Today I have the opportunity to chat with Nicolas Serandour, the new CEO of Advanced Oncotherapy Plc (LON:AVO), a company whose aim is to manufacture new radiotherapy machines for treating cancer. I would like to ask him question about his new role, about challenges and opportunities ahead.
Q1. Nicolas, first of all, congratulations on your new appointment as CEO. So let me start by asking you who is Nicolas Serandour?
A1. Well, I’m 41 years old. I’m married with 3 young children. I joined the company initially as CFO and since February I took the additional responsibilities of COO before becoming CEO. Prior to that I spent a bit more than 15 years in Investment Banking covering healthcare. Like anyone else, how I think is being shaped by my life experience. One thing I would say defines me is that I love to learn and I’m never afraid of leaving my comfort zone. I get excited about new things and watching people doing great things is something that truly excites me and I must say I could have not found a better place to do so than a CERN spin off!
Q2. So do we have to expect a change of strategy and if so how you will approach change?
A2. First of all, let me say how grateful and proud I am to work with Dr Mike Sinclair who stepped out of his previous role of CEO to focus on the role of executive chairman. He has been a true source of inspiration and drive and I look forward to continuing implementing the transformation of the company with his support and the support of all our stakeholders.
In a company moving as fast as we are, there are constant changes and fine-tuning. But the fact that the Board has asked me to step up as successor shows we still believe the strategy we have worked out is the right one. That’s not to say there won’t be changes. We now employ close to 90 people; we have a large pipeline of opportunities and so we have to adapt our organisation. We also have to make sure we continue strengthening our relationship with our suppliers and customers, because it allows us to de-risk our profile and get the best of our partners.
Q3. What are your ideas for the future of the company?
A3. How much time do you have?
Joking aside one of my main effort will be to ensure we create the most fertile environment to meet our objectives. Our objective is to manufacture our LIGHT system as quickly as possible and in the most efficient way. We have to be quick because all the families who are being hit by cancer do not have the time.
To meet these objectives, we need to have the right platform in terms of execution and financing and we need to ensure all our stakeholders are behind and we align what we do with the objectives of our stakeholders.
Q4. Aligning objectives; what do you mean?
A4. Patients are our most important group of stakeholders because – now that we have a technology that allows us to treat cancer at a much more affordable price – we have an obligation to help them quickly and that is driving each single person within our company. This is in line with our customers and hospital chains who are looking for new technologies. Another important group of stakeholders are the physicians who look for new ways to treat patients and here we need to strike the right balance between developing new technologies and ensuring we do things for which they feel comfortable using. Another group is our own employees. They are extremely dedicated and committed and my role is to ensure we leverage their ability to innovate as a source of differentiation but not as a source of distraction. And finally another very important group of stakeholders are our existing investors who have supported our company. In all of this, we have to ensure that we are focused on a strategic plan that meets the objectives of all of our stakeholders, which is more art than science, because the objectives can be different. But ultimately all these objectives converge towards the same vision for which we have to win by working together and listening to each others.
Q5. You have recently received the planning authorisation for Harley Street. How does this impact your plan?
A5. This is obviously great news and I want to thank Howard de Walden for their continued support in achieving this very important milestone. We have always planned that the UK will be the first location for installing new LIGHT technology for proton beam therapy. London would be of course the first natural choice and Harley Street is probably the most iconic medical location in Europe. So it is a very significant step. It is also worth saying that the machine is going to be installed into effectively two terraced houses, which is possible because of the number of factors that are unique to the LIGHT technology: the modular nature of the technology is one and the fact that the shielding requirements of all the group of linked linear accelerators are significantly less than other proton generation technologies such as cyclotrons and synchrotrons and consequently one that is able to fitted in to an urban environment is another one.
Q6. What were the key hurdles you had to overcome?
A6. As you would expect, the process had to be very thorough and this had to cover all aspects of our project. For example, we had to commission various third-parties to assess the level of noise or induced radiation and as an example this showed that the expected induced radiation is less than a dental practice! Together with Howard de Walden, we will now aim at having the site as quickly as possible and we will make every effort to ensure minimal inconvenience to local residents.
Q7. How long will the building work take?
A7. It’s still too early to say given that the tender process is still ongoing. There has to be an iterative process articulated around a programm of incentives and penalties and involving our partners such as Circle or Howard de Walden who will bear the building costs. In the meantime, our focus remains on manufacturing the LIGHT system, such that we have a smooth integration and installation. We will communicate this information in due course.
Q8. Can you tell us about the recent deal with Thales?
A8. We are working with a wide range of established partners whose track-record is second to none, but what is important for us is to have a global manufacturer that can oversee the entire production process and that is what we have achieved with Thales. Thales is a large company focused on electrical systems, aerospace, defense, and security amongst others. It is partially state-owned by the French government and employs about 68,000 employees.
Thales has done a lot of work with us and since the announcement of our partnership earlier this year, we have been working hands in hands. We have steering committees, project plan meetings with them with their dedicated team and all of this is starting to yield very positive results. The first step of our collaboration was to set up and establish the principles of the partnership and implement optimisation studies that are needed to manufacture the LIGHT system. This phase is now well advanced and Thales has chosen a site to manufacture the machine. Naturally, the second step was to announce the formal manufacturing agreement for the first machine in Harley Street, which coincides with the planning application. We are now looking at ways at strengthening our collaboration, particularly as there is a clear demand for new machines and so we have to take the relevant measured to be ready for mass production.
Q9. Ok. Now, last question. We know that markets are volatile and there are macroeconomic concerns. The sterling is low and there are many important political elections coming up. How does this impact your overall plan?
A9. There is a pressure around the world to actually reduce health care costs, but at the same time there is a pressure to increase the availability of modern effective cancer treatments. The other big change of course is that throughout the world, regardless of the economic status of countries, wherever they are in sort of ranking order, in terms of growth and national product, there is accessibility via the internet to information about diagnostic and symptoms of different types of cancer and other diseases but also about available treatments so people generally, throughout the world know what the treatments options are and proton beam therapy in many people’s view is the premium choice for many types of cancer. Consequently, it is very important to make that treatment modality affordable and that is really the prime focus of our efforts developing the LIGHT technology.
Nicolas Serandour CEO for Advanced Oncotherapy Plc, thank you.
Thank you very much indeed.
