I meet German biotech billionaire Christian Angermayer on the hottest day of the year so far and he orders a Coke Zero. When a Karma Cola arrives, he switches it for a double espresso because he doesn’t want the sugar. “Of all the drugs, sugar is the worst — sugar and alcohol. People underestimate it,” he says. He’s never had alcohol either, avoiding it in his younger years in the small village of Triebendorf, Germany for fear that inebriation would cause him to let slip that he was gay before he was ready to come out.
Angermayer knows a thing or two about challenging people’s preconceptions when it comes to drugs. From Triebendorf, he went on to study biochemistry at the University of Bayreuth, making his first millions by co-founding and selling the biotech firm Ribopharma with professors he had met there.
