#41: Christoph Lengauer - The 7 Key Success Factors of Building Great Life Science Companies.

This episode will discuss what it takes to build companies that develop novel therapies, vaccines, and diagnostics in the pharma industry.

Since the pandemic, everybody has become familiar with the critical elements of pharma product development.

But let’s take a closer look into the value chain of the industry.

What does it take to pick up a technology and bring it to patients?

Questions we will discuss:

Some questions we will focus on:

• What strategic approaches do exist for life science companies?
• How important is the team in developing a company to an IPO?
• Where can scientists find help when they want to start a company?

About Christoph Lengauer (from Third Rock Ventures)

“The most powerful thing about being a part of this industry is having the opportunity to improve the lives of patients and their families.”

Christoph loves the ideation of new company concepts and focuses on the formation, development, and strategy of our portfolio companies. He is an accomplished scientist and drug hunter with the ability to translate that knowledge, insight, and expertise into compelling business strategies. Christoph has contributed to the discovery and development of eight FDA-approved medicines.

Christoph is dedicated to making a dramatic difference in patients’ lives. 

About Third Rock Ventures

We discover, launch, and build great companies based on bold ideas that meet at the intersection of science, strategy, business, and medicine – where transformational science meets operational reality – providing the best opportunity to make a dramatic difference in patients’ lives.

Timestamps:
(00:00) Opening

(01:30) Intro Christoph Lengauer

(05:19) Blueprint Medicine – What Does a Company Need for an IPO?

(08:45) How Important is the Team for the Investment Decision?

(10:20) What is the Best Attitude Towards Success?

(13:40) Why are IPOs Important to Companies and Investors?

(16:45) Third Rock Ventures Mission

(18:20) Why is the Listing Place Still Important in 2021?

(20:40) Early Stage Funding – US vs. Europe

(25:40) What is an entrepreneurial mindset?

(30:20) The Third Rock Ventures Investment Approach

(35:25) The Role a Technology Plays in the Investors Decision Process

(40:00) Exit Strategies for Life Science Companies

(44:00) What are Reasonable Valuations in the Life Science Industries Along the Value Chain?

(49:45) What Effect do the Bail Out Programs have on Valuations in the Private Life Science Sector?

(52:50) Success in the Life Science Industry in the last 10 years

(54:30) What Do We Need to Improve in the Industry?

(56:50) Fair Distribution of Medicine

(59:50) Distribution of Medicine – Poverty – Education

(01:02:50) The Future Of Life Science in the next 20 Years

Link to the Video of the Recording:
YouTube

Speaker:
Christoph Lengauer
Christian Soschner

Organizations:
CS Life Science Invest

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:11

Christian Soschner

Welcome to a new episode of the Life Science Get Together podcast with the recording today. I started in the life science industry with drug development in 2006, so I think it's, almost more than 15 years ago. And I came from other industries which were focusing on business to consumer and business to business, in the value chain.

00:00:25:15 - 00:00:52:13

Christian Soschner

And when I started out in the life science industry, let's say it was very challenging to find out how the value chain in the pharma industry works. And I believe, coming from the business side, it's an absolute must before starting a company, to know what's possible on the business side, which company structures exist in the industry and, especially how financing is done.

00:00:52:13 - 00:01:17:10

Christian Soschner

And what possibilities are on the market, to, sign an exit for the investors and, how companies can be developed, to answer that question. So I've looked into, my network and I believe, one of the best experts in the field when it comes to developing life science companies is Crystal flying our from third Rock ventures.

00:01:17:10 - 00:01:19:07

Christian Soschner

Crystal, welcome to the show.

00:01:19:09 - 00:01:21:14

Christoph Lengauer

And thank you. Thanks for having me.

00:01:21:16 - 00:01:32:22

Christian Soschner

It's good to have you here. The first question for my end, Crystal, how did you, started in the life science industry? And what are you doing before Rock ventures?

00:01:32:24 - 00:02:00:09

Christoph Lengauer

I mean, I'm originally from Austria, considering my background, studied in Salzburg, then got my PhD in Heidelberg, Germany, in biology, and then was a postdoc at the IMP in Vienna. And, then I had to make this big decision. Should I actually stay in science or not? Then I got very frustrated about, like, everything is so complicated and and slow and, like, painful, you know, typical postdoc sort of, trauma.

00:02:00:09 - 00:02:33:16

Christoph Lengauer

And I said, like, maybe I should go to us and to the lab, what I consider the best lab in the world in oncology. And if I don't like it, then then like, just forget it. And, that's how I ended up at Johns Hopkins in the lab of, Pedro Goldstein Lab, where we together, they in that state that 12 years, discovered some of the key chains and tumor suppressor genes and, but publishing in science, nature and Sal was kind of satisfying for a while.

00:02:33:18 - 00:03:00:16

Christoph Lengauer

But then, to answer your question, I had this urge of saying I came that was a result in some form of medication or a test that have real impact in terms of like, yeah, real patients. Right. And, and just sort of inventing cooperative models. And that's how I ended up at Novartis, where I built a target identification validation group and then became global head of oncology for Sanofi.

00:03:00:18 - 00:03:38:24

Christoph Lengauer

And that fake big pharma experience, I think, taught me a lot. But real impact, you can have, as you know, I said in, in the biotech space and became founding CSO of Blueprint Medicines and you might talk about that later, which is not a public company. And, learned sort of this coming from a chief scientific officer perspective more and more into like a successful company is about that interplay between science, medicine and business.

00:03:39:01 - 00:04:06:19

Christoph Lengauer

And I had an MBA also, which I got at Hopkins with a focus on medical services management and, this entrepreneurial concept of founding ideas, ideating projects that become companies fascinated me. And that's how I ended up as a partner at Teladoc. Yeah, we actually only invest in companies that we. Idiot. And, launch and build ourselves.

00:04:06:19 - 00:04:45:07

Christian Soschner

So you basically know, the industry from the scientific lab bench up to, big pharma and also the environment in between, when it comes to translating science into products and building companies, which basically was my starting point in 2006 with innovative spinout, in the antibiotics field and in the industry in the last couple of years, especially in Europe, since the, since the economic crash in 2008, I learned a term which was a special purpose vehicle.

00:04:45:09 - 00:05:12:02

Christian Soschner

So it was very popular, think in the face from 2008, around 2016 to 17, to focusing companies on moving a single asset forward. And I always wondered, are there other approaches, in the industry you mentioned before Blueprint Medicines and, these companies listed on the market, is this also thinking as a company or, did you follow a different approach with that?

00:05:12:04 - 00:05:41:11

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah. Good question. I mean, blueprint is not only $5.5 billion company, which just celebrated last week its 10th anniversary. To answer your question, it's I think it's like only the second company that from its initiation, to its 20th anniversary, has, two drugs on the market, approved, that are self-made out of the company.

00:05:41:11 - 00:06:09:16

Christoph Lengauer

Therefore, whenever we talk about single asset companies, we need to be careful about what's the alternative, right? Because, and I'll introduce you to the alternative in a moment. But we need to keep in mind that producing more and producing one drug is difficult, two is very difficult, and three is, close to impossible. And that's just the context that we are living in.

00:06:09:18 - 00:06:42:19

Christoph Lengauer

But at Third Drug, we are not building companies that are single asset companies. All our companies have this component of what we call a product engine. And the definition of a project and product engine is not necessarily technology, but is much more a concept within the company that allows you to initiate and then pursue drug discovery programs over and over again.

00:06:42:21 - 00:07:22:15

Christoph Lengauer

Going back to the blueprint, part of its value lies also in the fact that, blueprint has now and another set of molecules, a handful of set of molecules in the clinic, is a collaboration, multibillion dollar commercial collaboration, immuno oncology space with Roche. Has several development candidates in IT pipeline. And so it really has sort of like, I mean, that's as far away as from a single agent and a single asset company as you can imagine, which is very important for investors, because even if we work in targeted therapy, you do have iteration.

00:07:22:17 - 00:07:50:10

Christoph Lengauer

And, from a value proposition, it is much more effective to kind of work on company concept that have that product. And you why does it matter? Because as we are talking about different levels of investment at Cetera Talk, we invest usually in a series A, somewhere between 50 and $80 million. Okay. The for this is serious.

00:07:50:12 - 00:08:11:14

Christoph Lengauer

This is just driven by the belief of a product engine that your front runner program dies. It's not over, as it were, in a single asset company, but it's a binary play. You're betting on something. If not, that's over. But, you know, I think we see something if it's over, Martha's $80 million.

00:08:11:16 - 00:08:34:18

Christian Soschner

Now, I absolutely understand that, I mean, the binary play within SPV, you have a project, and if it fails, which, especially in divided there is the likelihood is very high. I think basically the game is over when you want to develop a company and, bring it to the market, probably, it's a much, smarter approach, to build a portfolio, even if it's difficult.

00:08:34:20 - 00:08:48:02

Christian Soschner

Which, leads me to the question, what about a team? How do you build such a team, and what role does it team play when you decide on an investment?

00:08:48:04 - 00:09:11:07

Christoph Lengauer

I think the the team is the most important part. We always talk about it. If you have to choose between that idea and the team and between a bit unit, a team, you always pick the A-Team. Because they can make something out of the bad idea or tailored about versus a B team will always screw it up.

00:09:11:07 - 00:09:34:13

Christoph Lengauer

Okay. Yeah. For that that's in that there's no question about that. You always go for the good team which is a challenge in Euro. I do quite some work in the context of Cold Trek programmers and like, you know, in Europe where we try to find gems and, like, you know, like, not gets that are somewhere there are those role diamonds anywhere in Europe and in Europe, that is.

00:09:34:15 - 00:10:06:10

Christoph Lengauer

And they do exist. And the exciting there's exciting. Science is exciting value proposition to solve challenging problems. But, the team component is a very difficult part in Europe because you don't have those experienced serial entrepreneurs that expertise on that entrepreneurial side. When it comes to management leadership team on the science or whatever is difficult to find, I think that's where the US has an advantage.

00:10:06:12 - 00:10:09:14

Christoph Lengauer

Team is super, super important.

00:10:09:19 - 00:10:30:13

Christian Soschner

Is there really such a huge gap between, Europe and the United States when it comes to, to understanding how companies can be built, what what expertise should the people have if they want to pursue an approach which is more, oriented towards building a portfolio within the company? What what would you like to see?

00:10:30:15 - 00:11:01:10

Christoph Lengauer

I mean, I think there are some stereotypic differences. They are partially helpful. Partially not. But I think the telling, one is, of course, the experience of the team. We just discussed that the other component is, that, that the benefit focus. Okay. Like, you know, why are we doing this, you know, to solve a problem, to make, to make blind people see, that is a typical U.S value proposition, okay?

00:11:01:10 - 00:11:24:23

Christoph Lengauer

People who are that can live again. Right? That's sort of the European value proposition. That of course, is only a stereotype, but it's more like my machine has two extra features or I can do it like, you know, twice as fast or, the I say 3%, you know, increase in x, okay. And because we are very we are and I'm part of that too.

00:11:24:23 - 00:12:06:13

Christoph Lengauer

We are very feature united. We are you know. And that's just the way we think and the way we operate. And I think that that puts us down holds us back. The opposite is the same. True too. Is this North star kind of like this is just like so easy to like, you know, to like, believe in a big idea and to go for it and, and and, and raise the money that's needed in order to get there rather than raising as much as you can and and see how far it gets you or, listening to the feedback for the regulatory agency as they are guiding you in that direction.

00:12:06:15 - 00:12:40:06

Christoph Lengauer

No, you have to have a plan. You're fighting for that. You'll tell the agency what to do and hope that they will agree with you. Therefore, I think the editor skewed towards success. It's just that a different one. Again, that's super stereotypic. There are like hundreds of exceptions to that, but I think it is helpful to acknowledge or talk about because it is a it's a real thing to.

00:12:40:08 - 00:13:02:03

Christian Soschner

I think have I think having a sound vision is is a great thing for a company. It's not in the life science field. It's, coming from the digital world. If Shopify, this resonated very much with me because, when I listened to the CEO at Shopify, he says, we want to give everybody the possibility to become an entrepreneur, which I think is a it's a great Northstar.

00:13:02:03 - 00:13:39:12

Christian Soschner

And, I see the similar thing as you mentioned also in Life science, when we want to cure people who want to cure cancer, for example, it's a sound proposition. And, I think you should, should every company, every team should think about what what Northstar and the following, you mentioned with, with Blueprint Medicine, that one company from your portfolio, that IPO, then I think, Twitter is to try to RNA Therapeutics also did an IPO in the past, can you explain a little bit, what an IPO is and what role it plays for you as an investor?

00:13:39:14 - 00:14:05:18

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah. I mean, you know, you mentioned Relay Therapeutics. I mean, I helped sort of develop the original portfolio. The higher the first people in this company and, did an IPO last year, I think it's now, a $3 billion company and, from a market cap and, people look at IPOs, which is the, you know, sort of the going.

00:14:05:20 - 00:14:36:10

Christoph Lengauer

Like us becoming a public company, right? Do switching from private investment in a venture capital setting into like, you know, raising money from the public market and, and, yeah, there are pros and cons to it. Like one is the public market is much bigger than the private market. Can raise a lot of money that way.

00:14:36:12 - 00:15:06:06

Christoph Lengauer

But, and that's, that's maybe the only ideal way once you are about to a company in phase three or whatever you can, it's very difficult to do it otherwise. If, for us, it's an evolutionary step. And with that comes sort of a certain valuation that disadvantages two. You're very scrutinized. You can only be less, less flexible when it comes to goal setting and planning because you have a responsibility towards the public market.

00:15:06:08 - 00:15:42:00

Christoph Lengauer

Therefore it restricts you to a certain degree the way your message things, the way you communicate things, the risk you are taking. Therefore, it's not always necessarily a good thing, from a from a company solution from the second part of your question of what does it mean for an investor? Many investors see that as an exit, to IPO, because that's really where you often make a lot of money, as they can get out of the company at that point and harvest sort of their fruits and like, you know, relay is a good example that a lot of people got a lot of money, you know, can you

00:15:42:00 - 00:16:13:06

Christoph Lengauer

imagine that once you allow your when you start out with zero and your first round is and 50 million round, and you own 90% of that, and then your company ends up after a couple of financing events and certain dilution. Is that a $3 billion company that's still an enormous, you know, sort of a return on that time that makes, third rock also the most successful, venture capital fund in the world, not only in life sciences.

00:16:13:08 - 00:16:35:20

Christoph Lengauer

Therefore, the IPO can be seen as an exit as an investor, I think, you know, from a from an entrepreneur and a company. It's just another step. To raise funds as you need them. And, of course, it comes with some, you know, financial reward. For many people, but at least for me, that's secondary.

00:16:35:22 - 00:16:44:18

Christian Soschner

I think is a great thing. Your company's, I believe, I appeared on, on the Nasdaq and United States did I, did I get it right?

00:16:44:20 - 00:17:06:14

Christoph Lengauer

Well, that's that's what I do, because that sort of. I mean, first our company's only us. And secondly, that's, you know, so, so I mean, that's it's very clear you have some very clear comparisons in the, in the, in the biotech funds and like, and the pharma side and if for the first it's just the best way of doing this rather than London or Paris for example.

00:17:06:16 - 00:17:35:24

Christian Soschner

Even I always wondered in I mean, now in 2021 and, the world is connected, more connected than ever. When I think back in the 80s, 90s, when I started getting interested into the stock market, it was a completely different world. The internet didn't exist initially. Buying stock has a 16, 17 year old, man in, the mountainous area of Austria was was, a little bit of a challenge.

00:17:36:01 - 00:18:11:07

Christian Soschner

And now we have, apps like Robinhood. I think everybody, meanwhile, knows the Nasdaq in the world. When they opened a newspaper, I see a lot of, hero stories from Europe, from the United States. But one thing, surprises me. Always thought, when the world gets connected, the importance of, putting a company on a certain market, like a Nasdaq or like getting listed in London or in Paris becomes less of importance because basically it's, every company listed anywhere in the world gets, it gets a number.

00:18:11:07 - 00:18:19:18

Christian Soschner

And you can buy it from via your broker. Why is it still so important where the company is listed? What is your opinion on that?

00:18:19:20 - 00:18:43:08

Christoph Lengauer

I mean, we still have different currencies, right? And I mean, there's the euro, that's the dollar. There's of course like the Asian sort of, opportunities. I mean, it's just a question of access to investors, certain investors, certain certain set of geographies. And, I think that makes somewhat of a difference to the fluctuate in the market, the volume.

00:18:43:08 - 00:19:06:22

Christoph Lengauer

Right. You know, I think it's very important, especially for smaller companies. So I'm involved in Capa, which is originally a company. But if we are in the but is listed also in the US now as a public company, I'm a board member there. They of course, like it's also incredible success. I mean, it's a super success story being a, you know, several million, $100 million sort of valuation.

00:19:06:24 - 00:19:29:16

Christoph Lengauer

But of course, the, the fluctuation in the market, as you know, the volume and your sales and buying sort of thing is, can be smaller and that has sort of some impact on your stability and your predictability and for driving for that higher volume and for that kind of thing, especially when you have multibillion dollar companies, it's not that important.

00:19:29:16 - 00:19:42:14

Christoph Lengauer

But they are super successful companies, like us and European like Evotec is listed here. Sanofi is listed in both, like there's like many hybrids that you can imagine. And I think it's maybe less important. It's just like, you know, geography drives in.

00:19:42:16 - 00:20:19:23

Christian Soschner

The, I mean, developing in listed company always seem to take into that technicalities. So it's it's work and it needs expertise. But basically, finding money for a company close to an IPO or that is on the market, I think there is sufficient funds on the market set up to buy, stock from the companies, like, okay, if you go to Art fund, for example, the problems that I see, especially in Europe at the early stages of, of a company, when the technology spun out of a university, when the first team forms, when they think ideally about their North star, the vision, what's the wants to achieve with that?

00:20:20:00 - 00:20:42:07

Christian Soschner

And manage cars there. Lately in Europe, a lot of incubation and acceleration program startups that help companies, how is the situation in the United States, what organizations can, first time entrepreneurs who want to get started, the company that wants to tap into in the field of expertise, whom can they approach?

00:20:42:09 - 00:21:14:16

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I always say it's nowhere as easy to raise your first 3 to $5 million as it is in Europe. Okay. When you're basically they throw it at you. My my opinion, I think that has pros and cons. The pro is sort of it drives innovation and it gets, you know, it it encourages, academic scientists, young entrepreneurs, whatever to take some risk.

00:21:14:16 - 00:21:36:15

Christoph Lengauer

It's very well above, you know, many people don't have to get paid back. And like, there's, like, incredible safety nets around those first 5 million, in my opinion, very little accountability. I think that helps. That encourages. But of course, what happened afterwards, that's what you just described focusing on. Right. You know, saying like, hey, there's this car safety.

00:21:36:15 - 00:22:03:00

Christoph Lengauer

And then actually that real serious a or that serious. Seriously, this is where it's comparable now. Not difficult for companies that are successful in that. But then you have a lot of companies that like in those 3,000,001st funding, whatever, can't get anywhere. And that creates sort of an assessment of the neighborhoods. Then people say like, that's a bad neighborhood.

00:22:03:00 - 00:22:25:09

Christoph Lengauer

This is like not working. This is an effective this is an efficient. Why should I invest? What is my opportunity for an exit? You know, I can't. It's not predictable to me. Like especially like Angel so and so on. Therefore I think it has also, a somewhat negative effect to if you compare to the US, getting a first 3 million is close to impossible.

00:22:25:11 - 00:22:55:02

Christoph Lengauer

It's really, really difficult. And that's elect that drives discipline that, you know, encourages you to have a robust business plan that makes you question things, go forward and backwards, you know, solidify your concept. And with that, maybe have a little bit more reliability as you grow up. Therefore, I think those are the pros and cons. They all have their reason.

00:22:55:02 - 00:23:24:00

Christoph Lengauer

We also live in different, political environments. You know, maybe the US has less of IT responsibilities that they feel at least towards, you know, subsidies, subsidizing you know, ideas or innovation. They are you're more left on your own. In the end, you know, I mean, of course, like, you know, the, the biggest successes, now, not in Europe, the exception.

00:23:24:00 - 00:24:03:01

Christoph Lengauer

So they are great ones. Evotec Jane Mapp BioNTech. You have it. Yeah. Amazing success stories. It's just a little bit, like, lessened. I'm worried about sort of this, this almost less distribution of money that feel, I feel more like subsidizing bad ideas than it is actually to, to encourage innovation. And I think we need to potentially rethink that a little bit in Europe.

00:24:03:03 - 00:24:40:18

Christoph Lengauer

How can we be more selective? I rather give one company $70 million and it's a good idea. And I gave 100 companies like 700 million, $700,000. Okay. And and 95% of them are bad ideas. Okay. Because it doesn't help anybody. But I think that requires a willingness and that courage to be judgmental, to be subjective, to, you know, call a dog a dog, you know, and, maybe we are not bold enough to do that.

00:24:40:20 - 00:25:01:02

Christian Soschner

It's, it's awesome to hear that. You see advantages in Europe when it comes to money. In the early stages over the United States, you always thought it, it's a little bit different that there is more money on the United States over in all phases of development of companies. And, I always thought we saw in the Europe the scarcity in that field.

00:25:01:02 - 00:25:22:12

Christian Soschner

But probably you're right before I was in programs and, and, and other, public subsidies, they make that up, but probably also bring a different mindset into the development of a company, which is, how should I call it, without consulting anybody? I would say it's not very entrepreneurial because, these people are not used to start company.

00:25:22:12 - 00:25:40:24

Christian Soschner

So what you mentioned is a serial entrepreneur, and it used to start companies and maybe it, shapes then the initial phase of a company towards, direction, which ends up culturally at the different spots than the companies we see in the United States, which are driven to create entrepreneurial ones focused solely on the market.

00:25:41:01 - 00:25:59:10

Christoph Lengauer

And we see this a lot. It's a real problem. Okay. It's it's really it bothers me because as I mentioned, that goal tracker is one program that I'm very involved in, like in trying to help European companies. You get those early companies and they're already screwed up at that point. Okay. Like take the cap table. I say one example.

00:25:59:10 - 00:26:07:05

Christoph Lengauer

We call it a contaminated cap table. That's what we internally say because they have investors in there like, you know, the guy playing I know what you know.

00:26:07:10 - 00:26:09:13

Christian Soschner

I mean that's punk perfect.

00:26:09:15 - 00:26:42:14

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah. And like and I'm not like this great that they are supportive and like, you know like, you know helping innovation. But what's their mindset? The mindset of those investors and then potentially board members is that they invest $500,000 and have an obligation to bring $700,000 back. Okay. If you then have a conversation with them and say, like, we are raising $50 million, the guy freaks out, doesn't know how to handle it.

00:26:42:15 - 00:27:11:18

Christoph Lengauer

He's not even committed to go there. Okay. Yeah. Because that's a real risk that. Okay. And this is but this is a high risk, high return, right? I mean, this this is where a mindset then becomes an issue where the management teams with the bold ideas get stock because they got themselves into a situation that's surrounded with people who safeguard and like, you know, and, and and again, I'm not complaining about it because that's those people's job.

00:27:11:20 - 00:27:35:21

Christoph Lengauer

It just makes it very difficult to then sort of go for, you know, that matters. And like, therapy would never invest in something for $2 million because no time for it. It's like you like picking up like some bottles of empty Coke bottles and sprite bottles and and you're like, yeah, I can get like $0.20 for it.

00:27:35:23 - 00:27:54:16

Christoph Lengauer

It's like, why wouldn't you pick it up? Why don't you pick it up? Because you need to bring it home. If the creative was, you know, if bring it to the store and then you get $0.20, I'm like, oh, forget it, let's just not go there, okay? And I think that's a very common thinking of an investor because it's not worth it.

00:27:54:18 - 00:28:17:02

Christoph Lengauer

They write, like, you know, sit on the board on ten companies and boss them because that's the big life science hub. And they can do that as well. Within minutes, they have to travel to Europe to sit on a board. And then it only makes sense if they have a chance to invest 20, $30 million. Otherwise it just makes no sense for them but the cash because it doesn't allow for right?

00:28:17:06 - 00:28:29:17

Christoph Lengauer

Therefore, I think it's a real thing and we forget that this young entrepreneurs how much we get ourselves in in problems that could be avoided if we start alternative.

00:28:29:19 - 00:28:55:02

Christian Soschner

Yeah, I agree to that. I think it's also the, the environment in Europe. The last year the digital world was very popular and also shaped, an investment style, which is very short term oriented. So as you said, you throw a few hundred thousand euros into a company and, expect to return between 6 to 12 months, 2 or 3 x, which, developing an app.

00:28:55:02 - 00:29:20:10

Christian Soschner

It's possible small app put it on the market to get some, customers and and the job is done. The life science industry takes, 10 to 15 years. Think still to put a track on the market, except, the vaccines that we saw from from BioNTech, they moved incredibly fast because they already had the 10 to 15 years behind them and brought their platform to a point where this is possible.

00:29:20:12 - 00:29:41:07

Christian Soschner

And it, I think it was one family offices that supported that, because in the later stages, there are almost no bases that invest in that area. I think also point that you expressed, which is, life sense important is also to science and bringing the right people together. I completely agree to that. When I look at your company, help is better name red?

00:29:41:07 - 00:30:02:08

Christian Soschner

Probably with an Austrian. Pronunciation. Moment Therapeutics. When you looked at this company, maybe I got it wrong, but, it's, it looks to me that there are many venture partners on the port of, Moment Therapeutics. And my typical picture of a venture capital company is to invest money, and that's it.

00:30:02:10 - 00:30:20:00

Christian Soschner

Sit on your board, come, every other month to discuss with their, with the executives, but don't get their hands dirty. And I got the impression from Federal Ventures that you, go down a different route. Can you explain a little bit more, with the example of an amateur optics? What your approaches?

00:30:20:02 - 00:30:39:06

Christoph Lengauer

No, I think, yeah. Thanks for the question. Because I think what Xerox does is, is very different, but it's. So doc happened to be the first to did it that way in the US, and now it's a little bit more popular. I think Soto has cultivated this over the last ten years a lot. And but it's not uncommon anymore.

00:30:39:09 - 00:31:10:14

Christoph Lengauer

And it is a very different way of approaching that. As we sort of generally know that, if I how does that look like? As I mentioned this, we invest in companies that we idiot ourselves. The only investing companies and Boston and San Francisco, because that's where our offices are. And we take ideas from academic founders or, self-created and then sort of really play with that.

00:31:10:14 - 00:31:33:13

Christoph Lengauer

We play with that for a long time. 2 or 3 years spend on average about $2 million. And on that company, that huge attrition and that kind of thing. Find the right teams, mull it over and over again, have this principle of group genius. And then 2 or 3 years later, then we launch a company. That's where we then invest.

00:31:33:15 - 00:32:14:20

Christoph Lengauer

We invest very aggressively, usually between 50 and $80 million. And, but that's not the end of it. We actually go in there as partners. One third rock in the key leadership management functions CEO, CSO, chief business Officer Chief People Officer whatever you have and usually 2 or 3 of us and we really sort of ways that can leverage the knowledge that we have, having built now 55 companies, we can leverage the infrastructure that provides and we provide the leadership to the company.

00:32:14:22 - 00:32:42:24

Christoph Lengauer

It's like having training wheels on your on the bike. And, that gives it a more stable start. People can focus on this high science. And, we help with telling the story. We sort of build the company robust. We stay in this for, 1 to 3 years in that leadership role, as we feel it's an appropriate to take off the training wheels, bring in a permanent leadership team.

00:32:42:24 - 00:33:19:21

Christoph Lengauer

Then at that time, and stay on in the company as board members. If that sort of the the concept of building a company. So doc has a lot of experience with it, a lot of safeguards, with a lot of cultural components. With it, to warrant they get it going on on the right foot and that is a different concept for to answer your question or comment, you not only bringing money to the table, maybe that's actually the least important parts that we bring.

00:33:19:23 - 00:33:59:08

Christoph Lengauer

We are bringing normalize experience and leadership. We, bringing that passion towards that new company concept, feed Celsius and single cell and seek being more among, and at Molecular Machines, both companies where I co-founded both companies. I've been CSO Celsius a year and a half in mobile. Now for a year, but doing three years incubation prior to that, if we stay with those companies and once we let go, once we have the permanent leadership team and a trust in that team to be the ones that can drive that square, but we go back and sort of provide more strategic guidance and support.

00:33:59:08 - 00:34:02:02

Christoph Lengauer

Members.

00:34:02:04 - 00:34:50:03

Christian Soschner

That's a very interesting approach. So basically you cover the the whole value chain when it comes to investing in a company. You go in extremely early. So in a situation where no team exists, bring your expertise and your knowhow into the company as well as the money, then builds the team around the idea and then make the shift from, being in the driver's seat back to a more, coaching or mentoring like approach or like the typical investment approach, which, is very amazing from Europe and, and see different organization sets, different, different positions in the, in the value chain and to cover everything.

00:34:50:05 - 00:35:14:21

Christian Soschner

When I look on the scientific side, I mean, now the emerald, RNA vaccines are very, very famous and very popular. How important for your statement? We talked about division. We talked about the right team heading to a team. But how important to you is also get getting the technology that nobody else is currently developing or, do you think it's also okay to say okay to me, two products.

00:35:14:21 - 00:35:22:14

Christian Soschner

So now mRNA vaccines are on the market. Now we also develop some, what what is that position that, that you.

00:35:22:14 - 00:35:44:24

Christoph Lengauer

Pursue? Yeah. I mean, we don't like to be the follow on. So, I mean, that's just a philosophical question. I think that's an enormous value proposition and sort of being second, I mean, we see there's a lot being an mRNA being one example of like, you know, like in the antibody space, I o right. I mean, there was 1IO company had one immuno oncology company at 1.3 thousand people.

00:35:45:01 - 00:36:12:17

Christoph Lengauer

What's wrong with it? It's okay. Yeah, but it's just not what we do. Okay? This is not the judgment. This is just we approach it. We want to be on that and beginning of innovation. We love disruptive companies. We, we want to take a lot of risk, because I think, you know, that's just, but we want to do it is always very much found, found in a foundation that's highly scientific.

00:36:12:17 - 00:36:31:11

Christoph Lengauer

And, that's just our approach. But, like, it's not necessarily the only the right approach. It's just that we we like it because we want to be innovative and disruptive. I mean, one question I just saw that came in as was about like an Orthodox thing, I think, you know, you know what? Like what type of ownership do we usually going.

00:36:31:11 - 00:36:54:12

Christoph Lengauer

Right. Yeah. It's also a big difference between Europe and the US. In Europe I see often companies were found that have 90% of the company had like three founders. And together they have like, you know, 85, 90% like each of them, 30 or 40% like like this. This is totally like not the case in the US. Okay. In the US, as a founder, you might have like between 1 and 5%.

00:36:54:14 - 00:37:21:22

Christoph Lengauer

That's, that's out of the US because you put a lot of money in there. Okay. And that's just sort of that's where the risk then is and, you know, done when you start a company. Therefore, that's very different now that makes as a founder you're the slice of the pie much smaller. And you guys but very often the pie is really big, right?

00:37:21:22 - 00:37:44:13

Christoph Lengauer

You know, I mean, I co-founded like, you know, thrive early detection. 18 months ago, we raised $265 million, but sold this January, the company to Exact Sciences for a $2.5 billion a year. That's a pretty, pretty big pie. If, then it's okay for a co-founder to, like, only have a percent or two instead of, like, a shitload of money.

00:37:44:13 - 00:38:09:02

Christoph Lengauer

Okay. I think that's better than having 50% in the company that, in the end, is is worth nothing. Okay, I think that is a good thing to answer that question. With that in mind, if we are the sole investor in it, we very often have 1,090% of the company because we also iterated and then an exit.

00:38:09:02 - 00:38:19:17

Christoph Lengauer

We very often still have about 50% of the company. And that of course, from an entrepreneurial perspective, it's a very good scenario in case you are successful.

00:38:19:19 - 00:38:51:01

Christian Soschner

And basically you with your approach, you are the founders yourself. So I basically, I mean, you, you bring a lot, a lot to the table, not only the money but the discussion. I have very often, with companies in Europe, this, this dilution problem that some people have and which leads to interesting, variations. On the other hand, when somebody demands, 50 million investments and, wants to have 90% of the company, as a founder, I like the example of Jeff Bezos with Amazon.

00:38:51:01 - 00:39:12:03

Christian Soschner

I mean, I think he owned at the end 11% of the company and still was the richest person on the planet with one of the most valuable companies. So I completely agree to your example and delighted that, it always depends on the size of the pie. So, smaller chunk from a bigger pie. It's more than a big chunk of a smaller pie.

00:39:12:05 - 00:39:45:18

Christian Soschner

When it comes. You mentioned the company five earlier detection, which I think is very interesting. When we look now at the later phases of development of a company, what about the commercialization? How does that work in the industry? Is it, but what is your approach to you? Do you try to, to cover also the value chain up to the patient that you bring the drugs yourself to the market or, to do you see more potential in, really pursuing P2P approaches to say, okay, we just take the first steps in the development and then sell it off to the industry.

00:39:45:20 - 00:39:48:00

Christian Soschner

How is the industry set up today?

00:39:48:02 - 00:40:14:14

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah, I think it depends. All those flavors exist. That depends also on the area. Right. Like thrive early detection is, is a diagnosis sticks company where we had this vision that, on an annual blood draw. We can tell people if they have cancer or not, it could be anywhere in the body and be treated now, tested that now on 10,000 patients and it works.

00:40:14:16 - 00:40:37:20

Christoph Lengauer

Incredible value proposition because early cancer detection will save lives. This will change the way we think about cancer. It will take out the, angst about cancer in a significant way. And, exact science is saw that. And it's a good example to your question, because why did we agree on the acquisition? I mean, yes.

00:40:37:20 - 00:40:57:12

Christoph Lengauer

So they paid $2.1 billion, like, you know, straight up that day, 400 million, all that sort of thing in future milestones. But, there's no bio box in that, right? I mean, it's like, you know, a little bio part. It's $2.1 billion. I at closer closing this thing, which we did in January. Why did we agree on that?

00:40:57:12 - 00:41:19:19

Christoph Lengauer

Not because of the money. Because that's unimportant. Okay. It's like, what is the biggest challenge to bring this test to, to people? Diagnostic space, the stuff. And you need to have all the primary care physician. You have to have been integrated on medical record side. It's a sales force question. Whatever. Us as a young company. So I was 18 months old.

00:41:19:19 - 00:41:45:06

Christoph Lengauer

We can stem that. We just kind of built this. We need to raise more money. The alternative would have been an IPO. This is this tricky exact. Provided that infrastructure established if Cologuard as a colon cancer test sort of out in the market if Salesforce if the primary care physician connection they are integrated in epic. You know, in the medical systems on a record site.

00:41:45:08 - 00:42:08:08

Christoph Lengauer

This is what we need. We don't need to build it. We can focus on our thing. It's the best chance to bring it forward. And I think that's true for companies. Like a third doc, about half of our companies did IPOs. About half of them got into mergers and acquisitions. As companies such as buying it, integrating it into their thing, therefore exist in all flavors.

00:42:08:08 - 00:42:34:16

Christoph Lengauer

Also in drug discovery, some of them only do discovering or development. Some of them go all the way fully integrated. Also, commercialization totally depends. I mean, blueprint is now a commercial company. I mean, in sales over all geographies. Other companies, are not doing that, but stay more like on the discovery innovation side. Totally depends.

00:42:34:18 - 00:42:58:00

Christoph Lengauer

Really on, on, the market on the field, the concept of the company and also it happens in companies are not sold, companies are bought. Right. You know, if I think as an a brand new and you never think about selling a company in my opinion, okay. Because it happens on you, it's not something that you should plan for.

00:42:58:02 - 00:43:05:20

Christoph Lengauer

I know it's very controversial, but that's my opinion. But, when you get biotech, a boy.

00:43:05:22 - 00:43:33:24

Christian Soschner

I was it's absolutely agree to that. And in the like it I hear that's so reality stays that entrepreneurs build company companies and this is what we are doing. More and more often when I talk with, first time entrepreneurs or young entrepreneurs, the first thing they mention is, I think after ten minutes in the talk is, the exit that they want to be the company for 3 to 5 years and then exit the company and say it's it's not the entrepreneurial spirit.

00:43:34:05 - 00:43:56:24

Christian Soschner

You don't, exit your company, you build it. And, if the circumstances are right and if it makes sense for the technology and for the product to hand it over to a bigger partner, it makes sense. But, you don't plan as an entrepreneur? As an investor thinking. And I really like to, to hear, this spin from your side that you say you build company companies about.

00:43:56:24 - 00:44:01:03

Christian Soschner

Not so this is this is, sounds the sounds in my emails.

00:44:01:05 - 00:44:05:14

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah, I think that's it's the truth.

00:44:05:16 - 00:44:34:20

Christian Soschner

I think this is, it comes back to the to the to the mindset thinking, but I have to understand also decide when people start and when they see the money. It's, recently I wrote an article about, valuations. I wondered what, how many trillion dollar companies we have in the world's currently. And, the first five, hits a couple of years ago, this trillion, dollar market cap milestone.

00:44:34:24 - 00:45:02:16

Christian Soschner

And interestingly, the first company was a Chinese company already in 2007/8, an oil company. And when we read these numbers in the newspapers and on the internet that, this company has that market capitalization and were bought for billions of dollars. I understand that some people also wants to have so much money on their bank accounts. So valuations sort of, drives these expectations.

00:45:02:16 - 00:45:23:21

Christian Soschner

And I was wondering, how how the valuations are in our industry, what you see in the United States, what can investors in life science companies, when they to the top right, expect on the valuation side, it's 1 trillion, reasonable valuation or are we in a different space? How do you see it?

00:45:23:23 - 00:45:44:09

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah, I think there's been a lot of changes over the last few years, actually, recently also. I mean, I give you a couple of examples, diagnostics. We thought that's just not a value proposition to invest in outside of the angel group. Right? I mean, this is we just didn't go into because like, they thought like the return is just not there, that I think was still a popular position.

00:45:44:15 - 00:46:06:02

Christoph Lengauer

Maybe I would say maybe 2 or 3 years ago. This has changed. I mean, I, we just talked about, example. I was involved in this drive, you know, a $2.5 billion, Illumina, of, to buy Grail, which is another diagnostics company, doesn't have a product on the market. And, the alpha was $8 billion.

00:46:06:04 - 00:46:39:10

Christoph Lengauer

We have three. You know, about the, Archer Dax. We have Foundation Medicine, which is a company that we built at 30 Rock. That was eventually bought by by Roche for, whatever, a couple billion dollars. Therefore, we are seeing now in the diagnostics space, those billion dollar companies. And that's not done. I mean, exact sciences, bought us is, is a company that has, you know, a couple of tests on the market and, it's it's it's it's valuation right now is, $22 billion.

00:46:39:12 - 00:47:05:10

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah. For I mean, we are seeing there's not diagnostic space where we couldn't see before. I think we'll see something else or so on in the data, on the data side, data companies right now, this was like jokes, right? You know, this changing Flatiron being running sample Barash. 23 and me, I mean, the, you know, companies that tell you that they're related to changes.

00:47:05:10 - 00:47:29:12

Christoph Lengauer

Com you know, and now billion dollar companies, I mean, that's what I mean, there is I think partially because there's value in that data okay guys important things that like stay with you and like you know that definitely we think we will see it there. And of course in the truck companies, another good example. Did is easy because you can protect your, your, your sale.

00:47:29:14 - 00:48:01:21

Christoph Lengauer

And it's totally clear that the blueprints and relays of the world like, 3 to $5 billion companies. But ten years ago, we didn't expect that for the times of the world that work in real genetic diseases, we are the only 100 people to be traded. We thought that's a total joke, right? But those companies, ended up, being, biomarin, Alexion, Genzyme being, you know, multibillion dollar companies.

00:48:01:23 - 00:48:45:13

Christoph Lengauer

And I, I as long as it relates to it benefit and as long as it relates towards value based medicine, I think it's absolutely appropriate. Where it gets convoluted is, if if this actually is driven by pricing only that restricts access to medicines, then I'm getting my problem with it. Therefore I think we need to look at it carefully, differentiate, and hopefully there'll be some sanity at 1.28 that's really sort of driven by.

00:48:45:15 - 00:48:54:19

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah, value rather than by perceived value or like really sort of driven by the financial industry.

00:48:54:21 - 00:49:22:21

Christian Soschner

Yeah. I wonder how how the future will look like. You mean with the SARS-CoV two topic in the last year, I think the pharma industry got, a lot of more attention from investors that are not familiar with the industry. And when you look on the political side, I think in the United States, one, 1.9 trillion bailout program was, signed off by Trump and the second one by Biden.

00:49:22:23 - 00:49:46:09

Christian Soschner

This year. And I think also the European Recovery Program is about $1.8 trillion. I wonder what effect this will have. Also, on a valuation of the of the not listed, companies, too, you see an impact in the industry, because of the sheer amount of, money that is currently flooding, on the worldwide market.

00:49:46:11 - 00:50:02:23

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah. I mean, it's like some of those scares me a little bit, right? Of course, we are happy that, innovation gets so much attention and there's so much capital right now available. I mean, you see, the IPOs rising SPACs as a vehicle that was really seen as something that people don't want to touch. It was like really something ugly.

00:50:02:23 - 00:50:27:04

Christoph Lengauer

And like, you know, not you want to be affiliated with it now it becomes just a thing. Therefore, I mean, right now it's I think partially their valuation valuations are crazy and inappropriate. We will see that. Just had a conversation with an investor from the crossover side. Those are investors. And invest in private companies right before they go public.

00:50:27:06 - 00:50:49:17

Christoph Lengauer

And they specialize in that space. And they are worried. Right. Because we will see there will be enormous attrition. And like a lot of money invested will get out, got lost. Okay. That will see that. And people like oh it's an unpredictable like space. And we shouldn't invest in apartment complexes in China because I know well at least they exist then, you know, when they are built, right?

00:50:49:17 - 00:51:10:04

Christoph Lengauer

I mean, it's like I think even versus in drug discovery, you might not know that doing life sciences. And therefore I think that that we will get that clarity again in the next 5 or 6 years as many of those investments will not pan out. And I think it will reset, maybe reset earlier. We never know, maybe resets tomorrow.

00:51:10:10 - 00:51:33:16

Christoph Lengauer

Okay. Right now that market is open. The market is like this capitalized, available. People should take advantage of it for a good idea. I think that's okay. Just like, let's be prepared for one day a reality will hit us again. And people like, hey, not all of those ideas we invested in actually panning out. And, I think it will shock some.

00:51:33:19 - 00:51:37:18

Christoph Lengauer

Okay. And, I have to say, it's just part of the game. Yeah.

00:51:37:18 - 00:52:07:03

Christian Soschner

As long as, people understand that still, also for portfolio companies, there is still a high risk, especially in the early stages of development, and that the odds of, loosing an investment is probably higher than in other industries. So it's just riskier. Besides, if even if the team does everything right and has the vision to set up, may it always be that the technology just, doesn't prove what they were hoping for in the clinical development?

00:52:07:03 - 00:52:21:23

Christian Soschner

And, most of the time, especially the smaller the companies, that might be the end of the investment, for the valuation resets and waiting for it since, the last market crash in 2008.

00:52:22:00 - 00:52:22:24

Christoph Lengauer

That's it. Yeah.

00:52:23:03 - 00:52:48:13

Christian Soschner

I hear it every year when they opened a newspaper. Every every year. I heard valuation research is coming. Now. We are in 2021. Last year I thought, that's it. And then the market got an upward swing, which was incredible. What what's your expectation? Just look a little bit, in the future, what's your expectation? When will we see such a valuation reset?

00:52:48:15 - 00:53:13:24

Christoph Lengauer

I don't know, and I think that's the most appropriate answer. It's very unpredictable. Now, having said that, over the last ten years, right. To your point, because, you know, we also have a lot of success as an industry. And, I mean, it's absolutely fantastic. And if you think about that, there's a new dice. This is showing up was one of the most aggressive biases that we have ever seen.

00:53:14:01 - 00:53:55:09

Christoph Lengauer

And we have no idea what it was on day one and 18 months later, half of the European population and like two thirds of the American population is vaccinated. Vaccine against what we did and to be able to describe and a year and a half earlier that is that is fantastic. This is this is this is insane. If I think what we can do today and how much suffering we can take care of in which diseases we are able to cure in France, I mean, this industry deserves investment and should be rewarded for that risk.

00:53:55:09 - 00:54:21:04

Christoph Lengauer

It's taking over. I think it is actually appropriate right now. We are that will get us to I do not know because that influenced by a lot of factors and a lot of people were wrong in 2008 and a lot of people were right. And a lot of people predicted that we will have 12 years to come that are fantastic and fruitful, and a lot of people predicted this will be like much shorter than that.

00:54:21:06 - 00:54:49:23

Christoph Lengauer

They have no idea. Prepare for alternatives. What worries me is a different question in that which is something that I think, we are not enough paying enough attention to. And it has to do with, access to medicines. It's which, distribution of medicines with, pricing of drugs. There we are getting ourselves into a situation that I think is not sustainable.

00:54:50:00 - 00:55:20:23

Christoph Lengauer

Pricing is done by reference to old pricing. It's not done by value of medicine doesn't exist. England is trying to do this to a certain degree. But it's a conversation. But I think Covid is introducing to the normal people, which I like because people say like, wait a second, there's a there's a small percentage of chances that there's blood clotting when I take it.

00:55:21:00 - 00:55:41:07

Christoph Lengauer

Why am I taking this? You know, I mean, people should ask, by the way, how much is it compared to one that doesn't do it? That pricing question, we are not having it, but at least we are starting to have a conversation about, choices, about who is making for us a decision of which medicine to have or not.

00:55:41:09 - 00:56:06:01

Christoph Lengauer

Interesting. That's very often the government, which is like, you know, have its own conversation, but that this you would never do this with your car, you would never accept that the government tells you which car to drive because it's less polluting the environment, or because it's a little safer, or because you would not tolerate that. You're like, I'm buying the car I want and I pay for this.

00:56:06:01 - 00:56:38:06

Christoph Lengauer

What I think is appropriate, why don't we do this? Which is okay. I mean, like, it's like very absurd, right? We still live in this world of, like, just like sucking it up. And if I think we need innovation in that space, I started a company, like, with several other people who are much more about that in that space on drug pricing, it's called Eqrx will try to revolutionize, drug pricing in that and charge 10% to 20% of what everybody else charges on drugs by being more efficient and drug discovery and development and commercialization process.

00:56:38:08 - 00:57:11:01

Christoph Lengauer

We think that will disrupt the the the thing. And what makes me optimistic is that people say that's a good idea because people say access to medicine must be one of our most important priorities. But this is a global problem. This is a societal problem. That is something we need to work on. But medicines are not made for the rich, but medicines are made for everybody, and that our system is not set up to do that right now.

00:57:11:03 - 00:57:36:17

Christoph Lengauer

That access is becoming the biggest problem that we have in healthcare, and that the cost regulation of that is intimately related to it. And somebody needs to do something. And I'm extremely thankful. Like, you know, we raised this series a $250 million last January. This January, we raised a series B, $500 million on that concept that I described.

00:57:36:17 - 00:58:02:20

Christoph Lengauer

And that makes me optimistic, because that means that investors we talked a lot about money today, but investors see that value based medicine, that access that fair distribution, that this might be as important as anything else we do in that space, and that they are willing to take risk and financial risk. You know, on top of that, in order to help companies, they want to change their.

00:58:02:22 - 00:58:47:19

Christian Soschner

It's a it's a sound vision. I think in the last year, I mean, I was not planning for a pandemic. So it came out of nowhere. And, what you said at the beginning, of the last five minutes, the level of collaboration internationally in the last 12 months, that was just astonishing. So, you know, and I think I, I never saw it before that, Chinese and European companies and, US companies are working together to solve the problems around, around this threat to get a better understanding how, how severe it really is, to develop vaccines in an amazing speed.

00:58:47:21 - 00:59:07:14

Christian Soschner

I mean, it's just as you said, it's just one year. But what scares me a little is, not only the distribution, of medicine worldwide so that it's not, a medicine for the rich only, what scares me a little bit is also when I opened the newspaper that with the pandemic, also poverty starts rising again.

00:59:07:14 - 00:59:33:07

Christian Soschner

And, usually poverty hits, the young people very hard. And, I think besides this, sorting the distribution of medicine, we should also think a little bit on how how, how solving the poverty problem. And I think it's, it's a problem of education and, financial literacy, so that, people also get, proper training, which, even don't see it in the Western world.

00:59:33:07 - 00:59:49:05

Christian Soschner

So especially in Europe, I think financial literacy is, is still a problem. And which at the end of the day, also the it's so the beginning of, of health problems, how how do you see the, the connection between medicine and, and poverty and, and education.

00:59:49:07 - 01:00:26:07

Christoph Lengauer

And I think it's a it's very direct and it's extremely important. I think it's a lot of room for improvement and, and, and it's super necessary. And I think, you know, as you mentioned, it's like, I think some of that we are learning when it impacts us. And, if I say good thing about Covid that that's one of them that I think it raises every us and gets us a better understanding how important the work is, how we heroic the efforts of, scientists in, in different ways in that space, and not just people who want to make money.

01:00:26:09 - 01:01:03:05

Christoph Lengauer

They're not just people are crazy scientist who have like, you know, silly ideas that potentially one day could those, the real heroes, I think. And if we can now facilitate that actually access and distribution is fair. I guess that's our next challenge for the next ten years. This, in that finance literacy, socially, various education, is super, super important.

01:01:03:07 - 01:01:06:17

Christoph Lengauer

If I look at that, tell you.

01:01:06:19 - 01:01:45:15

Christian Soschner

Yeah. That's true. Let me ask you, one final question. So as I said, we were talking a lot about money. We were talking about the impact our industry makes, on the world. And it, more and more people, we are how important it is. I mentioned the accent earlier of Cathie Wood, and, she has put out her Piketty report in January where she's, saying that in her opinion, I mean, you mentioned how important the vision is and, the team is, and in her opinion, the area that thrives the most in our industry might be, she calls it the genomics revolution.

01:01:45:15 - 01:02:13:24

Christian Soschner

So she, talks about gene editing, everything around steps. Believes that this will shape, the next ten years. What is your opinion? When you look at that technology that we are aware of today, in which direction sure does entrepreneurs look when they put together their vision? What might drive our industry in the next ten years or what might drive it forward?

01:02:14:01 - 01:02:36:06

Christoph Lengauer

You know, I agree with that assessment. I think for the next ten years it's pretty predictable. I continue to believe that, not done with the change or make revolution if you want example, we have not brought personalized medicine to autoimmune diseases. With personalized medicine because of our genomics, understanding and oncology made dramatic differences. It has not helped.

01:02:36:08 - 01:03:02:24

Christoph Lengauer

Cardiovascular has had not paid autoimmune. Those are big drivers. And I think they will see a lot I'm interested in like 20 years because the ten years I was impacted by things they were already having. Right. Okay, okay. But that's pretty clear and pretty easy to predict. I think it's much harder to think about it and more fun to think about it 20 years from now.

01:03:03:01 - 01:03:34:08

Christoph Lengauer

And I think there will be significant impact by better access to medical records and data. I think the, we are like, no where, because, medical records are built on and on, it systems that were made for reimbursement for billing. Okay. Yeah. So, that's why we have them as a hospital, because somebody need to charge for their medicine.

01:03:34:08 - 01:04:07:20

Christoph Lengauer

And that's really how we are set up. And from an IT infrastructure, not because of learning from data, understanding, you know, things, text, talks of, toxicity of drugs. Proneness, for thing prediction of diseases, early detection. I think they will see a lot based on data. And that is so important because the impact of that data themselves risk, the impact of that will be in prevention and early detection of diseases.

01:04:07:23 - 01:04:31:04

Christoph Lengauer

Yeah. And I think in the next 20 years, I think that's where it's going. If we detect cancer early, that we are avoiding cardiovascular and obesity, that we, you know, working on sort of, you know, catching psoriasis prior to having it. And like, I think, you know, that's I think Rob is the next big revolution, or at least that that's the one I, I'm hoping for.

01:04:31:06 - 01:04:52:06

Christian Soschner

I was hoping it it's fast in 20 years. So when I see now the industry what's already possible when, we start collecting data, I think it will be heaven for for scientists to get, big, big, big data on a big scale to understand and learn better how how diseases work and how they develop and how we can stop that.

01:04:52:08 - 01:04:55:19

Christoph Lengauer

Do you say this in German? Then what? Then got this one?

01:04:55:21 - 01:05:23:01

Christian Soschner

Yeah. I hope you speed up. Christoph, thank you very much for this very interesting talk. I wish you and your team, of Ventus, all the best. And, hope that you keep picking up great ideas, putting together great teams and help, also, the medicine to develop worldwide and being available to everybody on the planet.

01:05:23:03 - 01:05:25:14

Christian Soschner

It's a sound vision. I like it.

01:05:25:16 - 01:05:32:03

Christoph Lengauer

Thank you very much. I would say inshallah, which means so God. Well thank you. Thanks for the conversation.

01:05:32:07 - 01:05:42:16

Christian Soschner

Have a great day. Bye. Thanks for listening. Please, please share the podcast and make sure you've subscribed. Have a great day!