Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 220 - Hans Schambye - CEO BOOST Pharma

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Episode 220 - Hans Schambye - CEO BOOST Pharma · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  So welcome back to another episode of the Biohub and
• 0:09
  Avetics podcast. Today I'm joined by Hans Shambi,
• 0:13
  CEO of Boost Pharma. Hans is one of the most
• 0:16
  experienced biotech leaders in Europe, having spent his career
• 0:19
  building, financing and leading biotech companies.
• 0:23
  With a background as both a medical doctor and scientist, he
• 0:26
  now leads Boost Pharma, a company developing what could
• 0:29
  become the first disease modifying treatment for
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  osteogenesis imperfecta. In this conversation, we
• 0:36
  discussed what attracted hands to Boost, the challenge of
• 0:38
  taking a novel cell therapy into phase three, lessons from
• 0:42
  building multiple biotech companies, and where he sees the
• 0:46
  future of selling gene therapy. Hans, it's a pleasure to have
• 0:49
  you. How are you?
• 0:50
  Well, thanks a lot, Max. It's a pleasure to be here.
• 0:53
  It's such an exciting podcast series you've built, so
• 0:56
  congratulations on that. I appreciate that.
• 0:59
  Very honoured to be part of it. No, it's a pleasure to have you
• 1:03
  honestly and like that, that means a lot like it's been a
• 1:07
  while in the making for sure. I, I want to start with you and,
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  and your background hands you, you've built your career
• 1:14
  building and leading biotech companies across a range of
• 1:17
  therapeutic carriers. What was it about Boost Pharma
• 1:21
  that made you want to take this opportunity on?
• 1:24
  Well, I can tell you it was very easy to fall in love with Boost
• 1:28
  I that's this is treating small children with very severe
• 1:33
  disease, debilitating disease, right?
• 1:36
  And being able to help them in such a dramatic way as, as the
• 1:40
  team has previously shown that we can reduce the number of bone
• 1:44
  fractures that they suffer. They, they typically suffer
• 1:48
  about 3A year on average. And, and we've been able to take
• 1:52
  that down to 0 on average, which which is of course, you know,
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  amazing for both the kid and the parents.
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  So this is incredibly meaningful from sort of a clinical
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  development perspective. It's also the end point that you
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  need to show effect on to get approval.
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  So we are doing the right thing and then the team is great.
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  So, so it was very easy to be very excited when the head
• 2:19
  hunter approached me about this role.
• 2:23
  So. Amazing.
• 2:24
  Yeah, I'm so, so Boost is developing.
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  What like like I said, the intro, what could be the first
• 2:30
  disease modifying treatment for osteogenesis imperfecta?
• 2:34
  Just just for those less familiar with the disease, can
• 2:37
  you explain the unmet need and why this approach has the
• 2:41
  potential to be so transformative?
• 2:43
  Sure. So osteogenesis imperfecta or I
• 2:46
  think let's call it OI or brittle bone disease, which is
• 2:49
  also the name that's used typically in the English
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  speaking world. So that's a series of genetic
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  diseases that all lead to the same sort of symptoms, which are
• 3:01
  very fragile bones that easily break and become deformed.
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  So and they can't grow as normal.
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  So, so typically it's you end up with lower than average height
• 3:16
  and and some level of disability.
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  Many of the patients end up being wheelchair bound.
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  The the the genetic background is a defect in the ability to
• 3:29
  make normal collagen. So collagen appears many
• 3:34
  different places in the, in the body, but one of the key
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  functions is the framework that bones are built around.
• 3:42
  I, I typically use the, the picture of concrete, steel,
• 3:47
  concrete buildings. As you know, there's a steel
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  framework and you put the concrete up around that
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  framework without the steel you, you'll get a wobbly building
• 3:56
  that that doesn't work. And it's the same for patients
• 4:00
  with AY, they get wobbly bone that's too soft to really endure
• 4:06
  the the work that that bone needs to be able to endure.
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  And what we are giving these patients are cells that are able
• 4:16
  to form bone and make collagen. So we are correcting the core of
• 4:21
  the disease. We give them an infusion every
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  four months. These cells then automatically
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  go to the bone because there is a level of inflammation in in
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  these bones because they are so soft and then they start
• 4:37
  secreting collagen and, and building bone.
• 4:40
  There's probably also an effect of stimulating the patient's own
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  cells to start making bone because they can still do that
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  even if they can't make correct collagen.
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  So we get stronger, we can see we get denser bones, but very
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  important is that that they are stronger, they are more
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  resistant to fractures. So that's that's of course
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  incredibly important for these patients.
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  Yeah. And you guys are now going into
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  phase three, which is a huge milestone, but but a challenging
• 5:16
  thing to come across, especially in cell therapy, right, like.
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  It is, yeah. You know, that's, of course, you
• 5:23
  know, I, I, I have the background as a scientist as you
• 5:26
  describe, and I get excited by science, right.
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  So being at the forefront of something like this, that's as
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  meaningful as it is, right? That's, that's truly exciting,
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  but also very difficult. We, we have been a very academic
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  company. We've come out of the Karolinska
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  in Stockholm, famous for the Nobel Prize right there.
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  So very, very solid science, great scientists.
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  But as you know, therapeutic development is something very
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  different from sort of academic science.
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  So, so we're trying to build an airplane while we're flying it
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  or maybe it's a rocket ship that we're we're building.
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  And so, so it's challenging, but but but very, very meaningful,
• 6:11
  right. Yeah.
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  What are some of the the biggest lessons that you've learned,
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  like getting to this stage? The biggest lesson that one of
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  those positive surprises has really been the potential in
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  cell therapy. I haven't worked with cell
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  therapy in the past. I've worked with small molecules
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  and antibodies, enzymes, so more sort of traditional
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  pharmaceuticals, but but seeing what cells can do, what can
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  happen when you give cells where the potential to to patients
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  that's truly transformational. So it has been a very positive
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  surprise for me to see how rapidly the cells stop working
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  and how rapidly you can detect an effect for the patients.
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  This couldn't have been achieved with an antibody or a small
• 7:03
  molecule, that's for sure. Can we just look at the, I know
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  you said you haven't worked in cell therapy before, but it's,
• 7:13
  it's definitely a topic at the moment, the cell and gene
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  therapy space, which has had incredible innovation over the
• 7:20
  past decade, but you know, fairly recently it's faced its
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  its fair share of challenges. What, how do you think the field
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  stands today? And like what's differentiating
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  the companies that have that have been successful in cell
• 7:33
  therapy as opposed to not? Yeah.
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  Well, there, there's been a couple of waves already of cell
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  therapy, right? And many of them have been built
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  on harvesting cells from a patient, then doing something to
• 7:46
  these cells and giving them back to the patient.
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  That's obviously extremely complicated because you in
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  essence you have to have an an individual manufacturing process
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  for each patient. That's very different from what
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  we're doing. We are giving off the shelf
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  therapy. So there's no matching, no
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  preconditioning of the patients required and we don't have to
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  immune suppress the patients because the cells are of the
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  fetal origin, which means they don't have the immunogenic
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  potential that you see with the with that don't derive stem
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  cells, for instance. So, you know, there there are
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  people who have been burned who've invested a lot of money
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  taking big chances and and had negative outcomes.
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  So, so there's a certain level of apprehension among both
• 8:35
  pharma companies and and some investors.
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  But I think there there are also more and more people coming to
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  the realization that I just talked about that, that seeing
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  the potential and seeing, OK, this is something different
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  right here. It's not a bespoke therapy.
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  It's really is something that we can just ship out to to patients
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  in a in a frozen vial and the doctors can then take them,
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  resuspend them, give them as an an infusion.
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  And it feels like just any other drug that you give us an IV
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  infusion and just happens to be live cells that have a dramatic
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  potential I. Think that's right?
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  You know that sort of the selling gene therapy space was
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  falling because of the impracticalities and the cost of
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  it, right? So the ones that are succeeding
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  are the ones that are solving those issues or at least
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  thinking about solving those issues.
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  It's, it's like it always is. Why do you, you learn from other
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  people's mistakes, right? And, and there have been
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  mistakes in the past, but there's also been, you know,
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  just the realization, what is this all about?
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  What do you actually need to do to convince regulators?
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  And we are standing on the shoulders of of those people,
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  right? So there have been people who
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  have had a hard time developing an assay to really guarantee
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  that it's the same cell cell with the same potential that you
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  give every time. So some programs have been
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  dramatically delayed by the absence of that.
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  We we try to preempt that way by developing that essay earlier
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  than has been done in the past. So we have that in place by the
• 10:14
  time we need the approval, right.
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  So, so you know the, this, as I say, many times when, when I
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  talk about the industry, right, this is much, much harder than
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  building rockets, right? You know, even most can do it.
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  Even Bezos can build rockets, right?
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  But but pharmaceutical development is complicated all
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  the way, right? The biology is complicated.
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  It's always complicated as you find out what is the background
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  of the disease. Then manufacturing is
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  complicated. Animal testing is complicated,
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  clinical trial very, very complicated.
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  And, and then even when you get to the market, you, you can't
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  even be sure that the doctors actually choose to use your,
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  your product. So it's, it's a very complicated
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  industry that we've also made more complicated through all the
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  regulations that the FDA and the EMA put down on the industry.
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  So that's, that's part of what makes it exciting, but also the
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  reason why you need to love that, the travel, you need to
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  love those small victories that you have along the way, right
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  that. I think that's key.
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  Small victories for sure. Yeah.
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  And. I think.
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  It's also, yeah, I mean it's worth noting for you guys as
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  well, like self therapy is seen as a very expensive feel, but
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  you in, in comparison to others like you, you've got to what is
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  a, a phase three asset on a what a fairly modest budget.
• 11:41
  Sure. Yes, we, we have not.
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  We, we've been all the founders have been very good at getting
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  soft funding from the EU and from Sweden.
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  So we have not raised very much investor capital at this time.
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  And, and now what we're trying to raise is about €50 million,
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  which can bring us all the way to to market approval in Europe
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  and the US. So, so that that's of course
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  unique and, and there are some great inducements, right?
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  There's the pediatric voucher system that they have in the USI
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  think we should have something very similar in Europe, right,
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  where where you get a voucher that qualifies you for faster
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  review of other drivers and you can sell those vouchers and they
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  go from nearly 200 million dollars at this time, right.
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  So, so that's, that's an additional Lotto coupon that you
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  can get by investing in Boost, right.
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  Yes, yeah. And that that she leads on.
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  Nice to my next question. Because you, you you've had
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  multiple biotech companies throughout your career.
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  Just looking back, what what do you think separates the
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  companies that have scaled successfully from those who have
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  never quite fulfilled the potential?
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  But it's very, very clear that you need to have great science,
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  right? You have to have the core of
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  excellent science, great scientists supporting you.
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  So the right founders from the start and then building a team
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  that loves working together and sees that that that this, this
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  is meaningful and exciting. Those are the successful
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  organizations. Yeah.
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  And then you of course, you need wealthy investors with big
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  pocket that can come back because it's, it's it always
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  gets more expensive and it takes longer than anybody predicted
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  like that. That's just the key, learning
• 13:30
  from this industry. Yeah.
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  But just to caveat that as well, you've definitely seen companies
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  with great science that for whatever reason just just
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  haven't made it. Like why do you think that that
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  is? Like what do you think that
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  they're lacking the others on? Yeah, I think, I think there
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  are, as I said, it is an incredibly difficult industry,
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  right? There's so many ways that that
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  things can can falter even even if you have a good basis.
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  But I think certainly sometimes what you see is that people get
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  too excited about the science and forget that, that you need
• 14:10
  to develop a product, right? And that without the product,
• 14:14
  the, the science sort of become meaningless, right?
• 14:18
  That, that if you, if you try to, if you try to achieve
• 14:23
  perfection, you will, you will never succeed, right?
• 14:26
  In this industry, there is perfection.
• 14:28
  It's about good enough, right? And so you have to have that
• 14:33
  goal of an ultimate product. That's also one of the things
• 14:37
  that I really like about Boost. Like they've always, they
• 14:39
  started out treating patients very early on when the founders
• 14:46
  came up with the idea. And so and they saw that patient
• 14:49
  benefit immediately. And so, so that's been the clear
• 14:52
  focus. Let's let's help these patients
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  and get the product. Yeah.
• 15:00
  And one thing you've built a reputation on is it's just
• 15:05
  navigating biotech through through different stage of
• 15:08
  growth from what we're just talking about then financing to
• 15:11
  development. How how does a CE OS role evolve
• 15:17
  as a company you know goes through those different points?
• 15:21
  Well, it changes tremendously, which is one of the reasons why
• 15:25
  you typically don't have the same CEO for the entire journey,
• 15:28
  right? That because in the in the
• 15:30
  beginning as a founder CEO and you basically you, you're,
• 15:35
  you're the secretary of the doorman and you also need to
• 15:38
  deal with the packages, right? So, so that's a very sort of
• 15:41
  entrepreneurial spirit that you have to have.
• 15:44
  And then then of course, if you're lucky and successful and
• 15:48
  you're able to raise money, you start building a team, then then
• 15:52
  it's no longer you who is doing everything.
• 15:55
  Then you need to motivate other people to, to do basically your
• 15:59
  job by the getting things done. So that's, that's a different
• 16:04
  personality characteristic. And, and you know, I've, I've
• 16:08
  tried both, I find both very exciting and, but, but certainly
• 16:13
  seeing a team work together and solving and solving a problem is
• 16:18
  what excites me most in, in this field.
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  And then it's, it's the, the fact that one single person can
• 16:25
  never develop a drug. Like you need all these
• 16:29
  different competences, personality types, like you need
• 16:32
  somebody who is very focused on quality, who is very detailed
• 16:36
  oriented, but you also need somebody like me who's more
• 16:39
  seeing the long perspective and and getting the excitement about
• 16:43
  it. I wouldn't be able to do
• 16:44
  anything without the quality guy, right?
• 16:46
  But the quality guy would never get anything done because they
• 16:49
  get so hung up on the minutiae, right?
• 16:52
  So that's so true, yeah. Yeah, I I found recently that I
• 16:59
  am working with more and more companies that have first time
• 17:04
  CEOs and the helm, whether they've come from academia or
• 17:08
  whether it's this sort of AI boom which is creating them.
• 17:12
  I think that might be part of it.
• 17:14
  But what what advice would you give to to some of these guys
• 17:17
  who are coming through and being CEO for the first time at what
• 17:20
  is probably a pretty young, young age?
• 17:23
  Yeah. Well, one advice that that also
• 17:27
  goes for older CE OS is get a good board, right?
• 17:31
  Get a, get a board with people who who are advisors, who are
• 17:36
  cheerleaders for your project, who believe in both you and the
• 17:40
  project and, and want to go the extra way so you can get that
• 17:44
  support and those connections that you don't have if you're
• 17:47
  young and inexperienced, right. So, so that you have somebody
• 17:51
  you can talk with and get to get a lot of help from, right.
• 17:55
  That's, that's probably the most important device advice, but
• 17:59
  also very difficult. I was at the CEO roundtable last
• 18:03
  year and, and when we were talking about the difficulties
• 18:07
  of building and running companies and, and we ended up
• 18:10
  talking the entire evening about boards and getting the right
• 18:14
  boards. And I think one of the, one of
• 18:18
  the colleagues said, well, the best thoughts I've had have been
• 18:22
  balls that have not been destructive, right?
• 18:26
  So that was the, that was his experience, right?
• 18:29
  That if they only just didn't make his job harder, that was a
• 18:35
  great that was already great, right Yeah.
• 18:39
  So so spend time on that right then make sure that you don't
• 18:43
  already have investors on on the board.
• 18:45
  Investors are great. They're necessary, right, But
• 18:48
  but they they have the key focus on get creating return from for
• 18:53
  their investments. And so they don't necessarily
• 18:56
  think about the company and the project, right.
• 19:00
  They have a different. You you'd be getting these
• 19:03
  independent board members in as soon as possible.
• 19:07
  Yes, definitely. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:09
  And not and not your aunt and uncle just because they they had
• 19:13
  experience running a garage or a kiosk right there.
• 19:19
  People were the experience from from the field, yeah.
• 19:25
  I couldn't agree more. I mean, the advice I give to to
• 19:28
  some of these guys is like be completely honest with yourself
• 19:32
  about where your weak points and your gaps and your expertise
• 19:35
  are. You know, if you're, if you're
• 19:39
  the scientist, then then you need a, you need a external find
• 19:43
  finance BD guy around you as well.
• 19:45
  And it's like plug those points in the in the C-Suite first
• 19:48
  before you start, you know, start bringing in the CSO below
• 19:53
  you, for example. Yeah.
• 19:56
  Oh, I agree. And it's probably also advisable
• 20:00
  to get a mentor who is not part of your board, right?
• 20:04
  Who? Because your board is, of course
• 20:06
  also your boss, right? So they're the ones who decide
• 20:10
  whether you should stay or go. And so there's a limit to how
• 20:14
  honest you can be about your own shortcomings, right?
• 20:18
  So having a mentor. With a lot of experience that
• 20:22
  you can bounce ideas off of and call and get advice when you
• 20:26
  have a concrete right, we all run into hiring the wrong people
• 20:31
  or a team that's not that's not really working out right.
• 20:36
  You know, how do you solve that? If you've never tried it before,
• 20:39
  you know how on earth are you going to figure that out?
• 20:43
  Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it's, it's definitely
• 20:47
  hard for these guys. But you, yeah, I say learn from
• 20:50
  those mistakes. Don't make the same mistake
• 20:52
  twice. Yeah.
• 20:54
  And I think that mentorship theme, it seems to come around
• 20:58
  again and again on the podcast, which basically means people who
• 21:03
  have been successful that have come on the podcast have really
• 21:06
  utilized that in the past. So it's like if you're young and
• 21:09
  coming through, it's it's it's a no brainer.
• 21:12
  Just do it, you know? Yeah, in the, in Scandinavia we,
• 21:16
  we are fortunate to have this set up called GNOME, which is
• 21:20
  this, I can't remember whether it's Nordic Mentor or something,
• 21:25
  but which 200 plus people, senior people with experience
• 21:32
  from all kinds of parts of the the industry.
• 21:35
  And then companies come and pitch and then you can choose
• 21:38
  and say, I want to work with that company.
• 21:41
  So I've been part of a couple of those.
• 21:42
  Those are very structured mentorship.
• 21:45
  So you have meetings every three months and you're right, all of
• 21:49
  your mentors at the same time. There are pros and cons to them,
• 21:52
  right? But, but it's for free.
• 21:55
  So it's, you know, why not? Why not use that?
• 21:58
  I. Think that's amazing?
• 22:00
  Yeah. It is truly amazing.
• 22:01
  I think it may even be open for for companies from other
• 22:05
  countries. So wow, look it up.
• 22:08
  Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
• 22:12
  And I want to bring it back to to boost you.
• 22:16
  You guys are exciting. What what are some of the, what
• 22:19
  are some of the biggest milestones that you've got
• 22:21
  coming up over the next few years?
• 22:23
  Like what should we be looking out for?
• 22:25
  Well, financing, that's the, that's the critical one because
• 22:30
  of course without money, we're not going anywhere.
• 22:32
  We're we're fortunate that we have three good investors that
• 22:36
  are supporting us very much at this point.
• 22:39
  Also very keen to participate in, in the next financing round.
• 22:45
  But but we need new investors to come in as well to be able to
• 22:49
  raise the entire. So, so that that's the key.
• 22:52
  And then from that, then followers that that we need of
• 22:56
  course, and I and D approval to start the trial right then
• 23:00
  recruitment over time. But we'll also be trying to make
• 23:05
  as as much flash about the science.
• 23:08
  And you know that that we can we have some very interesting
• 23:14
  animal experiments that are soon starting and that we will be
• 23:19
  reporting from and learning even more about how it is that
• 23:22
  ourselves work. Nice.
• 23:24
  Yeah, looking forward to it for sure.
• 23:27
  And that brings me to my usual final question.
• 23:31
  Hands, I hope you've you've thought about this a little bit.
• 23:36
  If you could have dinner with any scientist or innovator, past
• 23:39
  or present, who would it be and why?
• 23:42
  Well, it would be Sir Francis Crick.
• 23:46
  Unfortunately he passed away, so that'll be a little difficult.
• 23:50
  But, but I, I, of course, he's an exciting person, being part
• 23:55
  of the discovery of the DNA Helix.
• 23:59
  And, but, but he was also a very, very thoughtful scientist
• 24:05
  later in his life and worked in on the biology of the mind.
• 24:10
  And I attended one of his lectures at a neuroscience
• 24:14
  meeting many years ago. And, and he had so many thoughts
• 24:19
  about, you know, how how humans work and the relationship to
• 24:24
  religion and Englishmen living in, in the US And, and seeing
• 24:31
  how, if, if, how many of members of Congress, even at that time
• 24:36
  believed in guardian angels and, and stuff like that, which
• 24:40
  pretty incomprehensible for a scientist.
• 24:44
  So he was clearly a very interesting, gentle person that
• 24:49
  I'd love to spend an an evening with.
• 24:52
  Yeah, yeah, such a good answer. Thank you so much for coming on
• 24:57
  hands. It's been an absolute thanks A.
• 24:59
  Lot. Thanks.
• 25:01
  Great questions. I think this was a pleasure and
• 25:04
  I hope we came across well. We definitely will, yeah.
• 25:08
  And look, everyone please like and subscribe to the Bio Hub and
• 25:12
  and thank you so much again, Hans.