Sanofi Execs tells Poitus not to overcome clinical trials design

At a time when the biotechnology sector was suffering from a lack of investment, some companies were forced to make decisions to change experiments designs, whether it reduces the number of patients or changed the observation times.

Speaking during the Fireside side chat on Swiss Biotech Day 2025, which occurred on May 5-6 in Basel, Houman Ashrafian, CEO and Chairman of Research and Development (R&D) said in Sanofi, said that although it may seem good “click on a clinical trial” to maintain the company for a longer period, this may end up with the company.

“Do not mess with clinical experience. It is very important … Doing the wrong trial with your origins will kill it very quickly.” He said that an additional investment from 3 to 4 million dollars to properly invest the experiment and operate it efficiently, can lead to transformative results. “There are companies present in the public markets that recently announced the trials that came within the value of P am 0.07, and were raising the price of their shares. If they had conducted the experiment for another two months and recorded five, and perhaps 10 patients, it could have been completely different.”

While some companies are fighting to balance their financial resources, Ashrafia believes that it is not a completely negative thing that biotechnology has to tighten their belts since the 2021 TV, as some companies have made very amazing financial decisions at that time.

“We have passed the years when biotechnology got better and better financing. Before the clinical companies got huge amounts of revenues, some even publicly. For me, this is the definition of madness as you offer yourself like this, but I was also one of these.

Sanofi has Investment Capital (VC) ARM, which provides funding for biotechnology to operate clinical trials. Ashrafien called on biotechnology companies to consider such options to ensure that they have a more effective experience to obtain their assets during the early stages of development, after which the pharmaceutical company can capture them to complete the final development.

“Biotechnology may not be molecules with a great discount on medications. Chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC) may not be good, but biotechnology (companies) may get the molecule through the first stage, and they do so beautifully. But in reality, the experience that determines the exit financing round often is not done often.