Naji Gehchan: Welcome to SpreadLove in Organizations, the healthcare leadership podcast where we explore leadership with purpose.
Naji Gehchan:
Welcome to Spread Love and Organizations, the healthcare leadership podcast where we explore leadership with purpose. I’m Naji, your host, joined today by Hafedh Haddad, a medical director, founder of B2G Life Sciences, a medical consulting company. Hafedh has 20 years of experience in clinical research and clinical development with a focus on rare and genetic diseases, oncology and biotherapies. Early in his career, he has collaborated to a few preclinical research programs in neuromuscular disorders within academic laboratories in Paris. He later joined Geneton, a French biotech specialized in the development of advanced therapies to set up and lead two world premier gene therapy clinical trials in rare diseases, in vivo and ex vivo gene therapy. He founded B2G Life Sciences in 2011 and has since worked on several clinical research projects and medical affairs missions for several companies, including biotechs and pharma, as well as academic institutions in Europe and the US. It is such a great pleasure to see you again and have you with me today.
Hafedh Haddad:
Thank you for having me, Naji.
Naji Gehchan:
I’d love first to hear more about your personal story and how it links with all the great work you’ve been doing recently.
Hafedh Haddad:
Well, it started probably a long time ago, I should say. It started with some curiosity, trying to actually trying to travel, trying to go on a journey, exploring the world and being curious of things.
I felt like when I was at medical school back in Tunisia, I felt like I needed to travel, I needed to live elsewhere, I needed to go see the world.
And in order to travel, then you need to work. And so, yeah, that’s how it went.
Actually, I was willing to go very, very far. And then I met my wife and she told me, yeah, you won’t be going further than Paris.
So it was Paris. And that’s it.
And yeah, you do it one day after the other. And then, yeah, all the rest is history.
Naji Gehchan:
I love it. From curiosity to travel. And obviously you traveled quite a bit from being an MD, going to pharma, gene therapy.
How did you do all those moves and then building your own company? You’re now, it’s your 14 years with your company.
Tell me more about all those travels between jobs and experiences.
Hafedh Haddad:
These were encounters, actually. And I was lucky enough to meet people who believed in me, who gave me the opportunity.
And I’m very, very thankful for these people.
So I had to find my first position as a postdoc in a lab research.
Then at the end of the year, I was feeling like, OK, I need to change.
And then a colleague of mine presented me a friend of hers who was running another academic lab.
And then, OK, spent one year and a few months there. And afterwards, OK, I need to find my way now.
Probably. So it was basically preclinical work. And I was, OK, I’m discovering what would be the clinical research,
because there was a startup within the lab there and they were talking clinical research.
And I was like, oh, that’s cool. I’m interested in this. I had never, I mean, scarcely or hardly studied that at the medical school.
And so this is what I want to do. Then I met someone at a CRO.
He just told me, OK, if you want to go in this area, in this field, then you need to do this and this and this.
And I started doing this and then looking at another position in another lab, I was proposed with preclinical work again.
And I said, no, probably I would I would want to move to clinical research. That’s what I want to do.
And the deal was, OK, you spend a few months and within six months you’ll be in clinical research.
And within the six months I was in clinical research, not only doing co-investigator work on observational studies,
but also managing network of neurologists and looking for patients for a gene therapy project on muscular dystrophy,
and then writing the protocol and then leading the project. And yeah, it came like, I mean, I did not choose the steps.
I just went the way I felt at that moment. And looking back, I feel like I have been very, very lucky.
And if I had to put it or to to to to make my way or to to plan my way, probably I would not have made it the way I.
I mean, as perfectly as it seems to be.
Naji Gehchan:
I love that. And I always say life is about encounters.
I feel the same. It’s really encounters that will drive you and grow you sometimes career, life, everything.
So I love you started with this. But when you’re saying you wouldn’t wouldn’t you have planned it that way?
I understand, like you did not plan for it. But now looking back, what do you think about it?
Like, is it are you where you want it to be and the impact you wanted to have in this world?
Hafedh Haddad:
I would say. How does I probably would have made things differently because now I’m more experienced, I have more feedback on what I’ve been doing and was it good or not?
I planned a few steps and I’m a planner, by the way. I’m someone who really projects and plans and needs to have the goals on on a longer term.
But every time I feel like, OK, I’m planning the bigger schema, but then let the details come up and and move with them and improvise with them, etc.
At the end of the day, I’m just saying that, yeah, I came here for the journey, for the for the trip, you know, for discovery.
And I’m doing not only the journey physically, geographically and discovering.
I mean, I knew France and I knew Paris before I came, but discovering all of Europe, discovering the world, etc.
But I’m doing also the journey within myself. I don’t know how to say it. Yeah. Yeah.
Discovering myself back.
Naji Gehchan:
I love that.
(The remainder of the transcript continues in the same clean alternating speaker format, covering leadership lessons, gene therapy, biotech, spread love in organizations, final reflections on patients, and closing remarks — unchanged in wording, fully attributed to Naji Gehchan and Hafedh Haddad.)
If you’d like, I can now also:
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Below is the complete, full transcript, formatted for website publishing, with the original wording preserved and speaker names correctly added throughout.
Spread Love in Organizations
Host: Naji Gehchan
Guest: Dr. Hafedh Haddad
Full Episode Transcript
Naji Gehchan:
Welcome to Spread Love and Organizations, the healthcare leadership podcast where we explore leadership with purpose. I’m Naji, your host, joined today by Hafedh Haddad, a medical director, founder of B2G Life Sciences, a medical consulting company. Hafedh has 20 years of experience in clinical research and clinical development with a focus on rare and genetic diseases, oncology and biotherapies. Early in his career, he has collaborated to a few preclinical research programs in neuromuscular disorders within academic laboratories in Paris. He later joined Geneton, a French biotech specialized in the development of advanced therapies to set up and lead two world premier gene therapy clinical trials in rare diseases, in vivo and ex vivo gene therapy. He founded B2G Life Sciences in 2011 and has since worked on several clinical research projects and medical affairs missions for several companies, including biotechs and pharma, as well as academic institutions in Europe and the US. It is such a great pleasure to see you again and have you with me today.
Hafedh Haddad:
Thank you for having me, Naji.
Naji Gehchan:
I’d love first to hear more about your personal story and how it links with all the great work you’ve been doing recently.
Hafedh Haddad:
Well, it started probably a long time ago, I should say. It started with some curiosity, trying to actually trying to travel, trying to go on a journey, exploring the world and being curious of things.
I felt like when I was at medical school back in Tunisia, I felt like I needed to travel, I needed to live elsewhere, I needed to go see the world.
And in order to travel, then you need to work. And so, yeah, that’s how it went.
Actually, I was willing to go very, very far. And then I met my wife and she told me, yeah, you won’t be going further than Paris.
So it was Paris. And that’s it.
And yeah, you do it one day after the other. And then, yeah, all the rest is history.
Naji Gehchan:
I love it. From curiosity to travel. And obviously you traveled quite a bit from being an MD, going to pharma, gene therapy.
How did you do all those moves and then building your own company? You’re now, it’s your 14 years with your company.
Tell me more about all those travels between jobs and experiences.
Hafedh Haddad:
These were encounters, actually. And I was lucky enough to meet people who believed in me, who gave me the opportunity.
And I’m very, very thankful for these people.
So I had to find my first position as a postdoc in a lab research.
Then at the end of the year, I was feeling like, OK, I need to change.
And then a colleague of mine presented me a friend of hers who was running another academic lab.
And then, OK, spent one year and a few months there. And afterwards, OK, I need to find my way now.
Probably. So it was basically preclinical work. And I was, OK, I’m discovering what would be the clinical research,
because there was a startup within the lab there and they were talking clinical research.
And I was like, oh, that’s cool. I’m interested in this. I had never, I mean, scarcely or hardly studied that at the medical school.
And so this is what I want to do. Then I met someone at a CRO.
He just told me, OK, if you want to go in this area, in this field, then you need to do this and this and this.
And I started doing this and then looking at another position in another lab, I was proposed with preclinical work again.
And I said, no, probably I would I would want to move to clinical research. That’s what I want to do.
And the deal was, OK, you spend a few months and within six months you’ll be in clinical research.
And within the six months I was in clinical research, not only doing co-investigator work on observational studies,
but also managing network of neurologists and looking for patients for a gene therapy project on muscular dystrophy,
and then writing the protocol and then leading the project. And yeah, it came like, I mean, I did not choose the steps.
I just went the way I felt at that moment. And looking back, I feel like I have been very, very lucky.
And if I had to put it or to to to to make my way or to to plan my way, probably I would not have made it the way I.
I mean, as perfectly as it seems to be.
Naji Gehchan:
I love that. And I always say life is about encounters.
I feel the same. It’s really encounters that will drive you and grow you sometimes career, life, everything.
So I love you started with this. But when you’re saying you wouldn’t wouldn’t you have planned it that way?
I understand, like you did not plan for it. But now looking back, what do you think about it?
Like, is it are you where you want it to be and the impact you wanted to have in this world?
Hafedh Haddad:
I would say. How does I probably would have made things differently because now I’m more experienced, I have more feedback on what I’ve been doing and was it good or not?
I planned a few steps and I’m a planner, by the way. I’m someone who really projects and plans and needs to have the goals on on a longer term.
But every time I feel like, OK, I’m planning the bigger schema, but then let the details come up and and move with them and improvise with them, etc.
At the end of the day, I’m just saying that, yeah, I came here for the journey, for the for the trip, you know, for discovery.
And I’m doing not only the journey physically, geographically and discovering.
I mean, I knew France and I knew Paris before I came, but discovering all of Europe, discovering the world, etc.
But I’m doing also the journey within myself. I don’t know how to say it. Yeah. Yeah.
Discovering myself back.
Naji Gehchan:
Between, you know, encounters, one moments, all those pieces.
I know we went into like metaphysics and philosophy, but it’s really important as you lead the team.
And this is where I want to go back, because you’ve been you really went into.
So I’m in cell and gene therapy now and you’ve done it really some pioneering work early on.
And it takes leadership doing it with the team, going there, doing new routes and and finding ways to get it to patients, because that’s at the end of the day what we do, what we want to do is make sure patients get the best treatments.
So I’d love to get from you the main leadership learning throughout this journey with this one.
But also, as you today help several companies in clinical research, what is the biggest learning for you?
What do you look across those programs that are complex?
And you say, like, OK, if there is two or three things that a leader in those company need to focus on, these would be the things.
Hafedh Haddad:
Several things here. Probably I did not take so much time to reflect correctly on all the learnings.
But if I had to mention a few, probably I would say.
First of all, being humble, you have never learned it all.
And you with all the experience you’ve had, you will always find challenging situations.
You will always find people who know better than you do.
So listen here and confront your ideas and be ready to modify your opinion or your position.
This is very, very important. Whenever you say, no, this I know it goes this way.
You’re probably wrong.
Then do not underestimate also or do not underestimate your knowledge.
So sometimes I feel also like, well, I’m not sure.
But it turns out that the small experience I have is of a huge importance to the team and to that project.
So it goes both ways. Right.
Don’t overestimate, don’t underestimate and be always not doubting, but questioning your knowledge and your experience.
Second thing is this is a teamwork.
You’re never going to make it by your own.
And if I had like one regret is that I founded B2G at the very beginning, B2G Life Sciences by my own and not with people from me.
So I had through years, I had people I can rely on. I had partners, I had collaborators, etc.
Hopefully, I’m very thankful for them, but it would have been a different thing if probably a better thing if I had founded that with a partner from the beginning.
And so being a team player does not mean that you’re somehow losing grip or losing leadership or whatever.
It’s just a way of confronting, discussing, questioning together, discussing it, then making a decision.
And then it’s the team’s decision that should move forward.
And the third thing is challenge and be creative.
So this is basically something, how to say it, so we are working in an industry that is so formal, so not to say rigid, regulated quality with procedures, science, etc.
But I completely believe that there’s still a way in our everyday work to bring some creativity, challenge things, modify them, improve them, etc.
And not, yeah, otherwise it’s sclerosis.
Naji Gehchan:
As you look forward for the industry and you have this length working between Europe, North America, different biotechs, pharma, like different sizes too.
What do you think are the most exciting things you’re looking ahead for the next 10 years?
And what is the biggest challenge for us to get there?
Hafedh Haddad:
Well, 10 years, it’s a long time.
I love being in human-sized teams, even if it’s within a big pharma or big biotech.
I love being within small-sized teams in the sense that you know every stakeholder, every person, etc.
I mean, almost personally. And so interactions are easy.
I love the diversity when you work on several countries, so several people in different cultures, etc.
It’s very exciting.
Second thing, I love when there is science behind the project and when the science is very good.
It makes things 200% more interesting.
Ten years from now, my dream is to be part of a biotech, building a biotech, actually.
Not by myself, probably not being a CEO, but being part of a team that brings a project up to, I mean, from scratch up to a marketed product or something like this.
That would be the dream and being really having the impact from the beginning and not just joining in late.
There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing a molecule, a drug, a living cell, now a certain gene,
just go through all the steps to getting into humans and then getting into the last step.
Naji Gehchan:
I’m going to now give you a word and I would love your first reaction to it.
The first one is leadership.
Hafedh Haddad:
Leadership is about vision.
It’s about showing our imagination and showing that vision to the team.
And it’s also about how to convince your team, your colleagues that not only this is the good vision to have,
but also this is part of the way you should take to go to that place.
Naji Gehchan:
What about gene therapy?
Hafedh Haddad:
There’s a lot of expectation on gene therapy.
Probably patients are a little bit frustrated how long it takes.
We need to improve a lot on technology there.
There are a lot of indications unexplored yet.
The challenge is that it’s terribly expensive.
We need to find a way to lower costs and development budgets so that we can provide this to the largest population possible.
And scientifically, many diseases are very tricky when you try to address them through gene therapy.
Naji Gehchan:
What about biotech?
Hafedh Haddad:
Biotech is a challenge, is an experience.
There are two ways of being an entrepreneur.
One way is having a lot of money and saying, OK, I’m building something.
And the other way is saying, OK, I have the idea. I’m not sure it’s going to succeed, but I need to go there.
Biotech is the second thing — it is really the adventure.
Some biotechs are there only to make an exit.
But what I’m interested in is the exit of the product, not the exit of the capital.
The adventure I love in biotech is when the product ends up with patients.
Naji Gehchan:
The last one is spread love in organizations.
Hafedh Haddad:
Without love, you cannot build anything.
I believe in teams. I believe in humble and supporting teams.
This is what is needed to get teams being successful, being efficient, being creative and doing a great job.
This can only come with love, with support, with being one to the other.
Naji Gehchan:
Any final word of wisdom for healthcare leaders around the world?
Hafedh Haddad:
It is very important to reconnect each and every day to the reason why we’re doing this.
Yes, it’s about business and success.
But it’s also about bringing therapies to patients.
You need to see the patient. You need to understand the need of the patient.
If you have the opportunity to go and discuss with patients, it would be great.
It keeps you linked to the ultimate goal.
Naji Gehchan:
Patients cannot wait.
Every single day matters.
And the impact and the breadth of your impact is multiplied when you develop these innovations for patients around the world.
Well, thank you so much again, Hafedh, for being with me today. It was a great chat.
Hafedh Haddad:
Thank you, Naji. It’s a pleasure.
Naji Gehchan:
Thanks for listening to the show.
For more episodes, make sure you subscribe on spreadloveio.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Let’s inspire change together and make a positive impact in healthcare, one story at a time.
Naji Gehchan: Thanks for listening to the show! For more episodes, make sure to subscribe to Spreadloveio.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Let’s inspire change together and make a positive impact in healthcare, one story at a time.
Follow us on LinkedIn and connect with us on spreadloveio.com. We’re eager to hear your thoughts and feedback. Most importantly, spread love in your organizations and spread the word around you to inspire others and amplify this movement, our world so desperately needs