Fox Business: Interview with CEO Michael Heltzen

eXoZymes develops an enzyme technology for use in nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. It is replacing traditional chemical production with a method that uses common feedstocks like sugar and biomass combined with advanced enzymes engineered to work outside of living cells.

Joining me today at the New York Stock Exchange with more is Michael Heltzen, CEO of eXoZymes. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you so much. 

So first of all, tell me about the name exozymes and the equation that led you to this creation.

Yeah, absolutely. So as you said already, we use enzymes to do basically biosolutions that replaces a lot of the petrochemical ways of manufacturing chemicals today. And what makes us special is that we use the basically we are able to take enzymes that typically live inside of a cell and run them outside of cells.

And it gives us a lot of capabilities that otherwise are not available. So, 'en' -zyme means inside of cell. And 'zyme' you can think of as like the activator. So we have the activators outside of the cell.

And 'exo' means outside. And exozyme kind of came in as a natural way of expressing the scientific basis of what we're doing. And therefore, we basically coined it that term and also figured out that it would be a natural way of expressing the scientific basis of what we're doing. And therefore, we basically coined it that term and also figured out that it would be a good name for the company.

And that leads me to my next question is what exactly does exozymes do? 

Yep. So people have probably heard about enzymes from a something about they make something happen and basically think of it as like the chemical accelerators of chemistry.

So what we do is like we basically take the best of biology that typically lives inside of cells. And we use that as kind of an activator for how to make chemicals, but in a sustainable way. So basically, exozymes is our ability to take a row of enzymes.

We call them exozymes, but it is enzymes highly AI engineered to basically generate a sugar that it breaks down in small puzzle pieces and then builds it up to whatever chemical, when I say chemical. When I say chemical, it can be medicine and they can be like basically all the things that makes good life.

And that brings me to my next question. So what is the go to strategy for your company now? 

Yes. So we're basically commercializing this fundamental new technology by first doing what we think of as asset built. So basically, by joint ventures, where we team up with other people to take our technology and make new companies, we will probably also have spin-out companies. So basically taking a specific application of our technology in a specific market and bringing a whole new company out of that. And then especially with time, we will be a licensing company that allows other people to come license our technology and apply it in their specific market verticals. 

And for viewers out there who might not be familiar with the company or what you just mentioned, break it down for us for the layperson so they can understand where your company will be moving.

Yes. So our focus, especially in the beginning will be nutraceuticals that has pharmaceutical potential. What that means is basically nature have provided humankind with a lot of things over the years; decades. And we are basically taking things to typically isolate from somewhere in nature. And we then mass manufacture that in the sustainable way. 

So it means a number of the things that is added to food, or taking as supplements, that's the nutraceutical angle of it. So that's the first market. And we can go to market with that right away. But some of these compounds, if especially done with the purity grades that we can do, can actually become pharmaceuticals, basically drugs.

That's obviously a much longer journey with a FDA approval and partnerships via the clinical realities of that. And because they take longer and it takes often a partner for us, that's kind of why we talk about it as nutraceuticals with a pharmaceutical potential.

And I do want to ask you about the role artificial intelligence plays. We know whether we're talking about the financial services industry, healthcare, or biotech, that artificial intelligence is playing a part. So what about exozymes? 

Yeah, it's fascinating how there's a lot of convergence of a lot of different technologies happening right now. And I personally have had a career journey that started 20 years ago, where we started working with machine learning and other things like that.

So it comes relatively natural to us to look at the opportunities. What is very unique for us is that we are a biotechnology company that has a very, very potent angle on the AI, because we can generate very, very relevant data, and then train the models on that data, go back and say, now we have learned something about how we can optimize the enzyme, the exozyme, to have these new capabilities.

We can make these training models that are circular. That's very unique in biology, maybe not so unique in the rest of the AI space, where people can easily imagine a car that trains on the data they collect while it's driving.

We can do that where a lot of other people in AI applications, in biotech, they will only be able to basically take a data set and then make a prediction. And they kind of be stuck in that, but we can use the circular trainings, reinforcement training, and so forth to make better and better and better systems all the time.

Well, one familiar theme when it comes to AI is that it helps humans focus on the parts of their business that they want. So when it comes to your space, of course, there's a lot of competition in the landscape. So what do you think sets exozymes apart from the competition? 

So I think what is unique about us is that we can generate the relevant data on optimization much, much faster, much, much cheaper than anyone else. And I personally do believe that the AI race, especially in our sector, is actually not so much about who has the best algorithm. It's actually who has the most potent data, the cleanest signal-to-noise data, and who can generate it the fastest, because it's the learning cycles that actually brings us forward.

And finally, before I let you go, you're the CEO of the company. So what is your long-term vision for exozymes? 

Yeah, so if we dare to talk about like real long-term, so not putting a date on that, but what we fundamentally are unpacking here is a new way of making chemicals.

So if you want to translate that into more layman speech, it's a new generation of natural resources. And it's mind-blowing when you think about that petrochemicals and basically harvesting from nature are the two ways humankind have access to all the resources we have today.

We're introducing a third version of that, a bioengineered way of making all the things you think of as the modern life, but in a sustainable way. And that's what gets me up in the morning, fired up in the morning.

Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining me today, and thank you for sharing the story behind exozymes and for all of your insights. 

Forward-Looking Statements

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