EP 171 - Björn Cochlovius: Why Brilliant Biotech Breaks at Manufacturing

Most biotech breakthroughs don’t fail in the lab.
They fail when science meets manufacturing reality.
And by the time this bottleneck appears, tens of millions are already sunk.

This episode examines the most under-discussed failure point in modern biotech: the gap between scientific discovery and scalable, usable healthcare solutions.

While science has never been stronger—and big pharma excels at market access—companies that can translate breakthrough biology into industrialized medicines remain rare. Manufacturing, regulation, clinical design, usability for patients and physicians, and global scalability still form a narrow bottleneck where most value is lost.

In this conversation, Björn Cochlovius, CEO of Eleva, explains why so many promising biologics fail late—and how Eleva deliberately built a platform designed not to replace existing systems, but to rescue projects that would otherwise be abandoned.

Drawing on decades across immunology, biotech leadership, and translational medicine, Björn offers a grounded, operator-level view on what it actually takes to move from elegant science to real-world impact.

As he puts it:
(00:28:59) “In biotech, courageous decisions often look wrong—until years later.”

This discussion goes beyond manufacturing alone. It explores why turning scientific concepts into ready-to-deploy healthcare solutions—complete with clinical data, regulatory pathways, scalable production, and high usability—remains one of the hardest industrial challenges of our time.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode
1️⃣ Why biologics often fail late—after science already worked
2️⃣ Why manufacturing is only one part of a deeper industrial bottleneck
3️⃣ How Eleva approaches risk when others walk away
4️⃣ Why courage, not optimization, drives breakthrough biotech decisions
5️⃣ How AI supports discovery—without replacing human judgment
6️⃣ What Europe gets right—and still gets wrong—about scaling biotech

🧭 Selected Timestamps
(00:03:00) Why biotech breakthroughs fail at manufacturing
(00:07:18) Three takeaways for founders and investors short on time
(00:08:36) Why biologics production breaks at scale
(00:11:41) Salvaging proteins that standard systems cannot produce
(00:15:27) The hidden opportunity in “failed” proteins
(00:17:21) Why late-stage manufacturing failure destroys value
(00:19:35) Why Eleva builds its own pipeline, not just a platform
(00:22:46) Glycosylation as a source of better efficacy
(00:27:03) Courageous decisions when everyone else has failed
(00:30:04) Risk management through parallel scientific bets
(00:32:08) Why similar proteins behave differently in patients
(00:37:08) AI as a tool, not a replacement for human judgment
(00:41:02) Why humans must remain accountable in drug discovery
(00:44:25) The tension between basic research and development
(00:46:01) Managing the handover between scientific universes
(00:50:38) The CEO’s real job: building teams smarter than yourself
(00:53:11) Leadership humility and protecting the team
(00:56:11) How leaders recharge under long-term pressure
(00:59:13) Europe’s biotech bottleneck and why there is still hope
(01:02:20) Final reflection: turning science into systems that scale

🎙️ Beginner’s Mind
Top 10% globally. Conversations for founders, investors, executives, and policymakers shaping the future of biotech, deep tech, and healthcare.

Follow the show for more episodes where science meets strategy—and

Transcript

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:33:21

Christian Soschner

Most breakthrough medicines don't fail because the science is wrong. They fail because science never becomes something the health care system can actually use. And every year, promising biologics disappear. Not because pharma can't commercialize them, but because too few teams can translate scientific concepts into ready to scale, regulatory and clinically usable solutions.

00:00:33:23 - 00:00:39:16

Christian Soschner

In both Europe and the United States, we have abandoned science.

00:00:39:18 - 00:01:23:14

Christian Soschner

Big Pharma excels at market access, but companies that can deliver the full bridge clinical data, regulatory clarity, scalable manufacturing and real usability for both doctors and patients. They are still rare. And that's the problem. This conversation addresses. Today's guest is uncork Lobbyists CEO of Elevate Biologics, a company working at the heart of this industrial bottleneck and locking hearts to produce human proteins with a mouse based manufacturing platform.

00:01:23:16 - 00:01:30:20

Christian Soschner

At one point, Piron explains why elevate pursued what others abandoned.

00:01:30:22 - 00:01:39:07

Björn Cochlovius

the decision was very courageous. It was risky, of course. It they could have failed as well as all the others. But they

00:01:39:10 - 00:01:44:21

Christian Soschner

and later in the conversation, he reflects on what leadership in biotech really demands.

00:01:44:23 - 00:01:53:03

Björn Cochlovius

in biotech, you have to make, courageous decisions from time to time, and you can fail or you can succeed. And

00:01:53:09 - 00:02:02:01

Christian Soschner

And when the conversation turns to artificial intelligence and the future of science, he draws a clear boundary.

00:02:02:03 - 00:02:06:10

Björn Cochlovius

It will never replace the human brain. I'm sure about that at

00:02:06:14 - 00:02:30:16

Christian Soschner

Jan ss CEO. He brings over 27 years across academia and global pharma to the corporate table, from the German Cancer Research Center and Roche to international leadership roles now guiding a level transition from a technology platform to a pipeline company with assets entering the clinic.

00:02:30:18 - 00:02:38:04

Christian Soschner

Progress in medicine doesn't come from our ideas. It comes from teams that can carry ideas all the way into reality.

00:02:38:09 - 00:02:45:14

Christian Soschner

And the hardest problems in biotech are not scientific. They are industrial. It's the scale up phase.

00:02:45:16 - 00:02:56:19

Christian Soschner

And this is a conversation about how medicine really skates through judgment, courage, and the ability to turn science into systems the world can actually use.

00:02:56:21 - 00:03:00:14

Christian Soschner

Python. Welcome to the beginner's mind show.

00:03:00:14 - 00:03:27:23

Christian Soschner

I'm really happy to have you here today on this show to talk about your biologics approach with elevate, your company. And you have a tremendous experience in life science and biotech. As the CEO of A level A company that's, I don't know if it's really quietly, it's just the right word that they should choose. But you move your company forward from a platform company to a pipeline company.

00:03:28:00 - 00:03:47:24

Christian Soschner

Are backed by founded on the internet, 60 million series around and focus on a huge problem in the industry that needs attention. But in my opinion, probably is, a little bit underrepresented. And I'm happy to have you here to hear more about what you do, what your team is moving forward and why it matters today.

00:03:48:01 - 00:03:54:22

Björn Cochlovius

Right. Okay. Good afternoon, Christian, and thanks for having me. It's a pleasure, to join your podcast.

00:03:54:24 - 00:04:12:03

Christian Soschner

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I'm looking forward to the next 60 minutes to torture you a little bit with my investigative questions. Let's start let's start with the first one. What's a question you wish people asked about a level, but never too.

00:04:12:05 - 00:04:12:12

Björn Cochlovius

You

00:04:12:12 - 00:04:38:12

Björn Cochlovius

know, most that's a good one. So I believe, a question that, that we are asked sometimes is why didn't we hear from this technology earlier? Why? By has, 11 kept it, so quiet for so long, and it's, it's a rightful question. And the answer is rather complex as always.

00:04:38:12 - 00:05:10:09

Björn Cochlovius

It is in life. But, the main question is that it it took a very long time to get this, this, technology from the first baby steps, when it was, spun out, from the from, the Freiburg University to where we are now, industrial scale GMP 2000 liter production. And the time in between is is, it looks rather long, but if you compare it to other technologies, even two, two.

00:05:10:11 - 00:05:49:05

Björn Cochlovius

Oh, then that's the normal timeframe you need for that. And the company, it was, flying under the radar for a very long time because the company has the quite luxurious situation that we have. As an investor who is very dedicated, who's very loyal to the company he went through us to, through the good times and the bad times and, and, it was not so necessary for the company to go public so that the company for a very long time had the luxury to work in quiet and optimized the technology and peace.

00:05:49:07 - 00:05:57:15

Christian Soschner

It's always good to have an investor who is aligned with the company's mission and supports the team. It's good to hear that these kinds of investors exist.

00:05:57:17 - 00:05:58:01

Björn Cochlovius

They

00:05:58:01 - 00:06:29:05

Björn Cochlovius

exist. Absolutely, yes. And we have the situation. It is the, Mr.. Mr. Schwartz, as person, he likes the company a lot and he supports us, and he invested, mainly through, one of his, investment vehicles. The 11 set is the name of that, of that, of that fund he invested, until now, more than €120 million into the company over the time.

00:06:29:05 - 00:06:30:08

Björn Cochlovius

Oh, yes.

00:06:30:12 - 00:06:45:12

Christian Soschner

That's impressive. That's impressive. I mean, it was all very impressed by your series. 60 million announcement, but 120. Yeah, it's really, really massive. And, there is a lot of value in your company, I believe, before we move forward.

00:06:45:14 - 00:07:07:20

Christian Soschner

Since I heard you're sorry for using the word torture, before, but since they had, Jensen Banks, Nvidia CEO speech where he said he tortures people to greatness as somehow picked it up. Yeah. And I also know that executives like you and Jensen Wang always are short on time. And I know from my audience a lot of investors and executives that some jump off after five minutes.

00:07:07:22 - 00:07:17:18

Christian Soschner

My next question to you is for those type of audience who says I have so PC, I need to come back later. What free takeaways will this be defined in the next 60 minutes?

00:07:17:20 - 00:07:18:00

Björn Cochlovius

Three

00:07:18:03 - 00:07:41:03

Björn Cochlovius

takeaways. Okay, good. The one thing is, the first takeaway, if you have a protein, that you want to develop to, to a therapeutic, but you have problems to work with coal, which happens sometimes. It's happened to me when when I was young and working with CEO. Oh. Don't despair. There are possibilities to to come over that.

00:07:41:03 - 00:08:07:03

Björn Cochlovius

That's the second, the, the the first, the second would be, is that, one of the promising technologies is ours. So take a look at it. I mean, of course I'm pitching this, this now, but, seriously, when I joined the company, for a reason, two and a half years ago. And one is that I was really convinced that this is, a very, very impressive technology.

00:08:07:05 - 00:08:19:19

Björn Cochlovius

And the third one, for people who have not so much time is a very gentle advise. Take more time for yourself. And, not only for your work.

00:08:19:21 - 00:08:35:07

Christian Soschner

That's good to hear. And now let's get right into your technology. Everything your material on the internet that you consider biologics production is broken. Why is that? Why does it need fixing?

00:08:35:09 - 00:08:36:13

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah.

00:08:36:15 - 00:09:15:07

Björn Cochlovius

So if you if you look back like 20, 25 years ago, our technology became the mainstay. The workhorse of the industry, so to speak, and rightfully so, because for the majority of, proteins, this technology works quite well. Not optimal in all cases, but it works well enough. In some cases it works a pretty good like antibodies, for example, usually works fine, but as soon as you get more, demanding, protein, you want to develop, it can, it can create difficulties with.

00:09:15:09 - 00:09:47:12

Björn Cochlovius

Oh, especially if this is a large molecule or molecule that complicatedly folded, or that needs, a certain page or a temperature stat show doesn't like to, to, to be expressed and so on. Then you have the problem, and I've seen in my career, really pretty and, interesting projects die and left and right just because it did it.

00:09:47:14 - 00:10:13:24

Björn Cochlovius

The, the colleagues were not able to, to bring it to work and or or were not able to, upscale co, which is also sometimes a problem. It, it works fine in smaller volumes, but as soon as you go to the large tanks, then, you can get in trouble. So this is a problem that many of us have seen over the last decades, repeatedly.

00:10:14:01 - 00:11:03:16

Björn Cochlovius

And it was always a, a source for frustration on the one hand. But on the other hand, also, a source that for innovation and, if you look at it, if you, if you go to technical conferences, like PECS, for example, you see always scientists that show small step, better, better solutions for, for ourselves and, these are, but these are always of quite small steps forward and, when I've seen them two and a half years ago with this technology from a labor, I was I was hooked immediately, because it's it's very convincing.

00:11:03:16 - 00:11:24:20

Björn Cochlovius

And, I believe that we will not we will not, replace the edge. Oh, of course not. For that, it is too long in the in the making, and it's too successful in the most cases. But I believe our technology offers the possibility to, to salvage projects

00:11:24:22 - 00:11:27:08

Björn Cochlovius

that might otherwise die.

00:11:27:10 - 00:11:41:06

Christian Soschner

That's what you said that you immediately got to ten years ago. But, by the technology of endeavor. And what what what drew your attention that you said that's it. That's. Yeah, that's moving the industry forward.

00:11:41:08 - 00:11:41:17

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah. It

00:11:41:17 - 00:12:11:24

Björn Cochlovius

was basically, two main points of the, of the, technology that immediately, I found, I found extremely convincing. The one is that the technology follows process wise. Exactly. The same, steps as the, the old technology is doing. So, every step in the, in the, in the process as well as the equipment is basically identical.

00:12:12:01 - 00:12:35:18

Björn Cochlovius

So that was a very clever step from the labor team long time before me when they worked on it. They developed it from the beginning, absolutely parallel to what they found with code, so that people who wanted to work with the technology would not have, problems to adapt it to their already existing systems. Right. So I found that very, very sexy.

00:12:35:18 - 00:13:03:01

Björn Cochlovius

And the other thing is that they showed me data from a couple of internal projects, where they could show me that proteins that did not work in sewage all worked very well in the, in, in this, space technology and one of these, projects we just now bring into the clinic, for us humans, should be, should be injected, within, this month.

00:13:03:01 - 00:13:03:24

Björn Cochlovius

Still.

00:13:04:01 - 00:13:24:10

Christian Soschner

That it's a smart move. So basically, for the city, right. Your team has the approach to simply use existing processes and plug in another technology and not do something completely new that, needs a lot of work to be. Yeah, compatible with existing processes in the, in your in your customers firms.

00:13:24:12 - 00:13:24:21

Björn Cochlovius

You're

00:13:24:21 - 00:13:56:01

Björn Cochlovius

completely right with that question. So the point is that, it is it looks like co process only with a different organism. That's it. And because this organism is, is a plant, it needs light. We still need light in the process. We are working on that as well, but, and Sartorius, who is the the, the maker of the of the tanks that we use or the back home that we use for large scale production.

00:13:56:03 - 00:14:14:22

Björn Cochlovius

They were a kind, a kind of, collaboration partner. And they developed, or they modified their standard tanks in a way that we just have a light source on the inside. Otherwise it's exactly the same. We use the same vacs. We have the same, tank, just with a little light source on the inside.

00:14:14:22 - 00:14:15:24

Christian Soschner

That's it

00:14:16:01 - 00:14:29:18

Christian Soschner

to understand it. Right. So, for example, if I would like to produce a protein for developing trucks, then I can use standard technology available on the market. And with your technology I have an alternative if the first approach doesn't work.

00:14:29:20 - 00:14:30:07

Björn Cochlovius

Correct.

00:14:30:12 - 00:14:56:17

Björn Cochlovius

Yes, yes. So we have we have, seen it again and again and again, that we can make, proteins that do not work at all in Cage or other systems, even, or that have in color, let's say, very unsatisfactory, unsatisfying, yield, you know, where you get some protein out of it, but not enough that it makes sense to upscale it to an industrial scale.

00:14:56:17 - 00:15:27:19

Björn Cochlovius

And then you can try it in, in our system. And we have a lot of examples where we could show that it works. We have now also an internal project, which I find very interesting. Ours is, CSO and Andy Scharf, is working on that with his team where we have a systematic approach showing that, a number of cage own non producible proteins work in our system.

00:15:27:21 - 00:15:55:11

Björn Cochlovius

It's a long story and I've tried to make it short. So a couple of years ago there was, a publication where people tried to, express the human scrotum. So all the proteins that are in your bloodstream, that they are, produced in small scale cage or, and from about 2700 proteins, 900 failed.

00:15:55:11 - 00:16:31:14

Björn Cochlovius

Either they were not able, to be expressed in Co at all or the the yield was very, very bad or the proteins were not produced in the right way. So confirm wrong confirmation or something like that. And we could show that, we are working on this now. It's still a work in progress, but we can show that we can at least more than half of those that failed in cage, or we can produce, without any further, steps of of, to, to, to optimize the process.

00:16:31:14 - 00:16:55:08

Björn Cochlovius

So in the first shot, so to speak, we could, make around half of that. So this is, this is still unpublished data, and it's still working on making. But, this just shows, the, the potential of the technology, because just imagine, out of these 900 might be a couple of proteins that would be interesting for therapeutic purposes.

00:16:55:08 - 00:17:06:13

Björn Cochlovius

Right. And if you can't make them with code, then. But you can make them if our project with our, production system, then I guess that might be a good thing.

00:17:06:15 - 00:17:18:10

Christian Soschner

You would make investors very unhappy when you say we have a protein that works, we can put it in a track in the lab, but we can't scale the production process this way. It's unfortunate.

00:17:18:12 - 00:17:21:03

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah, it's it's horrible. It's, It's

00:17:21:05 - 00:17:40:12

Björn Cochlovius

if you imagine, usually that that comes relatively late in a project when you are, also on the brink of bringing it to the, to the clinic when such projects fail. So imagine how much time love and money has gone into such a project. And then you have to to, discontinue.

00:17:40:12 - 00:17:47:23

Björn Cochlovius

This is really very bad. So I believe it's, in many of those cases, it might be interesting to search for an

00:17:48:02 - 00:17:49:07

Björn Cochlovius

alternative. Yes.

00:17:49:09 - 00:18:09:12

Christian Soschner

I don't like coming from the prison sentence, to make sure that they fully understand it. You are not aiming at replacing what already exists on the market. You found that certain part of proteins cannot be produced in the standard processes that are available currently on the market, but your technology can close that gap. You have an alternative now.

00:18:09:14 - 00:18:09:24

Björn Cochlovius

Correct?

00:18:09:24 - 00:18:32:09

Björn Cochlovius

That's that's our story. It would be quite, you know, whoever is to say that we want to replace the whole, who knows what happens in the next 50 years, but in, in the, in the moment, we as a lever, our goal is to to, offer the alternative for such projects. That fail otherwise.

00:18:32:14 - 00:18:33:10

Björn Cochlovius

Yes.

00:18:33:12 - 00:18:54:22

Christian Soschner

So if someone, if a biotech company or a pharma company has a protein and I said, look, I mean, the existing standard processes don't work here. Either we can't produce the protein or we can scale it. Then you can can do a pilot project with your team and say, let's try a different technological. This the yeah, there's a high chance, and we can show you very simple.

00:18:54:24 - 00:18:57:24

Christian Soschner

Can we produce it and can scale it exactly.

00:18:57:24 - 00:19:06:22

Björn Cochlovius

So that that's it. If you have such a project, before you, before you put it in the drawer, give us a call, okay?

00:19:06:24 - 00:19:31:07

Christian Soschner

Yeah, it's worth it. And I mean, my my business analysis. I mean, it's a perfect service business. And you are perfectly situated then to benefit later downstream when something hits the market. To to get some royalties back. It's. You have technology you have patented. So the standard, contracts always work fine in your favor. But before you mentioned that's not enough, we also have our own project.

00:19:31:09 - 00:19:31:17

Björn Cochlovius

Yes.

00:19:31:19 - 00:19:34:16

Christian Soschner

My question is, bluntly, like in school. Why?

00:19:34:18 - 00:19:35:07

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah. Yeah.

00:19:35:13 - 00:20:22:04

Björn Cochlovius

Well, you know, this is this let me give you two, two answers to that. So the first answer is we are not positioning ourselves as a service provider because, in that business, we don't have the scale for that. And also margins are very difficult in the, in this type of business. But what we do is we, we offer the technology to other CDM owners who are established Creamos, and we are quite picky with, those partners that we would choose, but we offer such CDM always the possibility to get access to our technology by, by by partnership and licensing and, basically the

00:20:22:04 - 00:20:47:24

Björn Cochlovius

first of, of that kind of partnership we, we published in, in generally with Spanish slash Finnish company, three ppb of yarn, which is a well-known player in the field, midsize CDM or in Europe. And we are currently discussing with others that have interest. So we offer this technology to see them also to offer it to their clients.

00:20:48:01 - 00:21:26:00

Björn Cochlovius

That's the one thing, we we are not a service provider. But, and there you are right. We have our own our, projects in the pipeline. Historically, we are that old company already, so we can talk like that. So historically, it is those projects that we have now in the clinic they developed from showcase projects, you know, Ilva in, in, the time before my time day, they of were then developing the technology and they had to show at home to the outside world that the technology works.

00:21:26:02 - 00:21:57:05

Björn Cochlovius

And, they had a couple of, such showcase projects and, two of them developed them into, projects that, now are in the clinic. One is Alpha Galaxy Days, which is, which can be made in, in other production systems. But with, as we know, relatively bad yields and, by that high cost of goods, which is a, disadvantage.

00:21:57:07 - 00:22:21:23

Björn Cochlovius

And we have that, we have that now, we, we, we got it through a phase one and, actively searching for partners who would like to work with this, with this alpha galactose. It is they are two on the markets already. One from Takeda, one from Sanofi. But as I said there, as as far as we understand, the cost of goods are relatively high.

00:22:22:00 - 00:22:46:20

Björn Cochlovius

And another thing is now we dive a little bit into the biology of our moss, that our, glycosylation pattern, that we add to the, to the proteins that are expressed in our system is different from Co. And in that case, we learned that it seems to be to the advantage of alpha galactose. It did so with our glycosylation.

00:22:46:22 - 00:23:17:03

Björn Cochlovius

It seems that we have a better efficacy in patients. It looks that instead of two weeks, between the, treatment intervals, we can probably offer a longer time frame for the patient between the, between the treatment. And that might be a very interesting, feature of our alpha galactose days, on top of the better cost of goods that we, that we can offer here.

00:23:17:05 - 00:23:42:01

Björn Cochlovius

The other project is, an even more, sexy, project. And that was the the second reason beside the the technology platform itself, this project itself was the second reason why I signed then with a liver, two and a half years ago. This is factor H, a factor H is a I'm an immunologist by training.

00:23:42:01 - 00:24:09:03

Björn Cochlovius

And, you know, it's a, it's a, a protein that immunologists know. It is a central, regulating molecule in the complement cascade of the immune system. I don't want to bore you. There's the details. When I teach, immunology at the University of Heidelberg, then my students always head, that's part of the immune system, because it's quite complex.

00:24:09:05 - 00:24:49:07

Björn Cochlovius

So to make it easy is that it's very important to regulate that part of the immune system. And if it's not functioning, this protein as it it's the case with, with the patients, then the immune system at that part is overactive and makes the, the patient six, sick. And there are a couple of indications with that. The most of these indications are rare diseases and, but one indications are very large, one which is, AMD blindness in elderly and all of them, are in all of these indications, a factor is essential.

00:24:49:09 - 00:25:19:16

Björn Cochlovius

And that has been recognized already a long time ago in, in the late 19 or in the mid 1980s, late 1980s, people saw that. And, at that time the industry tried to make factor age, recombinant late to get it back into the patient where it doesn't work right, to get the patient, treated, by replacing the nonfunctional protein with the one that's now works, bringing it from the outside into the patient.

00:25:19:18 - 00:25:44:03

Björn Cochlovius

But they failed. So, the industry tried all kinds of, production systems co, E.coli, Neisseria, whatever. Everything failed. Either it didn't work at all or with, extremely low, low yields. And, at that time, a labor tried to do it as well. They said, well, when, when everybody fails, let's try it.

00:25:44:03 - 00:26:09:07

Björn Cochlovius

And it worked and it worked very well. To our surprise. And, we were able to, to, generate a lot of, nonclinical the proof of concept data in these indications or in the animal, in the animal models for these indications that show that it works are not, our, our protein and we're doing it now into patients.

00:26:09:07 - 00:26:20:24

Björn Cochlovius

And, we have to, our application was, for the clinical trial was successful, and, the first injection, is scheduled for the next couple of

00:26:20:24 - 00:26:22:03

Björn Cochlovius

weeks.

00:26:22:05 - 00:26:24:02

Christian Soschner

Congratulations. Congratulations.

00:26:24:04 - 00:26:26:20

Björn Cochlovius

Thank you very much. We are very excited about that tablet.

00:26:26:22 - 00:26:36:12

Christian Soschner

I believe that, you mentioned before that everything failed in that indication on the market in this business.

00:26:36:12 - 00:26:37:03

Björn Cochlovius

Protein? Yes.

00:26:37:03 - 00:26:37:11

Christian Soschner

With this

00:26:37:11 - 00:27:00:05

Christian Soschner

protein, with this protein and in this indication then, of course. But whenever it failed, and you said that your team thought it's a good challenge and let's pick it up. My question to you is, why did this team decided win? Normally, when a lot fails, many people would say, I don't touched it. This is a failed area.

00:27:00:07 - 00:27:02:21

Christian Soschner

Why did your team decide otherwise?

00:27:02:23 - 00:27:03:06

Björn Cochlovius

Well,

00:27:03:06 - 00:27:23:09

Björn Cochlovius

that was that was in the time of, one of my predecessors. And I really admire, this decision because it was very courageous to do that. I mean, you can always say, oh, let's try that for fun in the lab, right? But you have as a company, you can do that in an academic surrounding.

00:27:23:09 - 00:27:26:22

Björn Cochlovius

But as a company, you have to to think about such

00:27:26:23 - 00:27:48:05

Björn Cochlovius

decisions very carefully. And, the decision was very courageous. It was risky, of course. It they could have failed as well as all the others. But they did that step and, thank God they did. And, thank you for, for my, predecessor at that time

00:27:48:05 - 00:27:56:06

Björn Cochlovius

that that you did that, because it was really a, it brought the company very much forward.

00:27:56:08 - 00:28:29:13

Björn Cochlovius

You know, the the the company's value is now mainly driven by this, by this, by this asset, we can say that, it is really a very, very good, asset. Very interesting. And the, the industry has a lot of interest in it. We are talking to interested parties all the time. But the decision, I mean, I guess that, the, the guys who made the decision at the time had a couple of sleepless nights before they really, did it and made the decision.

00:28:29:13 - 00:28:34:24

Björn Cochlovius

But thank God they did. It was a courageous step. And as it is frequently in

00:28:34:24 - 00:28:54:05

Björn Cochlovius

in biotech, you have to make, courageous decisions from time to time, and you can fail or you can succeed. And it whether you fail or succeed, you see, usually only after a while and more investment and, until now, it paid out.

00:28:54:07 - 00:29:14:04

Christian Soschner

I find this especially fascinating from the business point of view, in the sense that don't like me, when you do that in a lab or in a research organization, it's a small scale project, and you produce your paper and do a little bit with the company. Always have to have in mind on one hand, in preclinical and clinics, it gets really expensive.

00:29:14:06 - 00:29:33:08

Christian Soschner

Yeah. So there need to be some interaction with investors or public funds. Someone needs to finance that. And when they see a pile of data and just feed it into, I mean, back then it was not there, but now it's there. Yeah. I would normally say based on the data, don't touch this. Yeah. Okay. This would mean but this would mean.

00:29:33:08 - 00:29:57:21

Christian Soschner

And your team proves it's that, innovation. That is because, new knowledge, new processes evolve out of failed ideas. I question my question to you. Is, to sanction this a little bit more this decision. Did you have a chance to talk with your team through backup over the back, then what they did to manage the risk, so to to say, okay, we know we go into a direction where everybody fails.

00:29:57:23 - 00:30:04:16

Christian Soschner

We just don't throw everything in. How did they approach the risk management management process?

00:30:04:18 - 00:30:27:13

Björn Cochlovius

That's a very good question. So I believe, they followed. Of course, the standard, what you do that it was not one the, the, the main project at the time when it was started, there were a couple of others around and, it evolved over the time, in parallel to a couple of other projects to be the lead project.

00:30:27:15 - 00:30:56:24

Björn Cochlovius

And that that breakthrough came basically, from very positive animal data. You have to wait that long until you are convinced that this is could really be a game changer for the company. This project and then you you, put it up in the, in the priority, list. Of course, before that, you always have to run a couple of projects in parallel to keep as many, errors in your.

00:30:57:01 - 00:31:26:09

Björn Cochlovius

How do you say, errors in your hand? That's possible. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. So, otherwise, you know, it's it's, the company at that time was although being funded by a very loyal, investor, the company was always very prudent with its, with the funds they, they received have to be and, you know, they did a very good job, in that time with that.

00:31:26:11 - 00:31:51:12

Christian Soschner

I totally agree. And you always have to serve, free, free people, free parties, the patient, the health care system and the investors. And so if you just want and they would have been a success you mentioned before. Let's, let's go back in the conversation that, proteins produced with your technology in wanting to creation showed better efficacy than other projects, other projects on the market did.

00:31:51:14 - 00:31:53:06

Christian Soschner

Did you understand that? Right?

00:31:53:08 - 00:31:54:23

Björn Cochlovius

Yes. That's correct. Yeah.

00:31:55:00 - 00:31:59:01

Christian Soschner

Why? Elvis, for two minutes we are talking about proteins.

00:31:59:03 - 00:31:59:16

Björn Cochlovius

Correct.

00:31:59:20 - 00:32:08:02

Christian Soschner

So I was not bluntly the end result is the same. So you have the same protein. Why do you see with your technology better efficacy.

00:32:08:04 - 00:32:08:14

Björn Cochlovius

Oh in

00:32:08:14 - 00:32:35:20

Björn Cochlovius

that case yeah. That's that's a very special case. We have to well, you know, we have hints on that. Why? It's and we have a working hypothesis with that. And our prophecies is that it is driven by the glycosylation. So, for those who don't know, so, well, if you produce a protein, proteins at the end where the protein is, is finished, you get them in the process.

00:32:35:20 - 00:33:04:21

Björn Cochlovius

Also, sugar, sugars on the surface of the protein, like, and this is called this process called glycosylation. And, each organism has its own, typical individual kind of glycosylation pattern. So it has a different glycosylation pattern than, than other, organisms. And each organism type has its own, type of glycosylation. In our case.

00:33:04:23 - 00:33:30:18

Björn Cochlovius

Plants are the moss is, although it's a very tiny plant and we use only, filaments, growing in suspension. But moss is, a modern plant from the evolutionary point of view. And it has all the apparatus for post-translational, modifications, as it's called as. ACH. Oh, a mammalian cell line has. So there's no difference in that.

00:33:30:23 - 00:34:04:13

Björn Cochlovius

Only in the details of the glycosylation. So, in these many years of technology, optimization, a liver also managed to knock out all the plant specific glycosylation. So they, they trained, the most not to make, glycosylation like a plant to forget to be a plant on that, in that respect. And they, they tweaked it genetically in a way that, glycosylation would look like.

00:34:04:13 - 00:34:39:07

Björn Cochlovius

We want to look at, and there are still small, tiny, differences to co, which is not to, to a disadvantage, but rather to an advantage with that would lead now very far and very deep into, glycol biology. But for this project that you but you said the alpha galactose it this suffice to say that the different, sugars that we have on out like, galactose, alpha galactose, it is compared to the ones that are on the market leads.

00:34:39:09 - 00:35:03:18

Björn Cochlovius

That's our working hypothesis. We then, to the fact that the protein is incorporated into the cell where you want to have it, via a different receptor. The receptor is, is, grabbing the, the sugar molecule on the surface and taking the protein into the cell. And the ones that aren't market have a different sugar than we have.

00:35:03:24 - 00:35:19:19

Björn Cochlovius

And they have it's, funnily enough, incorporated by a different receptors. And that leads to a different way. The molecule works, in the patient and in our case, it works to our advantage. It seems.

00:35:19:21 - 00:35:46:16

Christian Soschner

But this could mean as well that, although the proteins look similar, they have slight differences between the different, different, production processes. But this could also mean that, for existing molecules on the market or proteins on the market, it makes sense to look into your technology because two small differences. Could also make, some, some improvements for the patient.

00:35:46:18 - 00:35:47:00

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah.

00:35:47:00 - 00:36:16:03

Björn Cochlovius

That that's that's of course, that's of course a possibility. But, we are in the moment, not catering to that so much, you know, that would open a Pandora's box that we could and couldn't support in the market, at all. But, theoretically, you're right. And you see, that that just demonstrates that there's a lot, a lot of potential in this, in this new technology.

00:36:16:05 - 00:36:30:15

Björn Cochlovius

And I'm sure that, this technology will be still successful in the industry, but I'm already old and and, you know, sitting with gray House somewhere and just watching the world, develop further.

00:36:30:17 - 00:36:36:13

Christian Soschner

When I look at the longevity space we are talking about 100 years in the future.

00:36:36:15 - 00:36:54:24

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah. Well, you know, that that is really, the thing also with other technologies, you know, over the time they develop further and further and use new, new, aspects are always, then, recognized in this time.

00:36:55:01 - 00:37:08:01

Christian Soschner

Amazing company. My next question. I touched it previously before a little bit with the term I, everybody talks about it. It stays to UCI for for your company. But what changes with AI?

00:37:08:03 - 00:37:08:16

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah,

00:37:08:16 - 00:37:31:24

Björn Cochlovius

it's a good question. I mean, I'm, I'm, I personally, I'm, I'm always a little bit, cautious with, with new hires. Right. Fashions come and go, but I, of course, is a fashion that is here to stay. And that will make our life as, scientists easier. And that's how I look at it.

00:37:32:04 - 00:38:05:17

Björn Cochlovius

AI is a powerful tool that, will support, the scientists, for example, in the, but this is a tool and that's, that's, I believe, very important to keep in mind that especially discovery cannot, in discovery, I can, make the hand work much easier and can take off a lot of work from the from the individual scientist, but, the human brain is still necessary at the end, and that's good.

00:38:05:19 - 00:38:28:21

Björn Cochlovius

In our company, we are working with AI, and and, we have a couple of colleagues that are really very clever with that. I'm too old for it, for these things. But, you know, they are very clever with that. And, they are now incorporating, AI into our, into our R&D processes where it, where it can be incorporated.

00:38:28:23 - 00:38:48:18

Björn Cochlovius

And I'm very excited to see that. And, you know, I'm always sit there like, like, a little boy at Christmas when they showed their, their results. And, you know, that's that's really a fantastic world and a fantastic new world that is opening up for, for scientists. I find it extremely fascinating.

00:38:48:20 - 00:39:11:05

Christian Soschner

You have a long history, interactive allotment and worked with a lot of great companies. You are now in the great company of also writing your material that you work together with BioNTech, obviously. And as the founding team, when we look at the AI, what's your opinion? How will that change the drug development process in the future? I hear every opinion.

00:39:11:05 - 00:39:19:15

Christian Soschner

So from from it will replace everything. And we we we do it for the automated to not reporting it all. But your opinion.

00:39:19:17 - 00:39:20:11

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah.

00:39:20:11 - 00:40:03:09

Björn Cochlovius

To BioNTech I never worked with the company but I know the founders long, long time ago we were working in the same lab and rubbing shoulders, in the lab, but, No, well, you know, who can predict the future? When I was, when I was younger, I love to read science fiction, novels and, I when you when you when I think back in some of the books that I read when I was a teenager, they were already fantasizing how much can be automated, and also how much of thinking can be automated and I'm now amazed that we are exactly there.

00:40:03:11 - 00:40:33:24

Björn Cochlovius

Where these these offers, a long time ago. What they what they fantasized about. Now it's becoming reality. And I find it's, it's very good because it it is there to support, the, the, I was a scientist a lot. And as I said, it's, you know, things that in the in when I was a student might have taken a week to do, then ten years later, took then only a night at the by the first robots.

00:40:34:01 - 00:40:55:16

Björn Cochlovius

Nowadays, they take only, a few hours to, to to be performed at the same level. See now with the impact of AI in, in, in, in research and, that this will just make it, much faster and more efficient to, to to perform a lot of work.

00:40:55:16 - 00:40:59:23

Björn Cochlovius

It will never replace the human brain. I'm sure about that at

00:40:59:23 - 00:41:01:23

Björn Cochlovius

least.

00:41:02:00 - 00:41:25:17

Björn Cochlovius

I hope it will never replace the human brain. I find this this, it is, for me an important fact never to to forget that at the end, it's always a human who has to decide whether this makes sense or not. And it's also the human who tells the machine, what to do. And trains the machine.

00:41:25:19 - 00:41:49:12

Björn Cochlovius

And, tells them how to learn, and so on. That's that's the thing. Humans can never be replaced and should never be replaced. I believe that's for me at least. It's a very, deep, and profound ethical question. We all have to, to keep in the back of our heads when we work on

00:41:49:12 - 00:41:51:13

Björn Cochlovius

AI and develop AI further.

00:41:51:13 - 00:41:55:01

Björn Cochlovius

It's a tool and always should stay at all.

00:41:55:03 - 00:42:19:10

Christian Soschner

Yeah. I also think, what you say is completely right. And when I look back in the last 30 years with all this technology, technological advancement in the digital space, the disk companies who tried the tried to replace humans, yet a very short lifetime. Yes. It's very difficult to predict. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned you like science fiction. What's your favorite book?

00:42:19:12 - 00:42:22:10

Björn Cochlovius

Oh, well,

00:42:22:10 - 00:42:40:24

Björn Cochlovius

you know, I'm looking now over to my to my bookshelf and to my bookshelf. When when I was a teenager. Or. No, an early student, I found, you know, the Wheel of Time, the series, which now became a movie and, or as a movie series.

00:42:40:24 - 00:43:04:09

Björn Cochlovius

I love that always. I, I read it many times, and, and when it, the not, the, the movies came out, I was surprised that they kept relatively close to the books. Not completely, but, that was I like it a lot. And still, I find it fascinating. I push it on my three sons, now, not only to watch the movies, but also to to work through a couple of thousand pages of books.

00:43:04:09 - 00:43:05:03

Björn Cochlovius

Yes.

00:43:05:05 - 00:43:25:13

Christian Soschner

So the wheel of Time is worth reading. I have it in my library, but not touched it yet. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the recommendation. You worked with the founders of founded in the lab? No. Get it right. What I find interesting in the industry, and I would like to hear your opinion on that, is basic research has its own culture.

00:43:25:15 - 00:43:57:06

Christian Soschner

And in my opinion, it's driven by patents and publications and academic credentials. Yes. Quite normal. And the ultimate goal of basic research is to uncover more knowledge for human society. When I look then at preclinical development, the goal changes. We have to have speed, needs to make decisions. We need to bring something to the patient for the clinical development into clinical development, to the market.

00:43:57:08 - 00:44:20:05

Christian Soschner

Otherwise development doesn't make sense in the companies I worked and the teams that I worked with always had this interesting cultural tension between basic research. Yeah, to a lot of studies to improve the knowledge base and the development teams who said, forget it, we have a streamlined plan up to the market and that's it. Yeah, that's true for you as CEO.

00:44:20:05 - 00:44:25:13

Christian Soschner

You work in this space for a few decades. How do you handle this tension?

00:44:25:15 - 00:44:52:05

Björn Cochlovius

You hit the nail on the head, Christian. This is really, and whether it's a small, a small organization, like a labor now or a large organization, like when I was with this, with Roche or with every. It's always the same. And you hit it. You are completely right. I believe those, organizations are the most successful.

00:44:52:05 - 00:45:21:14

Björn Cochlovius

That, a keep, a certain, space of freedom and liberty of, thinking, in the R&D field, in discovery, so that people can play around and, and, have a certain kind of, of freedom to, to work. But as soon as a project comes to the, to the point where it needs development, they have to, to let go.

00:45:21:16 - 00:46:01:21

Björn Cochlovius

And and then it has, as you said, it has to go into the machinery, as I always, call it, where it has to be brought forward, you know, straight, according to, to your development needs and strict timelines and everything. And I believe the, the, those companies who can give this freedom to R&D and have, on the other hand, a very well oiled machinery and and this is the most crucial point, have the ability, a good process of, finding the right time point and the good way to hand over the project from the one universe into the other.

00:46:01:23 - 00:46:18:21

Björn Cochlovius

This is not only different planets. Yes, completely different universes. Right. And those companies are really able to do this transformation from the one to the other at the right time point in the right way. They are the successful ones.

00:46:18:23 - 00:46:25:15

Christian Soschner

Are you an advocate for a hand over and not inclusion of basic research and development?

00:46:25:17 - 00:46:50:07

Björn Cochlovius

I'm I'm an advocate for hand over. But on the other hand, the R&D folks that originated the project will always be there in the background. They will always support the project, you know, and their brain will always be needed to be picked during preclinical, during the clinic, even, there are always coming questions back. And you have to, to go back to these teams.

00:46:50:09 - 00:47:35:02

Björn Cochlovius

But I believe, that it is good for both worlds, to, also stick to their guns because you need you need personnel with very different, attitude and skill sets for both universes. And, both skill sets and attitudes have their, their right to be there. But, And there will be always this overlap that I just mentioned, but I believe it's very important to make sure that the it, for the sake of the project, the project can, have it's good time in both in both universes and being treated in the right way in both universes, then separately.

00:47:35:02 - 00:47:35:23

Björn Cochlovius

Yes.

00:47:36:00 - 00:48:04:05

Christian Soschner

I like your metaphor about the universes. This is really the best description. It's not only different worlds or continents, it's really completely separated universes. Yes. And I have also seen a lot of difficulties when researchers move into development. But the researchers in their hearts and a lot of tension, as you said, ultimately we need to move projects forward to decision making points and a decision can be we continue with this continue.

00:48:04:05 - 00:48:13:01

Christian Soschner

And both is fine. It both is is right, especially in an industry. But the odds are stacked against us. Mr. Franco, our sanity. He runs Cary by and was at first workbench.

00:48:13:02 - 00:48:14:02

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah, yeah.

00:48:14:04 - 00:48:41:21

Christian Soschner

And he said that this this ruthless focus developing the right compounds for but without emotions is what made his company successful. How did how do you how do you convince people that this, this neutral decision making is necessary to move their, compounds forward when they really have their. I mean, this is really for some it's really babies.

00:48:41:21 - 00:48:45:23

Christian Soschner

That's the cow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Time. How how do you manage these emotions?

00:48:46:00 - 00:48:53:02

Björn Cochlovius

It's very it's sometimes it can be difficult to let go, for, for, for the researchers. I mean, I started

00:48:53:06 - 00:49:07:21

Björn Cochlovius

also myself as a, as, as a discovery researcher at the German Cancer Research and a long time ago with bispecific antibodies. So I know exactly how you feel. To let go of project. It hurts.

00:49:07:23 - 00:49:31:09

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah. Really, it's, so I believe it's very important that you give them that. That is what I said before, that you always have this feedback, that you keep them in the loop, how it's progressing the project and that you that you show that you also use their knowledge about the project, about that molecule, for example, as much as you can at the beginning.

00:49:31:09 - 00:49:51:08

Björn Cochlovius

And nobody knows the molecule better than they do. Right. And you always have to go back to them. And if you if you make it clear that, sorry, you have to let go, but we still appreciate your knowledge of, of the compound and your knowledge is still needed then I believe it's not so, so difficult at the end.

00:49:51:10 - 00:49:55:07

Björn Cochlovius

But there's always this pain to let go. No. No doubt.

00:49:55:09 - 00:50:20:08

Christian Soschner

I completely agree that the ideal world would really be a clean hand over. Basic research is out and development takes over. But as you said, you always need to research just because there are always research questions coming up on your development. So you can't you really can't divide these universes in between. You always have to this communication. But problem squared, it's not only basic research and development.

00:50:20:14 - 00:50:37:21

Christian Soschner

You also need to talk with your part. Mostly investors. Yeah. And you also need to interact with the pharma industry regulators. My question to you is, as a CEO, how do you keep those parties aligned? What's your secret or secret?

00:50:37:21 - 00:50:38:00

Björn Cochlovius

I

00:50:38:00 - 00:51:11:03

Björn Cochlovius

don't know, but I have a secret. But, but you're right, a CEO, especially of such, of smaller companies, but also larger companies. You always have to have, a couple of balls in the air and you have to try to, to, to keep them flying. At one point and at that, several points, probably, but one point, I believe that is very important is that you are you are only as good as the team that you that you, have around you.

00:51:11:05 - 00:51:14:21

Björn Cochlovius

I had when I was, as a kid with Roche, I had a mentor,

00:51:14:24 - 00:51:27:03

Björn Cochlovius

and, he said to me, always find people for your team that are smarter than you in their in their field. Always, never have the attitude that you want to be smarter

00:51:27:05 - 00:51:31:08

Björn Cochlovius

in the in the field of expertise than your expert in your team.

00:51:31:10 - 00:52:05:13

Björn Cochlovius

And then listen to these experts in your team. So that's what I tried to do. I try to have always, experts around me who are world class in, in their field and who, on whom I can completely lean and rely on. And of course, there's always interaction and maybe sometimes different opinions, but, you know, the point is that like that, I can delegate a lot of, a lot of thinking to these people and I can take care of, as you said, for example, of the board and investors and, and such things.

00:52:05:15 - 00:52:36:20

Björn Cochlovius

And those teams are the, the, the where you give certain kind of liberty and, and, and responsibility, to those, to those experts that are better than you in their field. I believe these are extremely, successful teams. If you, if you do it like that. So I've, I've found over the, over the years that such teams I love to work with because I always love to, to learn from other people.

00:52:36:22 - 00:52:52:23

Björn Cochlovius

And, I love also to, to do it that way because I've seen that it's, it seems to be working. I mean, other people may might have other other, as you said, secrets or recipes, but, for me, that's that's, one way to, to make it

00:52:53:00 - 00:52:54:02

Björn Cochlovius

work.

00:52:54:04 - 00:53:10:16

Christian Soschner

Yeah, I completely agree. Hiring smart people into a company that even outshining the CEO. Yeah, is the right thing. But sometimes I think emotionally difficult because at the end, there's the question what role has the CEO then been? Everyone the smarter than them.

00:53:10:18 - 00:53:11:03

Björn Cochlovius

Well,

00:53:11:07 - 00:53:18:07

Björn Cochlovius

well, you know, I believe the CEO has to be humble. I, okay. On the one hand,

00:53:18:07 - 00:53:38:11

Björn Cochlovius

as a CEO, you always are pushed in into the light. You always have to represent, the company, you know, but a good CEO also, does when it sounds now, maybe a little bit cheesy, but, you know, if if things go right, the CEO points to his team.

00:53:38:13 - 00:54:13:16

Björn Cochlovius

And when, as soon as it, things go bad, then the CEO points at himself. And I believe that's a very important job of the CEO, because otherwise, or not in this way, he can take, keep him away from the from the management team especially. And that's very, very important. Because SEC all alone, you cannot run the company, but, you have to run it with a good management team, and you have to do everything to empower the management team to do a good job and to protect the management team from harm.

00:54:13:18 - 00:54:53:22

Björn Cochlovius

That's, I believe, one of the the key, the key jobs of a good CEO. And, I mean, yeah, it's it's, it's, always important also to let to let your, your management, colleagues, get also, positive feedback when it comes in the direction of the company, especially when it's something they did you know, then you as a CEO, don't say, oh, I did a great job here, but you you would say at least you would say we did a great job here, or you would say, we did a great job here.

00:54:53:23 - 00:55:25:21

Björn Cochlovius

By the way, that was that was a very good, project by the person X. You know, if you do it like that, then you do it in the right way. And, that shows also, to the inside of the company that, every, every activity, every work, every effort is worth it, that you do it and that it's seen and that it's also appreciated, also by the outside world.

00:55:25:23 - 00:55:35:02

Björn Cochlovius

So it's important that as a CEO, you show your team also to the outside and you know, make them shine as well.

00:55:35:04 - 00:55:35:13

Christian Soschner

I

00:55:35:15 - 00:55:56:01

Christian Soschner

like example, if I was I think of praise and compliments. That's so important. Oh yeah. It's your team doing the work. And on the other hand, when something goes wrong, it's your decision to select that team that's the core of the problem. But the thing is that I always find fascinating, praise is good for the team.

00:55:56:03 - 00:56:09:15

Christian Soschner

Price is also good for investors and for everybody outside. But also, the CEO is a human being and there is nobody tapping them on the shoulder. So my question to you is, what do you do to recharge your energy, your batteries?

00:56:09:17 - 00:56:11:17

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah. I'm

00:56:11:17 - 00:56:46:15

Björn Cochlovius

I'm a family guy on the one hand. So I take a lot of, of, of energy from the love that I have within my family. You know, I have three sons, and, a lovely wife. So that's that's very good for me. The other thing is, I try to be in nature a lot and just to be alone, once or twice per year, I, I give myself the luxury for a couple of days to be completely off the grid.

00:56:46:17 - 00:57:03:19

Björn Cochlovius

And I disappear somewhere in, in nature, usually diving somewhere, and, you know, being completely off the grid for a few days, and that's, that helps me a lot. I'm. Yeah. Family in nature. These these are my my my things.

00:57:03:21 - 00:57:15:12

Christian Soschner

I have the coming to the end of our conversation. I have three questions left, if I may ask them. Sure. So the first one is, diving. You love diving. What fascinates you in diving?

00:57:15:14 - 00:57:16:10

Björn Cochlovius

Oh, what

00:57:16:10 - 00:57:49:12

Björn Cochlovius

fascinates me? Well, on the one hand, it's the, it's it's always quiet in the ocean, you know? It's it's peaceful and quiet, and I love nature. I'm a biologist, you know? That's the one thing. On the other hand, you learn when it when you. I believe that's something that seamen, fishermen, divers and everyone learns is that the ocean is huge, powerful magic and that you learn a lot of respect to for the ocean and for nature.

00:57:49:12 - 00:57:49:17

Björn Cochlovius

But

00:57:49:17 - 00:57:51:13

Björn Cochlovius

that.

00:57:51:15 - 00:58:06:02

Christian Soschner

The second question is we are walking at, a high speed into the future. How do you position your company as a strategic asset in today's farmer landscape?

00:58:06:04 - 00:58:07:02

Björn Cochlovius

Oof, yeah,

00:58:07:02 - 00:58:27:01

Björn Cochlovius

that's a good one. So, I believe, we have two aspects here. And currently we are preparing the company to serve these two aspects, by a, by a plant, restructuring. So on the one hand, the platform, we talked about it. It's it might be a game changer for the one or the other project.

00:58:27:03 - 00:58:36:23

Björn Cochlovius

So don't despair. We can maybe help you. And factor H, I believe is is something that will change the life to of many patients, to the,

00:58:37:00 - 00:58:38:18

Björn Cochlovius

to the better.

00:58:38:20 - 00:59:04:02

Christian Soschner

And when we look at the European scale, Europe has large and, rich history environment, biotech. Yeah. And, but, the world never sleeps. And there are a lot of upcoming ecosystems. The US is doing well. China is emerging, Southeast Asia there is a lot going on in Saudi Arabia. Yeah. A lot of activity in the United Arab Emirates.

00:59:04:04 - 00:59:12:01

Christian Soschner

What's your vision for European landscape? If you could change it with your company and with your success?

00:59:12:03 - 00:59:13:02

Björn Cochlovius

Okay.

00:59:13:02 - 00:59:43:05

Björn Cochlovius

Let's say like this, in Europe has a problem with, too much bureaucracy and a lack of venture capital. Everybody knows that. And this is something where, for example, than, the Emirates, have a very different, position on that point. However, if you look at basic research, academic research, Europe is still world class and will be for, the, for the future, I'm sure about that.

00:59:43:07 - 01:00:25:05

Björn Cochlovius

The problem is more on bringing those, these things, into into the industry, so to speak. But there's still hope. Just today was this announcement that, BioNTech wants to take over cure back. I believe that's that's really, a big story for Germany. And, this this shows that, despite all the problems and all the all the, the pitfalls of European, for biotech in Europe, there's still hope, there's still things moving and still, this story just shows that Europe is not what some, some people say.

01:00:25:07 - 01:00:34:02

Björn Cochlovius

Far behind the will never, will never come back. So I'm still hopeful. But, yeah, bureaucracy and lack of work is making the

01:00:34:04 - 01:00:36:22

Björn Cochlovius

life of everyone very difficult in Europe.

01:00:36:24 - 01:01:02:17

Christian Soschner

So this would then be a nice call to action for our politicians to set regulations in motion with less bureaucracy and, as an end result, more venture capital. But, beyond. Thank you very much for this conversation. I've learned from you that still investors also in Europe exist that are aligned with the companies and support biotech companies. BioNTech is a world class example that, two years ago, $20 billion on the bank account.

01:01:02:19 - 01:01:08:15

Christian Soschner

But I think also Europe needs more than want BioNTech to move the industry forward, especially the venture capital said.

01:01:08:17 - 01:01:37:00

Björn Cochlovius

Yeah, right. Okay. I believe so too. So, capital, the you know, the venture companies, they all have, filled bank accounts. They only need they're only now hesitant to to to dish it out. They have to overcome that. Please. There's so many good innovation out there desperate for money. Guys, do your job and invest. That's my my wish to the venture capital world and to the to the state.

01:01:37:00 - 01:01:40:16

Björn Cochlovius

Always reduce bureaucracy wherever you can.

01:01:40:18 - 01:02:03:13

Christian Soschner

But thank you very much for your vision. Thank you very much for driving the company and your team forward into a promising direction. I learned a lot from our conversations, and I'm excited to see how your company and your team evolves in the next ten years, and how you change the European landscape. And thank you again for your time, your vision, and for making space for this conversation.

01:02:03:15 - 01:02:07:03

Björn Cochlovius

It has been a great pleasure. Kristen, thanks a lot for having me.

01:02:07:05 - 01:02:09:15

Christian Soschner

Thank you, and I wish you a nice afternoon.

01:02:09:17 - 01:02:10:15

Björn Cochlovius

Thank you. Take care.

01:02:10:15 - 01:02:14:13

Christian Soschner

Bye bye, Theo. Bye.

01:02:14:15 - 01:02:20:05

Björn Cochlovius

If there is one thing to take away from this conversation, it is this.

01:02:20:07 - 01:02:59:11

Björn Cochlovius

The future of medicine won't be decided by who has the most ideas. It will be decided by who can carry ideas all the way through to the market, from science to manufacturing to patients at a global scale. John showed us that real progress lives in the uncomfortable middle where courage meets discipline, where technology has to fit existing systems and where leadership means making decisions long before certainty arrives.

01:02:59:13 - 01:03:31:20

Björn Cochlovius

If this episode made you think differently about biopharma innovation or leadership, please do one simple thing that helps this conversation travel further. Follow the show wherever you listen to it, like the episode and share it with someone who builds, invests, scales, or decides not for vanity, but because these are the conversations that compound over time. And if this resonated with you, stay close.

01:03:31:22 - 01:03:45:18

Björn Cochlovius

The next episode goes even deeper into how ideas become real, tangible outcomes and why judgment matters more than hype. See you in the next conversation.