for uh today's
32:31
recording session Thomas it's always a pleasure speaking to you you bring such a great spirits to every conversation
Addressing the challenges: How to improve drug discovery and development in 2023.
32:37
and I'm pretty sure that you are one of the big success factors in your company
32:44
thank you so much I just can't give back the the one words it's always a pleasure
32:50
to talk to you and to have this conversation in this meeting format uh it's it's really great experience thanks
32:56
a lot for having me thank you very much thanks for joining I wish you your team and your family Merry Christmas and a
33:03
Happy New Year thank you likewise I wish you all the best thank you see you soon bye bye
33:10
thanks for tuning into this episode I hope you enjoyed it and learned
33:16
something new now that you have heard from the experts at to band you are one
33:22
step closer to revolutionizing the way you think about biophysics remember
33:27
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