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Executive Series Episode #1 - Olivier Pâris
227 Plays9 months ago
Welcome to The Gens & Associates Podcast: Executive Series. This exciting new series will feature Steve Gens, G&A Managing Partner, conversing with key senior executives that represent the software and services sectors. These informative one on one conversations will explore how they are guiding their organizations to effectively support key industry initiatives and technology advances.
In our premiere episode, Olivier Pâris (President & CEO of Ennov) joins Steve Gens to discuss recent acquisitions, company strategy, and key technology priorities.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Series
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, this is Steve Gens, managing partner of Gens & Associates and welcome to our first Gens & Associates executive podcast series that highlights key companies and their executives that support the life sciences regulatory space.
Introduction to Olivier Paris and Ennove
00:00:15
Speaker
First up, it's my pleasure to introduce the CEO of Ennove, Olivier Paris. So Olivier, I know when we had talked about two months ago, I was interviewing you as far as the different acquisitions that Ennove has been ah doing, trying to understand them further for our market research reports. And that's when I asked you, would you be open to doing a podcast? So so I'm really excited that you're the the first one up because there's a lot going on.
00:00:45
Speaker
with Ennove and you know a very great future that I like to explore with you. So ah for our listeners, what I'd like to do, if you could do a brief introduction with Ennove, I'm sure most of them know Ennove and also a little bit about yourself, and then we'll get started. OK, so thank you very much, Steve, for this invitation. So I'm also very excited by being part of the first podcast ah from the Steve Gans series. um So as you say, my name is Olivier Paris. I'm a founder and CEO of Enov, which was created in 1999, so close to 25 years ago.
00:01:24
Speaker
And ah what we we do is that we are a software vendor focusing on developing a unified platform that addresses multiple needs from the life science industries, like the key ones being regulatory and clinical, as well as quality and pharmacovigilance, as well as commercial. So, um and my role at you know is really ah focusing on the product strategy and making sure that we provide to our customers the best possible platform using the latest technology.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for that intro. so um So let's get started.
Ennove's Growth Strategy Through Acquisitions
00:02:04
Speaker
So you've been in business a very long time, and I know at Gens & Associates, we got introduced by Chet in 2016 and really started getting a core understanding um of what you do in this space you know as you you know have been over the years growing organically. ah But certainly I think for a lot of our listeners and a lot of people in the regulatory space, you got ah a lot of attention through ah several acquisitions.
00:02:33
Speaker
So if you could, and maybe we'll start at a high level, you know provide the benefits to your customers as your you know customer base is growing, where they should receive from the Docshifter. For us, that made a lot of sense. The Samarin from formerly the Insteam and we thought was very, very interesting too and exciting, and certainly with the Calix acquisition. So if you can go through for our listeners, you know just some of the thinking behind the acquisitions and the benefits you know from your customers and prospective customers from these three yeah three acquisitions. Yeah, so it's true that we have ah done a few acquisitions of over the past two years and you mentioned the three k ah cook key acquisitions. Let's start maybe with a summary. So I would say that globally, I've been asked by people where it looks like ah you do the job of private equities. And so actually, no, we don't.
00:03:29
Speaker
ah All these acquisitions have been done because they bring value to our ah solutions as well as to our for our customers. So if we start with Summarin, so Summarin was done in April 2023. And ah what ah we like with Summarin is that it's a RIM solution. with a very good design from a functional point of view and especially for a med tech industry where we have less ah experience than the the pharmaceutical industry. So with ah this acquisition, what we have done is that we have done the gap analysis of the solution and and what we were doing. And we have been able to build within less than one year based on our
00:04:16
Speaker
flexible platform, we have been able to to to build a core model for providing a solution for med device, especially for RIM, but also for quality and and for the domain. So really, it helps us strengthen our solution for addressing this med tech market, which is ah a growing market. So this is really a benefit for our customers because Even the one who are in pharma industry, they are combined products, so ah really strengthen our data model. For dog shifters, it's very well-known solution and innovative solution, which is, I would say, number one regarding rendition.
00:04:58
Speaker
of ah documents, especially to PDF, as well as ah enrichment, as well um as providing backend features for publishing. And so this acquisition really is a way to strengthen our backend services for the rendition and publishing, and also in increasing performances. Performances in terms of publishing is key. um And so the goal is really to enrich our platform. Something to say with DocShifter is that we maintain the brand separately because of course it works with other solutions, so competitors. And we keep this separate as a brand so that we can still serve also all our customers, even if they haven't chosen Enof as a global platform. So this is the benefits of, I would say,
00:05:54
Speaker
um marine and do shiftter and the The last one, Calix is ah similar, ah except that Calix is bigger. okay And so when we say Calix acquisition, it's not the whole company, it's three key products. um The insight, rim, and publishing solutions, so for people who are you know, very well, this domain is with the liquid products. And then two over in the clinical space, the impact CTMS and the Datalapse ADC solution. So these are the three products that are now ah part of Enoch family. And um this ah so this is a larger acquisition and ah it brings us several and it brings us as well as the market several benefits. I will say that when you look at the Calix ET as well as Enoch, it's very complimentary and we have combined strength.
00:06:51
Speaker
ah I would say enough is recognized more on, we have a few top 25 from a company, but it's more recognized on a small and medium business. Whereas they are very big, even top five for my using Calix Publishing, CTMS. And so really, it's a balanced portfolio, which ah brings to to end of the the experience to manage bigger projects.
Synergies and Strategic Positioning in Med Tech
00:07:20
Speaker
So this is a real benefit.
00:07:23
Speaker
um Also, colleagues, especially regarding the insight rim and insight publishing, was recognized as a gold standard for publishing. ah Maybe it lost a bit some traction over the past few years because well when a product-focused company is acquired by more service company, there can be a less focus put on the product. So maybe it lost ah this position number one, but still there are great features on the product. It's ah inside publishing the proof of concept with FDA and one top five pharma for ACTD4.
00:08:09
Speaker
ah VCTD publishing is recognized as one ah one of the best ones. so um And there are components that can be used directly into the platform. So ah the benefit for us is to mix these advanced features of insight with the flexibility and the power of enough platform. So it's really combined strength at the product level. At the same time, since ah at the know we invest a lot in ah technology and innovation, we can pro provide to ah to inside customers, we can provide some ah
00:08:51
Speaker
benefits really improving the platform for while some many features have been identified yet and will be delivered some of them by the end of the year, ah also including regarding performances and reliability of rendition, including the dock shifter modules. Globally, it's very synergetic ah integration that we put in place with these acquisition of ah three three companies.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, so that is a lot to digest with our, you know, listeners, but, you know, all three are very, very, you know, I would say critical. The one thing I just want to explore the one with Samarin a little bit more because when I first heard the announcement, it's like, well, that's such a good new good move on and knows and your part personally, Olivier. um And ah although, again, some associates, we cover all of life sciences, I would say 80 percent of our coverage is really, really deep in the biopharmaceutical, you know, the genetics, ah generics, excuse me, and also the consumer products. So more of the medicinal side than you have the med tech, you know, med tech side.
00:10:04
Speaker
And what's really, really interesting for us, it was sometimes you have medicinal software providers that are very successful in the biopharmaceutical and go into the med tech space and they're just not, you know, successful because it is a different paradigm. So, you know, I wouldn't imagine besides, you know, the software we're in that's been around a long time, it's that deep knowledge. and customer base. And I think the other thing, and I think we and your team talked about this the other day, that when we look at our benchmarks and now even going back to 2016 and sixteen and you know a lot of companies and a bunch of MedTech too, um but one thing that's unique, the growing portfolio, and I think it's almost over 60% of the companies that are in our so study,
00:10:52
Speaker
have combination products. So instead of it's a pharma or a med tech solution, having something blended. and And the one thing I've always admired about Enno is you have to foresight to master the data irregardless of its regulatory quality clinical. And I would imagine you've also done that with your analysis on the med tech side, because the the future is combo products. And I don't know if you had any quick ah comments on that observation. Yes, actually, um when we when among our customers, even before the acquisitions of Summarin, several of our customers have combined products. So we already have these features in the data model because it's very flexible. So it's not something we have to develop at the database level. It's more something we have to configure
00:11:43
Speaker
ah to really add adapt to the business needs. So what um so I say we had these combined products but for sure um what have been improved is to be able really to address the Medtech market totally separately because we have now ah product product manager dedicated to Medtech who is really focusing on what is this this need. And then I would say what is nice in our data model is that they we can work together. You can have only pharmaceutical companies, you can have pharmaceutical and cosmetics, for example, because we have one for cosmetics also.
00:12:21
Speaker
But you can have med tech only, and you can have the two of them or the three of them together. So it's really a great advantage. And and with submarine, we really enrich the med device model. Yeah, and we we believe at this point in time, you know, Ennove is unique because there are certainly some young companies up and growing in the MedTech space and some of the traditional players, you know, on the medicinal side that have been trying to, you know, crack into the, you know, MedTech space. so
00:12:53
Speaker
So hats off to you. So ah what I'd like to do is explore that Calix acquisition a little bit more. It just seems like it. I can't believe it was three or four months ago. We are at the RSI DM show and certainly your booth and you personally were getting a lot of attention with the acquisition. But I think ah most people were really curious. about the Calix acquisition. So some of the things you already shared with our listeners you know are very, very helpful. um When I first you know learned of it, it's like, wow, you know this is really interesting. So some of the things that we're going through kind of our heads here against the associates is you know from from a Calix standpoint or the old liquid,
00:13:36
Speaker
um They're traditionally in the top 50, top 10. And it's not so much, you know while the software is very important, it's being able to service a very large multi ah multinational company from from a services you know standpoint. So that that is a skill in itself. And also, we've known Liquin forever, even back when I was in Johnson & Johnson, ah where Liquin was formed, the first generation of documentums. So I'm really dating myself,
Integration of AI and Future Plans
00:14:07
Speaker
but also a lot of deep domain knowledge.
00:14:11
Speaker
So maybe one thing that our our users don't know is, you know, the one thing my team has always enjoyed with the Envoy and the platform is you have a different UI and people tend to like, you know, the user interface. And I would imagine with the Calix acquisition, you know, there's a tech refresh. The other comment that you made, and I made some notes here, and I just want to echo it. It's so true. And I'll use the example of Documentum. So when Documentum was bought by EMC, a hardware company, they they were kind of lost for many, many years until finally OpenText came. So a software you know company came. like
00:14:52
Speaker
think you're your you know, with the liquid, the old liquid, the Kalex, kind of the path that they took, now they're back in good hands to their their true based with a software company is is really good. but But can you say a little bit more about our about the Kalex acquisition, more from a connection standpoint, because certainly as we cover deeply the regulatory space, a lot of the modernization, or the re-platform for a lot of companies is finishing. And while all the hype is AI and generative AI, it's about the connectivity of information, you know that clinical and regulatory information, you know the QMS for change control and regulatory.
00:15:37
Speaker
um So can you say more about the the ability now ah with Calix to really strengthen kind of this R and&D connectivity ah that you have? Because it's more about cross-functional platforms and information sharing, you know, going forward. um Yes, absolutely. There are several things to say about this. So when maybe one thing which is important to know is that in enough platform we have an AI component, um because were we have ah an end-of-lapse department that focuses on innovation and especially for now over the past six years on natural language processing. So we have a NLU component, natural language understanding a component into the platform. And since the disruptive GenAI that came came in last year, of course we have started
00:16:33
Speaker
evaluating what can be done with this technology. And so we have now ah embedded in the latest version, the component that uses GenAI. So this is something that will benefit from all our customers and of course, the inside customers as well as the enough platform customers. um The way we do, because I would say that most of the companies now say that they invest on AI because it's impossible not investing on AI, but what we we try to to keep a pragmatic approach, which is identifying with our customers, and we do this because we have a lot of
00:17:10
Speaker
working groups with our customers and and and and and user forum and so on. We identify some ah ah use cases and we then put in place proof of concept to see what it can bring to our customers. So um what to what we have done is that we have identified close to 50 use cases. We have started working on close to 10 and then we share this with our root customers. And really, the goal is not to say we are going to have a revolutionary revolutionary platform in three months. But I would say that in the by the end of the year, we'd be able to ah to transform the platform as a more an assistant, where, for example, you receive a letter from the FDA. You don't spend time extracting information and putting in place an action plan. Everything like this can be done in even
00:18:06
Speaker
the answers to the questions can be proposed from what has been and answered into the past. So in the best so really what we try to have is focus on real use cases that bring value and and and on the short term and that ah instead of fighting against the system to just see how we are going to migrate the right data. We consider this is a must-have. I think the right data. And the question is how we can help the users benefit from this ah AI, GenAI technology. and And so we are work on this and we have
00:18:44
Speaker
We present this at our user conference in Paris in in September, but there are huge benefits that will be available to all our customers, not only the end of platform. So this is also something important to to have in mind is that we are not going to say to our inside customers, well, please move to end of platform in one year. we have we We are here to support our customers on the long term, work together, make the best of every component, which is part of enough family to really bring the best to our customers. So for regulatory first, but as well as we do the same with clinical, with the CTMS, for example, and EDC.
00:19:26
Speaker
Okay, great. And thanks for that deep dive and actually reminding me because too because I recall in 2016, besides you know kind of looking at you know the different capabilities, what really stood out for me organizationally is that commitment. Because a lot of people will talk about things you know that are in their product roadmaps, and that's fine. But like how do you um kind of test and explore and work with customers. So the concept that you've had for quite a while, having the end of labs, you know, I first learned about that from an organizational standpoint, I think that's just kind of a statement of innovation and and, you know, and having that organizational
00:20:05
Speaker
you know, aspect, Ennove Labs is really great. So I think one more question, and it's about the future. You know, certainly you've grown tremendously organizationally with the the M and&A, with the acquisitions, and also organically with your customer base over the last couple of years. But what should we expect from Ennove over the next two years looking forward, and what excites you most about the potential? Yes. So um but well we're going to continue to do what we are good at doing is that enriching our platform because really we have this ah flip platform approach, which is even if every vendor says they have a platform, I would say it's really a for us, it's really ah the way it is from the beginning. So even when it was designed 25 years ago, it was already a platform with document capabilities process and then
00:21:01
Speaker
data analytics and now AI. So we are going to focus on really enriching this platform and the goal is really to to be able to oh I would say they were the best of breed solutions, vertical solutions. So we want to have a best of breed platform. So each on each domain, being able to be the gold standard. So this is the case what we want to do in in two years for publishing, but um we are in good position with the RIM solution, registration, regulatory activities, but we also want to include the AI components in this so that ah we can really ah
00:21:47
Speaker
facilitate the the work of our users. We think within two years would be probably the, I wouldn't say the best because we don't know all the competition, but a true alternative to the ah to the biggest solution of the market. um And especially with this innovation that we we keep keep focusing on, I would say every day. That's indeed very exciting. And I know there's still a tremendous amount of competition going on in the small, medium business marketplace. And kind of where the you know biopharmaceutical was seven to eight years ago about, ah we need to modernize and really rethink all these niche solutions and get the affiliates. And and for MedTech, the design centers, you know those regional design center offices,
00:22:40
Speaker
more tightly integrated that there is there's a lot to do and certainly ah very exciting times. So thank you so much, Olivier. And any final comments before we close it up? Yes, it's easy to contact our LinkedIn or direct number website and we'd be happy to show you what what what what we do. Maybe something important to say is that, as I said, that so we have competitors, but competitors can also be partners and and each customer has its own journey for what they want to achieve regarding regulatory and clinical. And the way also we develop our platform is is to be able to connect with other solutions.
00:23:22
Speaker
So sometimes we compete with companies and sometimes with partners. The goal is what we bring to the customer at the end.
Closing and Invitation for Engagement
00:23:29
Speaker
So we we try to keep it open so that our customers do the best of what they can choose on the market. Okay, excellent. For our listeners, hopefully this was very insightful for you. Certainly, if you have any questions for us, please contact us through the website. um And we encourage you to contact Ennove directly through their website or through a LinkedIn. Thank you so much for your time. And we look forward to a future executive podcast and hopefully, ah Olivier, um maybe we have you back later in the year and the next year and you could let us know your progress.
00:24:04
Speaker
Thank you very much for this invitation and thank you all for listening.