This is a brand new EXOZ investor presentation by Chris Marlett, Chairman of the Board at eXoZymes.
eXoZymes’ May 2026 investor presentation outlines the company’s vision for transforming chemical manufacturing through AI-enhanced enzymes that operate outside living cells - exozymes - enabling scalable, sustainable, and highly efficient production of valuable molecules. The presentation highlights the company’s focused commercial strategy around nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, cannabinoids, and natural products, while emphasizing its capital-light business model built on spin-outs, joint ventures, and licensing partnerships. With growing external validation, including successful large-scale tech transfer results, eXoZymes positions itself at the forefront of the emerging cell-free biomanufacturing revolution.
Video transcript
All right, great. So, when we started thinking about the company, we had received many grants over the years to pursue various projects, including biofuels and other initiatives that ultimately led us here.
The good news is that those grants enabled us to go after natural molecules—compounds with tremendous promise that people hadn’t yet figured out how to manufacture or scale, or that couldn’t be effectively unlocked through extraction and purification from nature.
Nature’s molecules have not only been tested anecdotally in humans for eons, but they’ve also been extensively characterized and pursued through pharmaceutical and other rational development approaches based on that historical evidence. We have a wealth of information about how many of these molecules behave, but until now, we haven’t been able to access them at scale in most cases.
Nature has engineered these extraordinary molecules that modulate human biology. Today, whether we’re talking about the nutritional supplements already on the market or the many promising compounds that can’t yet be sold because they’re too rare in nature or too difficult to synthesize, the barrier has been manufacturing. Traditional medicinal chemistry and synthetic biology approaches have struggled to deliver them.
We are now proving that we can manufacture these molecules and scale them—something that was the original dream of synthetic biology but was never fully realized. While others using synbio have achieved only gram quantities, we are demonstrating production at ton scale.
A major advantage of our approach is exceptional purity. Our synthetic biology platform delivers real purity, which is critical not only for viability but also for cost-effectiveness. Even more exciting, once we can produce pure compounds, we can engineer them to create better, more potent, more bioavailable, and patentable analogs.
We take the enzymes that nature uses to make these molecules, engineer them to operate at industrial scale, and optimize for higher purity, better yields, and improved bioavailability. Engineered cells were the original dream of synthetic biology—they created billions in market value but also many broken dreams on Wall Street. The cell was a great concept, but the real work was being done by the enzymes inside. Once the reaction ran, you still had to clean up the mess, and the economics simply didn’t work at scale.
Our team, which started this journey over a decade ago, asked a different question: What if we could take those enzymes out of the cell and run them outside the cell? They demonstrated this successfully in peer-reviewed publications at lab scale. Then they went further—evolving and engineering those enzymes to dramatically improve economics and make industrial-scale production possible. What used to require years of R&D to engineer a new cell can now be achieved in weeks or months by evolving the enzymes themselves. We’ve done exactly that, achieving greater than 99% purity and the tonnage needed to build significant markets.
If you had this capability, what would be your first molecule? Focus has been critical for us because we need to scale manufacturing. After careful consideration, we chose NCT (nicotinamide mononucleotide or related NAD+ precursor pathway activator—often referred to as NMN/NR context, but here NCT). Not only did we quickly demonstrate we could make it, but we recognized it has the potential to be one of the largest molecules of all time.
We see NCT as a master metabolic switch that activates pathways ramping up mitochondrial metabolism of fats and energy production. It addresses the root cause of how the body stores and burns fat. There is compelling early clinical data, and we believe NCT can follow a playbook that succeeds both as a major nutraceutical and as a pharmaceutical product.
The literature shows clear metabolic benefits. In models of fatty liver disease—the kind many overweight individuals experience—NCT-treated subjects look metabolically like those on a starvation diet. This is foundational to obesity, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, aging, and inflammation. The combined addressable markets are in the hundreds of billions of dollars if it translates to humans as we expect.
Right now, we believe we are the only group that can produce high-purity NCT at scale. Others have tried inside cells or with medicinal chemistry without success. We’ve transferred the technology to a third-party CMO, and they’ve successfully scaled it from lab to commercial levels.
Our strategy is straightforward: scale manufacturing and partner aggressively. We’re in discussions with contract manufacturers and have received bids. We’re also engaging nutraceutical companies looking for the next big innovation. We already have early GRAS certification at lower doses and will pursue full GRAS status as a natural substance to enter the market quickly. We’re also engineering more potent, more bioavailable analogs and have begun discussions with pharmaceutical companies seeking to differentiate or combine with GLP-1 agonists. There are roughly 30 GLP-1 programs in trials, and we believe we’re in a class by ourselves in the mitochondrial space.
The nutraceutical market is enormous and continues to grow. Very few products are backed by strong clinical data. We are 12–16 months from an OTC launch. We expect to be making the molecule at greater scale by the end of this year and on store shelves in 2027.
Pure NCT is our first product and potentially one of the biggest. But our toolkit applies to a wide range of natural substances that have never been scaled before.
Cannabinoids are next. Ironically, they were the first molecules we worked on. We demonstrated strong yields under grant funding. The excitement around cannabinoids comes from their ability to bind receptors present on virtually every cell in the body. This explains the broad anecdotal benefits—appetite stimulation, nausea relief, pain management, and more. GW Pharma’s journey with CBD proved the therapeutic potential, ultimately creating a billion-dollar drug sold for $7.5 billion. With our platform, we can bring pure, scalable cannabinoids to both nutraceutical and pharmaceutical markets far more efficiently.
We have a single platform powering two major platforms—NCT and cannabinoids—each validating the other and demonstrating scalability.
Near-term value-creating events include delivering scaled manufacturing through CMO partners and forming partnerships with large nutritional supplement companies. We are also actively pursuing pharma partnerships, particularly for our new-to-nature NCT analogs. We’ll follow the same path with cannabinoids, working with top experts in the space.
We’ve been very capital efficient. MDB originally seeded the company with about $6 million. We went public, raising $15 million, and have received approximately $17 million in grant funding. Our focus on molecules that can be scaled with contract manufacturers keeps us efficient. We are now raising $10–15 million, with the primary variable being the cost of the first large NCT scale-up batch (estimated $2–4 million).
Why Exozymes? Why now? We are focused on the largest markets in the world—metabolic health, anti-aging, and related areas. These molecules have demonstrated strong activity here. We expect to have a blockbuster pipeline of both nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products hitting the market next year. The world is about to realize that cell-free approaches are finally delivering on the long-promised dream of synthetic biology.
This offering also qualifies for Section 1202 QSBS benefits—please consult your tax advisor.
We’ve taken a deliberate leadership position in intellectual property from day one. While natural compounds themselves can be difficult to patent via composition of matter, our unique manufacturing methods are highly patentable. For analogs, we can secure strong composition-of-matter protection. We’re also building valuable IP around our engineered enzymes. This is very much a land-grab opportunity.
We’ve been covered in scientific and news publications, and we have additional major grants pending that will further strengthen our position. Third-party validation of our scaling success is another strong differentiator.
To understand the upside, consider the statin analogy. Red yeast rice (containing mevastatin) was already a $400 million nutraceutical product when pharma developed analogs like Mevacor, Zocor, Lipitor, Crestor, and others—creating hundreds of billions in sales. We see a similar path for NCT: owning the core molecule as a supplement while developing valuable pharmaceutical analogs.
We’ve built an AI-powered dashboard that accelerates enzyme evolution dramatically, collapsing development timelines. While others will eventually use AI, being first with a decade of cell-free expertise gives us a significant advantage.
We were the ones crazy enough to pursue cell-free synthetic biology when others said it couldn’t be done. It took a decade to solve the enzyme supply and application challenges, but we are now the clear leader. If you want to invest in cell-free synbio and biomanufacturing, we believe we are the company to back.
And there’s more. Our platform also works for terpenes, flavonoids, and many other classes of natural compounds. The potential is enormous.
Internally, we track progress through four key partnership tracks:
That’s our story. Thank you.
eXoZymes' safe harbor
This video presentation includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and describe the company’s future plans, strategies and expectations, can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terms such as “believe,” “expect,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “could,” “seek,” “intend,” “plan,” “goal,” “project,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” “strategy,” “future,” “likely” or other comparable terms, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this video presentation regarding the company’s strategies, prospects, financial condition, operations, costs, plans and objectives are forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially for a variety of reasons. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described in the “Risk Factors” section of eXoZymes’ quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, annual reports on Form 10-K, and other documents filed by eXoZymes from time to time by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings identify and address important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and eXoZymes assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. eXoZymes does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations.