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Hello, good morning, Rafaèle, how are you? Good morning, Young, how are you as well?
I really appreciate you joining me for our next wave into this series
as the founder of Jeito Capital and really one of the pioneering women that
are really driving the technology innovation at the
intersection of biology and tech that can really make a
difference in our lives. Love to have our discussion today.
I think it will be good to reset a bit and talk about you
and about your career and being a a technologist, medical doctor
and an accomplished venture capitalist. It'll be really great if you can talk a
little bit about your career background and also what made you as successful as you
are. I also want to congratulate you on getting the recognition from the French
government, the Legion of Honor, which is a very
very rare and very special acknowledgement of your contribution.
Thank you so much and I'm not realizing yet about the Légion d'honneur,
sometime I'm wondering if they have done a mistake, but
apparently not, so I hope i will, you know, honor this Légion d'honneur to
serve not only France, but you know, obviously Europe and
beyond in terms of something I've been passionate about, which is
patients – patients and health care, not only patients,
but human beings. And this had been my main driver for my
old career. So starting as a medical doctor, I
spent five years taking care of patients, mostly with leukemia. It has been very
much, you know, a trigger for me to understand – you know – I
would like to help the patient and to do this in different ways and
and accelerate also the access to drugs and treatment for patients.
So after these five years of practicing mainly
in clinical hematology-oncology, I spent also four years with a French
NIH (National Institute of Health) Inserm
to do research actually on molecular biology
and immunology. And it was designed to understand what goes on behind the patient,
you know, what is the science behind this, and I
liked it very much, I've been lucky to publish in
great reviews, including Nature reviews, and I try to make progress for
that, but it was not going fast enough for me.
Fast in terms of how to get results for for the patients.
I was intrigued by innovation at that time. So 18 years ago,
more than 45 percent of the drugs sold by the big pharma –
or the treatment, innovative treatment – are coming from small
startups, from small biotech biopharma startups.
And I was intrigued and I looked further, I met
different people and then this was how I directly I went from the
academic world – you know medicine and science – to the startup and venture world
and joined Sofinnova Partners which is one of the oldest
firm VC firms in Europe and the US but I joined the one in Paris
and i joined as an analyst – again knowing nothing about
this business – and I rose through the firm
to become a partner, and then a managing partner.
And I learned all about investments obviously, but also really
how through an investment and through backing and helping entrepreneurs
how to get drugs finally to the patients.
But I think that it'd be really great if you can also talk a little bit about
how you see the – what are the key trends that you see in the medical
field today or in the biomedical space that are really exciting, that can really
have an impact on patient care. And really the convergence of technology
between IT and medicine, when they come together,
they can do some special things, I hope. So I'd like
to get your perspective on the dimension of biology and the
dimension of technology, when they come together, can they make a
bigger impact? And how do you see that going forward?
We need to think and to work as an ecosystem. That's why when I said
multi-talented team – it's really working – why ecosystem?
Because bringing indeed all this technology,
even though we don't invest in in a technology or
health tech per se, nevertheless, we push our entrepreneurs.
And we are working with companies that could
again serve better and, you said it, it's very long, it's a very long process
to get a drug to treatment. It's very long and it's
also complex or let's say sophisticated, so not only do you need
people with know-how, but we also need to bring this
technology. And I think it has the positive things of the Covid crisis is
that it is accelerating the use of these
tools and this technology to do it better, i.e. optimizing and
accelerating (the process). Clearly, the – to give you an example –
the what we've seen with the Covid
crisis is that all the clinical trials that were not
for Covid had been stopped at some point. Now, they are catching up, particularly in
oncology, but otherwise, you know, you have still severe diseases
that need new treatment. And they realize,
the agencies, the companies, etc. that
all the delay – because actually all this digitalization should have
happened before to make for example a clinical trial,
you know, remotely and to make it faster. So that's one
example. And how the patient – when the
patient has to come back to the hospital to make
several tests – how to optimize this process so that
you save time and you have better results because of this
digitalization. So that's one. Second example is
how to use all these data. What is great about health care and the
development of drugs particularly is that everything is
published. So, all the tools
and the technology to take this data and help
to go faster and to also be right, for example,
a drug that is for a more targeted population of patients.
So this is a different example, just to say that there is a lot to do and I
would like to ask you the question: how can you
help here, I'm sure that especially you, Young, but
also your fabulous company and institution, how could you
help in terms of what is to come due to Covid but also
further? How do you see this
marriage? But also, what kind of technology
could we get to help get
the right treatment for this very severe disease?
So our perspective – an IT perspective –
I see how a lot of things that we do in biology
can impact IT, and a lot of things we do in IT can impact biology.
So, for instance, when you think about
AI, a lot of people think it's totally different things,
but actually, our human brain is in a way modelled
and it is helping us to process tons of data with very small power. So, clearly, there's
a lot of architecture in our brain, which is very
much parallelized mini processors that
are driving the data that are helping us to run applications,
and this neuromurphy processing is clearly
helping AI. And then, of course, a lot of things we do
in IT can also help biology, and, for instance, I'm hoping the
Samsung's new mobile phone can give you better insights about your
bodies by monitoring your activities,
the things around what you do, your preferences, etc.
Taken all together, they can give you better insights about
our mental health as well as our health
information. They can give you some preventive warning.
And in the process we believe that we are be able to
change the dynamics of healthcare from reactive
to proactive, and that's an example of how I think technology can contribute,
but obviously, these things are all kind of in the process.
I think we talked so much about technology and IT
and how they relate to each other. Maybe the subject I also want to talk about
is also your passion around being really a role model.
Clearly, the number of professionals, of women, in particular in
venture capital, isn't really that big.
Maybe, today, around 15 percent of the venture partners
are female, but I want to get your perspective what you're doing in terms
of this. I know you're doing a lot of leadership
and also playing a role of development
of this, the female entrepreneurs as
well as venture capital society. So could you
give me a perspective around how you're involved in what you're doing
about this? Yeah I know that's a
topic – one of my passions. So women and diversity, but also
because I realized more than 10 years ago that women are
key to health care – again here talking about
acceleration, it doesn't mean that men cannot (do this), but
women, when you think about it – and there are more and more data on this –
they are an accelerator of health care actually.
It's, you know, history, since
the time of the – women they are the one taking care of
the two extreme parts of life, you know, the elderly
people and the children. I remember a study, an analysis by J&J
in 2017, looking at
the role of women in families and
80 percent of the decisions in health care are taken by women in
families, so eighty percent, eight zero,
and there are more and more data. If you look at even clinical trials
or scientific papers, when you have women,
the data are different. So this is about diversity, but also a specific role
of women, I think, since history. And I realized that, 10 years ago,
we were not enough women, obviously. You
talked about numbers: 15 percent in VC groups. But when you look at
entrepreneur women, they are like financed by VC
they are two percent, I think, or maybe now it's
five percent. So it has increased a little bit. So,
I realized that we were not enough also together
helping each other, so it's a question of role model, but also
even of inspiring each other and helping each other
with this collaborative mindset. So I founded an association
more than 10 years ago named WITH, standing for Women
Innovating Together in Healthcare, and it's really about being with others
together. To make progress for health
care, obviously, it is about promoting women, but also to serve finally health care. That is
our common passion. And without, obviously, excluding any men
and our network. It has started like that, so this group
is quite, what I call, accomplished women and generous. So accomplished meaning
quite senior and experienced women – and sharing. And already
among experienced women, there is a need to share
and to help each other, and,
through this group, we are helping women to also
evolve in their career, obviously. Even though they are already a senior,
they could change, because the beauty of health care is that you
you have so many different roles you could get
across the value chain. And I would like to
help young women save time, because – again – I'm
obsessed by acceleration, but finally to serve society and not only
ourselves. After WITH, we are now creating, and this is with
JEITO, with the fund, we are creating a foundation
that is here to help younger women in university,
to help them to push themselves to become entrepreneurs or at least value their
project and their research in every,
you know, benefit for health care. So it's not only drugs here or biotech – it's
all about health tech and, you know, I would love to interact with
you and think about how we could promote these
young women in universities to make their own
projects so that patients benefit as well.
So, it's really interesting to hear the two different angles. So clearly what the health
industry does is that you have a very large woman population that is
participating, but across the different segments and
disciplines, you want to have a dialogue and collaboration,
so they are be able to encourage each other. And then the other side
is really going after the seed of the potential to create power for women
through entrepreneurship, even university programs like you're doing, I
would love to hear more about it. I think we could play a role in helping
promote maybe entrepreneurship at an earlier age, particularly supporting diversity
programs that are part of something
very meaningful and increasing the number of
entrepreneurship from one or two percent to a much higher rate than what it should
be. So, that's really a great initiative
and something that I believe we need to continue to work on. Let me ask
you two questions: if you were being able to
give a message to the bosses of today who are mostly male,
right? If you think about most corporations like Samsung and others,
a lot of times, it's 80 plus, male bosses or managers. What message would
you give to them to encourage women to play a better role in the
organizations? That's one question. The second
question, so one is about the male bosses, the second question is really about the
new prospective female employees that are approaching the job.
What message would you give them as a way for them to be successful
in organizations that are still very male-oriented,
communities and organizations they are joining?
So, I'm trying to think what I
I've done right and what I've done wrong in the past, because indeed, it is
very male- dominated, even though it is evolving.
Clearly, I think that, you know, first do not try to be a
man, for sure. We are different.
We bring – it's, you know, it's like diversity.
It's needed. Diversity in competencies, diversity in,
you know, men and women, but races and culture.
That's how we become more successful.
But it's diversity with inclusiveness. And that's very important. And I would
recommend – since you asked – to a woman that
she identifies around her in, you know,
this male environment, who are the males that are much
more open to this inclusiveness, so that's one.
And the second is not to be, I
would say, slowed down by some reaction
or in a way to be proactive here as well to
go – to follow your way, your path,
and not to lose positive energy to change the world here,
although I think we should try to change behaviors, but the way
I think for women to change these kinds of behaviours is
to demonstrate our success and, through successes,
we could help other women. But also, you know,
let's say to men that they are not the only ones to
participate in this success. So it's by demonstration and going as fast
as possible to do this, and to not listen to this negative energy.
Very good advice! Hopefully we can continue to work with the startups to
encourage the entrepreneurship as well as
leadership as well as diversity to solve some big
problems of today. Thank you! Thank you very much and
for all what you do for
the others! Thank you.