Sabotaged and Still Building | Klaus Weinberger

The Truth About Biotech Funding Nobody Wants To Admit (Jan de Kerpel)

Fifteen percent of biotech deals took half the capital in 2025. A senior banker explains who got it and why.  Jan De Kerpel runs life sciencesand healthcare investment banking at Van Lanschot Kempen. Before that he was a scientist, working on an HIV drug that is still saving lives today. He moved from the lab to the trading floor by accident, and he has stayed there for twodecades because, he says, very few seats let you sit with twenty companies at once and watch which patterns repeat. This conversation is about the patterns. In 2025, fifteen percent of biotech transactions absorbed fifty percent of the capital raised. The money is there, De Kerpel says, but it is floating toward a small number of names. Tubulis raised four hundred millioneuros at the end of last year, the largest private biotech raise in Europe, and was then acquired by Gilead. Agomab, the first European biotech IPO on NASDAQ in roughly five years, started life as an antibody spin-out from Argenx and pivoted to small molecules along the way. These are the companies that get the room. The other eighty-five percent are operating in a different market and most of them do not know it. De Kerpel is direct about what separates them. Diversified investor bases over concentrated ones. Boldness invision paired with brutal realism on valuation. Founding CEOs who recognize when the company has outgrown them and step into the chair role before they are pushed. "An excellent project with a mediocre team is a recipe forfailure," he says. And on the romantic idea of family money funding clinical trials: "In our business, philanthropy is not a good idea." He also calls out the geography of success. Munich, Leiden, Flanders, Copenhagen, Switzerland, increasinglyFrance. Not because the science is better there but because companies in those clusters can fail in front of each other and learn faster. The companies that get acquired are usually acquired by partners they have known for years. TheIPOs that land are usually relationships started before lockdown. Opportunity, De Kerpel says, does not arrive in a sharp suit. It arrives with mud on the boots, and only the founders who knew what they were looking for in the first place will recognize it.   We also talk about:    * Why 15% of biotech deals took half the capital in 2025 * How Tubulis raised €400 million and got acquired byGilead * Why founding CEOs rarely become commercial-stage CEOs * What investors actually look for besides the science   GUEST   Jan De Kerpel, Head of CorporateFinance/ECM and Managing Director Life Sciences & Healthcare at VanLanschot Kempen. A scientist by training with a PhD in quantum chemistry fromthe University of Lund, he spent eight years in pharmaceutical R&D atTibotec and Devgen before moving to KBC Securities as senior biotech/pharmaequity analyst, and then to Van Lanschot Kempen in 2016. Based in Brussels.   LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-de-kerpel-a48a2a/ Van Lanschot Kempen:https://www.vanlanschotkempen.com ABOUT WILLING TO WIN   Willing to Win — Biotech LeadersAgainst All Odds is a long-form podcast featuring biotech founders, CEOs and Chairpersons who have built companies through real adversity: failed trials, board fights, near-bankruptcy, regulatory setbacks, personal cost. Not thehighlight reel. The willingness.   ABOUT THE HOST   Christian Rados is a biotech executive headhunter since 2011 and founder of Rados Recruiting, a boutiqueexecutive search firm based in Munich. Rados Recruiting places CEOs, CFOs, CSOs, CBOs and Chief Medical Officers for venture-backed and listed biotechcompanies across Europe and the United States, permanent, interim and fractional mandates.   Website:https://rados-recruiting.com LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianrados-biotechdreamteams/ Book a call:https://calendly.com/radosrecruiting/lets-build-a-dreamteam Watch on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@willingtowinpodcast

FemTech's Trillion-Dollar Question Nobody Asked (Simone Sabbione -Meliodays)

Period pain isn't normal. Medicine made it normal. For decades, severe menstrual pain has been dismissed as something women should accept, normalize, or medicate away with the pill. Meanwhile, an entire market and an entire patient population has been ignored by mainstream biotech. In this episode of Willing to Win, Christian Rados sits down with Simone Sabbione, co-founder of Meliodays, the Munich-based FemTech startup developing the first intra-uterine device designed to treat severe period pain (dysmenorrhea) at its source, not mask it. Simone walks us through how a single conversation with her brother, a gynecologist, exposed one of medicine's biggest blind spots: a disease affecting nearly half the global population, with no serious medical innovation in a century. She breaks down why FemTech founders face an asymmetric burden of proof when raising capital, why women's health was never a technology problem but a listening problem, and what it actually takes to build a medical device when investors first ask you to prove the problem exists. This conversation will resonate with anyone in FemTech, biotech, medical devices, women's health, healthcare investing, life sciences, and startup leadership, and with anyone who has been told their pain is normal. What you'll learn in this episode: Why severe menstrual pain has been ignored by mainstream medicine for over a century.How FemTech founders face an asymmetric burden of proof compared to other biotech categories.Why most medical products fail because they're built without patient co-creation.How to raise pre-seed capital as a solo operator in a male-dominated industry.Why honesty and ambition are not opposites when fundraising.The structural reason women's health has been the most overlooked market in healthcare. Chapters: 00:00 The Disease Medicine Dismissed For 100 Years00:31 From Corporate Dreams To Entrepreneurial Reality04:31 Discovering Purpose And Passion08:45 The Founding Of Meliodays12:21 Understanding Menstrual Pain16:52 The Injustice In Women's Health21:11 Innovative Solutions For Menstrual Pain25:11 The Journey Of Entrepreneurship28:26 Securing Pre-Seed Funding As A Solo Founder31:28 The Emotional Burden Of Entrepreneurship34:17 The Mindset Of Success And Confidence35:32 The Role Of Mentorship In Growth38:13 Honesty And Optimism In Fundraising41:21 Current Status And Future Plans For Meliodays45:40 Engaging With Patients And Co-Creation48:01 Vision For The Future About Meliodays: Meliodays is a Munich-based FemTech and medical device startup developing an intra-uterine device that delivers low-dose anti-inflammatory medication directly to the uterus to treat severe period pain (dysmenorrhea). The company closed its pre-seed round in early 2025 and is now raising its seed round to advance toward first-in-human clinical trials. 🌐 https://meliodays.com/ 💼 Simone Sabbione LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simone-sabbione/ About Willing to Win: Willing to Win, Biotech Leaders Against All Odds is the podcast where veteran life sciences executives, founders, and innovators share the unfiltered stories behind building, leading, and surviving in biotech. Hosted by Christian Rados, founder of Rados Recruiting, an executive search firm specializing in life sciences leadership across Europe and the US. Subscribe for new episodes with biotech and life sciences leaders. If you are interested in hiring your next talent, connect with Christian:🌐 www.rados-recruiting.com💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianrados-biotechdreamteams/ LISTEN ON ALL PLATFORMS Spotify: https://tr.ee/ibOyhAVBaW Apple Podcasts: https://tr.ee/V1PdlqEOG7 Youtube Channel: https://tr.ee/xXGgHIgvn6 #FemTech #WomensHealth #PeriodPain #Dysmenorrhea #Biotech #MedicalDevices #StartupFounder #HealthcareInnovation #WillingToWin #MeliodaysIUD #LifeSciences #BiotechFounder #MunichStartup #GermanyStartup #FemTechInvesting #WomenInBiotech

From Shakespeare to a Biotech Exit (Chris Przybyszewski)

Chris Przybyszewski raised over $150 million, founded five companies, and was fired four times. He also studied literature and founded a theatre before biotech. In this episode of Willing to Win, he gives the unedited account of taking US Biologic from a Lyme disease vaccine to a near-acquisition, with a poultry program and a chewable human flu vaccine in the pipeline. Willing to Win is the biotech leadership podcast where founders and C-level executives break down what it actually took to build, raise, and exit, against the odds. Host Christian Rados runs Rados Recruiting, a Munich-based executive search firm placing C-level, interim, fractional, and board talent into Series A to C biotech companies across Europe and the USA. Because he is inside the biotech C-suite every week, these conversations reach what other biotech interviews miss. What you will learn in this episode: * Why three failed companies and four firings taught Chris more than his wins did * How a literature degree and running a theatre shaped the way he leads and pitches biotech investors * The six pillars every biotech founder has to see at once, or the product never reaches market * How investors really read a pitch, and why honesty beats confidence in due diligence * When a founder-CEO has to step aside, and why most realize it too late Chapters: 00:00 Literature, theatre, and the path that was never planned 02:22 Following opportunity instead of a career map07:30 Knowing when discipline means walking away 17:40 The app company mistake he had already learned not to make23:10 Looking successful versus being successful 27:15 When the founder is no longer the right CEO 29:33 Building US Biologic from a Lyme vaccine 39:13 One platform, three companies, three vaccine programs 46:09 The six pillars of biotech product development 49:12 Why anything done deeply has to be hard Guest: Chris Przybyszewski on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisprzybyszewski/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisprzybyszewski/] Hiring at the top of a biotech company is the difference between a missed year and a breakout one. If you are a founder or board member scaling a leadership team in a Series A to C biotech, Christian Rados places the people who change the trajectory. Book a confidential search consultation: https://calendly.com/radosrecruiting/lets-build-a-dreamteam [https://calendly.com/radosrecruiting/lets-build-a-dreamteam] More on Rados Recruiting: https://www.rados-recruiting.com/about [https://www.rados-recruiting.com/about]Connect with Christian Rados on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianrados-biotechdreamteams/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianrados-biotechdreamteams/] #WillingToWin #Biotech #BiotechLeadership #LifeSciences #VaccineDevelopment #StartupFounders

What Nobody Told Me About Resilience — A CFO's Hard Warning (Miguel Coego Rios)

Miguel Coego Rios has spent 20 years leading through the toughest environments in European pharma. Restructurings. Turnarounds. Investor pressure. From the outside, he looked unbreakable. He wasn't. In this episode Miguel does something most senior leaders never do - he talks openly about the moment resilience stopped being a strength and became a trap. Medication. Anxiety. Six months of recovery. Children he had to reintroduce himself to. And the hard realization that staying in a room that was destroying him was not responsibility. It was self-abandonment dressed up as discipline. He also shares what finally changed. How therapy gave him back his why. How working across four continents rewired his perspective on privilege and gratitude. And why the driven, ambitious person he was at 35 needed to fall apart before he could lead the way he does today. The second half of the conversation goes wide. Miguel breaks down why the golden era of pharma margins is over, what the access crisis in Europe really means for rare disease patients, and what kind of leadership the next decade in biotech is going to demand. This is a rare conversation. Honest, grounded, and earned through experience. If you have ever confused endurance with strength - this one is for you.

Sabotaged and Still Building | Klaus Weinberger

Klaus Weinberger co-invented one of the first real-time PCR assays used in diagnostic labs across Europe. He never patented it. He never made a dime. That was just the beginning. What followed was three decades of building in life science diagnostics. A sabotaged patient database. A toxic board member who cost two years of runway. A company sold after nine years with deeply mixed feelings. A funding system that rewards drugs extending suffering over diagnostics that could prevent it entirely. Klaus survived all of it. He is still building. In this episode Klaus talks about what conviction actually costs in a field where the timelines are long, the capital is scarce, and being scientifically right is not always enough to survive commercially. He does not offer a clean narrative. He offers the truth of what three decades in this industry actually looks like from the inside. For founders, investors, and executives working in life science diagnostics, medtech, and biotech who want the conversation that nobody else is having out loud. Willing to Win – Biotech Leaders Against All Odds is hosted by Christian Rados, founder of Rados Recruiting, an executive search firm focused on life sciences.