Embracing Biotech Chaos With Memo's Erik van den Berg

He still likes all that and he's been navigating the chaos for nearly 30 years , starting out in management consulting with Arthur D Little , an international management consulting firm that was founded by you guessed it and , perhaps ironically , a chemist . From there , eric moved to industry , working in business development for .

Eric moved to industry , working in business development for Isotis , orthobiologics and then Organon , before joining the boards of Holland Bio and Lead Pharma , co-founding Heat Matrix Group and Lava Therapeutics .

He's now chairman of the boards of Step Pharma , tridec One and Target Biopharmaceuticals and a board member of AM Pharma , where he was previously CEO and Chief Business Officer . Before that , late last year , eric became CEO at Memo Therapeutics , a developer of antiviral and anti-cancer monoclonal antibodies .

Along the way , eric has secured more than half a billion in financing deals for those early-stage companies and tallied well over a billion dollars in transactions , licensing and partnership deals . I'm Matt Pillar . This is the Business of Biotech , and on today's show we're getting into the intentional embrace of chaos with Memo Therapeutics CEO , Erik van den Berg .

Eric , welcome to the show .

So I was hoping we could start out by walking through some of the building blocks that you've sort of intentionally placed along the journey , things like , you know , your MBA , some of the early influences during your student life and how that kind of formed up .

So I studied both chemistry as well as business science and later , indeed on , did my MBA with a business internship in Australia . So I already knew that I wanted to work beyond , say , the lab , in a chemical lab .

So I started my career , indeed , as a consultant because I thought that's a nice broad way to start getting experience , do three or four months assignments in different industries , different settings , strategy or more HR or business process redesign or innovation and R&D management .

And in that process I found out that that innovation side , the management of that , was most interested to me , and it's also the first time that I encountered the biotech industry .

Yeah , that was the part actually where I worked in , but the heritage was still there from r&d and innovation management .

So the company in the 90s , published and earlier published books on how to do that , how to become a product juggernaut or how to do fourth generation r&d management , product juggernaut , or how to do fourth-generation R&D management and stuff like that .

There were these gurus in-house that taught us youngsters on those methodologies and you were exposed to , of course , leaders in the industry , either chemical or pharma industry .

On that part , and this is also why , for example , we did an assignment at a certain moment in time for a university in the Netherlands that wanted to do something in biotech , but it didn't have anything in its curriculum for its students to do biotech education . So that was a classical strategy evaluation where we looked at okay , what does a market need ?

What is your competition doing ? Where do you excel in from a competence perspective ? So then , what would be a logical fit to offer as a added value to students .

So that's when I visited all biotech companies in the Netherlands , where we're not that many at that time , and then eventually started to join one being Isotus that you have introduced as a business developer , basically being involved with lots of different stuff licensing agreements , also the IPO process and a merger process with a Swiss company managing part of the

R&D . So that was a very nice and broad experience late 90s , early 2000s , benefiting from the boom at that point in time when going public in 2000 , which was basically at the end of the cycle . So when we went public , our book emptied of the subscribed investors with interest and we were just able to close and float the company to progress its R&D .

Eventually the company was sold . The constant factor maybe just to , yeah , the constant factor at least on that journey was , I guess I like challenges , learning , you know , building teams , achieving results . So that has been more the constant threat through my career . So maybe it looks intentionally in hindsight .

That had to have given you at least a taste of that , that that fueled the field of flames a bit .

Yeah , you know , they had three buildings under management . It was probably about at that time , I guess , about a million euro in revenues that came in and needed to be managed and lots of activities that were organized . So lots of different groups that need to be coordinated to have those activities performed .

I was more on the commercial side of those activities , so how to get external money into that union of students supporting the activities and the representation . So I was more on the outside of the union , which was a lot of fun to do . It definitely helped , indeed , in the personal development .

You know , far from home , being in a business environment in a different culture , having an assignment that needed to be finished in three months , assignment that needed to be finished in three months , maybe that was a good step up towards the consulting life indeed , where you basically finish and start a new project within three months or four months .

You have to be the expert and have to know a bit more than your customer . So it was always a very fast learning course because you have to stay ahead of your customer and they , of course , are better subject matter experts than we were .

We just had good methodologies , clear thinking and then an outside view in gathering information , making information transparent so that everybody has the same set of assumptions or at least the same set of data effects in front of them before further decisions were made . I think that was what the added value that consultants could provide to companies .

And the same goes for investors , for example , and also in discussions with teams , for example , development questions .

I think it's very helpful to know what the facts are and what opinions are , so that we put them on the table and then have a factual discussion on it , so that we take the best decisions possible , knowing what risks you take , because in biotech you always have to take decisions .

In the absence of data , there's never enough , but you have to make strides forward , not to lose a lot of time , but at least it's clear what the facts are and opinions , so that you can move forward from there .

So those are things I've taken along , probably besides being able to make fancy PowerPoints to make fancy PowerPoints , making factual , fact-based decisions in times of chaos .

Then there was covid , and then everything changed again , and then , shortly on the heels of covid , everything changed again when the money dried up here in the States . We find ourselves in a chaotic political scene that's having influence on biotech here in the States . So chaos is a constant . You know that , at least .

There are quite a few talking heads who said this is a problem , while everyone was enjoying the freedom , the free flow of money that was going on . So that's chaotic . I mean , from some perspectives it may be chaotic in a good way , but it's chaotic nonetheless .

Tell us a little bit about your experience during that time and particularly how you lean into your management philosophies to exercise some pragmatism and discernment when you know capital is probably available everywhere you look yeah , um , yeah , and that was maybe even more so during covet right , which was really the heydays when lots of money was available .

If you think through it again , that in nine months from start of knowing your antigen to having a vaccine available to roll out on a global scale , the human ingenuity basically that had to go to play , and the project management capabilities to manage these billions of investments with all sorts of parallel activities around the globe , that was a tremendous task .

We maybe already have forgotten about it , but I think that is basically what innovation can do . So when there is sufficient money available , I basically always believe in a capital efficiency . What it will allow , of course , to do is pursue multiple compounds in parallel , and sometimes that's needed to mature a new technology .

So , for example , in an oncology company , if you can have , from a platform , four programs developed , you're pretty sure that probably one of them will be successful , but you're also pretty sure that probably half of them won't be successful , which is , of course , then riskier if there's less money available and you have to make a bet on what is the compound to

take forward . What we did , for example , in Lava Therapeutics that I co-founded I think we founded that in 2018 , if I'm not mistaken with our first financing round , and then we took it public in 2021 on the NASDAQ , bringing two programs into the clinic in the same year . So that has been a really fast development of assets .

So , being able to do every year a large financing round stepping up towards an IPO , I think was critical to be able to accelerate in that amount of speed , which , of course , changed then again when the climate deteriorated the financial climate and at that moment in time at the board we had discussions around , instead of doing lots of activities in parallel , so

that you plan for the shortest route to BLA . We had , of course , to pace our investments because the investment climate was changing and we didn't know whether , when and where there was access again to new capital .

So that changes what you do in parallel , which might , of course , then increase the time to get to your medicine to patients , which is , of course , not the best , but it's the reality . And secondly , of course , is what do you do in-house and what do you do in partnerships . So lava therapeut .

In the end we had two partnerships in place one with Janssen , the J&J pharmaceutical subsidiary that we had early on , and then later on , the company that deal with Cgen , shields and Ethics Cgen , which was acquired by Pfizer thereafter .

But then you can leverage , of course , the capital of another partner to do the clinical studies , which are expensive costs that you can then avoid whilst it brings in an upfront as well , which extends the runway of a company . So those were choices that we made within Lava Therapeutics at that time .

Another example maybe with AM Pharma , where I was CEO at the time , we did an early deal with Pfizer after phase one , ahead of phase two , data , which was an option deal 87.5 million upfront and then $600 million total deal that Pfizer would prepare for a seamless execution of the phase three after we finish phase two , and there's already quite a bit of

manufacturing activities , for example , that you need to invest in before you can enter into phase three activities . So that deal allowed us to accelerate potential development through phase three without spending that type of money whilst preparing for phase three and hand over then to Pfizer .

Well , it didn't happen at the time , so they did not exercise their option which is of course , fair that more than half of the option deals are not exercised . So we built it already into the contract that we managed this clinical study . We retained all the manufacturing data that they provided so that we could seamlessly progress ourselves with the phase three .

The only caveat was we now needed to raise the money for a phase three , which was a 1,600-patient study that we eventually run across four continents .

But then COVID came along and our product was to be tested in the intensive care units for patients that have an infection , sepsis and acute kidney injury , and we wanted to treat that acute kidney injury part Well in COVID time of course you had lots of patients on the ICU with an infection , but not being flu this time , but COVID .

And then of course , also had organ failures like kidney failure that we were treating . But we had no experience in that patient population because the phase two was done prior to COVID . So we needed to quickly adapt there in our plans .

So we analyzed the situation and decided to exclude the COVID-19 patients from the main trial population because we had no previous experience in it , but still include these patients because the drug might be helpful in protecting the kidney also in these patients . So we included these patients in a specific cohort to evaluate the effect of our drug .

Yeah , which in the end it was a small group of COVID patients included , but there seemed to be a tremendous lowering of mortality in that subgroup . Yeah , so yeah , that's the reason to try it .

So we're going to revisit that , but I've got a follow-up for you before we move on around your comments on the fact that during the glut of money that was happening just prior to and during COVID , there was also a corresponding glut of innovation . I mean , there was all sorts of innovation and innovation remains .

With so much money floating around all at once and so much innovation happening at the same time , what are your thoughts on why so many of those startup companies , startup biotechs , who were well-heeled with cash leading into and during COVID , have struggled or outright failed since I mean , I know there are several .

You could go along on case studies on failed companies , but I'm curious . I guess , just philosophically or generally , you know what your take is on . Like what went wrong . You had all this money , you had a great scientific principle .

You can try to shape the conditions that luck appears , maybe more frequently , and then , if you recognize it as a leader , you can bank on that luck . But in general , yeah , it's not atypical that clinical studies take longer to execute , definitely during COVID and definitely thereafter , certainly in the US .

So somehow , you know , resources disappeared , focused on clinical trials disappeared , became also much more expensive .

So I think those are all factors that don't help , because if it costs more and it takes longer , you'll run out of cash if you have a large organization and a large burn rate , and I think that is basically where maybe , uh , companies have not adapted quickly enough to the new reality to say , well , we need to stretch money because we don't know when there's

capital available anymore , and stuck too long to the original plan , which was the plan that was successful in the past and raised a lot of capital and , of course , provides a lot of chances , but , yeah , it's very difficult to run a candy store , basically of many different things .

were affected by the pandemic that you had to manage through during that time . I mean patient access and the decisions you made around who you would treat and how and how you would treat them in that clinical trial in terms of putting them in their own cohort . You know that was a great , great example . You know things like supply chains .

You know that were certainly crunched and remain in some cases , you know , in a state of flux . Now , what other factors did COVID put in front of ?

So setting up the flexibility around management of the trial to be able to do that uh , home visits , for example uh is something I think that is there now to stay in the supply . Well , another example , maybe on the clinical side , is that we set up a studio , uh , and did our investigator meetings .

Uh , live , we are kind of we presented not from our desk but from a studio , like what you would do in a meeting room , and then gather the audience with lots of multiple voting optionalities to engage the audience as much as possible in a remote way . Those were things to be invented A little supply chain . It was just unpredictable .

I think the effect was it became more expensive but also it was longer to procure materials . So instead of typically saying in manufacturing , within half a year , you should be able to get everything in .

I think nowadays suppliers , cdmos , analyze what are the critical long lead time materials which probably have to be ordered in 12 months or nine months at least in advance to make sure that you don't have delays in starting up your trial for your manufacturing campaign .

I think those were things that the company had to deal with and , yeah , we were on it , and still there are some remnants of that , indeed in the supply chain that it can still take these nine or 12 months on long lead time items where prior to that it basically was not the case .

We recruited people from the US and to the Netherlands and I wanted to build a tightly knit culture around a single center where everybody had to come in and they had office before we would spread out and maybe get local operations . Well then COVID came along , so there was no office and it turned out that a team is very well manageable at a remote basis .

So we changed our hiring policy and we just said we want the best person and it doesn't really matter where the location is . So we had people scattered in the US , across Europe , and still a relatively modest team eventually of 35 people , and it worked fine . So I think there needs to be a strong company culture that needs to be shared .

There has to be sufficient , of course , face-to-face time opportunities .

So going back to the mothership frequently to engage with the team or sub-teams is important , organizing your offsites is important , but I think articulating a concrete , explicit culture that is carried by everybody , where collaboration , for example , and accountability are typically important ingredients of , I think , is pivotal .

And then it really doesn't matter that not everybody is at the same time at the same same moment , so we share information and we're doing that again now at memo therapeutics . So we have people in the us now across europe , built a great culture . We've expanded the team not doubled yet , but almost doubled since when I joined about eight months ago .

But , yeah , it works . If there is a collaborative spirit and a strong corporate culture , a willingness to share and help each other , it works . And I think that is really my key learning from COVID and I see that now being applied across many different biotechs , also the ones that I'm on the board .

You know , how do I know that Eric Vandenberg , although he's in the Netherlands , and I can't like watch him sit at his desk and do his work all day , how do I know that he's not going to walk his dog and , you know , take his kids on picnics and do things like that when I really need him to be doing important work and sharing it with the team ?

So if somebody is not contributing to what the tasks are that the person is responsible for , you'll know . Yeah , it's glaring , you missed that line . The quality is not there of documents that you're reviewing . Uh , you're in pitch situations together , so it's kind of obvious .

Uh , you just need to stay switched on , um , and is you know somebody still contributing or is somebody hiding ? And that's why I still like to have , for , for example , frequent moments with the team , also face-to-face , because sometimes , of course , body language speaks more than what you would get from either a Zoom call like this .

So I think that's still information that you need to complete the picture and to have these face-to-face discussions or dinner together , etc . But yeah , I don't feel the need to control people on a day-to-day activity .

You know , we'll make agreements on what the expectations are , what needs to be delivered , when we agree on how things will be done , and then we evaluate what the result is , and that is a feedback loop . So I think that's probably the way people like to work where there is responsibility .

So when you hire people because that was part of your question so how do you know ? Yes , character traits are , I guess , important . If somebody can be independent , a self-starter , I think that's important . Part of that is also baked into experience .

So it's really difficult if somebody comes from large pharma and didn't have any prior biotech experience and then starts in biotech . That's quite a change . The way of working is really different because we don't have a gazillion experts or support groups supporting your activities . You have to do it yourself .

You have to be productive yourself and be forthcoming and engage with the team . So I typically like profiles that have had both that large pharma as biotech experience for the senior roles and , of course , for the senior roles and , of course , for the the board junior roles . It's really about the learning capacity .

So does somebody have the potential to grow in his or her role ? So those are key , yeah , factors for for evaluation beginning , yeah , and as soon as you feel that you don't trust anybody , right .

So if there's that's already there , that , yeah , don't do it , don't give somebody , uh , the advantage of the doubt there , just because you put somebody already at a bad start from the beginning .

I mean , you've ascertained that you've done a good job with multiple companies obviating for that , you know , preserving cash , stretching the dollar , but still it creates a moment of the necessity for some management finesse to see that coming .

Make sure that you're going to be able to keep the lights on and the paychecks rolling , and definitely not knowing when the market's going to come back . So tell us a little bit about that . How have you gone about not knowing when the market's going to come back ? So tell us a little bit about that .

How have you gone about being good at , you know , still placing good bets and still maintaining the course when money is not as readily available as it once was ?

So , yeah , maybe the example of the company that I currently work on with Memo Therapeutics . So we have one program at the clinic that we need to make sure it is successful . So what we've done in the last half year is extended the financing round so we were able to raise further funding . Total C round was 45 million Swiss francs .

So you really do a robust phase two study with an antibody that addresses the BK virus in a kidney transplantation setting . So that's a virus we all carry . But if you're on strong immunosuppressants , you get opportunistic infections , which basically then destroys the kidney because that's where the cells reside .

So addressing it is really important and currently there's nothing out there . So we wanted to make sure that we had the money to address that .

So , focusing on the trial , analyzing , for example , the powering of the study , what were the regulatory feedback , so that we really placed the company in the best position to have the maximum chance to address the potential risks that we see but also address the questions .

In the best position to have the maximum chance to address the potential risks that we see but also address the questions that the regulators have , including now also involving the potential commercial questions , what is important for payers , what's important for patients and for physicians .

So those are things that we all accelerated and took on board with a real focus to once we have the data , we should be able to accelerate quickly into phase three . At the same time , we had a discovery platform of different programs that were ongoing .

We probably had about four programs ongoing and together as a team we decided to really focus on only one area . So that's how we support , of course , the BK program . That's in the clinic .

But the other activity that we now do is evaluate the TLS biology and I like to call it tertiary lymphoid structures , which are predictive for good outcome in solid tumor cancers , and that is basically now more and more explored in the last five or six years . But what are these tertiary lymphoid structures doing ?

Well , they're maturing B cells to produce certain antibodies that apparently are very effective in addressing the tumors and its metastasis , so our technology can identify these antibodies and then identify the targets that they're addressing and in that way we might be able to find new antibody or new epitopes for new targets or existing targets and directly move that into

the clinic . So that focusing , I think , of the discovery , not doing too much in parallel , but concentrating your efforts on what you think delivers as the highest chance to deliver results on the shortest timeframe and with that being the cheapest , I think is something that we at least took to heart within Memo Therapeutics .

But I already gave you the example on Alpha Therapeutics where we said , okay , so we're going to partly , of course , partner a platform of clinical stage assets , because you cannot carry multiple clinical stage assets forward if your budget is limited , because you burn very quickly throughout your money financing with multiple companies .

I think , right like , given your experience , I think it's safe for me to assume that if your company was focused as you said is so important , but the focus was on something that perhaps wasn't palatable or isn't palatable to sustenance from the greater market , you'd know it and you would correct course . I mean , that's a general , safe assumption .

So that leads to the question I would ask you , and that is to share , I guess , some perspective on the hallmarks of knowing that what you're focused on is going to be palatable to the investment community , or perhaps the big pharma might have an interest in that .

Like there's something transactable down the road , Because I think it's fairly common for especially science-based founders to get swept up in the science and perhaps lose sight of the market .

So just some thoughts around , like what are the boxes you check to ensure that what your team is , heads down and sleeves rolled up , working on is going to be received well ?

Development setting and for successful companies , you have to start with the end in mind . What do we need to have in the end to have a package that can convince the regulators , investors , pharma partners that this is attractive and valuable . So you have to have a sense of what that is , that you need to deliver .

So , for example , in memo therapeutics , we of course need to have great phase two data and we need to have an agreed plan with the authorities on what the phase three will look like . Because it's a novel indication . You know the development path is unknown . What is the endpoint that you need to choose for phase three ?

And there are many examples of that , of course , in biotech , where those are uncertainties until you've walked a path , but you can plan ahead for that . So if you know that you need to have a robust interface to meeting , then okay , what is the data that I need to bring to that meeting to be successful ?

And then you can think back okay , but how do we get there ? What can we build into the trial ? What do we do separately Maybe , as from registry analysis ? What do we do preclinically to support the story there ?

And then what I personally very much like to do is to interact with pharma , because each pharma , again , is different , because there are different people working in these companies and they have different strategies .

So you get different answers , what they find important for them to transact For some it's the commercial case , for others it might be a distribution of a molecule and so forth and so further .

Being able to make them the data package , addressing these answers , increasing your chance that you will fund the company further or transact at that moment in time I think those are important factors to take in . So really begin with the end in mind and then work back .

You look outside MAPS and you see just a whole new world of multiple new worlds of modalities popping up all the time . Perhaps some of those modalities are chasing the same . You know kidney transplant indication that you're chasing . So you maybe got competition coming at you from angles that are well outside the you know antibody space .

And to the point you made earlier , I mean , innovation is happening at breakneck speed . It's always . It's always . You know . You always question yourself , you want to check yourself when you say innovation is happening at a pace we've never seen before , but I think you can say that right now , I think it's true New biologic discoveries .

So the question is I mean , when things are good , money's good , you know your prospects for partnership are good , everything's good . But you look around you go holy cow , it's a chaotic market . There's a lot market . There's a lot going on in a lot of different modalities .

How do you go about managing that and being aware , like maintaining awareness , because it's got to be a combination of knowing your competition , your coopetition , your peers , but also operating , at least in some perspectives with blinders on , so that you maintain focus . What's the secret sauce there ?

And then later on it is indeed what you say it exploded from a modality perspective Not all sorts of different modalities , but even within the antibody space , right ?

So if you think about all the different modalities that we now have available there , it's tremendously interesting and hopefully AI will provide us with some insights there to make early on sensible decisions . So that's another layer on top of that we currently have to deal with .

I think one thing that I can offer here is that I don't think we should solve a problem adding new technologies to solve it just because of a new technology .

So sometimes you see that you have already a new target that you're addressing and then if it requires three new technologies to be added into one solution to be able to be successful new technologies to be added into one solution to be able to be successful that is typically a recipe for not being successful .

So keep it simple is probably the right advice there , and if you take that to heart , you might be able to challenge yourself and restrict , say , solving a novel problem of a novel technology with a novel technology , but then maybe take a step back and say , okay , well , is this fundamentally the right way to do it , or should we approach it in a different way

? So I think that's uh , yeah , that's there . Um , something else very basic , more from a management philosophy , also just introduced that member therapeutics is a stage gate model . So you know again , begin with the end in mind , but then we chop up the activities in stage gates .

So we know we don't know everything now , but we know what we want to have at the end of this first stage so that we can say , okay , we open the gate for the next stage to be developed and wanting it to be attributed to such a profile .

So it's a conscious then process that you take together in the team to make these decisions and advance your R&D projects forward .

Just to give you an example , if you think of a flock of birds right and the behavior that it provides , it's very difficult , of course , to be deterministic about it , because you can't say whether the flock of birds will go left or right at a certain moment in time .

But what you can do is , with three simple rules , describe the behavior that you're seeing , the patterns that are emerging , and these three simple rules are the following Maintain a minimum distance from other birds to avoid collision , so you have to not come too close .

Fly towards the average positions of your neighbors , so you don't want to go outside of the flock , and then fly in the average directions of your neighbor , which is also nice . If you put these three simple rules into a computer model with dots , for example , you see a pattern of flocking behavior of birds .

So I think in the end this is also applicable in real life .

We cannot control everything , we cannot determine the outcome of everything that we do or even other people are doing , but if you understand the overall system , I think you can find some general rules that you can apply , to at least feel at a higher level in control of the patterns that you would like to see emerging either in your organization or in your

project . So it's being comfortable with uncertainty and at the same time trying to control that uncertainty by at least knowing the risks that you can know and then address them and be comfortable with the risks that you don't know . The unknowns are just unknowns .

You have to adapt at the moment that they arise , so being open to that and then recognize it and then act . So those are things that , yeah , I kind of liked , so that there's no . You know you have some level of control , but you don't have a lot of control which allows personally me to deal with all the uncertainties that we have invited .

So I want to do everything right that I can and I'm okay with you know , chaotic behavior or events that I cannot control , like COVID-19 . And then you adapt it's .

You know , as you were describing the bird example , you know I'm envisioning I live on a small farm in Pennsylvania and we have massive flocks of starling , european starlings , you know , here they were introduced to the States , you know , 150 years ago and they've just proliferated here .

And their murmurations , you know I'm I'm envisioning that as you're , as you're talking , and you sit there and you marvel at it . How are they not colliding when they're playing by those , those rules that you just described and the ? And they don't collide , they don't , you know they don't .

If they bump each other , they correct very quickly , you know , and continue their murmuration .

Well , how much of that is is learned versus inherent , like did did Eric Vandenberg bring that personality , like the personality trait to be willing to embrace the imperfection that comes with chaos theory and and deal with it despite the consequences , because sometimes the stakes are pretty high ? Did you come with that or did you learn it ?

But you know , it was learned that it's okay not to control all little risks . We just need to be aware of the big risks , and those are the ones that you have to control . You have to put policies in place or , more importantly , preemptive work . Well , what if that happens ? Well then it's good if we would have done this investment at this moment in time .

So , I think in the end it's a couple of things that I learned along the way , and that is , of course , we need to endure constant change . There's lots of uncertainty and you need to be comfortable with that . Certainly in a biotech , you have to take decisions in the absence of full data , identifying these risks and addressing them early on .

And you can have an overall direction like a vision , a strategy , you know , development plan , a culture , company culture . So those things I think you can put in place and with that you're kind of managing these uncertainties and these chaotic behaviors towards a certain direction that you like .

And then still , you know , things will pop up and you have to deal with , but at least the stream is going in the right direction , and then within that stream you will still need to navigate where your boat actually is going towards .

So I think those are , you know , higher level and so strategically and technical things that you can separate them and then address them .

You don't want to , uh , you know , make your , make your public relations people upset . But what's the chaos that Eric Van Den Berg is engaged in today , um , at at memo , and how are you navigating it ?

I guess the chaos chaos that I'm introducing , at least at the beginning , is , of course , is to well have an impact on the culture of the company , where it's perfectly understandable that in an early phase of development , the company is even more cash restricted , which means that going fast is maybe the first priority , and now , with the chaos of doing it right

in the way , to shorten the further development steps that we need to take .

So , still , the overall objective is the same , which is get a drug to market in the fastest way possible , but the approach is different Instead of moving as quickly as possible to the next milestone , it is making sure that when we reach the next milestone , we have everything we need , at least that we can now think of , and that puts us in the best position

to make sure that we have the fastest plan forward thereafter to the market . It sounds like a trivial change , but I think it's quite a profound change . At least that's the feedback that I got and the team it's a very agile team .

It's very happy to work with because in the end , we want to be successful , right , and we want to address this unmet medical need , um , and that's basically , I guess the chaos that we're currently addressing um lots is under control . Uh , and that's good . I like to keep it that way .

And yeah , uh , focusing on quality of the deliverables is a key aspect , I think , in that whole story .

But it's always good to have a conversation like what's behind this guy that's got this track record , you know what's between his ears that keeps him on track , and I think you were very transparent and insightful with what you shared with us today , so I appreciate it .

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