Episode 77: Christian Suojanen, CEO at Broadreach Global
Christian is an entrepreneur and advisor in the bio, pharma, healthcare, and technology sectors with 20 years of strategic advisory, business creation, development, and operational experience. He works with biotech companies and VCs on business development and strategy, with industry on innovation, pipeline, and business development, with institutions on technology transfer & innovation, with governments, institutions, and systems on innovation strategy, policy, and ecosystem development, and has served on biotech, patient organization, and non-profit boards.
He led a turn-around of Europe’s largest biotech association which he represented among the BIO "Heads of Associations" group, was the lead advisor, dialogue moderator, and “rapporteur” for the European Commission’s 3-year strategic “Innovation in Healthcare” initiative to revise innovation funding policy based on stakeholder input from industry executives, VCs, biotech CEOs, and technology transfer directors, and has worked with SMEs, industry, and governments in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Christian coordinated the first European level entrepreneur training Bootcamp for biotech founders/CEOs, built the first European biotech investment initiative in collaboration with the EC and EASDAQ (now Euronext), industry and investors, and has extensive experience coaching & mentoring entrepreneurs, CEOs, and tech transfer directors.
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Julio Martínez-Clark: (00:00)
Welcome to the LATAM Medtech Leaders podcast, a conversation with Medtech leaders who have succeeded or plan to succeed in Latin America. Today our guest is Christian Suojanen. I hope I'm pronouncing your last name correctly. Christian Suojanen of Broad, Rich Global, and l c Christian is an entrepreneur with 20 years of international experience in the biopharma and health sectors. So Christian, it's great to have you here today. Welcome to the show.
Christian Suojanen: (00:49)
Thanks, Julio. Yeah, my name is complicated. In, in finish it would be soy, but, um, in English we pretend there's no you and so Jan and in Spanish, it tends to get pronounced pretty consistently as Han and, uh, I'm OK with that. Cause every Spanish speaking country I go to, it's the same. So at least I know they're about me, which is not always the case. English speaking country. So many pronunciations in English. Uh, so thank you, Julio. Yeah, I'm, I'm glad to be here. I've known you quite a while now. And, uh, Latin America, I think is a very interesting market, uh, internationally. I think the listeners or viewers should know my background maybe is a little bit different. I'm not in the medical devices space, so much more in biotechnology, biopharma, drug development, and then digital health and ai. Um, but that being said, I think there are a lot of opportunities, um, with regard to doing business in Latin America and internationally. So, I don't know if you had specific questions or you just want me to share some thoughts.
Julio Martínez-Clark: (02:05)
Let's get started with the first question I usually ask my guest, Christian, is your journey, How is it that you got involved, you're from Canada, you lived in the United States, and somehow you got involved on a personal and professional level with Latin America. So tell us about that journey.
Christian Suojanen: (02:23)
So, yeah, actually I'm from Boston originally, but I have a Canadian accent because when I was young, my family was moved to, you know, my father was transferred to Montreal, so I learned to speak English in Canada. Um, and, uh, that accent stuck. But, uh, I've been back and forth between the US and Canada. After grad school, I went to Europe for six months and stayed 17 years. And, uh, I did a number of things, mostly started early on in technology and we engaged with companies like Skype who got their first financing with Index Ventures at a meeting. Uh, we ran in London and a few others that like Shaza, so names people would know. But very quickly, uh, the company was asked to do some work in the biotech space and we said no. But the founder of that company at the time asked me because different important stakeholder groups, uh, sdac, which was the European Sock Exchange at the time. Now neuro Euro next, uh, kept coming to us with the European Commission. So the founder and CEO said, Christian, do you wanna run this program they want us to do? And I said, Sure. And about a year later, I was fulltime in biotech and life sciences and been since, uh, I did a turnaround of Europe, sold this biotech federation, so engaged on the policy side and met with more scientists, uh, and research institutes internationally, uh, including in Latin America. We had a few projects there. But, um, when I went back to the private sector, I did mostly my work in Europe and the US a little bit in Asia and Australia. And at one point I had a partner in, a business partner in, uh, Madrid, who I had helped out with some of her company's projects. Call me up and say, uh, Christian, we have, uh, clients in, uh, in Columbia, the, uh, the University of Antioquia. We've done a consultant for them, but we think they would really benefit from engaging with you to investors and, uh, tech transfer directors and serial entrepreneurs and industry partners. So she put me in touch and I found myself with a project in me, and I really enjoyed Columbia. Uh, that was the first, you know, business I'd done in the private sector in Latin America. And it was really early stage biotech innovation and technology transfer and partnering. Um, I enjoyed working with, uh, the, but also a number of other universities and institutes from around the country were there. And, uh, you know, then we had our partners in Chile and Brazil reaching out and asking for similar initiatives. And as I was going to speaking engagements and working on projects, we met more people and became involved in, in, in other business ventures like we've done in Europe and so forth. So that's a long answer, but it's the reality. And then, as you know, I, my company's based in Miami and uh, I'm not there right now, but I'm based in Miami as well. So it's, it's, uh, very connected with Latin and Miamis nice sort of between Latin America, the US, Europe. So that made for connections.
Julio Martínez-Clark: (05:37)
What a journey, so let's talk about trends. Uh, what do you see happening politically, economically, socially, or, um, epidemiologically, uh, in Latin America that are relevant to our discussion, uh, today?
Christian Suojanen: (05:55)
So, so I think that's a very interesting question. And there are a lot of things. Some are just, uh, the emergence of new countries and markets, which maybe 20 years ago were less interesting in an early stage biotech and MedTech innovation, they were certainly interested as interesting as markets for pharma and help tech to sell products in, right? But, um, other than Brazil and to some extent Argentina, there was not a lot of research coming out that was turning into new drugs, new medicines, new products. I think that's shifted a lot, especially over the past decade. Uh, but you know, including going back 20 years, some of the first products, but then we also looked in your sector, the regulatory reform and the, uh, ability to do clinical trials and to decentralize them and do the more you have not only the right clinics and centers and, and train, uh, professionals, but also the right patient populations. And I know, for example, you've done some work, uh, where there are specific patient populations in Columbia that there are not anywhere else. Uh, and this is true of other countries, but I think there is an opportunity both to run trials and to approve products, uh, in Latin America. And it won't always make sense. You know, sometime we're not for the war in the Ukraine. The Ukraine might be a great place for some projects, or India might, or Australia or Canada, but some, it definitely makes sense to do in, in Columbia. And this is a case by case basis or in Latin America more broadly. Um, I think another thing that people forget is there are a lot of, especially on the medical device and uh, surgical device and technology side, there are a lot of approved assets in Europe that may be approved, say in Spain or in France or in Portugal. And you talked to the companies and they've been on the market for a few years, um, and they're trying to raise another 3 million so they can maybe get approval in Germany, which is great, but they don't realize that they might, with an approved product in Spain, be able to be on the market in selling in four months in Columbia, uh, for, for a very minor investment. So I think this is an area that we are very keen to explore, to identify those assets and bring them to one or more markets because they're, they're usually not looking, even the ones in Spain, which share the language and should be looking, they're not looking, they're looking at the big markets, and we need to focus on big markets, of course, but if you can get on two or three other markets in the meantime and build sales and revenue and to track record, uh, that's much better than just being on one European market with sales of a half million or 2 million per year and spending the next several years trying to get into other large markets. So I, I, I think that's, there's probably a more concise way to put it, but there's a massive opportunity there, and I think that's important. Um, yeah, maybe another thing is, again, the move to decentralized at, uh, clinical trials. And, uh, this opens up even more the ability to do things with multiple clinics and in certain sectors where the outcomes really have to be carefully defined. And there may even be multiple outcomes in a phase two, which help you define the phase three. And I'm not a clinical trials expert by any means, but spending a bit of time and money on the strategy for preclinical and early clinical, uh, can really help improve your chances for phase three. And I think industry knows this, but the venture funded startup companies, unless they have really experienced industry and, you know, VP clinicals on board, they don't tend to look at this. They tend to look at what they can do with the funding they have now, not thinking so much about how that will impact their future need for funding and path to market. So I think even if there's not a clear, uh, vision that you need to do this trial in, you know, partly in Chile or partly in Columbia, you should look at how that trial needs to be run and what are the best centers and clinics to do it with around the world, and can it be, what is the best way to set it up and do it? And that should be your goal. Um, so I I I think that's another driver. Um, but you mentioned, uh, trends and the pandemic is of course, a trend, right? And, and this is something, we have a series of events. This is not our main business, but we like to bring innovation stakeholders together. And last year we really looked at, um, the innovation in the vaccine and therapeutic side related to covid and other pandemics infectious disease. And we had the people who did the work at n uh, on board with the mRNA projects. We had key stakeholders in Europe, we had people from industry, and we, everybody was talking about supply chains and production and biomanufacturing. Um, and we began digging into this and realized there were shocks. China was shut down for a while, um, in India, even not just vaccines, but even a lot of basic API and pharmaceuticals were not getting shipped out because India had its own crisis, right? So in spite of the best goodwill in the world, they couldn't do it. And to take of their national market and all these countries having a panic about why are we getting these vaccines later than the UK or than the us And it came down to supply and production capacity. And there are multiple questions there, right? If we, I'm in Canada right now. Canada did not have any advanced biologicals manufacturing capacity at the time. And they appointed a friend of mine, one of the top, uh, LP investors into VC funds to look at as, uh, co-chair of the vaccines, uh, um, and the Biomanufacturing task force, emergency task force, right? To, and, and they worked on this and they developed, but Canada's a member of the G seven and there was no capacity. And pretty much every member of the G seven felt they had insufficient capacity. And we look at the other, uh, you know, uh, advanced economies and the middle income, uh, economies and even, um, some of the lower, uh, income economies, they were looking at this as a strategic need because shipping broke down, right? There was a shortage of, uh, production capacity, there were transportation problems, there were, if I talked to the people at Pfizer, they were looking at the question of we don't have the raw materials to make the vaccines. How do we make our own or source our own raw materials when they can't be purchased? Right? So the good news is, uh, there is a revolution in advanced biomanufacturing, and this is not a space I spent a lot of attention on, but for countries. And I think a year and a half ago, two years ago, I heard about a project in Columbia where the government was looking at manufacturing API in Columbia. And my view was, uh, go beyond that, go a little higher on the value chain, it will actually cost less. Um, but I look at it now and there's an opportunity to technology leapfrog sort of the way in Africa, they skipped the traditional banking infrastructure and went straight to mobile banking and telephone banking, uh, because the infrastructure wasn't there. We can do that with bio manufacturing now, in many cases with turnkey solutions, small, advanced continuous manufacturing, whether for traditional pharmaceuticals and powder pill or liquid form, or whether for biologicals proteins, antibodies, peptides, uh, vaccines, even mRNA in modular turnkey solutions that could be built, you know, in, in, in a clean room in a hospital or a university, not a massive facility like we're used to thinking of. So the capital expenditure is a fraction of what it used to be, and the time to production is a fraction. Um, and I think a lot of countries, Latin America has such a workforce of trained biochemical engineers and so forth, so they could skill up on the advanced biomanufacturing very quickly. And there are programs that could be licensed in to train, uh, you know, with the best institutes in the world. And we're seeing this in the US right now. In fact, uh, we, we have some of them coming to speak, but I see instead of building a giant, you know, biomanufacturing facility in Columbia or in Chile or in Brazil, where there are some already, by the way, um, there is an opportunity to say, Here, we're gonna do vaccines here, we're gonna do biologicals, and here we're gonna work on, you know, cell gene therapy with a partner outta New Jersey, or outta California or outta London, and we're gonna co-develop, there is an opportunity to get the expertise and partner, and whether that's with the big cdmo or a pharma company or a growth, you know, venture funded company that has a turnkey solution that can be up and running in 12 months, that is possible now. And my concern is a lot of the ministries of health and economy and, uh, they put Aon as is many times the case in, in, in, in Latin America, are looking at building these big facilities when they could partner with cutting edge companies, big or small, and really target what they want to do. Is it and influenza vaccines, is it vaccines for yellow fever or other endemic, um, uh, uh, p um, parasites or, or, or viruses? Is it, um, advanced therapies? All of this now can be done more quickly, more cost effectively, Uh, but it's about bringing the right people together. And that's an area I'm very active in right now. And if any of your viewers want to come and engage, uh, we have a meeting in, in, in New Jersey in, uh, in July, and they're welcome to come. They'll meet all the top stakeholders driving the sector right now, and it's a non-commercial meeting, so it's very, very inexpensive. You can just put my email up and they can reach out. If they're from Ministry of Health, we'll probably just give them a pass. Um, you asked if I had a view, I have some views, Julio.
Julio Martínez-Clark: (16:54)
I love it. Yeah, that's the whole idea to get you to talk, to, get you to, uh, share your experience, your views on, on Latin America. And, and now that you mentioned, um, your company, um, a broad reach global, right? I mean, what is it that you guys do? Uh, can we talk about that?
Christian Suojanen: (17:13)
Yeah, That for sure. So the tagline is, uh, insight, access and engagement. And, and we have, uh, a couple of lines. We tend to work with, uh, either university systems, sometimes with individual universities or institutes, but more often university systems or health systems on their innovation policy and how they're gonna take their research and translate that, move it towards the market, whether partnering, licensing, tech transfer, uh, venture funding, um, or, or other. And, uh, then we go beyond that and we do some training, training for the stakeholders, right? So this is training not just us, it's not just, you know, three or four people come in, myself and a few of my colleagues, but we bring in the relevant stakeholders from world class institutions and venture funds and industry to work with the stakeholders. So they train, but they also build relationships, which, which help foster business. Now we have a series of events where we try to connect stakeholders and to be, to be totally transparent, we try not to lose money on these, but they're not commercial events. Uh, my goal there is that we really see the cutting edge and we are engaged with the key industry investors, uh, startup and growth companies, and we can make connections and make things happen. And yes, there is business there for us, right? So this is not entirely altruistic, although in some cases, like I said, if a ministry of health wants to come, we may well invite them for free and connect them with the right people just in the course of what we want to do. Then we also do some work not as broker dealers, but on, uh, as acting, uh, or fractional executives with companies where there is a spin out and it's looking to raise venture capital or partner. we can help in that sense, but our focus there is on a few companies at a time, really high engagement, not, uh, sending out emails for 20 different companies or something. I'm, I'm not interested in that business. Uh, so we'll work and define the strategy and, uh, and, and, and work with the company in a long to, to build success together. That, that is the approach. Um, but a lot of it is just seeing the pieces of the puzzle in the ecosystem and connecting them in a way that creates value. And that's where the first thing I started out with. We could find these, uh, product projects, uh, where there are approved technologies or devices in Europe and bring them to Latin America. You're a perfect partner there, but there are other parts of that as well. And I, I think that is a simple, connecting the dots and putting the pieces together to create something greater. But it can also be a company that says, we want our own mRNA vaccines. And okay, we can sit you down with the people that, uh, produce those, but we can also sit you down with the people that produce the alternatives where less expensive, faster, higher yield and more stable in a country maybe where you can't store the vaccines at minus 70, um, Celsius in all clinics around the country, there are some amazing vaccines out there, not just for Covid, but in, you know, for other, for other, uh, for other viruses, uh, and diseases. So these are, and then we can connect them. Uh, here are several different stakeholders you can work with. Here are the investors, here are the potential partners. Let's define a strategy and make something happen. So it can be small scale, um, you know, with one company it can be ecosystem focused or it can be with say a university or even a city that says, We have these six hospitals and three universities and they each have their innovation office, but we want to do something where we can really build the region and we'll look at that not as economic development going around promoting the region, but how can we work with them to take what they have and put that together in a way that the value proposition is really strong for other countries and partners externally, right? So to take, uh, a political economic development, uh, perspective and turn it into straight value added business development where it's a rational case for the partners rather than a promotion of we're a great region, which is probably true in many cases around the world, but it's not an effective way to generate business usually in, in my view.
Julio Martínez-Clark: (21:53)
Fantastic. Christian, thank you for that explanation. And, uh, I applaud your, your initiative, I think, uh, is, uh, is, is needed to have a connector like you, these events are, are a great way to put, uh, people together in a room and to exchange knowledge and, and make business happen and, and create newer opportunities for everybody involved.
Christian Suojanen: (22:14)
It's, uh, and thanks Julio. And I like it because it's, uh, it, it's fun. And one thing I didn't speak about today, um, but I mentioned to you previously, I'm doing quite a lot of work in the, in the brain and neuro space, and I think there's a major opportunity with the sector accelerating both on the pharma and the med tech and the digital side. Um, and we're working with some key stakeholder groups, but we're running a meeting just to do exactly the same thing in Lisman in, uh, late July. So if you know any companies or universities with programs in digital health with either neuro or brain or, or mental health or psych psychiatric or behavioral health indications, this is a place where they'll be able to come and meet the global heads of Neurotherapeutic area from pharma, but also the heads of digital health and AI and the tech companies working on the neuro and behavioral health side as well. So it's a really mixed bag, but I find when you involve the different stakeholders in a multidisciplinary cross stakeholder engagement, interesting things happen. Uh, especially if it's two or 300 people where everybody there can meet every speaker and expert and, and really develop business. So that's what we like to do. And um, you know, I realize if somebody's working on oncology, we don't have an oncology meeting right now, we'll probably do another one next year. So it's, it's timely and, and topical, but this is the approach we like to take, partly because I enjoy it, but also because I've seen the power that this approach can have. Um, and, uh, I'm looking forward to doing another meeting like this in Latin America sometimes, so maybe we'll find one together.
Julio Martínez-Clark: (24:01)
You did one, um, a few years ago, right? You invited me, I remember. I think it was in Medellin.
Christian Suojanen: (24:05)
Yeah, we did one in Medellin and, and one in Santiago in Chile, and in, in, in, I mean, if you go back over a decade, I've been to some other ones, but the ones where we've run with this format, yeah, me and Chile. And it was a lot of fun. You know, it was, it was a, it was a nice approach. And then we can work with the companies and even informally, if we can't work with them, we can give them guidance on, okay, they wanna go to Texas, maybe it's the right decision, but maybe this company should go to Miami or maybe it should go to London, you know, depending on who their market and their customers are and what they want to develop. Uh, so I think, uh, this sort of conversation with the right stakeholders and experts and industry partners can really accelerate the development and the path to market for a lot of companies. So this is why we like to do this.
Julio Martínez-Clark: (24:58)
Very good. So Christian, um, we're close to the end of the show, but, uh, what do you think about people in Latin America? What do you think about, uh, the way people do business? What do you think about the culture? What's your, uh, level of interest in, in going back to Latin America and, and, uh, traveling around the region?
Christian Suojanen: (25:20)
So I like it and I'm, I'm looking forward to going back. Uh, but you know, I'll say every region of the world has its pros and cons, right? In terms of doing business. And, um, what I like in Latin America, similar to what I like in France or Spain or Portugal or Belgium or a number of other countries, is there's a human factor. If people are gonna do business, they get to know you a little bit and you take time for a lunch or a dinner and a glass of wine. And, and personally I like this, Uh, I can do business in the us I'm American, and sometimes you do that, but sometimes it's very fast and you know, everything moves and it's intense. Uh, also London and you know, the UK and Germany can be like that, very efficient, uh, but sometimes you miss out a little bit. Sometimes in Latin America, some partners are extremely efficient, others are less so. So it's not just country by country, but you know, organization by organization. And I think that's everywhere in the world, but, uh, by and large I like it. And you, as you know, um, I can't say the same about Portuguese if I go to Brazil, but the nice thing there is the Brazilians that you do business with, all speak English, and everybody else seems to speak, uh, a level of what they call p as I'm sure you're familiar with which, uh, which which they make easily understandable for Spanish speakers. So, um, I really enjoy that. Um, yeah, and I, I'm, I'm, I'm keen to go back. So if there's an opportunity, uh, you know, even if it's just something collaborative, if my schedule allows, I'm happy to support these initiatives, uh, to go and speak at a meeting and to look at how to do business down the road. I've missed travel. I had three months in Europe last fall. I'll be back, and after I head back to the US I'll then be in Europe again in the summer. But, um, if I can find a good reason to go to Latin America this fall, I'll, I'll be there for sure. So, uh, let's stay in touch about that.
Julio Martínez-Clark: (27:26)
I love that. All right, so before we sign off for today, uh, the last, uh, question I usually ask my guest is, if you had the CEO of, uh, biopharma pharmaceutical medical device company in front of you, what would be your final words of wisdom to him or her about Latin America?
Christian Suojanen: (27:47)
Um, so I think it would depend on the stage of the company. If it was, uh, a growth company, let's say in digital health or medical devices, and let's say they're in Europe, I would say target your first market in Europe, which is probably the market they're in. And then immediately look, if that's a reference market, can we then accelerate bringing that into a new, launching in a new market in, in Latin America through a registration rather than full regulatory review? And do that with people who know how to do it. Don't try to do it. Imagine somebody coming from outside your country and trying to deal with government paperwork for the first time, whether you're in Germany or, or Poland or Spain. It's the same thing. If you go to Latin America or you go to the US or you go to Australia, somebody needs to know the process and the people and the paperwork, um, and then the partners and how to do business. But this is not expensive if you do it right now, if you're a later stage company. I would say when you're doing your licensing deals and drugs, if you have companies that are negotiating and they want global access and you'd like a little more, maybe you can carve out some of the interesting Latin American markets and then go and license those separately and build back a little bit of the premium you were hoping to get by having multiple deals rather than just one global deal with the company. That probably isn't really resource it in Latin, unless it's one of the big pharma and, and they have the capacities. But I would always think about looking at the market targeting, which markets in Latin Americans to go to first and then, and then, and then developing a plan to enter those and not neglecting it because the tradition in Europe is to look our market then the biggest European markets, then maybe the us And on the face of this, it makes a lot of sense. And for drug development it's probably rational, but in, uh, medical devices, medical technologies, digital health, it probably is not the best way forward. It may be sometimes, but generally it probably is not. Um, and I would say Latin America should factor into that strategy. Um, build it in, and if you can't build it in yourself, build it in with a partner.
Christian Suojanen: (30:15)
Beautiful, excellent Christian, great words of wisdom. Thank you so much for being the show. Today is being an enjoyable conversation. I look forward to keeping in touch
Christian Suojanen: (30:26)
Likewise, Julio. I hope to see you again soon and uh, thanks for the invitation.
Julio Martínez-Clark: (30:31)
Sure. All right, Bye.
