Episode 6 | What Nobody Tells You About a Life-Changing Deal (Erich Tauber)

Описание: Episode 6 | What Nobody Tells You About a Life-Changing Deal (Erich Tauber)

13 years of building. Never funded for more than 12 months. Hundreds of investors who said this will never work. Then a life-changing deal with Merck, signed in the middle of a pandemic, thirty minutes after telling the notary it was fifty-fifty.
But the hardest part wasn't the struggle. It was what came after.

In this episode of Willing To Win, Christian Rados sits down with Erich Tauber, co-founder and former CEO of Themis Bioscience, the Vienna-based vaccine company built on a platform nobody cared about until COVID made the world pay attention.

Before founding Themis, Erich trained as a paediatrician and held roles at AstraZeneca, Baxter, Intercell, and Nycomed. He now works as a venture partner and advisor to early-stage biotech founders navigating the same journey he survived.

This conversation confronts what most founder stories leave out. Not the highlight reel, the cost. The identity shift required to keep going when the evidence says stop. And the silence that follows when you finally win.

In this episode, Erich explains:
Why eliminating Plan B was his greatest strategic decision
How being outfunded ten to one forced a discipline that became his edge
The moment VCs told him to talk about cancer, three weeks before COVID
Why part-time founders signal distrust to everyone around them
-The post-deal crisis nobody warns you about
What he tells young founders about getting fully exposed

This is not a success story. This is a conversation about what conviction costs. Before, during, and after the win.


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Connect with Dr. Erich Tauber
LinkedIn:   / erich-tauber-0ba8a111  

Connect with Christian Rados
LinkedIn:   / christianrados-biotechdreamteams  
www.rados-recruiting.com

If you've ever kept going when nobody believed in what you were building, or wondered what happens when they finally do, this episode is for you.


#biotech #pharma #leadership #founders #startup #merck #vaccine #entrepreneurship #willingtowin