Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 64 - Kristof Vercruysse - CEO of TargED Biopharmaceuticals

Transcript

Episode 64 - Kristof Vercruysse - CEO of TargED Biopharmaceuticals · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:05
  Welcome back to the Bible Podcast for another episode.
• 0:08
  This time we're joined by Christopher Cruser, CEO of
• 0:11
  Target Biopharmaceuticals. But yeah, they're a clinical
• 0:14
  state biotech based out of Utrecht in the Netherlands.
• 0:17
  They're developing novel therapeutics to effectively
• 0:19
  treat all types of thrombosis feeling at a really exciting
• 0:23
  growth point in their journey. Big ambitions.
• 0:27
  We're going to dive into that a little bit more today with
• 0:29
  Christophe. So yeah, without further ado,
• 0:32
  Christophe, welcome to the pod. How are you doing?
• 0:36
  I'm doing fine. Thank you very much, Kim.
• 0:38
  Very good. So we'll crack on straight into
• 0:41
  it. I always like to give the
• 0:42
  audience and that bit more insight into our guests as a
• 0:45
  starting point. Christophe, you've obviously
• 0:48
  been in thrombolytic disease throughout your career and
• 0:51
  you've seen a lot. Can you talk us through where it
• 0:54
  all started off for you and a bit about your back story?
• 0:58
  Yeah. Thank you very much, Caleb.
• 1:00
  Yeah, my back story is, well, a long time ago.
• 1:05
  I have a nephew in my family who was born with a kind of
• 1:09
  condition which is called the tetrology of follow, and that's
• 1:13
  a kind of a heart condition. And at the age of 1 week he
• 1:16
  needed to have his first surgery.
• 1:19
  He had that first surgery, He stayed for one year in intensive
• 1:23
  care. He knew he had to have more
• 1:25
  surgeries and at the age of 2 the second one was scheduled.
• 1:28
  But then unfortunately, he had a stroke during the second
• 1:32
  surgery, which of course made his right side paralyzed.
• 1:37
  Now my nephew is 23 years old today, but of course that's
• 1:41
  somewhere in the back of my mind gave me a kind of, yeah, a
• 1:45
  spirit to to try to find something.
• 1:48
  And then the thrombolytic space to help them.
• 1:50
  Because the current standard of care which is out there, it's
• 1:54
  already 20 years, the same. It's of patent, it's TPA.
• 1:58
  It's being used on a daily occasion in treating treatment
• 2:01
  of stroke. Very recently there was a new
• 2:04
  product which put on the market which is called the Necta Place.
• 2:07
  But the Necta Place is more yeah.
• 2:10
  The only difference is with the administration model, it's a
• 2:13
  Boris instead of a Boris followed by an infusion.
• 2:15
  But really the outcome, the effectively is the safety skill
• 2:20
  can, can, can use some improvement.
• 2:22
  And that's, I think our mission at Target is indeed to to try to
• 2:27
  develop a thrombolytic agent which is more effective and also
• 2:31
  which is treating all blood costs because there is kind of,
• 2:36
  yeah, thrombus composition. So we have three main
• 2:39
  components, 1 is platelets, but the other two ones are sticky
• 2:42
  proteins and it's called fibrin. It's where all the standard of
• 2:46
  care is binding to work. We are directing our drug
• 2:50
  towards liberant factory which is less low, always present in
• 2:53
  NFV blood clots. We want to not only have a
• 2:56
  better drug, but also a drug that is working on all the blood
• 3:00
  clots in humans. And you've been in the space
• 3:03
  your entire career, right? You were with Ablings when they
• 3:06
  were developing their products in this space.
• 3:09
  You've you've seen the current standard of care, as you put it.
• 3:13
  Yeah. And even if we go a little bit
• 3:16
  earlier in my career, I started off with selling medication,
• 3:20
  then I went into clinical development and neuroclinical
• 3:23
  development. And now we are doing the
• 3:25
  opposite year round next to of course the Ablings and a couple
• 3:29
  of seasons map that I've been developing.
• 3:31
  Seven years as an employee, six years as a consultant really
• 3:35
  brings quite a lot of experience to to the team here.
• 3:39
  But before those we've been working on drugs and stroke
• 3:43
  development, myocardial infarction development, but also
• 3:46
  for instance a little bit more on the specialized community
• 3:49
  called pneumonia and intensive care.
• 3:52
  And I think all those different types of developments really
• 3:55
  bring, yeah, all that knowledge around how to develop
• 3:58
  thrombolytics. What what are we really looking
• 4:00
  for? What are the clinical endpoints
• 4:02
  that you want to want to use to bring that drug to the market?
• 4:06
  That brings quite a little of experience to the team.
• 4:09
  And like I said before, knowing how clinical development looks
• 4:12
  like, how marketing perspective look like, I think we have a
• 4:17
  small team here within thought of it.
• 4:18
  We do hold quite a lot of experience in bringing it
• 4:21
  thrombolyticating towards the market.
• 4:24
  For sure, for sure. And you how, how did you come
• 4:27
  sit down again? First off, you mentioned working
• 4:29
  as a consultant with Ablinks. How did it come up around?
• 4:33
  How did you get your foot in the door?
• 4:35
  Yeah. Well, I think about six years
• 4:38
  ago, I got a phone call from the University of Utrecht saying
• 4:43
  that, yeah, we have a drug which is even better than the couple
• 4:47
  of seasons above you developed at Ablinks or you're willing to
• 4:50
  join us. And after a little bit of a
• 4:53
  debate, they told me I was #3 on the list.
• 4:56
  I think the, the CEO or other management members of Abrix
• 5:00
  didn't want to have like a second round of a couple of
• 5:04
  season up. I was #3 So sometimes you have
• 5:07
  to have a little bit of luck and fortune in your life to be, to,
• 5:10
  to be called. I was quite interested because
• 5:13
  at that moment I worked as a consultant.
• 5:15
  Yes, also at Abrix. But they were sold in 2019.
• 5:19
  Zanufi Well, it was just that moment that I got approached and
• 5:24
  also I think a new endeavour, a new adventure, being able to
• 5:32
  develop something yourself and being able to continue that.
• 5:36
  I mean that that sounded like too good to be true.
• 5:38
  And still at that which you know one in four patients or one in
• 5:43
  four will have yeah an an instance of myocardial function
• 5:49
  or stroke. So it's still a quite unmet need
• 5:53
  and out there. For sure.
• 5:56
  I think when we spoke initially, that was something which, you
• 6:00
  know, I think, you know, stroke and yeah, from the disease is
• 6:04
  common, but maybe quite not the 11 in four, Mark.
• 6:08
  I certainly didn't have that understanding.
• 6:10
  And yeah, it was a bit of a bit of a shock to hear that from
• 6:14
  yourself. I guess 3 is a magic noon looker
• 6:17
  stuff and they were lucky that you, you took it up the
• 6:20
  opportunity just focusing on target.
• 6:22
  Obviously you're doing things in a slightly different way.
• 6:26
  I guess the clue is in the name, right?
• 6:28
  As to your approach. And just give us an insight as
• 6:32
  to, yeah, your mode of action, how you're thinking target to to
• 6:38
  your your products and your program and why this sets you
• 6:41
  part in this space. Now I think yeah, targets
• 6:46
  mentioned itself, it's targeted enzyme delivery.
• 6:49
  So what we have is a fusion protein which is specifically
• 6:53
  targeting from relevant factor and bringing it close to a blood
• 6:58
  clot at the blood clot with relevant factor will unroll and
• 7:02
  then plasminogen binding site will explosive itself.
• 7:06
  And like we said, do we bring targeted A catalytic domain or
• 7:10
  urokinase close to the blood clot and that's catalytic domain
• 7:13
  will change the plasminogen into plasmin.
• 7:16
  And plasmin we can see it as a kind of a Pac-Man which is going
• 7:19
  to break up or eat of the blood clot or the sticky proteins
• 7:22
  which I talked about beforehand. So we are breaking up the fibrin
• 7:26
  as the standard of care does, but we also breaking up the
• 7:29
  formula bran factor. So giving you a complete breakup
• 7:32
  of the of the of the blood clot and indeed targeting which means
• 7:36
  only in the blood clot itself. Whereas the current standard of
• 7:39
  care is also having systemically an impact which causing a lot of
• 7:43
  bleeding, a lot of site effects, site injection reactions and we
• 7:48
  hope with our approach to of course have less impact on that.
• 7:52
  Now by targeting also from Willebrance factor, we also
• 7:56
  going to target blood clots which are only consisting of
• 7:59
  fungulobrum factor. And now I'm saying it's nothing
• 8:02
  strange and that's why we are also looking on one hand at the
• 8:05
  stroke or the bigger diseases. We are also looking at an orphan
• 8:10
  indication which is called ITTP, so immune thrombotic
• 8:14
  thrombocytopenia peripheral also the disease where Ablitz has
• 8:18
  developed a 1 LB loplasisma, but they are preventing new spots
• 8:23
  but not really interacting on the pre-existing blood clots
• 8:27
  which are causing the damage because in the end those both
• 8:30
  are obstructing vessels and oxygenated flow is restricted to
• 8:33
  go to certain tissue. They have tissue damage and at
• 8:36
  certain moment is tissue damage will be irreparable.
• 8:39
  That's where I think we are having somewhat a different
• 8:42
  approach than the systemic approach of the standard of care
• 8:45
  which is out there or the prevention rises with a couple
• 8:48
  of seasons. That's where I think we are
• 8:51
  differentiating a little bit. We have tested our hypothesis in
• 8:55
  multiple free clinical modelling as well on the stroke side along
• 8:59
  with the TTP sides. We also have done like an ex
• 9:02
  vivo growth model where we are taking a thrombectomy material
• 9:05
  from patients. We are looking ex vivo on
• 9:09
  webinar or compoundless cable and breaking down that blood
• 9:11
  clot and that has given us quite a lot of comfort to move our
• 9:15
  development forward into the clinic.
• 9:17
  And at the end of last year, we started our first healthy
• 9:21
  volunteer study, which we now have finalized and we are trying
• 9:25
  to obtain that data. And if all goes well and we can
• 9:28
  continue without development, hopefully by the end of the year
• 9:31
  we will be able in treating our first real patients.
• 9:36
  Understood. And you've got a single asset,
• 9:38
  you've got multiple shots on goal, right, with those
• 9:40
  indications you're pursuing. Yeah, it's a, it's a very nice
• 9:45
  place to be and it's sometimes a difficult puzzle to put
• 9:48
  together. Yes, we're a single asset
• 9:49
  company, but you can deploy it in, in, in multiple indications.
• 9:53
  And I know a lot of people are maybe fit when they talk about
• 9:57
  COVID. But during the COVID pandemic,
• 10:01
  we have seen that, for instance, for the real brand factor was
• 10:03
  much higher, the much more clean well from the real brand factor
• 10:07
  was much lower. And these patients were clothing
• 10:09
  quite a lot. But the existing standard of
• 10:12
  care wasn't sufficient enough to break down those blood clots
• 10:15
  because these were from real brand factor rich blood clots
• 10:17
  and there was no fibre in breath.
• 10:19
  So maybe a missed opportunity for Target if you are in the
• 10:23
  clinic at that moment. We could maybe have tried it on
• 10:27
  those clots as well. But it's like I said, I mean,
• 10:30
  we, we, we do have a very nice opportunity and not only, you
• 10:34
  know, we're talking about stroke, we're talking about PTP,
• 10:38
  but you also have myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism,
• 10:41
  you name it, we potentially can have an influence on that as
• 10:45
  well. Now, why have we specific
• 10:47
  important for stroke? Maybe a little bit of my
• 10:50
  background, but also in a myocardial infarction setting,
• 10:53
  there is a multiple modality in treating them.
• 10:56
  You can put stents, you can no surgery and mostly only, only
• 11:00
  one part of the heart gets affected in the brain.
• 11:03
  I mean every part that is infected is irreversibly damaged
• 11:06
  and that's why we do believe that with the good clinical
• 11:09
  endpoints that we can have and enhanced there.
• 11:14
  Understood. You've taken one question out of
• 11:16
  my mouth. I was going to ask what further
• 11:18
  indication because you had planned, but yeah, I guess
• 11:21
  that's, that's taken off the table and awesome.
• 11:25
  I guess timing is everything. You mentioned COVID, but you
• 11:28
  guys were very early then. I I mean, it was 2022.
• 11:32
  You based pretty impressive Series A And do you want to talk
• 11:36
  us a little bit what you've done to develop the organization and
• 11:39
  with that money and and where where you're headed in the next
• 11:43
  6 to 12 months, what milestones we should be looking out for?
• 11:47
  Yeah. Well, I think, I think maybe we,
• 11:50
  we take it a little bit earlier on the 3rd of July, we
• 11:53
  celebrated our fifth year of existence and that was based
• 11:57
  with a seat investment because at the moment when I joined the
• 12:00
  company, we only had yeah, in vitro data.
• 12:05
  We didn't even have an animal data.
• 12:08
  We obtained a 850,000 seat investment and without
• 12:11
  investment we have them not preclinical proof of hope that
• 12:16
  both in TTP and in stroke both have also been published lots
• 12:21
  which of course for a company that's ours very moist.
• 12:24
  And during that period we were working on this Series A as you
• 12:27
  mentioned 39 million. We also had five million
• 12:30
  innovation credit from the Dutch, Dutch government.
• 12:33
  And with that money which we have no plan to spend wise in,
• 12:37
  we wanted to go to the clinic. So we expanded the preclinical
• 12:39
  modelling aspect. We also started with qualitative
• 12:43
  production. So on the manufacturing side
• 12:45
  going into being able and pick up our stories to develop within
• 12:51
  A1 litre per meter in litre per met.
• 12:54
  We have done the engineering. We also have a ton of GMP run
• 12:58
  next to that's doing to get a toxicology development program
• 13:02
  and to different species. So all the documentation that
• 13:05
  you need to have in order to be able to submit as ETA to go into
• 13:10
  the help the volunteers. Now we have done help the
• 13:13
  volunteer part. We are now awaiting the results
• 13:16
  and move from it will be very good.
• 13:18
  And now we are preparing everything to submission for our
• 13:21
  next first and patient study both in stroke as well as in TTP
• 13:26
  and paragal. So with the money we still have
• 13:30
  on the Series A, we will be able to submit those studies to start
• 13:33
  treating the first patients and both indications.
• 13:37
  And by mid of next year, we are probably having the first data
• 13:41
  in. And with that data, we will be
• 13:44
  looking at 30X and further obtaining additional money to
• 13:48
  finalise those studies, but also to prepare ourselves for the
• 13:51
  next step because we will go to market as quickly as possible.
• 13:56
  Understood. You mentioned the the first
• 13:59
  clinical trials that you've done as an organization.
• 14:01
  What were the main challenges that you encounter getting to
• 14:04
  that point? I mean funding, team building,
• 14:09
  technical issues, you name it, feel free to go ahead.
• 14:13
  I think, I think that's a very good question.
• 14:16
  And I think throughout the way you're trying to build an
• 14:20
  organization and you work, I mean, we're quite lucky.
• 14:24
  We work with innovation every day, but you also know
• 14:26
  innovation sometimes has its difficulties.
• 14:28
  There are results that are unexpected.
• 14:31
  There are technical issues or hurdles that you that you have
• 14:34
  to overcome. And I think we were able in
• 14:35
  building an organization which knows there were problems
• 14:40
  coming, but we also had the technical baggage and the
• 14:43
  stamina to to flexibly work on that.
• 14:46
  Now being a single asset company, as you mentioned
• 14:49
  before, every change, every hurdle is going to have an
• 14:53
  impact on Pioneer is going to have an impact on your budgets.
• 14:57
  And we were able with our organization to know to fill
• 15:01
  those gaps, to to to to find the right answer and to also build
• 15:05
  upon those answers. And I think when we started the
• 15:09
  Series A, we were four people. We had 1.2 FB quite young, quite
• 15:15
  ambitious. We had group three people from
• 15:18
  academia and myself with the only experience in in bio
• 15:21
  plaque. We had slowly grew the company
• 15:24
  and now a 20 people company with around 15 FT ES.
• 15:28
  But then having leads in every specific area being it
• 15:32
  manufacturing, being it toxicology, being the clinical
• 15:35
  part. And of course, no, the focus
• 15:37
  shifts complicated to the clinical part with having two
• 15:41
  studies running and the stroke study.
• 15:43
  We're Bailey mainly basing that in Europe because we want to
• 15:46
  have fast recruitment and, and and really see those first
• 15:51
  nickel data popping up, whereas endomorphin indication you have
• 15:54
  to go global because there is only 1,000,000 what one point
• 15:58
  per million per year who has this disease and we specifically
• 16:01
  want that space to go in our. So there we can expand of course
• 16:06
  globally. I think those the topics you
• 16:10
  mentioned there will be pretty familiar to anyone listening who
• 16:14
  has brought some technology out of academia.
• 16:17
  I guess Crystal, they're popular topics does.
• 16:20
  Yeah. We'll just take a quick break.
• 16:22
  Welcome. Back before break, we obviously
• 16:24
  spoke a lot about the detail of targets, programs and what we
• 16:29
  can expect in the next 12 months.
• 16:31
  But Christophe, obviously you've got a yeah, pretty ambitious
• 16:35
  idea of where this product could get to and how it ties into a
• 16:39
  bit of a paradigm shift in treatment options in from both
• 16:43
  this. Yeah.
• 16:45
  Talk to us a little bit more about that and why you see this
• 16:47
  potentially going. Yeah, I think that's a that's a
• 16:52
  very nice question because that always gives room for dreaming
• 16:57
  and and and looking into a glass bowl and and what we know for
• 17:01
  instance from antithrombotic thrombolytic development.
• 17:05
  There is always what safety aspects which is concerning
• 17:09
  treatment of patients. It's bleeding a lot of other
• 17:12
  things that can happen. And now with our approach we
• 17:16
  potentially can be given, you know, every patients does feel
• 17:20
  that they have a thrombosis or something where it's in the
• 17:24
  heart or in the brain that maybe there is somewhere a syringe or
• 17:27
  an inhaler next to EAE machine around the world.
• 17:32
  And our mission is time is tissue.
• 17:33
  So the sooner you can break down the blood clot, the more tissue
• 17:37
  can be salvage, the better the outcome for the patient would
• 17:40
  be. And also from a health
• 17:41
  economical window view, if you can go in very early, a lot of
• 17:45
  these patients, they need to learn how to write, how to read,
• 17:48
  how to build things again. And simply if you can have like
• 17:51
  an inhaler next to an EMB machine, you can give it to the
• 17:54
  patient. If it doesn't do any harm, it
• 17:57
  will not help nothing. That's part of the big vision to
• 18:00
  go towards there. But be able to reach that, I
• 18:03
  think we have to take many more steps in our development, really
• 18:07
  be able to say 100% this is safe, this will not cause any
• 18:11
  additional beating. And it also is capable of
• 18:14
  breaking down a block top no matter where it is in body flow.
• 18:17
  I think from a from a British perspective that it's something
• 18:20
  that we definitely reap about and that we are trying to work
• 18:23
  towards. For sure.
• 18:25
  And obviously you guys are still relatively lean, small, however
• 18:29
  you want to describe it. But obviously that's a pretty
• 18:31
  big ambition. I know when we spoke, you have
• 18:34
  the the analogy, you know, sort of the treatment next to the
• 18:37
  defibrillating this gene and you can break the glass and enter in
• 18:40
  case of stroke and that sort of thing.
• 18:42
  That's a really big ambition and obviously is a very complicated
• 18:47
  thing to roll out at scale. And in terms of where you go as
• 18:51
  a business, is that a case of looking for partners?
• 18:54
  Is that the case of doing it yourself?
• 18:56
  Yeah. What are you thinking?
• 19:01
  Well, I think in in the background, we always know
• 19:04
  stroke is being considered as the graveyard of development.
• 19:07
  So we have to be able to get to some very good value inflection
• 19:13
  points to be able to convince investors of when convince
• 19:17
  strategic farmers to join this mission.
• 19:20
  We are currently today 20 people.
• 19:22
  I mean if we have to execute the thousand patients in our study,
• 19:26
  that's got to be a difficult 1. So in the end, I think what we
• 19:30
  want to do is to really build a good foundation of our work, of
• 19:35
  our development of the clinical endpoints in order to attract
• 19:38
  the right investors. But it also from from a
• 19:41
  partnering perspective. I mean we do already have quite
• 19:44
  some traction with pharmaceutical companies out
• 19:47
  there who really understand and grasp the concept.
• 19:50
  But since we are in this idea of it's a difficult space to
• 19:54
  develop something and it's emergencies nothing.
• 19:57
  How variable are the patient population that you're looking
• 20:00
  at? I think we still have to show
• 20:02
  what the lean and lean group that we are today some clinical
• 20:06
  evidence. And once we have that clinical
• 20:08
  evidence, I think that will open up the future for for the
• 20:12
  company if of course we get a nice offer on the table.
• 20:15
  That is something that we need to need to be able to consider.
• 20:19
  But as a company, I think the people that are currently
• 20:21
  working here, we are very offered to move this drug as far
• 20:25
  as possible on, on bone. And that's where of course, the
• 20:28
  value really brings, but also the experience around the team
• 20:32
  being flexible, being able to to change from one side to the
• 20:36
  other side quickly does give us that advantage in developing
• 20:40
  that compound. The other, the other document
• 20:42
  that we're fighting against. If you develop something which
• 20:45
  is good for everything, we all know it's not worth anything.
• 20:49
  I think if we can in every detail show that the compound is
• 20:52
  really showing that it's working, we are reaching those
• 20:56
  little endpoints which are important for our physicians all
• 21:00
  here, for the regular equals out there, for the pharma partners
• 21:03
  out there. We are gradually developing our
• 21:05
  compound a little bit further and hopefully can attract
• 21:09
  partner. But we, I think at Target we
• 21:12
  will have the mission to definitely reach that proof of
• 21:15
  concept in patients which we probably will obtain by the end
• 21:19
  of 36 with 27th. That's already I think our short
• 21:23
  term goal. What happens thereafter is of
• 21:25
  course, depending on how good the outcome is and how the
• 21:28
  capital from the outside. Understood.
• 21:30
  And eventually having those conversations constantly.
• 21:33
  I think you recently added a Chief Business officer to the
• 21:36
  team as well. How are you going about
• 21:40
  obviously the the landscapes pretty interesting at the minute
• 21:44
  might funding wise across our industry.
• 21:46
  How are you going about attracting the right investors?
• 21:51
  Because that sounds like it's really key to to yourself.
• 21:54
  It has to be the right option, right partner, right investors
• 21:58
  for Target. I think, I think we were quite
• 22:03
  lucky with the investors we were able to attract during our
• 22:06
  Series A because the Series A is not like what we see typically.
• 22:12
  We, we wanted to have around that built us into that value
• 22:16
  inflection point. I mean being able to manufacture
• 22:18
  a drug to show that it's safe in an animal model.
• 22:21
  I mean these are the data that you have to obtain to be able to
• 22:25
  move further. But we were able in attracting
• 22:27
  funding until first patients in a study where you really see
• 22:31
  that value in friction point going up and also where you
• 22:35
  attract the next set of investors.
• 22:38
  You were able to get those typical Series A investors with
• 22:42
  a lot of them having clinical experience and that that was
• 22:46
  something for us which is very valuable to have also to be able
• 22:50
  to work three years diligently in developing your compound
• 22:54
  without the background. Have to think do I have enough
• 22:57
  money to start the manufacturer to have money to start my
• 23:01
  clinical first in human clinical study.
• 23:04
  What we are now looking at is of course the next investment, the
• 23:09
  ones who can deploy little bit the larger amounts of millions
• 23:12
  to really fund those phase 2A, phase 2B, phase three types of
• 23:17
  study which will be the in the more million rounds and to be
• 23:22
  able to attract the right ones. I mean, I think it's always a
• 23:26
  very nice question to ask what is the right investor and it's a
• 23:30
  little bit, you know the proof of anything, the pudding on one
• 23:33
  hand, you have to work with the investor to understand whether
• 23:36
  it's the right one. I think working in hours based
• 23:40
  you don't have that many options.
• 23:42
  Sometimes you have to be happy with the ones used enough and
• 23:45
  then work with the ones to make it really the worthwhile where
• 23:50
  Commission to to move forward. And that's I think the success
• 23:53
  and, and, and we've been quite lucky with the ones that we have
• 23:56
  been treating. Now we all know that we're now
• 24:00
  three years into the ceiling day.
• 24:02
  We're getting closer to that that that people we're trying to
• 24:06
  find new ways of funding to come in, but the new investors want
• 24:10
  to seek little data. The older, the other types of
• 24:15
  investment are a little bit too small to step in right now
• 24:17
  because there's no type of risk now.
• 24:19
  We were quite lucky to obtain EIC accelerator grant just gives
• 24:24
  us that new push in the back gives like an additional equity
• 24:28
  investor next to the grant. And that that will be that will
• 24:32
  give us the opportunity to finalize those clinical studies.
• 24:35
  And by finalizing the clinical studies and having like a few
• 24:38
  months more to maneuver in, that will perfectly give us that.
• 24:42
  Yeah. But forced to attract those new
• 24:44
  investors in or maybe look at this part being at that.
• 24:48
  But if the result were really tremendous and we we have a nice
• 24:51
  hole for you, that's something that we need to take on into
• 24:54
  consideration. But of course we're not there
• 24:57
  yet. I mean showing some chemical
• 24:59
  proof will will definitely be the next steps in all the.
• 25:01
  Holidays for interested parties Where can they?
• 25:05
  Where can they find you in the next few months and early next
• 25:08
  year? Christophe, where will you be?
• 25:09
  Which conferences? Yeah, I think, I think at the
• 25:14
  the mixed few months, I think the bio, the Bio Europe
• 25:18
  conference in Vienna. We also have the the Essex in
• 25:22
  festival, Jeffries in Bolden as every biotech company.
• 25:27
  We will also be in San Francisco for the the early JP Morgan
• 25:31
  meeting. Then going back to, to to bio
• 25:34
  equities and the bio Europe's. I think we're, we're mainly
• 25:37
  present at the usual suspects, I would, I would say.
• 25:42
  And like you mentioned before, we were also able to to attract
• 25:45
  quite some talent to the team as well.
• 25:48
  We had Philip from the Renault, he comes from Ablinks, has
• 25:51
  brought a couple of seasons up to the market and beyond.
• 25:55
  We have Samuel White was Chief of Staff at Morpholins when they
• 26:00
  were sold to to Novartis. I think having that additional
• 26:03
  experience within the team is really going to set us on the
• 26:07
  nap and, and bring us even further and to have the
• 26:10
  opportunity with our single assets, you know, to attract
• 26:13
  those types of talents to the company.
• 26:15
  I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm quite happy as ACEO there that this
• 26:19
  point, the fact that we are quite risky with those single
• 26:22
  assets that we are still able to attract such a talent pool to
• 26:26
  the team. I also, you know, are going to
• 26:30
  the more local conferences like innovation for health and March,
• 26:33
  I'm going to give a talk. So the Bywood conference in, in
• 26:36
  Belgium are going to give a talk.
• 26:38
  So I'm, I'm trying to really put market on the map and to, to, to
• 26:42
  be able to meet people who are who are near to us and to, to be
• 26:46
  able to find the right talent right to previous to our next
• 26:50
  steps, you know. Absolutely.
• 26:51
  Now you've built a very good and lean team.
• 26:54
  You you definitely made the most of your issue is that you've
• 26:58
  spent it wisely, Christophe, I'd say for sure.
• 27:01
  Cool. Well, look, yeah, I'm sure the
• 27:04
  audience will have got a lot of useful information there.
• 27:07
  And I guess we'll finish off with the typical oil hub final
• 27:12
  question, which is, yeah, maybe a little bit cheesy, but we
• 27:16
  always ask it Christophe. So that is if you can have
• 27:19
  Sinner with free people, industry linked or generally
• 27:24
  anyone fast or present, who would they be and why?
• 27:32
  I don't think it's it's such a cheesy question to ask.
• 27:35
  It's a very difficult one for me to answer.
• 27:41
  You know, there are always people out there that you want
• 27:44
  to have it offered. But but for me, I would say
• 27:48
  Marie Karie, it's it's maybe one of the first ones, not only
• 27:53
  because it's somebody who in science has has brought over new
• 27:59
  insights with to the table. Also to start off wet with
• 28:02
  somebody from from the other gym to the table in the industry,
• 28:06
  you know, being at the forefront also suffered from a lot of
• 28:11
  developments that that she has done and and, and and that that
• 28:15
  that is I think somebody really interesting.
• 28:18
  I would also say Abraham Lincoln other side started a new
• 28:24
  poultry. How do you go about about that?
• 28:27
  I think that's that's a person that I really would have at the
• 28:31
  table as well. And I'm also a big fan of music
• 28:36
  and and one of my my favorite music artists is Lemmy from open
• 28:41
  the heads, the strange back. It's heavy metal beep.
• 28:45
  He has treated himself as an aerobic in the best very health,
• 28:50
  but just to see like a simple, uncomplicated person together
• 28:54
  with scientifically driven person together buddy who
• 28:58
  organized a country and and and wrote the amendments.
• 29:03
  I think that would be like enough for good fun and good
• 29:06
  government. It's an ecliptic mix, I'll give
• 29:07
  you that for sure. I'd like to be flying the wall
• 29:10
  at that dinner for sure. All good.
• 29:13
  But look, thanks for your time, Christophe.
• 29:15
  Really good to have you on. And yeah, to the audience.
• 29:19
  Yeah. You can see Christophe in person
• 29:21
  at those conferences you mentioned.
• 29:23
  Yeah, looking forward to staying in touch and thanks for coming
• 29:26
  on.