When you cash out your company for hundreds of millions at the age of 34, what’s the second act? Joël Jean-Mairet wasn’t ready to spend the rest of his life on a beach, and he decided against a big offer of a big job at a big company. He thought about doing another start-up, but instead chose to create a venture capital fund that invests in biotech start-ups. A decade later it’s going from strength to strength.
Accidental entrepreneur
‘Multi-culti’ fittingly describes Joël Jean-Mairet, a Swiss national who grew up in London and Barcelona, attending the Swiss School in the Catalan capital. ‘Passionate scientist’ also hits the mark: with a focus on biology, biochemistry and their application in health care. Already in his teens (in the late 1980s) he was devoted to biotech, and because Barcelona then offered no core curriculum in it, he went to Zurich’s ETH to study under Professor James Bailey, a renowned pioneer of biochemical engineering. The idea was to earn a master’s degree and return to Spain, but life had other plans. First, Jean-Mairet accepted Bailey’s invitation to pursue a doctorate in cancer immunotherapy. Second, he and his doctoral advisor, another Bailey protégé named Pablo Umaña, proved and patented a method to attack bone/blood cancer (leukaemia) with monoclonal antibodies. Third, in 2000 they entered their commercialisation concept in the McKinsey/ETH business-plan competition for students. They didn’t win, but they attracted attention plus CHF 3 million in seed capital that launched GLYCART Biotechnology in 2001, staffed by Jean-Mairet as Chief Executive, Umaña as Chief Scientific Officer and one other researcher.
Garage band
A common theme of tech start-ups in California’s Silicon Valley is that they began in a garage. Hewlett-Packard did it, Apple did it, Google did it – or at least so go the legends. GLYCART nearly did it: its tiny team opened above a garage in what then was an industrial, low-rent part of Zurich called Schlieren. By late 2004 the company was still over the garage, but with 25 employees, another CHF 20 million in capital and several product candidates ready to enter clinical trials. Then out of the blue came a buy-out offer from a German pharmaceuticals firm. Jean-Mairet and Umaña declined that specific bid, but it opened their eyes to the potential of a takeover. With help of an investment bank, in April 2005 they put GLYCART on the market; after three months of screening 16 suitors they settled on a CHF 235-million bid from a pharma giant that is huge in biotech: Basel-based Roche.
Back to Barcelona
While Umaña stayed on and now heads GLYCART/Roche Innovation Center, Jean-Mairet seized the chance to return with wife and three (now four) children to Barcelona. The region is now a hotbed for pharma and biotech, he notes, with top scientists, top business schools, top hospitals for clinical trials – but not so much top venture capital. In 2008 his Ysios Capital launched a EUR 65-million venture fund to pick the low-hanging fruit nearby as well as invest in non-Spanish biotechs around the globe. The Midas touch worked again: some of the exits to date include Biovex for USD 1 billion, Prexton Therapeutics for EUR 905 million and TiGenix for USD 520 million. There are more in the pipeline. Later this year Ysios aims to open its third venture fund to the tune of EUR 200-250 million.
Corporate matchmaking
Capitalising a biotech venture is not so different to running one, says Jean-Mairet, except in the former you’re full-time in one project, while in the latter you’re spread among many projects. “I’m not on the payroll of my ventures, but Ysios is very hands on. Through our network and experience, we help them with business development, mergers & acquisitions, human resources, intellectual property, manufacturing – whatever they need to succeed.” Trust between investor and invested must run deep, he adds. “It’s as if VC investors and management get married. If both sides don’t have confidence in the other, then forget it, it’ll never work.”
Gone, but not forgotten
So at a youthful 47, does Jean-Mairet foresee a third act in another type of business? No, Ysios scratches his itch to be in the thick of science, see innovation up close and help entrepreneurs win. Besides, VC investing is a long game stretching a decade or more. Still, it takes nothing away from the pride and ongoing connections he has to his first venture. Recently he was invited to the inauguration of the renamed Roche Glycart’s new labs and offices, an 11-story building housing 150 scientists led by Umaña – right next to the original garage. “The spirit of GLYCART and biotech innovation is very much at the heart of Roche,” says Jean-Mairet. “I like that I helped make that happen.”