French American biotech founder Patrick Anquetil says he would never have been able to launch his medical device company Portal Instruments in his country of origin. The spirit of entrepreneurship in the United States enabled him and his organization to develop a needle-free drug delivery system that could benefit countless Americans. Listen to learn how he believes his product can improve vaccine rates. A video interview with Anquetil is also available here.
Transcript
Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed, and welcome back to JobMakers.
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Perhaps the most special characteristic of the United States is its entrepreneurial spirit. Many immigrants grab onto that to innovate, start businesses and create jobs. It is, in fact, a story as old as time, from Levi’s jeans and Kraft cheese to SpaceX rockets and Gmail accounts. We take this as a given here in the U.S., but this is not something that exists everywhere. In many countries, there isn’t the infrastructure to support entrepreneurship and taking the risks to start a business is actually frowned upon. For Dr. Patrick Anquetil, immigrant from France and co-founder and CEO of Portal Instruments in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a clinical stage medical device company developing a needle-free drug delivery platform, there was no way he could have started a business like this in his home country. At that time, entrepreneurship was not viewed as a path to success. So he traveled to MIT, which he says gave him quote, “a sense of great possibilities as if he broke free.” That freedom to innovate will lead in Patrick’s case to a transformative patient experience in a needle-free world. Something we should all be grateful for, but it could only have been conceived and created in a place that fosters an entrepreneurial spirit in its people, old or new, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers podcast.
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Patrick Anquetil, co-founder and CEO of Portal Instruments based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, welcome to the JobMakers podcast.
Patrick Anquetil: Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here and we love job creation. So thank you for the opportunity.
Denzil Mohammed: We love it too. So who is Patrick Anquetil and what is Portal Instruments?
Patrick Anquetil: Sure. So as you probably can tell from my accent, I’m from France originally. I came to the US about 20+ years ago. I loved it and basically stayed, became an American citizen as a result and been delighted to be so. My background is, I have a degree in engineering, mechanical engineering to be more precise. Also went to Harvard business school where I got my MBA and really what I like to do is create companies and really make a contribution there to create products or services that have a high need and hopefully help make the world better. Portal Instruments is the latest company I co-founded. It’s a device out of MIT that can inject medicines without needles. So really solving a huge problem that’s clinically relevant, but unfortunately overlooked by our industry. And so that creates the environment for us to be there and change that.
Denzil Mohammed: Yeah. You’re gonna have to explain how the medicine becomes the needle.
Patrick Anquetil: Correct.
Denzil Mohammed: I’ve known you for a long time and I’ve read a lot about you and you’ve often associated being an immigrant with being an entrepreneur. Let’s talk about that. The first part of that, being an immigrant. You said you were here from France. What was life like growing up in your arrondissement in Paris?
Patrick Anquetil: It was great. I think I was extremely fortunate. I had a very blessed childhood. I lived in a very nice area in Paris not too far away from the Eiffel Tower. At the same time though the idea to create a company was as remote as I could imagine. I always thought that this was something for someone else, that this is stuff that you read basically in the newspapers, in profiles, but certainly, with a French context at the time, there was no way I could be that guy or that guy who had started a company. And then I came to the U.S. and that really changed. And I realized anyone can do it. And in fact, that’s really the center piece of it is that you realize, well, gee, if she can do it, so can I, right? And I think the role of role models is so important. I think at the time in France, there were no role models at all. In fact, if you had started a company and done really, really well it was almost frowned upon, that there was something malicious about you, that you maybe had a shady past, so to say. Of course we’re talking 30, 40+ years ago. Probably 40+ years ago. And it’s changed quite radically now, but, but I think at the time it was true that there was no true role models as we have today that we could associate with. And I always thought starting a company would be something for someone else.
Denzil Mohammed: Isn’t that crazy?
Patrick Anquetil: It is crazy. Yes.
Denzil Mohammed: How could you not encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and job creation? So you’re thrice over an immigrant because you first moved to study in Switzerland, and then you spent time in Japan. And then of course, as you said, 20 something years ago, you moved to the U.S., what were those experiences like? Very disparate sort of places, right?
Patrick Anquetil: Yeah. You know, I think what’s interesting is they all had the same thing in common, that you had to be on your own and be responsible. Right? You know what I actually loved about the experience in Zurich? I was tremendously fortunate that I knew German because my mother is German. So I had no issue studying in German. And I’m still amazed to this day that my parents supported that idea. And I mean, it wasn’t trivial. Again, this was pre-internet [laughs], so moving to another country was actually quite an adventure. And I think as a result, because my parents gave me so much trust there was just no way I was going to come back. And so it had to be successful. I had to find a way to be successful. And I think that is the immigrant story. And it’s the same thing in Japan. I mean, I remember arriving after, I think it’s a 13-hour flight from Zurich, arriving in Tokyo and finally making it to my dorm room and it was dark and literally crying the first day, like what am I doing? And then you wake up the next day and it’s like, okay, no, time’s up, back to work, you gotta figure it out and make it happen. And so I think that’s the immigrant story. I think that’s what makes it unique. And so if you compare it with entrepreneurship, it is a form of entrepreneurship as well. It happens to be the entrepreneurship of you. And then I think those lessons conversely can be also applied when you start your own company, right. It’s the same thing. Failure is not an option. And you’re gonna try to make it work because there is no turning back. Right, and so I think that it’s no question that those experiences really transformed me and probably made me want to be an entrepreneur as a result.
Denzil Mohammed: Wow. And fluent in German, fluent in English, fluent in French, you learned a little bit of Japanese too. I read that you taught yourself English by reading dungeon and dragons books.
Patrick Anquetil: Oh my God, that’s true. I’m amazed you know that. That’s really true.
Denzil Mohammed: That is very unique. Most people will say MTV or Michael Jackson, things like that. But I did read that you always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but as you mentioned, the ecosystem in France at the time, didn’t allow for that or dissuaded that. And when you started your doctorate at MIT, you said people were starting businesses left and right. And you felt a great sense of a sense of great possibilities. You felt like you broke free. Explain that.
Patrick Anquetil: Well, there were many things actually going on. The thing I remember vividly from those days is how in the U.S., it’s almost the ultimate immigrant story because no one’s got your back, plus I had no family here on top of that. So it’s interesting. Maybe some people can be different, but I think for me having no safety net kind of was liberating in a way, because it meant that there was only one path. It’s interesting. The safety net is great, but it’s also a distraction as well, because now you’re focusing on the safety net instead of focusing on what you’re building. I also felt that at the time at MIT, this was during the dot com boom, everyone was starting companies left and right. And so there were role models that were there that you could actually talk to and observe. And in fact, it was almost the opposite, that if you weren’t starting something then there must be something wrong about you. Right. It was more the odd thing that you didn’t do anything versus the opposite. So I think that environment were actually quite unique as well. On campus there was a lot of support for those types of endeavors. There was, of course, the business plan competition, which was the MIT 50K at that time. Now the 100K I guess, maybe even more. Inflation is real AF even in that sector, I guess. And there were also courses that you could take or classes you could take. There were after hours activities actually as well. So there was a whole ecosystem there too, to support it.
Denzil Mohammed: In a recent episode, I interviewed a guy called Aki Balogh from Hungary who founded a tech marketing company called MarketMuse. And he said, “50 percent of our startup is emotional control.”
Patrick Anquetil: Yes.
Denzil Mohammed: Given your experience, do you agree?
Patrick Anquetil: I think it’s a 100 percent not 50 [laughs]. Yeah. First of all, one thinks that it’s like the hockey stick, the J-curve it’s called. So, you’re going to the negative and then woof. You sort of shut out as an exponential out. That’s really the myth. The reality is more, it’s a constant up and down and it’s like, for one up you get three down. It really becomes an exercise in managing your own psyche and then as CEO or someone from the senior team really, it’s important to show how those ups and down don’t phase you, that you don’t panic. Cause of course, everyone’s looking at you if you’re the leader of the company. So I think interestingly a lot of it is not being too emotional about the challenges and being, I guess soft food, for lack of a better word. It’s more deposed and realize that, look, this is just another problem we’re gonna solve it. This is what we do.
Denzil Mohammed: So let’s bring it into today. Portal Instruments. I saw some pretty alarming statistics about needles, that across the world there are about 10 million people who contract some form of disease because of an incident involving a needle, that the CDC puts needle fear at 25 percent among U.S. adults. I’m about 20 of that 25 percent. And that needle phobia accounts for about 10 percent of COVID vaccine hesitancy in the UK. My, my, my, there’s a problem.
Patrick Anquetil: Yeah, it’s crazy. And by the way, we’ve done our own surveys. It’s even worse in our sample than what you just described. It’s pretty amazing. We ran a survey. This was back in in September. 400 U.S. respondents. We had a 30 percent not vaccinated rate, which is not pretty good, I think the population was a bit worse than that. Maybe around 40 percent at the time, but still, kind of directionally the same. We asked that 30 percent. Well, if you had any free option would you have done it? And we had 45 percent who said, yes. It’s crazy. Even though I was very enthusiastic and a believer in what we do really, I would’ve guessed, five to 10 percent max, so very high. And then we asked the 70 percent that was vaccinated if they would’ve spent $10 for needle free option and there, we had 70 percent who said yes. The pharmaceutical industry is really measured, from an FDA regulatory perspective, fully only on two measures, which is safety and efficacy, right. And those two metrics don’t really involve what the patients feel in terms of the experience. And I think we look at this as, there’s a screaming opportunity. If you can introduce an orthogonal metric around patient preference, patient tolerance, ease of use, it’s typically you’d be ridiculed to look at patient convenience as something driving a health care product. It’s safety and efficacy and that’s it. To me, this highlights how we’ve got again, a clinically relevant problem that’s completely overlooked as well. And I think it’s important to change that, in particular with newer medicines being predominantly administered by an Eland syringes. There is a huge burden that’s there for the patient. There’s also a huge burden on society around how you dispose of those needles. These are contaminated. A friend of mine runs Parks and Recreation in Boston and once in a while they clean the muddy river. And you would think that they’re getting one or two syringes throughout that course … it’s bags of syringes.
Denzil Mohammed: Oh no.
Patrick Anquetil: It’s interesting. Bags, it’s crazy. It’s striking that no one talks about that, the fact that we’ve got devices that kill people, most of them of course, in the developing world, unfortunately. But it’s not uncommon for, in particular, the medical staff to get exposed to pathogens via an accidental needle break. It happens so many, so many times and I think in this day and age, that should not happen at all. You’ve been to our offices. On our wall, it says a needle-free world and that’s truly what the aspiration is of the company. We will focus first on chronic diseases, high value therapies that really drive tremendous benefits to patients. We want to help those patients further, for those suffering from chronic diseases, make the burden of the injection less of a burden and something just more easy to use to do the injection and then go on with your life. Don’t have to worry about getting someone accidentally pricked with the syringe and so on.
Denzil Mohammed: So when do you see this happening? Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?
Patrick Anquetil: I think in five to 10 years we will have a few of those powerful therapies for chronic diseases will be on the market. I think one area I’m extremely interested to have an impact on is vaccination. Because this needle-free world vision pretty much won’t happen until we can address vaccination, which is a bit of a different device. It’s a device that can be used across multiple patients. And also one that’s gonna be in office and so on. One for which we need to find a way, not just to have one manufacturer’s vaccine compatible with the device, but all vaccines should be compatible with this device as well. So we’re not there yet from a dealmaking perspective, also from an FDA perspective as well. But because everyone in a developed world has had multiple shots in their lives, some get it now every year we see the flu, who knows with COVID, maybe it’s twice a year that you need a vaccination. It’s still early, too early to tell. So I think, to me, this is the easiest way for us to have an impact is to basically solve this problem. So in 10 years I hope we become the standard for vaccination.
Denzil Mohammed: I remember seeing kids faint, or allegedly fainted when they got shots, nurses had to whip out the smelling salts.
Patrick Anquetil: Yes. These are all true, actually. Yeah.
Denzil Mohammed: On behalf of all the millions and millions of people out there who resent and fear needles, please, we, I wish for your continued success.
Patrick Anquetil: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that
Denzil Mohammed: The next device needs to do blood draws. Now you’d spoke a little bit earlier about how being an immigrant and being an entrepreneur sort of aligned with each other, and you talked about not having a safety net and an American, listening to this, probably wouldn’t understand. Describe that fear of not having a safety net or thrill, in your case, perhaps of having nothing to rely on, so you must do it yourself.
Patrick Anquetil: From a visa status. I mean so I’ve had quite a few H-1Bs, then I got a green card to one of the companies I started and then I became a U.S. citizen. That was kind of my journey with the H-1B. First, nowadays it’s actually a lottery to get it, which wasn’t the case during my time. So step one is a bit of chance that’s there as well. And then, if you get fired then you’ve got to almost immediately find another job or your H-1B basically expires, so to say. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but you gotta find some always place to learn very quickly. And at least at the time used to be a little bad. I actually don’t know what it is today. I had friends actually to whom that happened and they had to return back to their homes. So I think maybe some of us say, Americans, don’t maybe realize that there are kind of consequences to failure, right? And I think that in turn though, also acts as a motivator to do two things. One is to do, of course, a good job, but one is to also create a situation where you have options, that you’re never in a situation where this is kind of a last resort, and you have to leave.
Denzil Mohammed: It sounds like a luxury to have options as someone who has been through the immigration system.
Patrick Anquetil: Yeah.
Denzil Mohammed: There weren’t really many options. It was just one or nothing. It felt like that, and that uncertainty really does a number on your brain and your emotional state.
Patrick Anquetil: Definitely, and I wanna emphasize that what you describe is exactly my experience as well.
Denzil Mohammed: So you said you hold both French and American citizenship, congratulations on becoming an American citizen by the way. Can someone be patriotic to, or love two countries at once. Could that be a thing?
Patrick Anquetil: I think it’s interesting. I think first of all, to me and to my French compatriots, it would probably be shocking, but I think I was an American all my life. I just didn’t know it until I came here. I think I feel much more American than I feel French. And to me, the association with countries is more cultural, right? What do you have in common? What do you associate with? And what I love about America is there’s no limit, right. You can be anyone. I think it’s probably more a state of mind than really reality. But that’s enough, and I think the spirit is so strong and such a crucial thing in what we do. And so this growth mindset that you’ve got in the U.S. from the founding fathers up to now, it’s still there. I think it’s a commonly agreed upon ethos that we have as Americans that is radically different than in France. And again, I don’t spend enough time there anymore. So I just don’t know and I may hopefully not offend too many people there, but I think the growth mindset is limited in France, if not nonexistent, if you’re a little bit sanguine. From a cultural standpoint the success is not a good thing. First of all, if you’re successful you shouldn’t brag ’cause people get jealous very easily. And if you’re successful, that’s probably because you stole from someone else, right. It’s a zero sum game. You’re good so someone else probably suffered because of you. There’s nothing wrong against this, but I just didn’t want to live my life there for that reason, and I love France. In spirit, I was just closer to the American spirit and that’s why I’m here. I think it’s wonderful that we have this path as immigrants, to be accepted in this country as who we are. I think we need to keep that and cherish that as Americans. It is really unique. You know, oftentimes I think societies are much more afraid of other cultures versus here, you come as you are, and you become an American. And that melting pot so to say is what makes us all Americans as well as a result because that’s how the country is. It’s not by mistake or coincidence that just happened over the centuries, right? It’s an immigrant country. I think it always will be and we need to keep that in mind. And I think that’s also what makes us strength actually as well.
Denzil Mohammed: So that brings me to my final question. Why is it important to be welcoming?
Patrick Anquetil: Immigrants who come here have a tremendous desire to succeed because they came here against all odds. Because of that, they have an ethos and values that they wanna contribute to that can only make the country better. That’s why I think immigrants are so, so important, hardworking, great values. They want to help the country as a result, become better as well.
Denzil Mohammed: Very well said. Patrick Anquetil, co-founder and CEO of Portal Instruments, thank you for joining us on the JobMakers podcast. This was really a delight talking to you.
Patrick Anquetil: Thank you, Denzil for having us.
Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast about immigrant entrepreneurship and contribution produced by Pioneer Institute think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thanks for joining us for this week’s incredible story of one immigrant’s innovation and entrepreneurship. If you know a similarly outstanding immigrant business owner or innovator we should talk to, email Denzil, that’s D-E-N-Z-I-L at JobMakerspodcast dot org. I’m Denzil Mohammed, see you next week for another JobMakers.