129. No Cells? No Problem! eXoZymes' Michael Heltzen on the Future of Microbe-Free Biotech

[00:00:03] Erum: Michael Hilton, welcome to the Grow Everything Podcast.

[00:00:07] Michael: Thank you so much. I'm excited.

[00:00:09] Erum: yeah. so happy that you're here. Unfortunately, Carl is not here. He had to travel, so it's just gonna be mano ano. So both of us are just gonna talk. I'm excited because I've learned a lot. I hung out with her boy Lasa in Copenhagen a few weeks ago.

[00:00:26] Erum: and you and I met for the first time at your bell ringing party before you guys IPO'ed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, which was super cool. Yeah. Yeah. We were at this penthouse, a beautiful skyline of New York, top of the world, so that was really cool experience. But I wanna talk about that.

[00:00:46] Erum: But before we go into that, let's. First set the stage. Okay. we talked a little bit about XYs in the intro, but, we wanna know a little bit about what you do and, for those that are unfamiliar, there's this concept of cell-free manufacturing and we wanna know why is it a significant develop in biotechnology and what does exosomes do?

[00:01:09] Michael: Yeah, thank you for the question and I'm excited about the topic here. So, one step back, just to put things into, context, so we are, like everybody else, super, super excited about The vision and the future of being able to bio manufacture resources. We, humankind need a new way of getting resources without depleting nature and without building everything on petrochemicals.

[00:01:34] Michael: So the shared vision of, growing everything really our heartbeat as well. As a company, when we got started as a project at UCLA in, the co-founders laboratory there, it was really a, student bio dream of a publication and wow, this is really fantastic potential, but also a realization of people look at each other and this is to the soul of our companies, like guys.

[00:01:59] Michael: This won't work at scale. This won't scale

[00:02:02] Michael: up. That means it's not gonna be real. It means it's not gonna have the impact. And if it doesn't have the impact, why are we doing it in the first place? And, we have some videos online that, lets our co-founders explain that. Aha. Moment. Halfway in frustration, halfway joking, halfway serious, saying like, okay guys, let's build the in somatic pathway that runs inside of the cell.

[00:02:21] Michael: Outside of the cell because fundamentally, , cells, they don't want to produce anything they don't need. And we also have to be honest with ourselves that a lot of the things we're asking ourselves to bio manufacture actually makes them sick or even die. So of course they're fighting, of course they're pushing back do what, uh, dictate they have to do and, also.

[00:02:43] Michael: Line of thought often we then end up with a, cell solution that, maybe produces the compound we wanted to produce, but the isolation cost, taking the, chemical out of this cell slurry that we have created is literally more expensive than the value of the compound itself from a business perspective.

[00:03:01] Michael: That's just dead in the water right there.

[00:03:03] Michael: We as an industry have been challenged by that and the guys took a step back and said what if you could just run the thing we really need? That is the in somatic pathway. The enzymes taking some starting point as sugar may be breaking it down to very specific molecules and putting those back together insanely, precisely only enzymes can do and if process.

[00:03:25] Michael: It would be more like chemistry than it would be biology. And with chemistry, we mean being in engineering level, control of every single thing that happens. And if something breaks, we can go in a mesh on it and go like, oh, the molecule pathway stop right here. So it's this enzyme that isn't doing.

[00:03:42] Michael: his job and therefore, that enzyme needs to be faster, better, or survive the conditions. And can we genetically engineer the enzyme, with evolutionary force that we calculate by ai, to not be that bottleneck, to survive that condition? can we basically recreate the enzymes but externally exo outside of the cell?

[00:04:03] Michael: so the exo are AI optimized enzymes that can survive on their own as a chemical reaction accelerator. and that's how we get the best of both world. So it's like chemistry, but without the petro and all the pollution and it's, the power of biology, of evolution, but sped up and, controlled.

[00:04:21] Michael: So that's, the core of the company and the core of the whole technology platform and, and why we often describe as a next generation of bio manufacturing.

[00:04:28] Erum: Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. thank you for that explanation. You did a great job of painting the picture and understand the struggle that happens when you're just using cells. So this term exosomes is very intriguing. So why introduce this new terminology and how does it help in communicating your technology's value to partners outside the synthetic biology sphere?

[00:04:50] Michael: Yeah, it was really a realization where we ran around, in Monrovia a little bit outside of, Pasadena here in LA where we were excited about the terms we were using cell-free biomanufacturing and, it was a very, very nice fit for what we were doing. Until we left the building.

[00:05:05] Michael: A, typical startup story, where you leave the building and then when you start speaking like that, everybody, else was like, yeah, I know what you're talking about, but it doesn't fit with why I know about cell-free. And we were like, oh, cell-free protein sensor.

[00:05:18] Michael: This is what people mean when they say cell-free.

[00:05:21] Michael: And in other circles, I come from the genomics background. When I say cell-free, we mean cell-free DNA. That is basically cancer biomarkers. So we were using words where people were Getting confused about what we actually meant. So we took a step back and said okay. Despite that we would've loved, nobody else used this.

[00:05:37] Michael: The word cell-free, that's just a little bit too good to be true. We need to take responsibility for the language we use, and we need to get to the core of what it is we do differently. So despite, we as a company also use cell-free proteins into this and therefore it can very easily be confusing. We took a step back.

[00:05:53] Michael: We had conversation with a lot of our. collaborators and people in the industry and said, guys, we need to clean up the language. People are not getting this. and we sat down and based on that, came up with, the cy. So instead of in si exoims that are the external, accelerators of the chemical reactions that enzymes can do so precisely.

[00:06:13] Erum: Okay. That makes a ton of sense. Thanks for sharing that and just this whole process. Being more efficient, taking this evolutionary developed process and taking it out of the cell used to do something else. But now we can make all sorts of things. And you recently made a big announcement at AYA Beta about a new spin out called.

[00:06:34] Erum: CTX that's producing nc. Can you tell us a little bit more about what NCT are, why it's such an important breakthrough, and what makes your platform uniquely positioned to produce it?

[00:06:47] Michael: Yes, absolutely. it's very exciting for us as a young company coming out with the first use case of our core technology, powered by exercise as we say. NCTX is a company we have spun out, around the business opportunity, around, NCTA. A small molecule found different places in nature, but for example, in, hemp seeds, but at very, very, very tiny amounts, literally trace amounts.

[00:07:12] Michael: So if, you want to have enough for a dose of anything, then you are ending up, taking down the rainforest scenario back to the depletion of the natural resources that doesn't fly. It doesn't fly commercially, and it's almost like a tease from nature. We have this compound that has.

[00:07:27] Michael: Incredible, capabilities and, potential from a, pharmaceutical perspective. and yet we can't reach it. So of course it becomes is this something we can build with syn bioo? we already know the pathway by sequencing. the natural way of producing this compound.

[00:07:43] Michael: And we can lift that genetic information out and say, now we know the code that codes for the enzymes. Let's lift that out. Let's make those enzymes happen. Let's sit down, reprogram those enzymes to remove the bottlenecks, make sure they can survive outside of the cell. All of these fancy things we do with our AI design platform and.

[00:08:05] Michael: to cut to the Chase N ct. Have in preclinical, work that have been done by other great people, not us, basically been proven to have, a effect of, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease that is a disease that, barely have any treatment options today. And it's a disease that is more than 30% of all people that has.

[00:08:27] Michael: it leads to the next stage of that disease that is the much worse, version of the disease where the liver literally stops working and breaking down. It is one of these diseases. We as a generation have gotten ourselves. Due to, basically how we live and, the obesity, challenge.

[00:08:44] Michael: So we get a lot of fat on the liver, and the liver doesn't know how to shed fat. So despite you lose fat, then you're still challenged. and in all cases, fat on the liver is, really a challenge because the liver is the organ in our body that takes everything and sorts it and Slowing down that recycling center is really bad for our system. so having a, unhealthy liver is a very easy thing to understand why that's bad and the ability to go in and. Have a small molecule that helps the liver shed that fat is just a enormous potential. So it has potential from a nutraceutical point of view and from a pharmaceutical point of view.

[00:09:26] Michael: and the difference between those two things is of course, both regulatory, thing, but also, nutraceuticals will, have to be like grass as safe In, the, more natural product version where over in the pharmaceutical side, we can make much, much higher purities.

[00:09:43] Michael: And specifically with our platform, we can make analogs. So we can take the natural compound and then we, with the enzymes can start building slightly different so that they have other pharmaceutical features. And this is basically what makes our platform unique is that we allow for new generation of small molecules where we, Design and engineer them instead of before a lot of small molecules was frankly just randomly made, put into a screening library, thrown against target and hope that it stuck. And then that one molecule that stuck on that day under those circumstances was then further developed on where this is much more of a design test, build, cycle.

[00:10:21] Michael: we can go over many, many times and understand. What do we need the molecule to look? Properties not binding target, but.

[00:10:33] Erum: That's incredible. I mean, I'm really just curious. I think we need to have you back on, just talk about the spin on, I wanna get back to EXOS because it's an entirely amazing platform. but. Just curious how you arrived at NCT. 'cause again, there's so much you can do with this platform.

[00:10:49] Erum: we would love to hear a story of how you arrived at NCTX.

[00:10:52] Michael: Yes. first of all, it's, one out many things we are gonna do ourselves and together with partner. So it's, just the first, but obviously it's not a random first. it lends itself very well to this fact that nature have allowed humankind to see the already.

[00:11:08] Michael: So there's a lot people. But then come to a point of but how do we actually get hold of it, physically get enough of it that it can turn into our products, that it can turn into something that makes impact. we looked at it and we were like, this is gonna be a good technology fit, but where the technology is today and over to this and especially this gearing of the natural product version, way it comes out in nature.

[00:11:34] Michael: That version, we can make very high purity that in itself is a value if that is the compound someone want to take to clinic. But we can also sit down and make these analogs and say, should we change some of the features of the molecule? So it, actually targets the specific indication disease.

[00:11:52] Michael: it's a molecule that have shown, we mentioned non-alcoholic fatty liver disease because it's. a huge unmet need, but there's actually a number of other things that the shown, beneficial for health and, other things. its core, we chose it because there's a lot of people that have shown an enormous interest in it but couldn't get to it. And that's what we see as our mission of unlocking these, , in somatic pathways that have gotten stuck inside of cells. People have been trying to do this via cell lines that have been trying to do this.

[00:12:21] Michael: Chemically via petrochemicals, and they're trying to isolate it in nature. We see our mission as coming in with a new way of orchestrating, biomanufacturing and soon bio and therefore liberating these enzymes from the cell, building them as exo science in the lung people to have access to the potential.

[00:12:39] Erum: Yeah, that's incredible. I definitely wanna talk about this orchestration of different partners working together, whether it's NCT or different compounds, but let's. Talk about the big elephant in the room. I know this has been talked about at SynBioBeta. a moderated panel about this topic, but it's about scaling and synthetic biology because that has been a common hurdle and probably because many people might be using just the cells.

[00:13:04] Erum: the. Could be for other companies that are using cell-free, but how does your exosomes platform address this challenge? do you foresee a future with distributed deployment of your technology?

[00:13:17] Michael: last question first. Yes, we definitely wanna empower the world with this core technology. So we wanna build buyer solutions for people together with people. So, when we, say powered by exercise, it's a reference to, the original intel inside. phrase was actually powered by Intel, and it's, literally that reference to come get a core solution and build your reality around it so it becomes the perfect fit for your market, your problem.

[00:13:45] Michael: So it becomes your competitive advantage. obviously like everybody else introducing something new, we want to show how it works and not just show up with a piece of technology waving that around, but showing how. the technology can be translated into a, competitive advantage, a buyer solution for specific, fields.

[00:14:04] Michael: we have a number of things coming up. It's so relieving for us to now be able to talk about at least the first ones, but we have more coming up Back to the dream. We were talking about the common dream of a new generation of natural resources for humankind. So there will be enough for everybody for us to get there.

[00:14:20] Michael: We need to get around the bottlenecks that, we, the sun bio industry have been caught up in. And you pointed out already scaling have been. The bottleneck and, you can be really PR and say like, well guys, if it only works in prototyping and academic paper levels, but it doesn't work at scale, is it then even real it like, a dream that doesn't have a chance to become reality all of a sudden becomes something negative?

[00:14:45] Michael: so getting really deep into why is it. we can get the cell to take in the DNA we insert into it, it expresses the enzymes, the enzyme pathway starts working inside of the cell. But there's so much in the cell over the, whole history of evolution, at least 3 billion years, that have been about.

[00:15:03] Michael: Be as efficient as possible. So it has all of these regulatory systems that ties to down-regulate or turn off anything it doesn't need. And we just have to accept the core thesis that despite the facilities, a fantastic development environment where we get a lot of support, all the, systems that are been running.

[00:15:20] Michael: That is not what those systems are there for. They're not there to service us the way we try it self-based and then having to accept that, take a step back and say like, okay, we actually need to take care of everything ourself if we want to be in this engineering level control where if something.

[00:15:35] Michael: changes. It's us doing it and it's not a living cell because a living cell will always be fighting for survival, will always be fighting for generating the next generation of itself. And that doesn't include what, we are making it do. And as we talked about, you then start ending up on these problems of, sick cells and, cells doing things.

[00:15:55] Michael: Literally, you are fighting your own platform at this point.

[00:15:58] Erum: Wow.

[00:15:58] Michael: you are right. it's been a conversation that have been uncomfortable, to some degree for us as an industry. But now at least we have a solution because, our technical co-founders, dove deeply into that.

[00:16:09] Michael: What does it actually take to run enzymes outside of the cell? And I'll be frank, you, the first time I heard about it, I was like, you can't do that. That's beer. There's no way that literally goes against everything I know. so I had a pretty strong reaction. but I've taken that back because they were thorough enough to sit down and say like, okay, what are the support systems, the energy, the cofactor, all the kind of support systems that needs to be in place?

[00:16:31] Michael: Let's rebuild them. So we are in engineering level control over every single thing that happens in our reaction. So there's no living matter. there's therefore nothing randomly happening. If something breaks down, it's either us that got the recipe wrong or it's a box from the perspective, not a living book, but in the code of us coding the enzyme.

[00:16:53] Michael: it also lends itself very well to my personal journey career wise, where I started in bioinformatics and basically, Have seen the generations of better and better engineering level control. We have gotten ourselves say, this is the newest generation of AI and design and us using knowledge.

[00:17:11] Michael: And basically power, evolution to basically simulate evolution. Okay. Now we know what it's gonna take genetically to get to this point where the enzyme can do what it couldn't do outside of the cell because it will fall apart, or it couldn't take the heat, or it couldn't. Work without a cofactor available.

[00:17:28] Michael: And it's like, okay, let's be in control of the, cofactor recycling. So we recycle, we have enzymes taking care of the enzymes. We have enzymes regenerating the cofactors. it's complex technology, again, it's just, the natural version. But with engineering and level control.

[00:17:45] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. And I can imagine like, traditional fermentation or even precision fermentation is often, produced in batches. does your sulf free manufacturing, have a continuous manufacturing capability?

[00:17:58] Michael: It depends on compound we're making. But yes, it's, much easier to make continuous, but we frankly, often get so high titers that we don't really need to go in that direction. Continuous manufacturing is typically, if you go in the direction of trying to make it cheaper, precision.

[00:18:15] Michael: Manufacturing, how precise can it be when it's literally alive and it's literally fighting. I really respect all the people working really, really hard out there. But when people get to the point where they start realizing they can liberate the somatic pathway from all of that by taking it outside of the cell and reconstituting that as something where they just take decisions and then doesn't change again because there's nothing.

[00:18:38] Michael: There's nothing alive there. it's just chemical reactions with the power of nature.

[00:18:42] Erum: I love that paying attention to the words and you said, you have the responsibility of the language and precision, is it really precision when you have other technologies that could be even more precise? I appreciate that you're being very thoughtful, especially for us at Messaging Lab.

[00:18:58] Erum: You're all about words and messages, so, I really appreciate that.

[00:19:01] Michael: just to double click on that, the whole sure. it's the name we put on the company, but that's actually more recognizing that's the kind of BioSolutions we build. The word exercise we have not trademarked it is for everybody to use. We have, released a peer reviewed, open, publication on it.

[00:19:19] Michael: together with all our partners. people are, are, are. Say exosomes as a way of saying cell-free biomanufacturing,

[00:19:28] Michael: and confused with cell-free proteins into this. That is also a fantastic, technology that is really good at prototyping. but again, at scale really, taps up.

[00:19:37] Michael: so, exosome is for the scaling part.

[00:19:39] Erum: Right, right. And can you just paint. Vague is your manufacturing capability, cause, we talk a lot about distributed manufacturing here on the Grow Everything podcast. And if Carl was here and tapping into my inner Carl and he would talk about modularization of factories and putting them next to maybe more downstream processing, if required.

[00:20:01] Michael: I can almost hear his voice as well, so, uh, yes. no, do listen to your, podcast. so let's, address that question from Kyle, uh, that we're proxying here. let's, start with being a bit humble here. Uh, we address. The smaller, in volume business opportunities first, because despite what I've just said about scale, this is not easy.

[00:20:24] Michael: This is not straightforward. if you start talking about some of the biggest use cases that I hope and foresee out in the future, , and I'll exemplify this. So what we are working on first here is the nutraceuticals that also have pharmaceutical potential. Some of the partnerships we are negotiating and, co-developing on there will be a world market that doesn't need more than maybe some kilograms of, API, the active component of the pharmaceutical ingredient, and that's easy.

[00:20:53] Michael: we can do that in our current lab. we run up hundred and we get A kilo of active, pharmaceutical ingredient

[00:21:02] Michael: out that,

[00:21:02] Erum: good.

[00:21:04] Michael: it is, but it's a drop in a, if we start talking about sustainable aviation fuel.

[00:21:08] Erum: Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:10] Michael: so let's take that example because we happen to have a project where the DOE came in and said, you have.

[00:21:16] Michael: Such a different technology platform that dot where the cells doesn't get sick. where you're not really battling the whole, sickness and isolation challenge as cell-based platform has. and there are basically, we wanna make a tribunal that is the precursor for sustainable aviation fuel.

[00:21:33] Michael: but the problem is that. Because that molecule is so high, energy density, turns toxic for the cells. So we are killing our own platform. We can't isolate it without, it costs more like the whole thing we've talked about a couple of times now and they basically came and said like, would you mind, trying to boot up your system?

[00:21:49] Michael: Doing that. we have some significant grants on that from the DOE and the D now, pushing that forward. But the reality is that for that to. A, big impact on that market, just a aviation fuel. We are talking about Super tank after Super Tank after super Tanger that needs to be sent off, worth of product.

[00:22:08] Michael: And that's unfortunately not next week because that is something that has to be built up in many, many levels and just the amount of steel in the ground and. Capital bound to that, CapEx investment and all of that, getting the price point. show that someday it'll be the same price or cheaper than petrochemical.

[00:22:28] Michael: That's just a long journey. so we do start with scaling with the low hanging fruits, and, that's why it's nutraceuticals with pharmaceutical potential. That is our focus first, but as a platform. I don't think there's a lot of things we couldn't envision ourself. building bio solutions for if there's the right partner and it's the right time and the maturity of the technology have come through, to the states where we can make it cheap, fast.

[00:22:53] Michael: Good enough.

[00:22:54] Erum: Right. Yes. And we talked a bit about manufacturing steel in the ground, a lot of hardware. Let's talk a little bit more about the software, your platform leverages AI engineered enzymes operating outside living cells. So can you delve into how your AI approach generates data and trains machine learning algorithms and accelerates development?

[00:23:14] Michael: Yes. know it sounds so complex and that's because it is. I'll therefore, describe it, more, layman accessible way. There will be a of my, scientists at home that will be ready to, uh. have a strong conversation with me. It's like, that's not exactly

[00:23:30] Michael: but me, if you want to dive into the details, I can geek out on this.

[00:23:33] Michael: I'm so passionate about it. But I also know when I start doing that, where people hang up and basically there'll be another podcast they'll rather listen to. So let's dive.

[00:23:42] Erum: Yes.

[00:23:43] Michael: What is amazing is this. development of algorithms, since I started, professionally, with the first startup we had, there was a bioinformatics startup where we did what we call machine learning back then, but it's, the same thing, just more mature algorithms now.

[00:24:01] Michael: It's basically pattern recognition. So can we study the data? See a pattern, lift that pattern out, make it an algorithm, and then rerun that and make a better prediction. And especially if we have a circular system that we call reinforcement training where when we change something, we predict it, it should be better.

[00:24:20] Michael: Then if it's better, then we have learned something. But also if it's worse, then we have learned something than steer in the other direction. , Tesla or other ev with self-driving is driving itself is by every single, input. It tests the output. Do I get rewarded? Did I do well or did I do poorly?

[00:24:38] Michael: that's how you, train algorithms. So how do you connect that to anything, like enzymes, typically, and I'm one of the guys that tried to apply these things to genomics and other things, it becomes really, really difficult because that learning cycle is so long and there's literally so much, noise in the data collection back to the steering mechanism that it falls apart.

[00:24:59] Michael: What's beautiful about genetic engineering. Changing one nucleotide at a time with, enzymes is that one change leads to one feature change. So we can relatively fast make that circle with that circle in place, we can then start training the system. so we can basically one change.

[00:25:19] Michael: What did we learn from that? To make that circle fast. People have, been doing this for a number of years. They were doing it with, crispr. They were doing it with, big sequencing instruments. We have just a much more, nimble system.

[00:25:32] Erum: to take a step back, just see precise. the way we engineer enzymes with AI is basically by taking advantage of that, when we change one nucleotide, one base pair, then we can really quickly see did that improve or make worse what the enzyme is supposed to be doing.

[00:25:53] Michael: and we just do that circle. Really quick, actually start by simulating it because there's enough data, we have been able to train. The algorithms to have a sense of what will be the right one. So we start with something called a ERO shot, where we just

[00:26:06] Michael: take like the hundred thousand best simulations of what it should look like, then press that in the lab.

[00:26:13] Michael: We test those versions of, the enzyme or against what supposed to do under the constitution. It's supposed to do it. And then we just the, that's how. Popular set like a million years of evolution in a day,

[00:26:29] Erum: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:30] Michael: and I'm pulling out, that's a day, not a month, and not a quarter because we have systems that are just much, much faster than what anyone else have had access to ever.

[00:26:40] Michael: that's where, it's both the power of the AI engines, we are firing up and. fast and cheap data generation that is much more signal than noise than anyone else. That's why we are able to push evolution much further than anyone else.

[00:26:55] Erum: Yeah. so data generation, a part of, a high throughput wet lab experiments.

[00:27:01] Michael: Yes.

[00:27:01] Erum: Of course, of course.

[00:27:02] Michael: it's taking advantage of that, we don't need to express the enzymes inside of a cell. So cell-free protein sensor, this style, insights to how we can do these things. it's literally fantastic from a, technology nerd perspective that I, live in this.

[00:27:20] Michael: Biology is technology. Technology is biology. Well, this is the purest form of that Ordering it with, nucleotides being synthesized really quick, really cheap compared to what we had access to five and 10 years ago. insert it in systems that are not alive and we see the enzymes we get to sit there and optimize.

[00:27:42] Michael: And then when we have figured out evolutionary style, but simulation style, then we lift that knowledge out and we go out and we put it up in the big system and it becomes a big chemical reaction.

[00:27:52] Erum: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we all live in a simulation, so totally understand that. Yes, I definitely am a bot right now. I'm just kidding now. so yes, we know speed is a game changer your AI power development process reduces production timelines, right?

[00:28:13] Erum: so how does this acceleration impact the types of partnerships you can form?

[00:28:18] Erum: Well, the NCT project is a really good example of that from the idea and the first people showing interest in it to that we were holding it in our hand in the lab because we'd made it, what was counted in weeks, right? a 10th of what a normal cell-based, system. if not less than that. And, in weeks, not months, not years. it just speeds up everything a lot. then when you especially feed that into that, it's so much faster in the booting up, but it also goes into a, scalability, system afterwards. then just makes everything much more, Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about speed, we talked about 10th of the cost, which is, checking off all the boxes when it comes to business. Yes. Yep. Yep. And so you have this commercialization strategy includes spin out, joint ventures, possibility licensing deals. So how does this approach facilitate multiple market entry simultaneously, and what types of partners are you prioritizing?

[00:29:25] Michael: So, obviously like any other technology we have the current technology, we're already working on the next generation it's actually the different tools that mix up the technology stack where we pushing each of the tools forward. We will talk about bio click a little bit later, for example.

[00:29:40] Michael: and then, how does that all fit with people's here now needs. Especially because there's a lot of people that have burn their fingers on just give me $10 million and I'll back to you in three to five years with something that works. And then when the day came, there was nothing to show for it.

[00:29:55] Michael: And that's been disappointing for people. Very.

[00:29:59] Michael: so having things where it's tangible much faster, is what we're looking for. And, that's why it's the new with pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical. potentials that, we are honing in on first because there's so many things that natural products have already been kind of tried out, maybe even all the way through parts of the clinic, but then gotten stuck in sure, we could make a little bit of it.

[00:30:23] Michael: We could maybe even test it on patients. It has a fantastic potential. We can't make it in real scale, Got in stock there. Those are the projects that deserves to be released from their bottlenecks first. those are the ones we are prioritizing in partnerships and in self development.

[00:30:40] Erum: Right. so you're looking for companies that are making nutraceuticals and perhaps would use NCT to formulate it within in one of their products.

[00:30:50] Michael: so that's, a segment definitely. And those are people we're talking to. what some of them find interesting is that, they may have, if it's a true nutraceutical that's like, this is the compound. Found nature. We want the exact same compound. Then it's a conversation about how.

[00:31:05] Michael: Much how fast and at what price point can it be made and does it live up to the expectations? And frankly, because we're still a small company, we can't just work together with everybody. Does it live up to our very high bar of being one of these extraordinary. going first business opportunities.

[00:31:21] Michael: does it have to wait a little bit until we get our capacities, booted up? so that's the one perspective, but the pharmaceutical potential is really intriguing because there's a lot of things nature have already solved from giving us access to compounds, but they may be not potent enough. Or they maybe not, pure enough or they maybe not. pick your side effect, pick your problem, pick your bottleneck. And we can literally sit down and say like, okay. for example, with bio click, that's a tool where we can sit down and say, for each of the enzymes that breaks the starting point down and builds it up, those are not random.

[00:31:57] Michael: we can be, specific in how things are put together. That's a level of. how we build the small molecules, a level of, control that humankind have not had before. The power of enzymes, but in human design control. And that means we can make these analogs off the compounds.

[00:32:14] Michael: so That's very much where our conversations as well, because it just has an amazing opportunity for biotech and pharma companies to sit down and say, we have a small molecule that is good enough, but there's a hair and soup of some kind. and we can basically like, let's make that soup, but without the problem, without the hair.

[00:32:32] Michael: that is everything from making the compound more potent. either, metabolize faster or metabolize slower or all the different things you can do when you, small molecule engineer that is something, petrochemical, medicinal chemists have been doing for a long, long time, but they have never had access to the kind of precision we offer.

[00:32:51] Michael: that's really where we are starting, that's where we'll see the most impact, fastest.

[00:32:55] Erum: Wow. Yeah. So we double clipped on buy a click, but buy a click is, available for, subscribers to use or are you using it for your clients? how can people interface with it?

[00:33:07] Michael: to start with. Bio Click is a tool we developed for ourselves, we have even just gotten a grant to take it to the next generation of that tool. for the, fellow nerds out there that are like we put out a fair bit of information on it, so go to our work page.

[00:33:21] Michael: You can read about it. I won't take it up here, but it's an amazing example of the kind of precision that is now available to humankind when it comes to engineering enzymes and engineering, specifically using the enzymes to engineer the small molecules.

[00:33:35] Erum: Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah.

[00:33:37] Michael: It is mind blowing. offering in the partnerships.

[00:33:42] Michael: It's something that, can and, most likely will be opened up for later on down the road. Right now it is still complex technology and we are wrapping our, fat fingers around the small, steering mechanisms still. , it'll get so much better just within the next couple of years.

[00:33:57] Michael: And that's probably, it's more relevant to start talking about releasing it.

[00:34:01] Erum: Okay. Yeah, yeah. We'll, we'll put a link in the show notes about it so people can double click on bio click. I feel like I'm so clever saying that, but it's not that cool. What was that? Yeah. Yes, that's right. Yeah. I'm spiting some words. , So let's talk a little bit about life after the IPO. So how has access to public markets influenced your ability to orchestrate partnerships with larger companies compared to when you were previously funded?

[00:34:32] Michael: what fundamentally have changed is we now, , by being listed on Nasdaq, have access to kinds of capital we didn't have access to before. And that means we much more serious conversations about being able to gear things up. So when we sit in front of, a partner that is maybe literally a million times bigger than we are. That's maybe not the exact number always, but they're much bigger organizations. we can still be taken serious because we can go out and, not just build technology that water not seen before with all the opportunities and competitive advantages that can bring, but we can also come with the capital ourselves.

[00:35:09] Michael: So, The negotiation power, has changed, but also not from a, like we win over others. It's more like they can actually happen at all. That we can stand behind our own technology bring it forward. And to echo and CT again. that's a good example. the ability to be taken serious when we go out and spin out a whole nother company is, because we are a public company, we.

[00:35:32] Erum: Yes, that's true. You guys are in the big leagues. There's so many exciting things that are happening today. But looking ahead, Are there specific commercial partnership announcements that are on the way? Any joint ventures that we should anticipate? Anything that we should keep our ears for later this year?

[00:35:49] Michael: You should definitely keep your ears out for us. But when that said, as you just pointed out, in our public company, so, I need to make sure everybody gets exactly the same information, at the same time. So, can't talk too much about the future and what we're gonna do when that said we've already, Promise that this year would be the year where we started, showing some of the applications of the platform. And as you know, NCT is, the first step of that. that there will be more this year. will it be, one more thing or more than that? that's exciting?

[00:36:23] Michael: not just for input force as well. it depends on the negotiation with our partners and, some other, things that basically is, again, throughput scaling. How many people can we work with at the same time? does our partners. even wanna, be public about that they're working on it.

[00:36:39] Michael: Maybe they would like to surprise their competitors in their specific markets, in regards to what they're working on. And that limits how early we can talk about things.

[00:36:48] Erum: Oh yeah. That's cool because that was a test question, so you succeeded. I was was just testing you to see if you would answer it, and so everyone, he passed the test. He stayed true to the public markets and his shareholders. Congratulations.

[00:37:03] Michael: Yeah, I, do my best. the SEC is keeping a, a good eye on, guys like myself. and I also, it's important that we as an industry now, realize that we, in this. States of we can't just be toying around with prototypes and, versions and being real. It's just like this is real business now.

[00:37:24] Michael: It's, therefore serious. And as a public market, CEOI, I take it very serious that I know there's a lot of people out there that is, investing us and then, supporting us that way. And, from that perspective, Fair playing rules, but also delivering on what we say. I'll be less, over promising, it'll be all about we want to on.

[00:37:46] Erum: Yes. Yeah, that's great. We'll see that hockey stick shaping up for everyone. I'm very excited for you guys as NCT. Sounds amazing. Can't wait to see that. Get into the market, get into the hands of the people. and excited for the future of the pharmaceutical world, especially 'cause there's so many.

[00:38:04] Erum: Medicinal properties in so many plants that are out there that are just living in a plant and there's all this research. If we just get our hands on it and then we can produce it using exosomes, it's going to be a great future for us. So, I wanna take this time to thank you, Michael for coming on the Gring podcast.

[00:38:22] Erum: This has been very illuminating. I'm very excited for you, LASA and the team, everyone there, Alejandra special shout out to you, son of Carl. but thank you so much.

[00:38:32] Michael: Yes. Thank you so much.