Biotech visionary Jean-Paul Clozel: "Previous success can be a big handicap,"

Yeah, it's absolutely true. I think I'm certainly the luckiest one and I have to say I appreciate every day as a chance I have to be able to work in Idorsia and you can work what you always wanted to do, you can follow your passion and

I think it's when you like science, it's a passion, and so you do not work, you live your passion. And every day you don't know what you're going to find in the evening. Every day you have the unknown. You say, you know, is this drug going to work? Is this product going to be active? So it's a very interesting feeling. And this is really why we decided to recreate Idorsia.

Absolutely. In fact, you know, when we created Actelion with Thomas Venneman words officially, my wife and myself, we wanted to create an environment where science would be able to really drive the business. And of course then, you know, making the profit, making money as a company allows you to do more science. So the more successful you are on the market, the more science you can do. And I think this is what is really incredible because science for when you were a medical doctor for pharmaceutical industry, it's not only abstract. It means helping patients, it means changing the life of people. So it's really incredibly motivating. So one might say you are money driven, but only to be able to do what your passion is and to be able to recreate new success and create new drugs. You know, I always remember one sentence when I used to learn Latin at school and we were translating Caesar's talk and he was saying you know he liked power because it allowed him to do things. Some people like power. Do you like power? No, I'd like to be able to do things that I want. I'm really a little bit driven, so I really want to achieve something. And you know, to be CEO for example is not really because I can lead people, it's because it allows me to do what I want to do and to have some influence on what we can do with an idea. So it's really the motivation for my wife and myself is really science, improving, finding new drugs, improving the life of people. And of course we like it, so we get the benefit, but you know we like to discover new things.

I think that for both of us it was very important because you know when you go through tough times, when you go through failures, and not all our drugs did work, we had some problems. It's very important that at least your wife understands what is going on. And of course you know, the company was based on the drug discovered by my wife. So she played a very key role. And we have the same passion, so it's really helping you to go through tough times. And also, I would say it's a synergistic effect. It's not one plus one, it's much more than two.

It's home. We can really we like themes, we like cinema, we like practicing sports, doing ski. And so I think you need to discipline otherwise it's too invading and then you know you are not anymore benefiting from this situation. No, we need to be disciplined.

Yes, I hope I have learned a lot of things with my previous life in Actelion. So first, people say you try to redo it's not an Actelion base, it's an Idorsia impress. We want to do it much better, much faster, much stronger, much larger. This is really what we want to do. And that means of course we are going to learn our lessons. That means for example that we decided to become a big shareholder, which we could not do in Actelion because we didn't have the money to do that. But we have decided to have been a little bit more master of our destiny by being one of the biggest shareholders within Idorsia. So we have lived through activist times where people were trying to force us to sell this company at the worst time for the worst reasons. And I didn't want to start again and be at the mercy of any financial activist. So things like that, many other things we have learned, and we are taking the consequences and we are trying to implement that within Idorsia.

Not at all. I'm just saying we are not at all but we had lives through problems. It was very frustrating to have financial activists on board every day, to see in the newspaper that you are bad, that you should be fired. It's not really pleasant, you know. You don't like to open the newspaper where it says you know they should go back, they should go. It's really not nice. So that I didn't want to live through. You know, it can work after a certain time, but as you say, to live a passion, not to really fight people who are just sitting in London and just trying to use their money to influence to make more money.

You know, I think it's a very important part of the business today. Some financial activists are very successful because basically they can grasp money very quickly, very short term, and they don't care of what is going to happen in the future. So they have very low risk money and cash, so it has attracted a lot of people and they play a more and more important role. So I think you need to be prepared for that. It's particularly damaging in a scientific oriented company because they don't understand science at all. Of course they can understand business much better, they can reorganize company, that they are good at, and they can even evaluate. But when you are in the scientific projects, what was allowing them to say this project will fail, and they were completely wrong. All the projects they were saying will fail succeeded. And they were pushing us to say the company was a share price at 30 and we sold for that. The company was bought at 280. Look at how much money would have been stolen from the shareholders if it would have happened. That is a good demonstration that clearly in our case it would have been a catastrophe.

I think it's a very true, it's a very good point. It's very important as a scientist that you can explain things you are doing in simple terms and simple words. So it's not easy because it's very complicated, but I really hope that I can. And I say maybe it's something very important, I can explain to these shareholders in simple terms what we are doing because we want to have shareholders who understand what we are doing. The biggest danger is when somebody invests into your company for the wrong reason. You think that it's going to be short, it's going to be much bigger than it is or much smaller what it is. So you don't want it to be a business opportunity for someone. They have to explain what you're doing, they have to understand why they invest into a company. And I think that you see it's a very big danger that some pharma company try to hype one project and thousands of shareholders invest and suddenly the project fails for a reason which is normal because many scientific projects can fail, but never the shareholders understood the risk. So you need to explain the risk. And when there is a risk, you have to tell it. And then it's a decision of the shareholders to take or not to take the risk. And it's very important as a CEO, and I'm spending a lot of time for that to explain to the shareholders what we are doing.

I really hope it's not linked to me. I really hope so. And it's really a very honest answer because I always said something in a company, a biotech company, there is only one hero: it's a product. You have a good product or you don't have a good product. You have a good drug or you don't have a good drug. Everyone is working around it. Everyone tries to discover this drug, try to develop it, try to provide it to the patients. Should not be the people, even the person who has discovered it, to not become zero. The drug is your hero. And I really hope that one day, and I understand it's early, people will really understand the fantastic products that we have in Idorsia.

Certainly not eleven. Not everyone will work. Again, I try to explain, you know, usually maybe two, three, four of these eleven, that's a reality. But that's enough. You don't need so many; one or two will be sufficient. You know, this is the name of the game in the pharmaceutical industry. So really again, people have to understand that we will go through failures, we will not always have success. It's very important that the shareholders do not be disappointed because one study will be negative. That's a big relief in Idorsia compared to Actelion where we had one product basically or two products. If they were failing, we were really in a bad situation. And I can tell you that my wife and myself, we had some very bad nights the days before getting the results because we weren't sure, you know, we were never sure. So here in Idorsia, we try to play, we have the chance to be able to play a little bit of statistical game and to know that part of our project we succeed, but we have so many that really we should succeed. However, there's a big pressure; if you don't come up with new ideas with new products, you're not going to make it in the end.

Yeah, I think it's the pressure has to be there. I think that when you have been successful and people consider that like Actelion was successful, I always say you have to be modest. No, Genentech has been much bigger, much more successful. Many companies, if you see Google, hopefully not, this is nothing compared to us. So we have to also put it in perspective. But compared to European standards, Actelion has been considered as a success. You have to be very careful: previous success can be a very big handicap. You have to cost to say you start from scratch in a way. You have to be not overconfident, you have to be ready for fights, you have to be ready for failures. You cannot count on your previous success to be sure that it will happen in the future. And to be overconfident, to become arrogant, to become sure that everything will work, it's a big danger. And I am very conscious of that.

I would say when I was a doctor, I loved to do medicine. I spent 11 years of my life seeing patients and I really loved doing medicine. But you know, the research aspect, the unknown, was more important. So when I was seeing a patient and I was in an experiment which was going on, I always had to be very careful not to bias the experiment. So I thought that I could not do both at the same time. And I don't regret that. But what I have learned is what is a patient, how they can suffer, how can you help them. And that has been the motivation for the rest of my career.

Yeah, I think that it's a very good point because I think that you learn a lot of things when you do medicine. You learn anatomy, biology, genetics. You don't learn communication. And I think that you should really have communication teachers because what you see is so many patients are feeling bad because they have not the information. And so I realized very early that it's very important to discuss, to explain, and that patient, if they understand what this disease is, are going to be much more motivated to be treated, is going to help you to be treated. So you are absolutely right. I have learned that if you explain what you do, why you do it, you already have made a very big step. And when you do that in your company now as well, do you consider yourself a good boss? I don't know, I should ask my collaborators. What I know is I try to be a good boss. But you know, I have one concept as a boss: I think that people believe that you have rights when you are the boss. I think that I have duties. I'm here to have the life of my collaborators the best as I can. And I feel that I am at the service to find the money for them, to find the right buildings, to find the right projects, everything. I feel that this is my duties, and I think I have very few rights. So and that's a fantastic pleasure because really I have to say, the biggest pleasure I have every day is if I cross a young scientist and he says 'I have a fantastic project, I am very happy to be working in Idorsia, thank you very much.' And sometimes I have people telling me 'thank you'. That's the most gratifying thing which can happen to me.

Yeah, I think we know we try to be very open and that could be a risk, it's absolutely true. But we try to have that in mind, to give this freedom. Of course, me and my wife, we know what we want to do. And if people tell me tomorrow we're going to make some electronics, I will say no, you know, we are there to make drugs. So clearly we also like to have a certain direction. But I think it can be done if you respect the people and if you respect a scientist. I think it's not a big issue.

I'm not working maybe not, but less working I'm sure. And clearly I think you have to think of finding a better CEO. But I think you know, I'm sure that people much better than us. I think that as I said, you have a certain vision. I would like to put the company on tracks and then we will see what will happen. And I think that it will be very important for me to find the right management, to think of the future. That's a big difference between people who want to make a short-term investment and people who want to think long term. Everything I do every day is long-term thinking. If I find a manager, I think of a manager we can be there in ten years. If you find a project, if you work on the project, you think already what will happen in ten years. If you think you are going to set it in two or three years, you don't take the same decisions. But for the moment, I take it that you're still working.

Yeah, I did but this year was a bad year with the weather. But you know, I have to say I hope I'm a better scientist than a fly fisher. Unfortunately I don't have the experience. Maybe, but I love it. And I think it's a little bit the same thing, you know? You have to be optimistic. You know, even you see this fish that don't catch anything, but you think that one day, one moment, this fish is going to catch your fly. So you have a little bit the same feeling.

He wanted to find new drugs. And see, people have a hard time to believe. You know, my father had bought me a microscope, so I was looking at blood. I was really always very interested in research. And in the family, with my parents, you know, the heroes were the people who discovered the vaccines, the first vaccines were there. So really, a scientist was a hero. So I wanted to do what I do. It's like living a dream.

I think it has been incredibly lucky. And I think that I've been at the fantastic chance to have chosen this job. So I think that what I would say to that is what I said: too many people do research, do science and research. This is so fantastic. And I really have to say one thing: not enough people, not enough young people do science. Science is going to change the world. We change the world. It's a way to change the world. And too many people don't think of that and don't do it. The best students should do science, they should not do finance.

Yeah, I think do leave your passion really and do research, do experiments, try to really crack the problems, try to understand how this disease or how this virus, these bacteria are working, try to really find ways to help patients. And that's fantastic. And do science, do mathematics, do other things, but really go to concrete and really work hard. But work and do science and love science.