124. Cell-ebrating Success: Ilan Sobel Blends Science and Strategy to Scale-up BioHarvest

[00:00:02] Karl: Of bio. We are so happy to have you on the Grow Everything podcast. How are you today?

[00:00:09] Ilan: I am doing great, and a real pleasure to join you and.

[00:00:15] Karl: Okay. Thank you so much. Well, why don't we do some background questions and we'd love to get into asking you about bio harvests and its technologies. you have a very interesting background. You've worked at big global corporations like Coca-Cola, and then you were at a company that was purchased by Anheuser-Busch, which at some point we'd love to talk to you about.

[00:00:34] Karl: But what inspired you to move into the biotech industries, particularly with bio harvest?

[00:00:40] Ilan: Wow, that's a deep question to start with. Inspiration. I really believe that, inspiration connects to the spiritual world that we believe in. Things happen in life for a reason. being a observant, person from a religious perspective, I really believe that God doesn't always open doors, but God shows us the keyhole and gives us a glimpse into the keyhole, and we have to decide whether we open the door or not.

[00:01:09] Ilan: And at 45 years old after an amazing 18 years career with Coca-Cola International spanning, multiple countries, 12 years in Asia, three years in Africa, and three years in the us and then bringing my family here to Israel, moving from fast moving consumer goods, the front of the airplane to the back of the airplane, and, the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta, which is a beautiful hotel to the Red Rooftop motel.

[00:01:34] Ilan: Atlanta. I don't wanna be disparaging, but it's not the Four Seasons. I went into startup world and together with two amazing partners, two guys much younger than me. We built a big data iot software company that we sold to, er, Busch InBev, worked with a BM Bev and got to the age of 45.

[00:01:51] Ilan: And I was very much, and I would say the spiritual stage of my career, with three teenage children. I wanted to do something that was gonna change the world. I said, the next, let's call it 15 years, I wanted to dedicate everything, all this amazing skills and experiences and, capabilities that I had learned in the past, let's call it, 20 years.

[00:02:14] Ilan: I wanted to double down on that and use that as a foundation to, as a father, parent. Use those capabilities to change the world in some way that would leave somewhat of a legacy, at least something that my children would be proud of. and I was shown a keyhole and I was introduced to this company called Bar Harvest Sciences as an investor.

[00:02:37] Erum: Thing.

[00:02:38] Ilan: And I came to the company and I was just blown away. I saw a gold mine. R and d, just an r and d, gold mine, amazing IP technology, knowhow, scalability of the technology, clinical trials, top quality people. largely a female leadership team that put in place fantastic building blocks of a technology that I looked at and just given my background and knowledge in the food industry.

[00:03:09] Ilan: I felt could really change the world. after a significant diligence, and I come from a pretty humble background. and whether it's, $5,000 investment or $50,000 investment, it's the same due diligence. And having done many due diligences in my life, in the Coca-Cola company, I go pretty deep in due diligence and I went super deep and every time I went deep, they just.

[00:03:30] Ilan: Came out with the goods, high quality answers. Very, very robust thinking and, quality all out. I landed up investing in the company. I drove them crazy during the diligence process. I really did. they were super patient with me. I was really fortunate that at the end of the process, wine side actually invested in the company at the time, the CEO of the company, who's an amazing.

[00:03:52] Ilan: Man and partner today of mine, Dr. Zaki Raki. he's the chairman of the company and he runs our CDMO business today, and we've partnered together the last five years in building the business. I was very fortunate that he turned around to me and absolutely shocked me and said, listen, you drove us crazy during the due diligence process, but I realized I need a professional CEO to come and run this business.

[00:04:16] Ilan: Would you be interested? Carl and Aaron, my heart stopped because I just didn't expect that. going through the diligence, I knew the company had some level of operational risk 'cause it really, was an r and d company. But I really believed that The company could figure it out because the technology was so strong, but I didn't realize that, the mirror was gonna be turned towards me and I was going to, be the person that had the opportunity to be able to mine that gold, in the gold mine, that r and d Gold, and bring it to the marketplace.

[00:04:47] Ilan: And it didn't take me a long time after I was offered the role of CEO to come back and said, you know what? I really want this because I believe in this technology. I believe that with, 8 billion, 9 billion people in the world today, that we can't feed the world with the current, way of agriculture.

[00:05:06] Ilan: we've gotta bring breakthrough technology to be able to bring the next generation. Of therapeutic solutions all the way through to different ways of bringing nutrition to the marketplace, given the very, very challenging world that we live in as it relates to global climate, change as it relates to, the different, exposure that human beings have today as it relates to toxins and toxicity, et cetera. I felt that, keyhole was getting bigger and bigger and I better walk through that door. I'd invested in the company and now is the time to really take the keys and to be able to bring this techno technology to the marketplace.

[00:05:44] Ilan: And that's what we've done. Now. Fast forward five years with our botanical synthesis platform technology. we've been able to scale the business. We, earlier this week announced our financial results as a NASDAQ listed company today, public company delivering north of $25 million of revenue and on the path to targeted, adjusted EBITDA profitability towards the end of this year.

[00:06:10] Ilan: , it's been an amazing journey and most importantly, the technology has allowed us to really. Generate transformational changes in people's health and wellness with the compounds that we produce from our technology, and I'm sure we'll get into that in a little bit more detail. But we've been able to drive significant, what I call human utility value, which is driving transformational positive changes in people's health and wellness, leveraging the power of the plant kingdom throughout technology.

[00:06:35] Ilan: And importantly, when you drive human utility value, the shareholder value follows. And that's really how we roll here and the DNA of the company and what really drives us every single day.

[00:06:47] Erum: Yeah. That's incredible. So you were doing the due diligence and then it flipped around and you were being diligenced to become CEO. And then here we go five years later and congratulations on the success. This is very incredible. can you tell us a little bit more about botanical synthesis?

[00:07:03] Erum: What does that mean? what is the process behind it? we love to learn a little bit more.

[00:07:09] Ilan: So with our botanical synthesis technology, we've been able to really drive a position in the market to be recognized as the global leader in plant cell biology. this technology allows us to unlock the secrets of cellular plant biology better than any other company out there.

[00:07:25] Ilan: So let me help you understand very simply, what is botanical synthesis? Simply, we start with the plant. We take the plant once, and we've developed a platform technology where we can take pretty much any plant in the plant kingdom. We take the plant once we understand exactly where inside the plant are the cells that produce the critical phytonutrients or phyto medicinal compounds. we take those cells and we conduct hundreds if not thousands of experiments where we change the food, that we feed the cells, we change the temperature, we change, lighting and a number of other variables that we let's just say we won't get into, they're in our black IP box at this stage we focus on getting these cells.

[00:08:14] Ilan: To do two things. One, to grow and produce the exact mirror of the phytonutrients or phyto medicinal compounds that are found in the plant. two, what we do is we focus on one or two molecules that we look to increase by an order of magnitude versus what's found in the plant. So for example, in our EO Red Grape Cell powder.

[00:08:41] Ilan: We increased the levels of a very unique molecule called PI resveratrol. We are the only company in the world today that produces PI Resveratrol from a red grape together with all the other polyphenols at a commercial and industrial scale because we figured out how to increase the levels of PIs seed resveratrol 100 times.

[00:09:05] Ilan: More than what's found in the actual red grape itself. So we call this magnification. So we mirror and we magnify at this stage when we are working with the cells, and it's important for all the listeners out there to understand that what we do is non GMO, we do not in any way change the molecular structure of the actual molecule compounds.

[00:09:27] Ilan: We're just changing the environment. We're optimizing the environment for the cells to do what we want them to do. at this stage we lock the cell bank and we have a cell bank, and we never go back to the plant. We have not been back to that red grape, literally now for about 12, 13 years. we've now as a company mastered, is the ability to take those cells and figure out how to take that cell from a Petri dish and grow that cell.

[00:09:55] Ilan: In a industrial scale bioreactor, we're talking north of a thousand liters, these are cells in liquid suspension. So you're taking from Petri dish in solid media to liquid suspension in large industrial scale. Bioreactors we're sheer forces and we figured out how Condition the cell to be able to, in a way, toughen it up, make it stronger so that it can go into this liquid environment, can deal with all the challenges of sheer forces can multiply many times, and in 18 to 21 days, the cells grow and they elicit those critical phyto medicinal compounds. then we harvest the cells and we are left with an amazingly soluble bioavailable end compound. There's no insecticides, there's no herbicides, there's no fungicides. We grow in a biological facility. It's a clean product. There's no solvents. We simply dry this. Rich mud into a final powder. And here you can see, a capsule of our red grape cell powder, which today we sell, $25 million in, 2024 and, double the business every year for the last three years.

[00:11:08] Ilan: really what we're able to do with this technology is be able to grow these phytonutrients. Phyto medicinal compounds consistently with economic viability because we increase the levels through the magnification and we have unique ip, there's patterns. So in a way, what we've done is we've solved the three problems of why our friends at Big Pharma walked away from the plant kingdom.

[00:11:35] Ilan: 'cause we all know that pharmaceutical companies started 60, 70 years ago with the plant. They realize it's too difficult to deal with the phytonutrients or phyto medicinal compounds in the plants because there's no consistency in nature. plants live in an ever changing ecosystem with weather changes, the phytonutrients change.

[00:11:54] Ilan: In addition, the really important phyto medicinal compounds that are so critical for our overall health and wellness. They founded such tiny levels inside the plant that it's just not economically viable. And then you can't patent nature. So that's why pharmaceutical companies went to chemical synthesis and, other types of, biological synthesis.

[00:12:17] Ilan: so our technology, which we call botanical synthesis or botanical cellular synthesis, we solve these three problems. For the pharmaceutical companies, for, cosmetic companies that are looking for new compounds. for the next generation of cosmetic solutions all the way through to the, companies in the nutrition space where through one of the components, through our contract development manufacturing organization we're working with.

[00:12:42] Ilan: An amazing company called Tatan Lyle, who's the largest sweetener company in the world, to work together with them as partners to develop the next generation of non-nutritive, non GMO natural sweetener. Because at the end of the day, Stevia has only gone so far as far as acceptance in the American palate, and there are amazing sweet protein plants out there that are just waiting for our technology to mirror, magnify, multiply, to be able to democratize these compounds and ultimately this technology.

[00:13:09] Ilan: Is able to deliver the North Star of the company where we're all about developing life-changing compounds and democratizing these life-changing compounds. By providing access to hundreds of millions of consumers in changing their health and wellness, and doing this in a way from a manufacturing perspective, that we preserve the planet for generations to come because in the technology I've just described, we utilize a micro fraction of the land.

[00:13:39] Ilan: A fraction of the water and the energy. So ultimately, this technology has the capability to really drive the nutritional needs of a growing global population all the way through to developing the next generation. Of therapeutic solutions for specific indications that today, let's call it chemical synthesis or, basically biological, solutions have not been able to solve and are still significant unmet needs for these conditions.

[00:14:09] Karl: Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. One of the things we talk a lot about here on Grow Everything is the fact that, people want natural solutions. They want natural ingredients, , but they don't realize that we don't have enough of an environment to grow those. , and the fact that you guys are able to do this in, a very small facility with limited water use, I think just shows the importance of what you guys are doing.

[00:14:33] Karl: You talk about those kind of environmental challenges associated with growing large volumes of plants. What about economic challenges? talk about that just for a minute. What makes it hard to grow? A lot of plants that you have to harvest for very small amounts of active compounds.

[00:14:48] Ilan: a great question, Carl, and it starts with, the philosophy and the North star of our company. we're focused on. Developing manufacturing and democratizing these life-changing compounds. And to democratize a life-changing compound, you have to have scale and you have to be able to get to affordability levels, whether it's as a nutritional play or as a therapeutic solution play.

[00:15:12] Ilan: So when you look at just basically the pure economics. The most critical fight to medicinal compounds, and there are multiple examples out there that are so important for the human body that are utilized as APIs today in important pharmaceutical, therapeutic solutions. They found that such minuscule levels that From an economic perspective to grow these particular, compounds utilizing conventional agriculture and with the challenges that you have with conventional agriculture, because of the nature of the world and ecosystems that we live in, it's just the economics don't make sense to be able to democratize these compounds.

[00:15:49] Ilan: So this is why. our technology is so critical, from nutrition all the way to the next generation of therapeutic solutions because today we are in a thousand liter plus bioreactors. We've doubled the size of our bioreactors in the last. Let's call it 15 months. Our plan is to double them again in the next, 18 months and then to double again.

[00:16:10] Ilan: And ultimately to achieve a level of industrial scale of growing plant cells with unique solubility and bioavailability, to be able to really democratize compounds that from plants and be able to really unlock those secrets that are contained in the plant kingdom. Utilizing our technology to be able to change the world.

[00:16:32] Ilan: And to do that, democratization is totally linked to affordability, that's really driven by the North Star and really the values of the company and why we come to buy Harvest Sciences every day to do what we do.

[00:16:45] Erum: Yeah, that's definitely game changing, world changing. I'm excited to talk more about the compounds, the red grape. how do you, what do you call it, like a supplement? Is that what it is?

[00:16:55] Ilan: so let's step back. We developed the red grape cell compound. It's a combination of Pisi revetto, as I explained, it's called Pied revetto. An in interesting era I think many of your listeners would've heard about. It's a very, very hot compound out there. But unlike human beings. Resveratrol is not created equal, and we produce the gold standard. The Rolls Royce of resveratrol called Pi. Pi Resveratrol is a glycoside. It has an extra sugar molecule attached to it. It's 25 times more water soluble than regular trol, which we call naked Trol because it doesn't have that extra. glycoside, sugar molecule attached to it, and through our actual clinical trial work.

[00:17:43] Ilan: We last in the body for at least 12 hours at the peak after one hour and a peak after five hours. And regular resveratrol is in and out the body 34 hours. So we produce the gold standard Rolls Royce because of unique solubility and unique bioavailability, as a science-based company. We've done multiple clinical trials on this particular compound.

[00:18:05] Ilan: And importantly for the audience, it's anchored in the hero molecule called Pisa resveratrol. But we also have all the polyphenols, which are so critical from a synergistic effect, including pathogen, coerce, anthi, seniors, and tannins that work together like an orchestra, like a symphony and orchestra.

[00:18:23] Ilan: And as a science-based company, We've done multiple clinical trials, double blind placebo, and we were able to demonstrate the ability after taking one capsule every single day for 90 days, the ability to significantly increase FMD flow, mediad dilations of one's arteries, and with more arterial dilation, you have more blood flow. So we are positioned in the market today and from more than eight verified reviews in a 4.8 out of five as the king of blood flow. We increase arterial dilation significantly. You have more blood flow. More blood flow in the 60,000 miles of arteries, capillaries, and veins in your body. People don't realize you have 60,000 miles of capillaries, and veins.

[00:19:09] Ilan: that out. you want those arteries, cappel, and veins to be working like a four lane highway, not like a little side road. so with the increased arterial dilation, you have more blood flow. With more blood flow, you have more oxygen, more nutrients flowing to the body, tissue cells and organs.

[00:19:26] Ilan: And from that you have more physical energy, more blood flow to the peripheral part of the brain. Goodbye brain fog. You have much more mental alertness. You have the maintenance of blood pressure within already normal ranges. In addition, we've been able to demonstrate the ability to reduce oxidation of LDL cholesterol and oxidative damage to one cells.

[00:19:47] Ilan: We decided as a company, it got to a point we had to make a decision. Do we take it down the nutraceutical route? Dietary supplement route, or do we go down the pharmaceutical drug route And after spending a hundred million dollars in our technology platform, we wanted to monetize the technology. our shareholders needed to get some level of return on investment, and we decided at the time.

[00:20:11] Ilan: To take our red grave cell compound down the dietary supplement route. And hence, in 2021, we launched in the us and previously we had, launched in Israel, which is our manufacturing and r and d base. the rest is history as we've scaled this compound and, in fact.

[00:20:28] Ilan: Our second compound is another really interesting compound, which is from olive cells. in a way you think about it, our red grape cell is really the power of the French paradox. And we all know the French paradox and what that's all about. in the case of our olive cells where we have the highest levels of VE Bosque side, back to the magnification.

[00:20:48] Ilan: We magnified ve Bos side. To the highest levels in the world. And we know from all our research we grow the highest levels of VEBAs cide in the world. And VEBAs Cides are very powerful anti-inflammatory polyphenol from the olive. we're focusing this on liver health and we've just actually, released to the marketplace.

[00:21:06] Ilan: . Some really favorable results of in vitro research where we took human liver cells and we applied our, Oliver Bosco side cells, and we saw significant reduction in, fat levels. So today, N-A-F-L-D, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is really being, Spoken about more than ever with more than a hundred million American adults dealing with N-A-F-L-D.

[00:21:28] Ilan: So this is basically how we've applied the technology in a direct to consumer business, which is very much a subscription based business. We only go direct to consumer. it's very important that relationship with the consumer. then importantly, in February last year. We in line with that North star that I talked about of the company to be able to literally develop, manufacture and democratize these life-changing compounds in order to democratize and impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

[00:22:00] Ilan:

[00:22:01] Erum: Yeah, Yesterday I went to this future biotech summit and , the professor at Harvard of Biology and Genetics Dr. David Sinclair was talking about his regimen of using supplements and he mentioned polyphenols and the different things that he either purchases or he makes.

[00:22:17] Erum: 'cause he has the ability to make it. But one thing I haven't heard from you, and I'm really interesting if it's intentional or. maybe you're not focusing on the marketing, but is the concept of longevity. This is something that's very trendy, at least here in the United States where people are looking at their supplement stack.

[00:22:34] Erum: Even that term is something that I think a lot of people are starting to come to, use because they're like, what are the different supplements I need to take in order to really optimize my health? other than, curing disease, what's the next level? have you thought about this?

[00:22:48] Erum: How does this influence the, , supplements that you guys are making? And also, know, you said direct to consumer, you're very interested in that.

[00:22:55] Ilan: So, Aaron, that's a great question. And when you actually understand what are the most critical components of our body's operating mechanism, that it's inextricably linked to longevity. I'm not gonna surprise you when I tell you it's blood flow, and let me help you understand as the body. Ages.

[00:23:13] Ilan: And unfortunately that aging process starts at like 30 years old. Our body starts to produce less nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a vasodilator, and as you hit that age of 30, the body starts to produce less and less of nitric oxide, the body hits you again and produces more endothelial one, which is ET one.

[00:23:35] Ilan: ET one is a vasa constrictor. So what's unique about our Nia Red Grape Cell product is that we have a unique double mechanism of action where when Nia enters the human body in those 60,000 miles of arteries, cappel, and veins, they're all lined with endothelial cells and the endothelial cells when they start to receive all the phytonutrients from Venia. They start to produce more nitric oxide, which is the good stuff, and less endothelial one, which is the bad stuff, which is why we get such an amazing level of increase in arterial dilation. And that blood flow is so critical because at the end of the day, the more blood flow you have, the more oxygen and nutrients, and it's a critical component of longevity, giving people more physical energy.

[00:24:22] Ilan: The amount of consumers that take our products in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. they're operating like they were 50 years old. it's a game changer because you're giving them more oxygenation. And oxygenation is so critical from a physical energy perspective. From an overall cognitive thinking perspective, more blood flow to the brain, goodbye toxins.

[00:24:43] Ilan: You need the blood flow to remove cellular toxins. Cellular toxin is what gives you the brain fog all the way through to oxidative damage as you get older. Your cells have oxidative damage and more blood flow, you reduce the oxidative damage. So we very much fit in as an anchor into the longevity space.

[00:25:06] Ilan: All underpinned by what is the most critical part of our body's operating mechanism. It's not necessarily gut health, it's blood flow. ' cause if you don't have good blood flow. You are severely challenged for all the reasons I've articulated. Then going to your point around nutrient stacking, we see time and time again with consumers, many having five or 10 supplements.

[00:25:28] Ilan: The bottom line is you can put all of those supplements into your body. Firstly, they need to be soluble and bioavailable. Let's assume they're soluble and bioavailable and I would tell all the listeners out there, make sure you check with your favorite supplement. The solubility levels.

[00:25:43] Ilan: The bioavailability levels. For example, Nia is heavily solubilizing your intestinal tract. And we move within 20 minutes, we move through the plasma. through the membrane, into the blood plasma. And this is all demonstrated in our, clinical trials. And that movement gives you amazing bioavailability in the body for at least 12 hours.

[00:26:01] Ilan: So solubility and bioavailability. But what's critical with those other nutrients that you're putting into your body is if you don't have good blood flow, they don't flow to the body's tissue cells organs.

[00:26:13] Ilan: You gotta have blood flow, You gotta have all those highways working to get those nutrients to all the different parts of the body cells and the tissues and organs.

[00:26:22] Ilan: that's again, underpinning the importance of having good blood flow from a broader longevity perspective, and specifically to almost be that critical carrier of all the other nutrients to your body that you're investing in to improve your overall longevity.

[00:26:39] Karl: Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that. I mean, I think, It's funny 'cause Roman and I were just talking about this last night about David Sinclair and his, nutrition stack or his supplement stack. at the beginning, of the pod, you were talking about orchestration, really orchestrating, the cell growth.

[00:26:54] Karl: And one of the things that we talk about is that so many biotech companies just focus on invention. They focus on the science. And it sounds like when you came on board at Bio Harvest, there was some commercialization, but few companies master this orchestration of, having the science.

[00:27:10] Karl: Developing the science, scaling the science, and then orchestrating, the marketing side of it. How has bio harvest approached this orchestration challenge?

[00:27:19] Ilan: well that's a great question, Carl. it's interesting when you step back and you dimensionalize, and it's always easy to do this in a revisionist way after, the company's been around since 2007, so, when, nearly 18 years old, my history's been the last five years.

[00:27:35] Ilan: and you look at what The impact of the sweat and toilet and what we've done. People often say to me, on pretty much one SKU, how did you generate $25 million of sales? We have more than 50,000 active subscribers taking this product every single day.

[00:27:48] Ilan: How did you guys do it? You must be really good at your marketing. and I say to 'em, thank you. That's very nice. We appreciate that, but our marketing is good, but. What really drives that commercialization, or you call it orchestration or ability to execute, operationalize, as I call it, which is such a critical challenge for so many biotech companies out there because their ecosystem is very narrow, and I'll come back to in a second.

[00:28:13] Ilan: What has driven that for us is the power of the technology. And the impact of the life changing compounds that we're able to produce with the technology. If we didn't have a life changing compound, you can't orchestrate or operationalize or commercialize. It's too difficult and you're not gonna be able to build a, e-commerce machine direct to consumer to literally tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of consumers.

[00:28:39] Ilan: all anchored in the power of the compound. And power of the compound is anchored in really the gift that our PhD plant cell biologists have really given us and have developed in the context of the end to end technology system that we built. it's important to really memorialize that, the ability to commercialize is really anchored.

[00:29:01] Ilan: In the power of the compound that you're developing and it's impact, ability to really change people's lives in a meaningful way, and then yes, some good marketing people that appreciate that, understand that and have a DNA that want to change the world because it takes a lot to do this in a company that's growing.

[00:29:21] Ilan: I mean, I like to say we've climbed Mount Everest and back five times in the last five years when you're doubling your business every year. And you've gotta scale technology. in the last 15 months we've done something that probably in my career, is something that I'm most proud of, where we fully digitized our biological facility.

[00:29:38] Ilan: we have north of a hundred bioreactors. These are a thousand liter plus bioreactors. Imagine that. And being able to control and manage each bioreactor. So we digitized every single biological metric in our facility all up to the cloud, and that allows us to build a digitized blueprint for end-to-end manufacturing of our compounds that allows us to drive optimization.

[00:30:03] Ilan: And optimization is all about managing potency and yield in order to actually build a business that is economically viable. So that you can democratize those compounds.

[00:30:14] Erum: Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, we definitely wanna dig into some of the manufacturing and, One of the things I just wanted to point out is that, we appreciate that you're saying that the performance of the compound is really what drives and, in our world of grow everything, growing everything, looking at biology, looking at plants.

[00:30:32] Erum: Sustainability is at the core, and we say it's table stakes now, what is the functionality, what really drives people to buy? And I'm very excited to hear that's, you led with that. It's something you wanna dig into. and a majority of our conversation so far has been about the nutraceutical and, you mentioned medicinal botanical synthesis.

[00:30:52] Erum: So can you tell us a little bit more about. on the pharmaceutical side, you're making APIs, active pharmaceutical ingredients, or you're making formulations, how do you, play in the pharmaceutical space?

[00:31:03] Ilan: So through our CDMO business today, which is our contract development and manufacturing organization, which we formed in February of last year, where we opened up the technology to the Giants of Industry. and we are dealing with pharmaceutical companies, cosmetic companies, nutraceutical companies and nutrition companies.

[00:31:21] Ilan: This is where the application of our technology, through these really deep anchor partnerships, similar to what we've done with Tate and Lyle in the context of developing the next generation of, non-nutritive sweeteners. Similarly, we have a very, important, partnership with a company that we were under heavy NDA, which we can't talk about, but I can talk to you a little bit about it in the context of your question.

[00:31:44] Ilan: it's a NASDAQ listed pharmaceutical company and they had a real challenge regarding a specific component of a drug that they produce, which is botanically sourced. And, , was very challenged from an overall, let's call it supply chain perspective from a number of different reasons, including geopolitical, reasons.

[00:32:05] Ilan: and they came to us and said, look, we believe that your technology is able to produce this specific enzyme. and we wanna have. Control over the supply chain. We want to have ability to have consistency and predictability when we're not dealing with the forces of mother nature. We wanna be able to have control from a geopolitical sensitivity perspective and a pricing sensitivity perspective.

[00:32:28] Ilan: we wanna have patents. We wanna have the patents ownership to the composition. So we have partnered with this company, we have a three phase process as part of our end-to-end, r and d process. Phase one is where we do the tissue culture work and we're now. Deep into the tissue cultural work, to be able to finalize the cell bank and be able to demonstrate that we can produce the specific enzyme that they're looking for.

[00:32:50] Ilan: And then we move to phase two, where we go into, small scale bioreactors, and then phase three where we go into large industrial. Bioreactors and then we move to a royalty based partnership model. So we're knee deep in it. we're well down the path in our phase one process on being able to, build the cell bank to generate the enzyme that ultimately will be used as a critical, API into that particular, And then importantly here, we produce ultimately biological material. So our material can basically from a flexibility perspective and regulatory perspective, can be utilized across, multiple different regulatory paths whether it's botanical, drug path or biologic path, we have quite a lot of flexibility based on the nature of the technology.

[00:33:35] Karl: that's amazing. Ilan. earlier you had said about opening up or democratizing the technology, and that is through your CDMO, right?

[00:33:43] Ilan: correct. And the way it works is basically with our key partners, we call 'em anchor partners. 'cause these are, real deep, partnerships. We go from plant to final compound. In two years. it's quick and we're getting quicker and quicker in doing this through utilization of ai.

[00:34:00] Ilan: We use AI in a very deep way, in a number of stages from an RD perspective. So think from plant to compound. In, two years. The r and d process, ranges anywhere from two and a half million dollars to four and a half million dollars end to end for the r and d process. And then we move to a final stage where we're producing manufacturing at scale.

[00:34:22] Ilan: That particular compound through a unique royalty based partnership model what we've seen since we've started. It's interesting. The genesis of this was for four years, every month I'd get a phone call from another pharma company, nutraceutical company, cosmetic company, saying, can you do this?

[00:34:39] Ilan: Can you do this? I always knew that in most cases we could. But became the no guy in the industry. I was just saying No, no, no. And people would say, why? this is the price of the compound on the market, surely it's more than what you're earning.

[00:34:54] Ilan: and I would say, listen, I go back to what I learned best at Koch, the importance of focus and prioritization. for me, it was critical to scale the manufacturing side of our business and to get the technology to a level of maturity. That ultimately we had the confidence to be able to scale it, to develop consistently, predictably, with that blueprint to only then to say, okay. Now we're ready to open it up because we've mastered the technology. We've got the level of maturity that we can, basically do and deliver what we say we can do. so that's really now the process. and today I deal with, a really interesting deal flow of compounds.

[00:35:35] Ilan: I tell you, my job every week I'm seeing. Opportunities and it's, weighing up. What life-changing compound do we want to go after? 'cause at the end of the day, there's only so much, r and d resource. Obviously we can flex up a lot on the r and d side, but we've gotta build this in a methodical way.

[00:35:52] Ilan: so we've made very, very strategic choices. the choice of partnering with Tate and Lyle in the context of the next generation of non-nutritive sweeten net. To me, this is a life changing compound. we know the challenges Look at the American population, sedentary lifestyle, basically too much sugar consumption.

[00:36:09] Ilan: Wow. Can you imagine if we come up with a non GMO non-nutritive sweetener, that has a great taste because we magnified the important, molecules, which are really good and we suppress some of the stuff that makes stevia a little bit more challenging for many people. If we can get that compound to market, it'll change the whole food system.

[00:36:29] Karl: Yeah,

[00:36:30] Ilan: it'll many aspects of people's overall, health and wellness

[00:36:34] Erum: Yeah, that's interesting. We've been looking at, Sugar Alternatives. we spoke with, Ellie Wing of Uli. They're looking at the Sweet Protein, and I'm sure if you've heard of that. But I'm, curious, in regards to your entry into sweeteners, was this something that. Came because the partner reached out to you?

[00:36:48] Erum: Or did you have this in your, in r and d? And is there a certain plant that inspired this compound? if that's ip I totally get it, but,

[00:36:56] Ilan: Yeah. Yeah. I.

[00:36:57] Erum: yeah. Okay. Great. you.

[00:37:03] Ilan: So, we were introduced to Titan and Lyle. They're an amazing company through mutual, let's call it a mutual friend, mutual partner. we had the opportunity to really spend quality time with an amazing management team and, Really inspiring, leadership that are so focused on doing what's right from an overall sustainability and, making sure that we just preserve all the critical resources in the world.

[00:37:27] Ilan: And a couple things. They had, and they have a really strong science-based organization that had done lot of investigation the last 10 to 15 years. And they had identified some plants with very high levels of sweet proteins, that could be the next generation of non-nutritive sweetener, but they didn't have the technology.

[00:37:47] Ilan: That was able to be the bridge between those plants and, bringing those compounds in a scalable way to be able to democratize, for the broader food and beverage system. once they understood our technology, they understood our scale, they understood our maturity, they understood the intricacies of how the technology worked.

[00:38:06] Ilan: They realized that, Maybe they had found the bridge, that critical bridge that they'd been looking for. And hence we forged the partnership. I can tell you that, we recently sourced that plant, and for the last week and a half, 10 days, our r and d team had been working like crazy.

[00:38:22] Ilan: On doing the initial stages of our, propriety tissue culture stage. there's a lot of excitement and belief around it because it's so important tho those secrets, They lie out there in the plant kingdom. that's the challenge that we have to utilize our technology to unlock those secrets that ultimately we've been given.

[00:38:39] Ilan: depending on, whether you believe in God or you believe in, other theories, there are 500,000 plants out there that each inside them that contains such unique. Phyto medicinal compounds that are so important for our overall health and wellness. It's just up to us now as human beings to find ways to responsibly access that treasure that lies inside those plants.

[00:39:00] Ilan: that's where our technology really fits a critical sweet spot right now

[00:39:04] Erum: No pun

[00:39:05] Erum: intended.

[00:39:05] Karl: yeah. No, thanks for putting it that way Alana. I think that was beautifully put. , we're getting close to the hour, so I wanna make sure we are able to get two more questions in here. , one of the things that we talk a lot about on, Grow, everything is biomanufacturing and how biology is really an infrastructure layer.

[00:39:23] Karl: It's not just a source of products. Even though I totally agree with what you just said, there's so much biological knowledge out there we just don't have, and thinking about you coming from Coca-Cola, you're now bio harvests. for us the vision is. Eventually you partner with, Coke and every Coke manufacturing facility has a bio harvests facility next to it either producing a sweetener or key ingredients, for their products.

[00:39:46] Karl: How do you envision bio harvests contributing to that shift where Biomanufacturing becomes just as fundamental as any other kind of manufacturing or even industrial, agriculture.

[00:39:56] Ilan: Wow, this is the billion dollar question, right? And.

[00:40:02] Karl: Trillion. let's just straight billings. Nothing anymore.

[00:40:05] Ilan: can put bs, capital Bs, T, you can a profanities before it, which we won't about on, a podcast. But, this is, I think where, my belief as a CEO, and as a father, and as somebody who's deep in the spiritual stage of my career, I go to bed at night.

[00:40:22] Ilan: And I close my eyes and I say, Ellan, you've got a gift from God in your hands. Don't mess it up. I'll explain to you why. Because the vision of putting bio harvest plants, multiple plants on every continent in the world. Is ultimately in our master plan and we built a master plan for our company, which in the next few months I'll share with our investor base with three phases. At the end of phase three of that master plan, there will be basically biological manufacturing plans that you talked about, Kyle, we will have multiple of them Across all continents, partnering with, biggest pharmaceutical companies, biological therapeutic solution companies all the way through to nutrition companies. what's critical is economic rationalism. this is where biotech unfortunately, has not been able to conquer the heel.

[00:41:17] Ilan: Where biotech has normally just fallen flat on its whatever, this is the reason why. Go back to the beginning of this podcast, when I invested in this company, was probably one of the top three reasons why I invested in this company and why I had such belief in this technology. And I'm going to articulate it and help you understand it in the following way. About one and a half kilometers. You guys thinking miles. So I don't know, like three quarters of a mile. from where I am right now is our existing facility, which is a 25 ton facility annual tonnage. We built that facility for 5 million US dollars. That facility today at full capacity, based on what we generate with a direct to consumer business from our vineyard let's say, we generate around about $2,800 a kilo.

[00:42:09] Ilan: So it's about 60 to $70 million of revenue, 5 million one-time CapEx generates 60 to $70 million of revenue on an annual basis. That is software economics in

[00:42:24] Ilan: biotech. Okay. We are gonna build a hundred ton facility where I am right now, one and a half kilometers, 0.7 of a mile from our existing 25 ton facility.

[00:42:34] Ilan: So we are four Xing it. That facility will cost us. Right now we're busy finalizing the conceptual design about to move into detailed engineering design work. It should be up and running in phase one of that facility in 12 months time. That facility all in will cost us about $17 million to produce a facility that can generate, and I'm keeping it at, consistent, comparison.

[00:43:00] Ilan: If you take $2,800 a kilo, it's $280 million. And a facility that costs $17 million one time CapEx at full capacity, that facility can generate $280 million of revenue a year. And you're still, this is really important. We're still able to democratize the compound and get the compound in people's hands on less than a dollar a day, a capsule.

[00:43:22] Ilan: Okay. You pay $6 for Starbucks coffee when I was in New York last week plus tax. Okay. This is where we call ourselves fast and efficient biotech, and this is a critical pivot that all of us in the biotech world have to figure out is how do we scale our technology from a CapEx perspective to be able to generate the kind of return on CapEx, return on assets that makes sense for the industry.

[00:43:54] Ilan: In a way that you're still able to democratize the output that you're producing for the world. This is the holy grail of rational economics of how we can really start to execute on that vision of biological manufacturing plants all around the world. Being able to have the positive impacts of all those technologies really landing in the hands of consumers in Africa, consumers in South America, consumers in, Western and eastern Europe.

[00:44:26] Ilan: This is what the critical challenge is, and this is what excites me most about our technology. really anchors into the vision of the company. Where we have this amazing relationship between CapEx and production and the economic rationalism is there it's also creates a virtuous cycle because the investor world is willing to get behind it.

[00:44:50] Ilan: And then importantly, and it goes back to what we talked about, sustainability is at the core ultimately when you can do this in an effective way. That you're able to realize carbon credits, biodiversity credits,

[00:45:05] Ilan: and all of a sudden you build a flywheel for the business that really precipitates that virtuous cycle and allows you to build more and more and give more and more, and democratize more and more, and really start to change the world.

[00:45:19] Ilan: And then tying back to longevity. These are life changing compounds that ultimately from the food we eat to even the makeup we put up on our skins, the next generation of, basically topical solutions all the way to pharma indications, we can really make the world a better place. We can really do it.

[00:45:38] Ilan: that's why I go to sleep at night saying we can do it, but we gotta climb Mount Everest and back another 10 times, but we can do it. probably the last thing I'll leave you with. The reason why I can wake up in the morning energized, this is the gift as well, which is not normal in a biotech business.

[00:45:54] Ilan: I have the gift of a direct to consumer business and every day I'll get 50 to 60 reviews. as CEO of this company, I read, every single review comes into my inbox.

[00:46:06] Ilan: It's not exhausting, it's inspiring. ' cause when you're lying at bed at night, exhausted after a challenging day, I just go in and I read the reviews and everybody can go to vineyard.com, read the reviews.

[00:46:17] Ilan: We have more than eight and a half thousand reviews and just read what people say about how I compound. Our red grape cell vinia compound is changing their lives. This is what you have the inspiration every single morning just to get up and do it again, so that we can create really a legacy.

[00:46:32] Ilan: A legacy for the world. And this is what our harvest, DNA is

[00:46:36] Ilan: all

[00:46:36] Erum: That's amazing. I'm gonna be a subscriber. You're a great salesperson. I mean, if you can hook us up with a primo code for our people, that'd be great too. I have to ask, last question is, do you get high on your supply? I mean, are you taking

[00:46:50] Ilan: I'll be really open. I take two every single day. for the last five years, it's totally changed my life in many respects. specifically on the brain fog side. I used to be one of those people that, today they call it decision fog.

[00:47:03] Karl: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:05] Ilan: and I used to wake up by 11 o'clock 11 o'clock and three coffees I could start to

[00:47:10] Ilan: function. now I have the opposite pro problem here. I'll get up in the morning at four o'clock to go to the bathroom and drive my wife crazy. I'll check my phone. 'cause I can open up the phone and I'll see WhatsApps as a business, we follow the sign with people all around the world and invariably there's work to do.

[00:47:26] Ilan: And then I'm, in bed sitting on my phone working and I'm I'm sharp, I'm sharp. that's really the power of

[00:47:34] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so Great. Add.

[00:47:38] Karl: Well, Ilan, thank you so much. this has been an inspiring, incredible interview. I knew when I met you last year that we were gonna have a good interview. This exceeded my expectations, a thousand fold. so thank you so much for taking the

[00:47:52] Karl: time.

[00:47:53] Karl: We

[00:47:53] Karl: really

[00:47:53] Ilan: Well, thank you. guys touched on points that, help bring out the best in me and after a long day here in Israel, I appreciate that and I really enjoyed the dialogue.

[00:48:03] Karl: Yeah, we have to have you back on after the next facility gets built and we talk about this distributed biomanufacturing, we definitely wanna keep talking to you about it because you guys have it nailed in a way that we haven't heard anybody talk about it yet.

[00:48:15] Ilan: Thank you. Appreciate all your support.