Biotech Startup Redbiotec's CEO Christian Schaub About Inspiring and Leading a Team

14.04.2020 11:20, Guillaume Tinsel

The startup and innovation ecosystem has offered what more and more highly qualified people are looking for: self-determination, meaningful work, steep learning curves, and crazy adventures. We talked with Christian Schaub, CEO of Redbiotec, who sold a spin-off company from Redbiotec to Pfizer.

What would a sale of the company mean to me personally? Stay or go? Fortunately, Christian Schaub did not have to answer this question yet. Although he has successfully sold a spin-off of his company, he is still working flat out with Redbiotec. But everything in order.

Christian Schaub - The Conductor

Christian Schaub has proven that he can do it. At the end of 2014, the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer bought Redvax, a spin-off from Redbiotec. Silence has been maintained on the purchase price, but according to experts, it was a very satisfactory exit for all parties involved. Among other things, Pfizer received the rights to a herpes vaccine, which if it comes on the market will protect babies from birth defects.

“That’s the great thing about drug development,” says Schaub. “As an entrepreneur, you can really make a difference.” This is precisely why the ETH engineer went into the life sciences industry more than 10 years ago. In 2006, he founded Redbiotec together with Corinne John. The company is one of the veterans at Bio-Technopark Schlieren. After countless deals and cooperation agreements with Big Pharma, after hundreds of meetings with financiers, which have invested about CHF 20 million in Redbiotec to date, Schaub sees himself as a coach: “It’s my job to inspire and lead the team.”

The claims of classical music lover are high. Less than world-class is not good enough. As his own transfer director, he has put together a team that could hardly be more international: his employees come from, inter alia, Switzerland, Poland, Brazil, Hungary, China, Japan and Greece. Currently, Redbiotec is moving into the brand-new field of ‘living medicines’, a term for agents that consist of genetically engineered viruses and bacteria. Two drug candidates are in pre-clinical testing: one for cervical cancer; the other for pancreatic cancer.

Schaub will turn 50 in 2020. “At the moment I’m still full of energy,” says the father of two daughters. But he can well imagine that one day he will want to switch from the field to the bench. That he would make a good professional investor and advisor is beyond question – he has been involved as a coach in the Venturelab support programme for years and acts as a business angel for two young life sciences projects.

This article by Jost Dubacher with illustrations by Bianca Litscher was first published in the TOP 100 Swiss Startup Magazine 2019. The 100 most innovative and promising Swiss startups are picked by a panel of 100 leading investors and startup experts. The 100 experts including Christian Schaub, all proven connoisseurs of the startup scene, are choosing 100 startups with the greatest potential each year. Each expert from the 100 member jury chose 10 startups and allocated 10 points for first place with one point for 10th place. The companies with the most points made it into the TOP 100. The upcoming TOP 100 Swiss Startup Awards will take place on September 9th, 2020.



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