Naji Gehchan: Welcome to SpreadLove in Organizations, the healthcare leadership podcast where we explore leadership with purpose.
I’m Naji, your host, and I’m delighted to be joined today by Christian Stegmann Chief Scientific Officer of EvlaBi, where he drives scientific strategy and the EVLA-101 program, a first-in-class anti-FGFR4 monoclonal antibody targeting FGF23-driven left ventricular hypertrophy in chronic kidney disease. Christian was previously Chief Scientific Officer at Absci, where he advanced the company’s first clinical-stage biologics from AI-enabled design to first-in-human trials. Earlier, as VP Global Head of Research and Non-clinical Development at CSL Vifor, he built and ran drug discovery in nephrology and hematology. At Bayer, he served as Senior Director and Head of Precision Cardiology Laboratory, co-founding a collaboration with the Broad Institute to generate single-cell atlases of heart disease. Across his career, Christian has a track record of leading teams, inventing novel molecules, and advancing them from research into clinical development. He holds a PhD from the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen and an MBA from MIT Sloan.
Christian, it’s such a pleasure to have you with me today.
Christian Stegmann: Thanks for having me, Naji. Really appreciate it.
Naji Gehchan: So before we discuss leadership and science, I’d love to start with your personal story. What experiences shaped the path that took you from the Max Planck Institute to leading innovation across pharma and biotech?
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, absolutely, Naji. Thanks. So I’ll start a bit earlier. I grew up in a small town in southern Germany, and essentially I grew up in a pharmacy. My father ran a pharmacy as a sole proprietor, and my mother was his assistant. And as a kid, I helped out in the pharmacy, so I was around medicine constantly, but, you know, more from a retail counter, so handing prescriptions to elderly customers and making small talk. And one day, my father asked me to hand her blood pressure medication to an older woman, and she looked at me and asked me whether I wanted to take over the pharmacy when I grow up, and I think I was 11 and I hesitated and I said I didn’t know yet. But, you know, actually, I think I did know. I think I had already decided that I wouldn’t. So that was the first real decision in my life, and I was fascinated by medicine, but not by, you know, distributing it. So I think my whole journey through molecular biology, being trained at Max Planck, entering big pharma for a decade, and then moving into biotech has always been about this drug discovery paradigm. Now I’m building a company, and essentially, I’ve always been walking toward the science end of the pharmacy counter rather than the retail end.
Naji Gehchan: I love this story. And throughout your career, basically you’ve been translating those scientific discoveries right into medicine. Like that seems your passion since you were 11, even though you didn’t say it. What motivates, what keeps you really motivated through this process that can take decades, you know, and really thinking about the impact, especially as you were sharing, you know, like, I’m also a physician, like, usually delivering care, whether it’s giving this medicine to a patient or delivering care to a patient, you see an immediate impact. Where what you’re doing takes the longer term, even though the amplification of impact is larger. So what keeps you motivated and how do you think about that?
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, being a drug discoverer, being a researcher in drug discovery, I think is a privilege, and I think many of us actually, you know, live this privilege and live this passion because it’s a job that pays you, but it’s also just an incredibly large mission that we’re on, essentially not trying to help the individual patient at the end of the counter, but really trying to make a difference by discovering novel medicines for unmet medical need. And, you know, specifically in my case, I’ve always been very exposed to cardiovascular disease. Maybe another story that shaped me in this passion and in this ambition that really helps me to overcome, you know, these frustrations, because you’re totally right, you know, this is a very, very daring effort, and many of our projects continue to fail. In biotech, you know, these failures can be very significant, and companies shut down, so you’re totally right, you have to ask yourself: Why do this to yourself? And one event I had in my life earlier, around almost 30 years ago, I was working in a hospital, so after high school in Germany, there was still a military draft. And I refused the military draft on conscience grounds, which meant a year of civilian service. So essentially working as an assistant nurse in the local hospital, and I worked in the intensive care unit and that was quite a formative experience because obviously you get exposed to a lot of cardiovascular disease. I saw patients die, quite a few of them, and at the same time, you’re exposed to this work environment at the end of the chain of command, you know, in an understaffed, overworked, shift-based environment. And you’re in a job, you can’t simply quit, right? So I saw very directly how the actions of the physicians and the nurses change what happens to the patients. And sometimes you wonder, you know, whether what had been done is the best that could have been done. And that is, you know, I think that these were moments that shaped me and that give me passion because I learned on the one hand, you know, that there is so much unmet medical need left, right? And that is what drove me and brought me to cardiovascular disease. Specifically kidney disease, so I’m now building a company around kidney disease. And essentially, it comes back to these events I saw at the age of 19, you know, watching people die in the intensive care unit, and at the same time, I think the other thing that I saw there is that you can really observe what trust and real teamwork are worth, because if you see good teamwork, you can save situations. If you see poor leadership, you can destroy it in real time. So I think these experiences shaped me in quite a significant way.
Naji Gehchan: Yeah, as you were talking about it, I was sure we got to get there, right? Leadership, the impact of people, teamwork, and you said now you’re building companies from being a researcher. Was there kind of a defining moment you realized you want to lead organizational work and build teams rather than being a researcher, single contributor?
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, absolutely. So I think growing up as a scientist, you always have this ambition to socialize essentially in a way that expertise is the number one enabler and experience and depth is the key driver of what delivers success, and I think, you know, in some way, I came to learn during a project as a junior project lead in Big Pharma that that’s not everything. So being the most renowned expert in the room or the most experienced drug hunter in the room is not always the guarantee that your project is going to be successful. So let me give you an example. As a junior researcher, I led a discovery project in hemostatic disorders, and we had a very promising compound. The science checked out, we cleared every preclinical hurdle. And we even won quite a prestigious internal research award, right? The company had an internal research award program. We won that award and then a year later we were ready for clinical trials, right? So the molecule was ready for first in human. And then there was a senior management meeting to which I was not invited to. And in that meeting, the program was killed. And, to my shock, it had not been killed for the science, had not been killed for safety or for the biology. It had been killed for an insufficient commercial case. And I was devastated, right? This was almost like a child being taken away from you. And my reaction was anger, right? That was my first reaction, really being angry with the decision makers who had failed to see the innovation. But the lesson I took eventually was actually much harder and much more useful because for me, the key lesson, Naji, was that amazing science does not necessarily defend itself. So my team had been really terrific in delivering the science and delivering the molecule, but we had been absent from the conversation and actually decided our fate. We had not made the commercial case, we had not convinced the stakeholders, and, you know, we didn’t even know that we were supposed to. So I think in that moment, my leadership ambition blossomed in some sense, right? So I figured out that being the biggest expert, the best expert in the room is not sufficient, right? I figured you need to be fluent in the language of decision makers. You need to be a broker in some sense between the bench and the people that run commercial, right? And everything I had been building to work since, including the MBA program at Sloan, which is where we met, Naji, essentially comes out of that meeting that I wasn’t in.
Naji Gehchan: Wow, that’s a great example experience and what you took out of it. I’m sure you’re using it even today, right? Like when we were just chatting a little bit before talking about fundraising, like, you need those, you’re saying like a broker for your company, but it’s literally how… I love how you framed it. Amazing science does not defend itself, and making sure that it can be funded for it to get to patients at the end. So, I’m sure you’re still, you know, focused on these capabilities that you’ve been building and the leadership that you have to do that, right?
Christian Stegmann: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And you’re totally right, right? I think bridging the science with the business is a key skill that I learned late in my life, but I hope I learned it to some degree. And you’re totally right. I mean, it’s quite important being in biotech that you master the skill of talking to investors, being successful in fundraising. By being an excellent scientist on the one hand, but also being fluent in the language of business and in the language of commercial.
Naji Gehchan: And I’ve always thought, I don’t know your thoughts about this. I’ve always thought the added complexity in biotech is kind of you certainly have the complexity of the business. Like there is uncertainty of business at every business, right? Like, can it be a successful commercial launch, et cetera, how to do it. But then here you add the complexity of biology that is also a huge uncertainty, as you said, like you get to a stage, you put it in human, you never really know how it’s going to go. Basically, even with all the innovations we have. So I’m intrigued to get your thoughts about those uncertainties, and I know you’ve worked. You’re one of the few. A lot of people talk about it, but you’re one of the few who took an AI-enabled asset towards a first in human. So I’d love to, if you can help us see this, and do you think the uncertainties are going to decrease with the technology that we have today to make it even a little bit less hard for incredible science to get to patients?
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, absolutely, of course. I mean, I think, Naji, we’re living through a tremendous period in history with witnessing what generative AI can do and sometimes can’t do still. And figuring out what’s the best way we can deploy it, especially towards R&D and biotech, is key, I think, right? And, you know, obviously in my previous role, I’ve worked through an AI-enabled drug creation, so I’m not a skeptic. But I did see the failure modes. And I think, you know, to some degree, in a nutshell, I think the most common failure mode is that you treat the model output as the answer rather than a very effective generator of hypothesis, right? That’s the way how I prefer to view the outputs of generative AI models for R&D, is, you know, you get incredibly fast and incredibly effective in generating hypotheses, but you still have to confirm them or kill them either in the lab or in the clinic.
Naji Gehchan: So this is where you feel like human intuition is still key and experience?
Christian Stegmann: And… Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think AI compresses the search, right? And I think we will see an acceleration and we already do see acceleration and we will increase our success rates for sure. But I think, I think in the end, the mistake or the most common failure mode, I think that I see out there is that you still have to actually confirm or devalidate your hypothesis that are generated by the AI model. So I think that in some sense, the human element is the part that does not get automated. Deciding what matters and owning the consequences when things still don’t work is key. So I think that’s actually key for being an effective and successful integrator of AI into biotech R&D.
Naji Gehchan: And do you see, so you’ve worked through it from design. Can you give us like a little bit more examples? Because you’ve worked through it from designing the biologics and getting it first in human. So there’s a lot of hype around, as you were saying, like this hypothesis generation and the target finding then designing assets to hit the target. If you can give us one or two examples of things you actually did in this field. And then I would love also your thoughts once it gets into human, if you see a place for AI and later phase drug development.
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, yeah, great question. Absolutely. So one of the assets that we moved forward in my previous company was an antibody for androgenic alopecia, so hair loss, and endometriosis, women’s healthcare disease that is dramatically underserved in my view. And we had used generative AI to design novel antibody targeting the prolactin receptor. That molecule is currently in clinical trials, and I was fortunate to assess the target, start the project, and bring it all the way into first in human. And I think we did this in a pretty fast way. The overall effort was done in a period of less than three years from the start of the project to first in human, so it’s quite a remarkable speed. And right now there’s a clinical trial going on in Australia in which we look for effects on hair growth in healthy volunteers that are bald, obviously, and I think in some sense it’s also record-breaking because we can look for efficacy quite early in clinical development. So I think that’s an example where generative AI has been helpful to accelerate discovery and development timeline. Over time in future, I think what we’ll observe more often is that AI will help us to tackle difficult targets and to tackle diseases that have been previously very difficult to address and targets that have been difficult to address. So, you know, one of, you know, there are a couple of holy grails out there, but maybe I’ll just name one. I think, you know, a safe and efficacious way to treat pain, in my view, is still out there. So, you know, from a biology standpoint, I think the sodium-activated sodium channels are obviously super attractive targets for which we don’t have good medications yet, and perhaps that’s a field where generative AI can really make a difference. In my current company, we are pursuing ventricular hypertrophy, as you mentioned, for patients with chronic kidney disease, and that’s also an enormous unmet need. 10% of the world population have diagnosed CKD, and these people usually die heart disease, right? They don’t die because the kidney fails, they die because the damaged kidney impacts the heart, and eventually you run into heart failure and we’re trying to address this and in my current company we are quite, I would say, up to speed in terms of deploying AI as well. So to answer your question regarding clinical development and artificial intelligence, I think the challenge is to have the right data. And in an ideal world, what I would love to see, Naji, is a get-together of data owners and, you know, to some degree, data owners are, for example, hospitals, insurances, payers, but also, for example, companies that own or run systems of electronic health records, right? And if in an ideal world, if you had access to such a treasure trove of data, I think we could be quite a bit more effective in terms of designing clinical trials and making clinical trials more successful in the sense that we recruit more suitable patient populations early on. We’re faster in recruiting and we get to the same answer with less patients and eventually reducing the overall timelines to approval. So I can’t tell you exactly how to get there because it requires obviously, you know, getting access to a lot of data that is not systematized and not accessible. But if I, you know, if I had a wish, and if I had unlimited funding, I think that’s what I would do, is I would really try to get large population data that is well curated and use that data to generate hypotheses to design much more impactful clinical trials. And I think eventually this will lead to a lot more medicines that are efficacious, safe, and treating unmet medical needs.
Naji Gehchan: Yeah, I certainly agree with that. There’s this interconnectivity of data, as you’re saying, right, is such a key component. Like we’ve been seeing more and more great startups and companies trying to bridge between, but it’s always what access they have to data. Is it patient-level data? Is it the patient giving them the data? Is it the HR? Is it any other system? And you add to this also, you know, all the samples that are usually also not connected to anything where patients have blood samples, etc. So it’s certainly with the technology we have today interconnecting these would bring tremendous advancements to science.
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, absolutely, 100%.
Naji Gehchan: If you go back to, you said 11 years old kid in this pharmacy handing over this medication to the patient, and you’re kind of giving yourself an advice with all that you know now, and the impact that you have. What would that advice be?
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, that’s a terrific question, Naji. So I think number one is clearly follow your passion, right? So you have to follow your passion to generate impact, to be impactful in your career. And the other… the other piece which I learned later in life, is scientific depth gets you in the door, but it’s not leadership. So the event that decides your project’s fate is one you have to earn your way into long before it happens. So, what do I mean by this? I think you… you have to not only be the best scientist in the room, you really have to be a leader and an integrator and be somebody who anticipates and is capable of managing many different stakeholders and individuals who you need to be successful. I guess that’s the long answer.
Naji Gehchan: So I’m going to give you a word, and I would love a first reaction to it. And the first one is actually leadership.
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, so leadership, and I quote here my mentor, the most practical way to define leadership for me is challenge and support.
Naji Gehchan: I love it. Can you say a little bit more?
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, absolutely. So like I mentioned before, I’ve been a significant share of my career, I’ve been very dedicated to be the most in-depth scientist and the most—try to become the most successful drug discovery in a technical sense, so in other words, I was a very good challenger, right? I always had the right questions to kill a project, right? I always had the killer questions. So I was… I’ve always been a very good… I focused a significant share of my career to become the best challenger in the room, but I noticed that doesn’t necessarily make me an effective leader, right? So the thing that made me effective in terms of challenging, actually made me a worse listener. So, I was strong on challenging, but weak on inquiry. So, I think what I worked on is, don’t stop trying to be the most knowledgeable person in the room, but try to be a good integrator. So I think now my work is more about protecting the truth in the room, which is… which means building a place where people feel safe enough to tell me when I’m wrong but still keep the rigor that makes decisions good, right? So, challenge and support are not opposites, but it’s very hard as a leader to hold both at once.
Naji Gehchan: What about science?
Christian Stegmann: Science is key, right? Science is the fundamental basis of drug discovery and for delivering outcomes for patients.
Naji Gehchan: The third one is precision medicine.
Christian Stegmann: Oh, great, I love it. Precision medicine. I think, you know, we’ve seen precision medicine in a number of therapeutic areas gain traction. We’ve obviously seen it in oncology, and I’m really excited to see over the next few years how it will shape therapeutic areas such as immunology and cardiology as well.
Naji Gehchan: And the last one is Spread Love in Organizations.
Christian Stegmann: Great, yeah. So I think spreading love in organizations, I think for me, it’s about, I’d rather have a team that tells me the truth rather than a team that tells me that I’m right. So I think this kind of care and this kind of love in our industry, it’s not softness, it’s really about taking people seriously enough to be honest with them and build a place where they can be honest with you because in drug development, you know, the truth is the only thing that protects the patient at the end of the line.
Naji Gehchan: I love this. This is so… it’s so key, and how you framed it, telling the truth versus telling I’m right, especially when you get into jobs like yours, when you’re C-level building the company, fostering this culture of I want to know the truth and it’s okay. And I can be wrong. Like I don’t know if you have additional thoughts, but it’s hard, and, like, you need to make sure that you’re nurturing it. I’m learning continuously every day about this, even though I think and I thought I developed psychologically safe environments, it’s just… I think as your impact and leadership grows.
Christian Stegmann: Yeah.
Naji Gehchan: There is always this downside of: Will people tell me the truth versus are they telling me what they think I want to know or I want to hear?
Christian Stegmann: Yeah.
Christian Stegmann: Yes, absolutely. And we talked about this prior before starting the recording, and I think both of us, you know, we’ve been exposed to global leadership challenges. And I think it’s really interesting to observe that the challenge to foster this environment where people feel encouraged to tell you the truth is, you know, it’s quite challenging in different cultures, you know, so the added complexity that you observe as a leader, you know.
Naji Gehchan: So true.
Christian Stegmann: In different countries is that you have to deal with different cultures and even in the United States, you know, my observation is that in different parts of the US, you have different subcultures as well, and you need to approach people in different, you know, at different generations, right? That’s the other dimension, right? So, you know, the younger generation has a different need and a different expectation towards a workplace and a company culture that fosters this kind of truth culture or culture of feeling safe and speaking up. So it’s been extremely interesting during my career to observe different generations and also different cultures and geographies and trying to be successful in creating such a workplace.
Naji Gehchan: Yeah, I totally relate. That’s so true. Culture is by countries, but also like, as we’re saying in the US, I’ve learned, you know, East, West, Midwest, very different, you know, how you come across with these things. Also your point on generation is so true, too. And it’s like reinventing yourself through these different moments and between some introspection and then constantly talking about it, probably are key. I don’t know if you’ve had, like, a tip where you feel like you’ve been most successful by doing this, but it’s… yeah, this is why we’re both, I think, fascinated by people and science, and it kind of correlates at some point, and the science of people is as exciting as the science in biology.
Christian Stegmann: Yes, yes, 100%. 100%. Yeah. And look, I mean, this is a whole topic for another in-depth conversation, right? But I think I think just gaining this expertise, gaining these experiences across different cultures, across different geographies is incredibly fulfilling. And, I think, you know, this is something, you know, both of us would be able to tell our grandchildren about, right? So, so these experiences.
Naji Gehchan: Oh, yeah.
Christian Stegmann: Quite a remarkable.
Naji Gehchan: Awesome. Any final word of wisdom, Christian, for healthcare leaders?
Christian Stegmann: Yeah, I mean, I think, like I mentioned earlier, for me, finding your passion is, I think, number one, right? That’s really key. And then number two, really figure out who are your stakeholders and don’t lose sight on them. Create a culture of being truthful and honest and have everybody subscribe to that, I think for me that is… those would be the key lessons I learned. But, you know, of course, you know, I think we all have to remain open-minded and I sound a little bit like an elderly man who sort of talks about his career. But I still have so much ahead of me, right? So I’m… I’m right now in a very early startup. We are just three people, and I… I’m learning every day, so I think lifelong learning, you know, such an overused term, but it’s so important, it’s so key. So, remaining open to learning and being open-minded, I think would be probably for me currently the most important, you know, the most important point to remember, and I fully admit that I’m sometimes maybe not a little bit too impatient to learn every day, but I really have to remind myself of staying open-minded and continuing to learn.
Naji Gehchan: Well, that’s a great way to end this conversation. And yeah, of course, learning never ends and being willing to unlearn, relearn, keep growing. It’s not easy, but it’s so essential. So, Christian, thanks again for being with me today, and congrats on all the achievements. It’s pretty fascinating always when a drug like some people call it a miracle when a drug gets to humans and then gets to market, it’s not many of those get there. So congrats on all your achievements.
Christian Stegmann: Terrific, Naji. This was fantastic. Thanks for the great chat.
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.
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.
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