Tell us more about EraCal.
We are an early-stage drug discovery firm developing new medicines, focusing on appetite suppression. Our whole concept is around how appetite is regulated as this is something important in many different diseases. The most prominent one is obesity where appetite suppression could have a curative role.
There are many companies and industries trying to fight this problem from different angles. We are looking to introduce an alternative angle by pioneering zebrafish larvae as a model system where you can observe the eating habits of hundreds of thousands of fish. Although this may sound funny at first, this approach gives us the statistical power to find new treatments and interventions.
How did EraCal come about?
I invented the platform as a PostDoc at Harvard University in Boston and brought this back to Switzerland. I’m interested in appetite regulation, because metabolism is such a fundamental and fascinating phenomena.
What is a given to all species is that we need to eat. We all eat and it’s very important for survival. The underlying assumption is therefore that we can find principles in other species that translates across evolution. I was interested in appetite as I think we would have a higher likelihood to find something relevant also in other species.
What stage are you at right now?
We are in the preclinical, lead-optimization phase. We are trying to understand the potential across different assets to select the best one which we hope to go to clinic with. We plan for the drug to be subscription based, that can be orally taken once a day.
Have you always known you would become an entrepreneur?
No, this is very much science driven. I like innovation a lot and when the data was so promising, the question arose, what do we do with it. Do we publish a paper and move on and everybody forgets about it? Or do we give it the real shot? So, we decided to found EraCal to drive this forward.
I like getting things done, this is just a part of my personality. I think growing a company is something that allows you to push and see where things can go and allows you to grow in all professional dimensions.
Can you share some challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve overcome them?
We face various scientific challenges such as when we are unable to find any precedence in existing literature. When facing problems, we need to really define them before approaching our Advisory Board to get the knowledge advantage to close that gap.
Another would be relating to HR issues. When the team grows, it starts getting challenging to keep the scientific quality high when there are unexpected events. The question is how do we keep everyone aligned? The same holds true for the investor base.
The reality is that many assets fail, and never make it to the clinic. You need to manage all of these expectations. You try to be as professional as possible and as honest as possible, and that’s the way that works for me.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I start the day at 7am. I check e-mails, spend an hour or two reading literature or news relating to our field. This is followed by many virtual meetings.
How has Coronavirus impacted you?
We had rented facilities at the University of Zurich. When Switzerland went into lockdown in March and the labs were closed, we had to move all our R&D to China and to another country which didn’t work as they too went into lockdown.
When the labs reopened in May, we rebooted everything in Zurich. Overall, there was a bit of a slowdown and our budget was stretched having to run parallel experiments across 4 sites, but it worked well.
Any highlights to share so far?
A scientific highlight was the proof of concept in different animal species which has been a remarkable feat.
I enjoy events when we get in external experts, that are either helping us or judging our company and the science we do for due diligence. I love when they bring in top notch people with whom we can have great scientific debates.
A personal highlight was when Ann Kessler joined our board in summer 2019 as she had led the development of orlistat (Xenical), one of the anti-obesity drugs on the market. It’s amazing to work with such a thought leader who is a true role model for me.
Being able to grow the team is another highlight. To see their intelligence and how they operate completely independently is something I find inspiring and motivating. We also just moved to a new lab in Schlieren.
Lastly, it was great to have been featured by Nature, one of the important academic journals, as one of the most innovative European startups in life science last summer.
What are your hopes for EraCal?
The biggest one is that we find a molecule which we can move into the clinic that validates the platform. I think what we do is very unique as we can also explore other interesting indications such as sleep and the area of longevity as it is heavily linked to metabolism.