A pivot with purpose.

Facing down past challenges inspires a visionary transformation.

Put yourself in the shoes of a biopharma enterprise that comes achingly close to developing a breakthrough treatment, but falls short at stage three trials. Three times.

Hybrigenics Pharma SA (HYB, Euronext, France) was in just that position. But was there unseen value in the group’s experience, the novel technologies it had developed, and its constituent companies?

If so, how to unlock the potential and unite a new team with a fresh sense of purpose? New CEO Léone Atayi willingly accepted this challenge.

Put yourself in the shoes of a biopharma enterprise that comes achingly close to developing a breakthrough treatment, but falls short at stage three trials. Three times.

Hybrigenics Pharma SA (HYB, Euronext, France) was in just that position. But was there unseen value in the group’s experience, the novel technologies it had developed, and its constituent companies?

If so, how to unlock the potential and unite a new team with a fresh sense of purpose? New CEO Léone Atayi willingly accepted this challenge.

New beginnings

Reviewing the resources and learnings of the group and its acquisitions led Léone to a bold vision. Pivot, to become a comprehensive support platform for developers of new treatments. Medicines better suited to each patient’s biology.

Connecting and harnessing the group’s ecosystem of life science companies to one goal. To help change how new medicines are developed.

To achieve this, the company needed to engage better with shareholders, to explain the vision and change of direction. And, there were immediate challenges. Léone needed to build a new team. She recognised that to rally and motivate the best people, it was essential to have a clear and compelling articulation of the new vision and purpose.

“For me, the community around a project is key. We had to build trust and excite them, after all they’re saying, ‘I’ll quit my previous job and come with you on this adventure’. Of course, it’s a risk and a huge opportunity.”

Getting expert help

One of Léone’s early hires, Marketing Manager Laura Hoyez, came on board excited by the new direction of the business, and aware of the scale of the task ahead.

“To achieve our vision, of course, we need the tools and clarity to communicate with shareholders, to attract more companies to our portfolio, to add more technologies and products to help life science companies. And to identify ourselves as credible partners to the world’s biggest developers of new medicines.”

Aton slider

What’s the story?

When an initial effort at brand strategy did not yield the direction and clarity the team was looking for, they turned to TOTEM for guidance on repositioning the enterprise. Léone valued the independent perspective:

“TOTEM understood us. We’re ‘in’ our story, so we really appreciated TOTEM’s perspective to help us clarify and tell it. They energised us, stimulated our minds and helped us to see broad and wide. To focus on the vision.”

TOTEM helped the team clarify the structure (brand architecture), clarifying the role of the parent and its group companies, while also putting into words the relationships between the complementary parts of the new organisation’s ecosystem. The group is now united around a clearly expressed new purpose: To advance therapies for the good of patients, medicine and society.

“It’s important that what they gave us is real, it’s authentic. That’s easier for everyone, to tell the true story that resonates with them.”

A new name – a new dawn

With the strategy clear and an agreed direction of travel, TOTEM created naming concepts that built on the brand’s narrative. The team gravitated to Aton, an Egyptian reference to the sun. A suitable metaphor for the new company’s supporting and guiding role at the centre of its ecosystem of life science companies.

A new tagline, Turn research into medicines, is a direct promise and articulation of the organisation’s purpose. This was all brought to life by TOTEM in a dynamic new visual identity. Colin Byrne, Founder and Creative Director of TOTEM, describes the new design,

“We created a confident word mark with an emblematic ‘o’ suggesting the root of the word Aton, which visually represents the constituent parts, the diverse individuals and businesses, combining as one strong team. The new visual style works in harmony with the new narrative and ‘tone of voice’ for the new brand, which gives Aton a toolkit to be distinctive and clearly express themselves to their different audiences. ”

The name and visuals resonated deeply with Léone and the team, because it linked to the story of the business. Connecting skills, people and technologies across different disciplines. Ideas at at the heart of the business idea.

For Aton’s lead of marketing, Laura, the work has had considerable impact. “With the new name and new brand, we have this opportunity to really have separation. Yes, we were Hybrigenics. That’s one chapter. Now it’s completely different. We have a new vision. We know what we are doing, our why, and where we want to go. It’s really exciting. With the new story, messaging, and website bringing it all together, we are beginning to write the next chapter.”

ATON - TOTEM rebrands Hybrigenics Pharma to ATON

Considering rebranding? Some words of wisdom…

Given her previous experience of restructuring and re-branding organisations, and the more recent experience of becoming Aton, CEO Léone offers advice to others considering a strategic rebranding…

“Another CEO asked me about rebranding: I said, first of all, think about why you're doing it. If you’re just going to change the name to ‘make some noise’ around you, but nothing’s really changed. It's not useful. Choose well who you're going to work with — and I gave them TOTEM’s name. If you want to succeed, you need a real partnership, someone who truly understands who you are, to bring you the best support… Honestly we could not achieve this without them. ”

And Aton’s lead of marketing, Laura, echoes this with similar sentiments. “Choose the right partner, the right agency to do it. Don’t do it yourself! And, if you want to rebrand, it’s because you’re changing the strategy, or you’re changing something important in your story. It needs to be based on something concrete. It needs to be right. And you really need to believe in it.”

A powerful platform for progress

In the early days of Aton’s new life, the signs are good. First consultations with shareholders have been very positive and the team is now able to focus on their ambitions for the future, having drawn a line in the sand. Léone says that now the past is just a part of Aton’s story, “it’s important because it is how we began and how we started our journey to change medicine, but it no longer defines us.”

“Already, this restructuring and strategy is a very successful story. And now, commercially, we need success, but it's coming. We see it happening. So we're confident.”

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