As part of Nasdaq's 'Amplify Spotlight' series, CEO of eXoZymes, Michael Heltzen, recently sat down with Michael B. Spector from Nasdaq for a in-depth interview.
Interview transcript
Thank you for tuning in to this edition of NASDAQ Amplify's issuer spotlight, where we feature conversations with leaders from some of the world's most innovative and growth-oriented small cap companies.
Today, I'm joined by Michael Heltzen, Chief Executive Officer of NASDAQ-listed eXoZymes. Michael, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Can you start by telling us a little bit about eXoZymes and what you're working on? Yeah, absolutely.
So we are a company that basically builds biosolutions for very valuable natural products and the pharmaceutical versions of those natural products. So what does that mean exactly? Yep. My last chemistry class was like 10th grade.
Yep. So a lot of our audience are in MDs or PhDs, so if you could break it down in layman's terms. Let's unpack it a little bit. So basically, in nature, biochemistry is how all the chemicals that are used by the living organisms, being plants or humans or other things.
And that biochemistry is basically orchestrated by enzymes. So enzymes actually means in-side reaction. We are exozymes. We have built the first cell-free biomanufacturing platforms where we run these enzymes outside of the cell.
And you can think of it as like us building Superman versions of the enzymes. So the things that happens in nature that allows nature to produce all the different kind of small molecules that exist in nature, we can recreate that in steel tanks and bioreactors.
And what we start with is obviously the most valuable. So when someone in somewhere in nature has found something very, very valuable, but it's maybe like an extraordinary business opportunity other than they can't get hold of enough of it.
It's literally you would end up in a lot of these cases overharvesting nature if you try to get the supply. And we basically built the biosolutions for that. So this is different from traditional biotech approaches.
That is true. Biotech, as you know it from a pharmaceutical perspective, is either petrochemistry. That means it's oil or gas as the core starting point broken down into two fragments that people use as drugs.
Or it is something people have isolated from nature. We're kind of like a third way of making chemistry. So we basically take the best from nature, that is the enzymes, and we then optimize them so we can build small molecules.
So we have the same design controls as if it was chemistry, but it is actually biology inspired. Some people say we have taken biology out of biomanufacturing and replaced it with chemistry. The reality is it's chemistry that is basically enzyme based the way nature does it.
So it's basically a way of opening up the white space for what kind of things we can build. Maybe we should take an example of something concrete we're building because otherwise it becomes a little science-y.
Yeah. So our flagship product is a small molecule called NCT. NCT is a small molecule that basically boosts metabolism. That means burns fat, creates energy. That's a nice value proposition and resonates very well with this global conversation about obesity and weight loss and other basically things related to how we metabolize things.
So NCT is a tiny compound that, for example, is found in black pepper, but in tiny, tiny, tiny amounts. That means you would have to eat a room full or a house full worth of black pepper to have enough of one dose of NCT.
And that's obviously not practically possible. It's not financially possible. It's just not possible. So what we're doing... It's a lot of pepper. And the reality is that it's been enough that researchers have been able to isolate tiny bits of it or recreate it chemically, but like super expensive.
But they haven't had a way of getting to it. We've sat down, built a biosolution that basically works by us studying the DNA, in this case, the black pepper, that leads to these enzymes that basically starts with a feedstock inside of the cell.
Let's say it's sugar, breaks down from building blocks and builds it back up to NCT. That's how an enzymatic pathway works. We can sit down and apply our AI platform and say, what if we started thinking about optimization opportunities in each gene for each enzyme? And this is the way we turn them into these Superman versions of enzymes, the exosymes.
So think of it as brute forcing evolution. So evolution out in nature, that is one mutation per generation. And then over many, many, many generations and billions of years, you have evolution playing out.
We basically do that computationally in a week. Sit down and say, what are all the different combinations of genetic mutations optimizations that could lead to a better enzyme that in the end can lead to this better production pathway? And we are in a unique position to basically allow for not just theorizing those, but then also going to the lab and expressing them and see if it really works and creating that feedback loop that is a reinforcement or circular training system that allows us basically to learn from each guess.
Yes, this one was better. Good. We'll use that in optimization. No, this one didn't work. So the algorithm, the core algorithm, the last language model that does these guessing runs will then learn from that and be better next time.
Are there hurdles associated with scaling that machine learning model? So it's actually the more data and the higher quality data you have, the better. So it kind of like unlocks with a lot of data. And that's really one of the things we specialize in.
The ability to produce these enzymes via what we call cell-free methodologies allows us to generate much, much more data than other people typically have had access to. That's why we can basically run these simulations much, much faster, much cheaper than anyone else.
And therefore, it allows us to brute force evolution. And I would imagine that machine learning and your model accelerates the pace of innovation even more. Right. So do you see any issues with kind of balancing the speed of innovation with safety and the regulatory framework? So we fit under the normal regulatory framework.
So, for example, if we take a natural product molecule and we recreate it the same way it exists in nature, there is the ability to basically use these biosolutions to bring it to market as a natural product or as a new saceutical supplement, depending on kind of what you want to call it.
That's one regulatory path. But the same everybody else has to follow. And then when we start super optimizing on the small molecules, making them more potent, making them more focused on a specific disease, then that's the regulatory pathway of the FDA approval.
So we have a nutraceutical and a pharmaceutical double dip opportunity per molecule we work with. Because if we do the same thing as nature, it can lead to a pathway to getting over the counter. But especially when we optimize on the molecules so they become new to nature molecules, then obviously we do the safety testing.
How do you manage investor expectations while building something as complex as a new bioengineering platform? Yeah, that's a really good question. And I hope you are here to tell me about that. No, I'm kidding.
Managing the expectations comes from setting them right. So when we talk about NCT as a product, and especially now when we are starting to talk about spinning NCT out as an individual company, it becomes much easier to set the expectations around that spin out because it's a concrete market, it's a concrete product, and there's a concrete timeline to how that basically goes to market.
So it becomes a much simpler story to communicate. For the more sophisticated investor that maybe has a little bit longer term perspectives on their investments, that can see our technology breakthrough is very foundational, very opening a lot of doors in chemistry.
And that can lead to a lot of things over time. They may be better invested in our company directly by taking a longer position. So depending on the investor's profile, the expectations are basically set either in the more simple use cases or looking at us as a platform that can deliver these new bio solutions, either as licensing out opportunities or as spin out opportunities.
So talking about the long term. Yep. Five years down the line. What does success look like for Exozymes? Success is when we have taken positive advantage of this fundamental science breakthrough that our company has been built on and IPO'd on last year.
This reality of us being able to do chemistry in a new way is very, very foundational to who we are. And therefore, success equals when we have taken that fundamental breakthrough and applied it in a number of markets.
So five years from now, hopefully, we have spun out a handful of companies and all licensed out a handful of bio solutions that has very strong competitive advantages in those different markets that they will intend to.
I could feel your passion. Yes. When you talk about the company. So what keeps you passionate and excited about the work you're doing? At its core, this technology can allow for a future where we can do basically biomanufacturing and chemistry without all the negative side effects that you have on petrochemistry today.
So from the long-term perspective of being able to build sustainable abundance, that's a strong motivator. Like that's a solution for a lot of the problems that otherwise you hear a lot of people talk about the future as a dark place.
I see the future as a very bright place where there's a lot of new things, but there's also just access and enough for everybody. And that keeps me and the team super motivated that we have had a technology breakthrough that allows for a new way of doing chemistry without the side effects of what otherwise in manufacturing ends up as either overharvesting out in nature or petrochemistry and the pollution challenges that comes from that.
So we're here at NASDAQ Market Site in Times Square. You're obviously a NASDAQ-listed company. Yep. So what role have the public markets played in advancing your mission and what does NASDAQ represent to you? Yeah.
I think we're a little interesting from the perspective of having IPO'd really early on. Typically people, they have a scientific breakthrough. Then they go through a handful of years or longer as maybe a VC-funded company before they get to IPO.
But not that I need to educate you, but like back in the days, people would publicly list all the way to ideas, the railroads. There were people saying, hey, we have this idea of what if we build railroads over the country? Does people want to basically chip in, co-own that together with us? They hadn't even figured out the business model in the beginning when they raised that kind of money.
So the public venture model of being financed not by VC funds, but by the public markets is actually a relatively old tradition that just hasn't been used a lot. And we happen to be set up in a way where one of our co -founders is an investment bank called MDB Capital that basically specializes in finding very large technology breakthroughs out at the universities and then helping spinning them out as companies and bringing them all the way up to IPOs.
So we are basically taking an alternative financing route. And therefore, it's been very, very helpful for us as a company, also because it gives us a lot of publicity and people's interest and involvement that we otherwise wouldn't have had.
Now, we're certainly looking forward to watching you continue to grow and innovate as a Nasdaq-listed company. If you want to learn more about eXoZymes, they trade right here on Nasdaq under the symbol EXOZ.
Michael, thank you so much for being here with us. Come back and see us again. And thank you all for watching.
eXoZymes Safe Harbor
This video 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,” “potential,” 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 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.
