How a scientist became a businessman - a true story

What we do as NaturalAntibody is not only to optimize the drug development process, but also to enhance their therapeutic properties. I dealt with this scientifically for many years at the university, until the time came to confront scientific achievements with the needs of business - says Konrad Krawczyk, co-founder and CEO at NaturalAntibody.

How and when did the idea for NaturalAntibody appear?

Konrad Krawczyk: Over 10 years of my scientific activity led us to NaturalAntibody. It started with computer science at Oxford - computer science at this university is actually very "pure" mathematics, not even "applied". Then, during my master's degree, I began to be interested in bioinformatics. And so I stayed on my doctorate in this field. I found myself in antibodies a bit by accident, because at the beginning I was supposed to do a project with Microsoft, but it crumbled, so the supervisor threw me into another project – antibody. I really liked this topic. "Proteins" is a very broad field. However, there is one type of protein that can be used to create drugs - our body has been using them for a long time - these are antibodies.

What is the uniqueness of your product?

Konrad Krawczyk: What we do as NaturalAntibody is to change the philosophy of creating antibody drugs. We have harnessed IT tools to work on creating drugs based on this type of protein. I was the first person in my research group to start dealing with this topic. At the beginning of my adventure, I thought that large companies had all the data and models for antibody analysis internally. It turned out, however, that what I did as a young student as part of my doctorate was far ahead of the practice functioning in industry. Naturally, I started to make contacts in pharmaceutical companies, because I was doing things that were interesting from their point of view. So the idea for the company has actually evolved over many years and at some point, when I already had enough contacts in the "industry" and pharmaceutical companies themselves asked us to do consulting, a piece of software or a database for them, then with Michał (brother) we said to ourselves that we wanted to make something more out of it.

So you had the know-how, scientific background, you had a vision, contacts with pharmaceutical companies, and it was Michał who came up with a business idea to make a company out of it.

Konrad Krawczyk: Michał had previous experience in creating companies, which was certainly very helpful, and he was definitely the driving force behind the decision to create NaturalAntibody. He is more business-like and without him the company would definitely not start functioning. 

Apparently, you have built the largest bank of antibodies in the world. How did you manage to do it?

Konrad Krawczyk: In practice, it also took 10 years. An antibody bank is data collected from various places, organized by us and organized so that it can be used effectively. The idea to create such databases is also the result of evolution. For the purposes of my academic work, I had to know what was in which repositories and how it was collected. At some point, from a somewhat chaotic collection of individual scraps of knowledge, we created a comprehensive, coherent picture, and then we decided that we wanted to collect the information into a whole and then harmonize it. At that time, we did not make just one base, but as many as six. However, it is important to remember that our goal was not to create a database as a product, but as a basis for analytical software to improve the work on antibodies. And this is a real hit.

How did it happen that you acquire large contractors – but I think you have answered an unasked question😊: You have knowledge, experience, you have an unbeatable product that such companies need and apply for it themselves.

Konrad Krawczyk: That's exactly how it is – large pharmaceutical companies come to us on their own.

I understand that what you sell to companies is an AI-based tool that makes it easier to choose which antibody to use to produce a drug?

Konrad Krawczyk: Yes, this is our entire analytics. We do indeed use our data to create analytics tools. And here is an important concept – in every artificial intelligence there is a prediction first data model, i.e. data is not made for a given medical project. As a rule, we say "we are hitting this cancer and we are generating data for it". At this point, with this prediction first data, we do not focus on one disease, but create a predictor that will be quite universal.

So I understand that the starting point is not a specific disease, but the assumption that there is an antibody and you are investigating what effect it could have?

Konrad Krawczyk: Yes. And this approach is not properly understood even by many specialists on the part of customers. We still have to explain where we help and what we are not able to do. To overly optimistic people we explain that we do not currently create an antibody on a computer. On the other hand, we show the doubters that our tools work and that it is not a medicinal product from the "snake bite" category. By the way, there are surprisingly many tools in this category on the market, so it is not surprising that customers have a dose of distrust.

We would also like to touch on the subject of customers who come to you themselves. Do you think that this will continue to be the case on the market, is there an idea on how to acquire them and how to select them? We know that the Polish market is not attractive to you, that you have an idea for international development. Where in the world are the recipients of your products?

Konrad Krawczyk: Inevitably, it is the European and North American markets - because these are the areas where large pharmaceutical companies are gathered. Even East Asian companies have large departments in the United States.

The Polish market surprises me all the time. I used to think that there would be no customers for us here, but now we are working with two Polish companies. I am impressed by the competence of the specialists we work with.

How is your academic career developing in all this and how do you see it going forward?

Konrad Krawczyk: I work as a scientist at NaturalAntibody, which can be seen from the publications. My work is a continuous discovery and continuous scientific activity, while the pharmaceutical industry is constantly verifying its practical usefulness.

Please tell me what studying at Oxford looks like. How did the reality meet your expectations there?

Konrad Krawczyk: I am very happy that I went there, because it is a really amazing place. I have already seen some universities from the inside, which are also very good, but Oxford, it was a really interesting and unique experience. And not only because of the teaching style, which is a little different there - of course there are also lectures, but above all there is a whole tutorial system, where the professor works individually with students. However, this is not the case at most universities. Thanks to the fact that it is one of the best universities, it really gives access to top-notch scientists from all over the world.

How do you assess the antibody testing market? What part of it would you like to fill in the future as NaturalAntibody? Where do you see the company in a few years?

Konrad Krawczyk: The antibody market is already very large and is still growing very intensively. In a few years, it is expected to be worth about $250 billion. There are also submarkets, i.e. the market for molecular simulations or the market for artificial intelligence applications. These markets overlap, although they are absolutely different. The molecular simulation market alone is estimated at $2 billion, and this is only one part of our software. Our calculation is that one of the preclinical phases costs an average of several hundred million dollars. What we can do with our tools is to reduce this cost and reduce the time of customers' work from a few to several dozen percent.

What has to happen in the world, apart from financial factors, of course, for this antibody research market to develop? What circumstances must occur, what needs must arise?

Konrad Krawczyk: On the one hand, it is necessary to show customers who are used to and believe in wet labs as the main development tool that computer science and AI will significantly improve and speed up the process of working on an antibody-based drug. On the other hand, we should show bioinformatics teams in pharmaceutical companies that it is faster and more effective to use our experience and build integrated systems together on the client's side than to create tools such as ours from scratch (for many years). This is very important, because in the history of the development of IT novelties, it has always been the case that customers at the beginning succumbed to the temptation to create these new tools themselves. We know how much effort it is, but some customers have to find out the hard way.

Commercializing the product and projects. What support do you expect from an investment fund?

Konrad Krawczyk: We need three things from an investor: Firstly, funds at the right moments of the company's development. Secondly, trust and not interfering that allows us to safely introduce the product to the market. Thirdly, substantive support in those areas where the investor has competences.

What is it like to run a company in a family team? What are the advantages of this system? How do you work out interesting solutions together? How do you clash ideas? What problems and challenges does it generate? In addition, we also know that as a team you work in dispersion - from different cities, and not only Polish.

Konrad Krawczyk: I'll start with my family. You have probably heard that when they wanted to send someone to Mars, they considered sending old married couples there, who would not go crazy spending time 100% together. In our case, this is the case. We have been doomed to each other for about 30 years, but we know that we understand each other, there is no offense at each other, we know exactly what we expect from each other. We also know that there is a greater risk of conflict with an external person. I am very lucky that we are complementary with Michał. I do the product and scientific part, and he does the business part. As for the location dispersion in the company - from my perspective it is actually good. You just need to choose people who can work in this mode. This is the only benefit of covid - we no longer have to go to the office and stand in traffic jams, we have more freedom and everything works more efficiently. Of course, for this you need people who are mature and can discipline themselves, but I think that this unlocks not only a lot of time, but also potential. We have different work structures in the company. In Szczecin, for example, people sit together or work in a hybrid mode, and the situation is similar in Krakow. The teams organized and arranged the office themselves. It was the most beneficial for them and they saw such a need. I don't see any possibility of working in an office, since I'm constantly meeting people, like right now with you. Of course, such solutions are allowed by our industry, i.e. IT. Lab workers can't afford that.

How do you see yourself, your scientific work and development in this area in the context of working at NaturalAntibody?

Konrad Krawczyk: I do as I mentioned earlier: my work at NaturalAntibody is the work of a scientist. I would like to add that this is the work of a scientist with scientists, because on the client side I talk almost exclusively to active scientists. We do things that really "turn us on" and give us pleasure. Our motivator is our constant curiosity to discover new things. In addition, we are lucky that we are not working on weapons of destruction, but creating something that saves health and life.

So the hierarchy of values behind you is such that first of all, you do what is intellectually stimulating and you have fun with this intellectual challenge. In the second row there is the fact that there is something good for the world, and in the third row the money earned by the way?

 Konrad Krawczyk: Money is the result of the first two stimulators. You can see that they are already coming and judging by the sales pipeline, we should not worry about them.  

I think you've just answered the question about your greatest motivations. What is your main role in the company? We know that you are a scientist first and foremost. How does this translate into everyday life in your business?

Konrad Krawczyk: Undoubtedly, my main role in NaturalAntibody is scientific work. Nevertheless, I attach great importance to working with people. Our result is the work of the team. We have many great specialists, without whom we would not be where we are today. I believe that we need to invest in this team and my commitment to its development is crucial for me. It should be remembered that we operate in a very specific niche that requires almost every team member to make a huge effort to acquire a huge dose of specialist knowledge useful only here.

What are your non-business passions? How do you rest?

Konrad Krawczyk: First of all, I have a family and spending free time with them is really stimulating. Other mundane activities that relax me - I really like learning, I absorb knowledge in the classic sense: languages, history, science. I have quite a large number of applications in which I collect knowledge and they sometimes "quizze" me. I like it very much, it's my way of "collecting stamps".

Fascinating. I don't think anyone has ever shared such a hobby with us. Just follow the example! Thank you for the interview.

Interviewer: Ewa Pysiewicz and Aleksander Rak, March 2023