Polyneuron CEO Ruben Herrendorff: ‘The excitement to build something that is hopefully of significance and lasting value is rewarding’

19.10.2020 08:37, Isabelle Mitchell

This week's episode of our series about Switzerland’s most inspiring entrepreneurs and founders features Ruben Herrendorff, the co-founder and CEO of Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals. The Basel-based biotech startup is pioneering a novel therapeutic approach for the effective and safe treatment of rare but devastating antibody-mediated autoimmune diseases of the nervous system.

Switzerland boasts countless world-class startups, and our new series puts the spotlight on some of the best and most inspiring entrepreneurs and founders to find out what motivates them, what they have learned, and what they do when they are not transforming the world with their innovations. To get this behind-the-scenes perspective, we ask each entrepreneur to complete a short profile and choose ten questions from a questionnaire about their personal and professional life. Up next is Ruben Herrendorff, co-founder and CEO of Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals, a Venture Kick winner, a Venture Leader, one of the TOP 100 Swiss startups for five consecutive years (from 2015 to 2019, and that last 2019 year ranked #15 and in the TOP 5 Swiss Biotech Startups), and one of the most promising scale-ups in Switzerland. 

Ruben Herrendorf, CEO Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals, Venture Leaders 2015

Name: Ruben Herrendorff
Location: Basel
Born in: Bern in 1987
Graduated from: University of Basel, PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2014
Your job title: CEO of Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals
Number of employees: 15 
Money raised: To date, we have raised CHF 39.6 million in venture capital. On top of that, we have raised approximately CHF 1.8 million non-dilutive, which results in a total of approximately CHF 41.4 million.
First touchpoint with Venturelab: in 2013, during the Venture Challenge course organized by Venturelab at the University of Basel

“At Polyneuron, we design scavengers for disease-causing antibodies in autoimmune diseases—a new, highly targeted approach in this area called Antibody-Catch™.”

What is your lunch routine?
There is no lunch routine; in fact, I quite regularly eat no lunch at all: As fasting is healthy anyway, I see no need for lunch every day. I usually like to eat a bit more in the evenings. Well, evenings is a subjective term—it is not uncommon that my dinner could qualify as a midnight meal.

What book are you currently reading?
I just finished a book from physicist Carlo Rovelli on the order of time. Besides learning more about the fascinating concepts behind that thing that we perceive as time, I also tried to refresh my Italian skills with this lecture. But please do not try to start a conversation in Italian with me. After that, I started to read an atlas of philosophy, touching on ancient philosophy to modern time philosophy. I would like to have more time to read…

How much time do you spend on social media?
I have to admit, I spend very little time on social media; I am probably a little old fashioned in this respect. Social media never got me addicted. What I find very useful is LinkedIn, which I use to network and get news.

What is always in your fridge? 
Cheese! If the dreadful day would ever approach where I had to choose between living on planet cheese vs. living on planet meat, I would go for planet cheese.

Where and when are you most productive?
Usually, when everyone is out of the office, which is usually in the evenings. It is 22:00 as I am writing this, and I am still sitting in the office, time to go home…

What is always on your desk?
Post-it pads—so important. Water and coffee, which may also be cold, and a collection of pens, of which many do not properly work. And disinfectant of course, just re-discovered it behind the pens and post-it pads and papers…

How and where do you clear your mind?
Time with friends and family, holidays (however, holiday planning is completely messed up this year), restaurants for some good food and wine, prayer and meditation time, and in the sun.

How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup?
The basic concept of antigen-specific/highly selective autoantibody removal in autoimmune diseases, which we are still following today, came up during my master thesis, which I did under the supervision of two brilliant and supportive professors at the University of Basel. Seeing the potential in the early data and the concept we had back then, I started to attend entrepreneurship courses during my PhD. In fact, the first course I attended was the Venture Challenge course organized by Venturelab. This course, together with some external validation regarding the potential of our new therapeutic concept, was the igniting spark to start the entrepreneurial adventure—I do not regret it. 

What is the most rewarding aspect of being a founder?
It is the excitement to build something that is hopefully of significance and lasting value, first and foremost to the patients, but also to the very dedicated team behind Polyneuron, including the investors, and maybe even society eventually. The patient value and focus is a key driver, particularly in the rare diseases field. We are very excited to start a clinical trial with our first platform-derived drug candidate later this year—and if this treatment provides benefits to the patients, which currently have no approved or sufficiently effective therapy, then it will have been all worth all the hard work.  

What is your email strategy?
Focus on the important, and apart from that, mostly … delete … delete … delete … or procrastinate. I, unfortunately, have no inbox-zero-in-the-evening strategy. But these few inbox-zero moments are moments of bliss. I cannot really remember the last time it happened, though.

Last but not least, could you show us your workspace? 
Here is a picture of our lab, where a Polyneuron team member is working on a chemical reaction.