Tips from the pro

Mr Jean-Mairet, in 2005 you sold the company that you had founded, Glycart, to Roche for 234 million dollars. Have you booked your holiday in the Caribbean yet?
Joël Jean-Mairet: With four children, that’s not so easy (laughing). After 16 years in Zurich, I moved to Barcelona and, with three partners, founded the first risk capital fund for biotech companies in Spain. We have currently invested in ten companies all over the world. We support companies in the same way as I was supported with Glycart, but now, as a venture capitalist, I’m on the other side of the fence (laughing).

You advise young ETH companies in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab. How did that come about?
I’ll be in Switzerland for a year now, and, as a former ETH student, I got in touch with my university. Our company is in constant contact with the leading technology transfer centres at universities around the world. So I was asked to do some coaching.

Even while you were still a Biotechnology student at ETH, you founded your own company, Glycart. What was your new idea?
We developed a procedure for improving the effectiveness of cytotoxic antibodies in cancer treatment. Nowadays, this treatment is one of the most successful ways of treating cancer.

As a subsidiary of Roche, your former company has just brought a drug to fight cancer on to the market. What is special about it?
GA101 is used in cases of chronic lymphatic leukaemia (CLL). This disease is the most common form of leukaemia in the western world. The US Food and Drug Administration is responsible for licensing drugs on the American market. Because the drug is so effective, it became the first one in the world that they licensed as a “breakthrough therapy” on the US market. It has been on sale in the USA since November 2013. We’re very proud of that.

What advantages do you have when you advise young ETH entrepreneurs?
I can see myself in that situation, as I was fifteen years ago. I also had good advisers during the start-up phase, who were found for me by ETH. That helped our company tremendously. I think it’s important to continue with this idea and give something back.

Vincent Forster, you are one of the owners of the ETH spin-off Versantis that has just been founded. You are being advised by Joël Jean-Mairet. What’s your company’s big idea?
Vincent Forster: We are developing a new method for treating poisoning. Poisoning may be caused by drugs or medication. The problem with poison is that it spreads through the whole body and the longer it stays in the body, the more serious are the consequences. The way our approach works is that we use small hollow balls to extract the toxins from the body in a short time.

How long will it be before you have turned that into a market-ready product?
We probably won’t achieve that ourselves. Like other companies in this sector, we are responsible for the development and the first clinical test phase, and then after more trials we hope to be taken over by a large company which will bring the treatment to market. We reckon that it will be eight to ten years before it’s market-ready.

How can a coach help you?
They can offer support with everything from setting up the company to working out the strategy and drawing up a business plan. What are the right products? Where are the potential markets? What would be the best clinical strategy? After every meeting, we receive important feedback.

Isn’t the coach too far removed from the subject-matter of your spin-off?
Very often, we are wrapped up in the details, and then an outsider’s view is very helpful. A coach sees far more, raises critical issues and questions our ideas. After the first few sessions, we often used to ask ourselves why we hadn’t thought about those things for ourselves. It means we discuss these issues now and not later, when mistakes would cost us a lot of time and money.

Mr Jean-Mairet, what do you think of the idea behind Versantis and what advice do you have for the founders?
It’s a very good idea, with potential. At the moment they are planning the start-up. The next milestone is to secure the funding. So I would advise them to prepare very well for their meetings with potential backers. Normally you only get one chance to impress them.

What points should students who are founding a company look out for?
Above all, they have to be aware of the cultural difference between university and industry. Research and development in a university follow quite different rules from R&D in industry. They have to remember that the research is not an end in itself but that, especially in biotechnology, the shareholders and financial backers have to be satisfied, too. Students at university don’t have to worry about thinking like that, but in business it’s absolutely essential.

What advice do you give ETH spin-offs in particular?
When I see the opportunities that the ieLab offers the students here, then I wish I’d founded my company here. What’s important is that the company believes in its idea and wants to bring it to fruition. The expert coaching makes it easier for young founders to establish their company. They also need to bring more experts on board from their own networks. Then the founders have to analyse critically the advice they have been offered, and use the bits which they find make sense. With a development like the one by Versantis, they’ll need expertise on licensing processes and clinical development. Often these steps are only taken later in the development process, but they should be planned in very early on, otherwise it can get expensive later on.

In September 2000 ETH-Zurich alumnus Joël Jean-Mairet (43) founded the ETH-Zurich spin-off Glycart Biotechnology, which he sold to pharmaceutical colossus Roche for CHF 234 million barely five years later. Today, he works as managing director of external page Ysios Capital, a biotech fund investing in innovative life science companies and advisor to young entrepreneurs during the launch phase.

Vincent Forster is a postdoc in Professor Jean-Christophe Leroux’s group “Drug formulation and delivery” at ETH Zurich. Forster is currently in the process of founding external page Versantis, a company that produces hollow pellets for the treatment of poisoning.