“Within three days, we went from almost bankrupt… to one of the stars of the Nasdaq.”

In this conversation, I take you behind the scenes of a biotech journey that sounds almost unbelievable.

Marc de Garidel, CEO of Abivax, tells me how he rebuilt this French biotech from scratch, designed a strategy powerful enough to attract top US investors and executed one of the largest phase 3 programs in ulcerative colitis: a molecule from French public research (CNRS, Institut Curie and the University of Montpellier) which may have a major impact on patients.

This episode is a masterclass in leadership, execution, courage, and long-term thinking.

Here’s what you’ll hear about in this episode:
◾️ How Marc stepped into a company with almost no long-term plan… and why that turned out to be a surprising advantage.
◾️ The four pillars of a new strategy — and how one of them quietly set the stage for the breakthrough to come.
◾️ What it really takes to run a global phase 3 across dozens of countries — and why Abivax had to reinvent itself to pull it off.
◾️ A mechanism of action unlike anything else in IBD — and why this difference matters more than most people think.
◾️ The hidden lessons from a noisy phase 2 that helped transform the phase 3 into something no one saw coming.
◾️ A leadership philosophy built on transparency and speed, born from a single principle: in biotech, every day counts.
◾️ The unexpected market reaction that changed the fate of the company overnight — with numbers that almost don’t seem real.

👉 This episode is an exceptional inside look at what it truly takes to turn science into impact, stand your ground under pressure, and lead a biotech from survival… to breakthrough.

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Chapters:
00:00 — Inside Marc’s first days at Abivax: what he discovered changed everything
05:28 — The first bold decision that set the entire strategy in motion
08:39 — The real reason Abivax didn’t start with Crohn’s
12:49 — Why building the phase 3 team in the U.S. became non-negotiable
16:34 — The turning point that shaped Abivax’s long-term vision
21:22 — How phase 2 learnings quietly engineered a breakthrough phase 3
26:39 — The hidden logic behind choosing the most ambitious path for phase 3
29:09 — Why Marc’s leadership became the decisive advantage in a high-risk race
36:02 — The readout moment: what really happened when the results dropped
44:49 — The market reaction no one predicted (not even Marc)
50:10 — How big pharma now sees Abivax after its stunning results
53:33 — The early clues that convinced Marc this drug could be truly different

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Find Marc de Garidel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-de-garidel-097982/

Resources mentioned in the episode:
📌 Abivax: https://www.abivax.com/

Pharma Minds episodes mentioned:

His first interview in Pharma Minds in 2023 : “CEO Marc De Garidel On Building Something Truly Impactful: Embrace Risks!”
🎤 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA3-OSltbwQ

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