N-trans-caffeoyltyramine (NCT) is a natural product compound attracting considerable interest from researchers and drug developers for its potential role in healthy liver fat metabolism, gut barrier function, and mitochondrial activity.
eXoZymes used its AI-driven development platform to progress from idea to purpose-built subsidiary in less than 3 months and at a fraction of normal SynBio R&D cost.
NCTx is scaling up an exozyme biosolution to overcome a longstanding bottleneck in sourcing the NCT compound from nature, where it occurs only in trace amounts.
Interesting pre-clinical data point towards Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) that affects more than 30% of the global population.
Only NCTx can make both the natural product NCT, and a range of very interesting new-to-nature analog versions, expanding the pharma potential.
NCT is the first of more “powered by eXoZymes” natural product nutraceuticals, that also have the potential to become pharmaceuticals.

San José, CA -- May 6, 2025 – Today at the yearly SynBioBeta conference, eXoZymes Inc. (NASDAQ: EXOZ) (“eXoZymes”) - a pioneer of AI-engineered enzymes that can transform sustainable feedstock into nutraceuticals, medicines, and other essential chemicals - announced the formation of ‘NCTx, LLC’ (NCTx), a purpose-built subsidiary company focused on the development and production of N-trans-caffeoyltyramine - a very rare, plant-derived compound with emerging relevance in the areas of metabolic health, gut integrity, and liver function.

Complete video transcript below.

To date, NCT has not been available at commercially viable qualities and quantities. Naturally found in quantities less than 0.014% per hemp seed, its commercial use has been severely limited despite its immense potential. Using eXoZymes’ AI-driven exozymes platform, NCTx has a new and proprietary approach – subject to a patent application - to biomanufacture NCT with all the scale-up advantages of an exozyme biosolution.

CEO of eXoZymes and interim CEO of NCTx, Michael Heltzen, states, "To me, the 'x' in NCTx represents all the new-to-nature analogs of NCT that only exozymes can unlock via BioClick and other proprietary tools in our ‘enzymes x AI’ tech stack. With time, this could start a new gold rush era for AI designed and engineered small molecules in pharma, as our platform has the potential to revisit most existing natural product compounds and drug targets with the promise of producing new as well as better analogs and derivatives, with new therapeutic potential and features. The potential upside here is multiple billion dollar markets, so needless to say we're very enthusiastic about the prospects of this next generation of small molecule engineering and biomanufacturing."

Chief Commercial Officer at eXoZymes, Damien Perriman, adds, "Launching NCTx, is a milestone in going from idea to demonstrated target – a breakthrough in speed for bio-manufacturing innovation. Proof of concept was completed in 6 weeks and the subsidiary assembled in 12 weeks – a speed of development I have not seen before in synthetic biology. And it's not just a lucky one-off instance, as we have repeated the study 25 times to validate our proprietary exozyme biosolution to produce NCT. With this proof of concept in hand, we are well positioned to advance through scale-up and start providing samples for our future nutraceutical and pharmaceutical partners.

Demand for bioactive ingredients in functional food is a $216 bn market and yearly growing at 7.6% CAGR globally.

NCT has attracted growing interest from researchers for its potential role in supporting healthy liver fat metabolism, gut barrier function, and mitochondrial activity—all of which are associated with broader metabolic and inflammatory processes. Preclinical studies have shown:

For more information, please go to nctx.one or see video interviews here.

About eXoZymes
Founded in 2019, the company has developed a biomanufacturing platform that - as a historic first - offers the tools and insights to design, engineer, control and optimize nature’s own natural processes to produce chemical compounds, enabling the company’s partners to replace traditional petro-chemical production methods with a new commercially scalable, sustainable, and eco-friendly alternative: exozymes.

Exozymes are advanced enzymes enhanced through AI and bioengineering to thrive in a bioreactor outside of living cells. Exozymes can replace toxic petrochemical processes and inefficient biochemical extraction with sustainable and scalable biosolutions that transform biomass into essential chemicals, medicines, and biofuels.

By freeing enzyme-driven chemical reactions from the limitations imposed by cells, exozyme biosolutions eliminate the scaling bottleneck that has hampered commercial success in the synthetic biology (SynBio) space, making exozymes the next generation of biomanufacturing.

While the company, eXoZymes Inc., has introduced “exozymes” as a scientific concept, they are not trademarking the concept, as they view it as a new nomenclature for wide adoption for this next generation of biomanufacturing that eXoZymes aims to pioneer and be the market leader of.

Video transcript
G'day from San Jose. We couldn't be more delighted to be here at this gathering of the best and brightest in synthetic biology to share what's happening with eXoZymes. I have been looking forward to this day to announce that the first spin-out company is happening.

We are spinning out NCTx, a company focusing on the small molecule called NCT. eXoZymes' strategy is nutraceuticals that has pharmaceutical potential. NCTx is a perfect example of our strategy of taking a small molecule natural compound and turning it into an exozyme biosolution that allows people to have access to a compound that otherwise was very difficult or impossible to manufacture.

We are announcing that we're developing a target NCT, N-trans-caffeoyltyramine, and the spin-out of our company called NCTx for the purposes of continuing the commercialization of this wonderful ingredient. N-trans-caffeoyltyramine has already been shown in various research papers to have positive effects against fatty liver metabolism, gut barrier function, and mitochondrial health. Giving us that inspiration that this is an ingredient that will have real-world applications in food, nutrition, where consumers want to eat healthier, and nutrition, where consumers want to be able to eat healthier, but also in pharmaceuticals.

And there's another element here where AI comes into play, is because we're not just designing the process to meet the quality and volume needs of these two markets, but we're also designing analogs around NCT to offer our clinical development partners even further diversity to work with, to find molecules that may have even improved function against those future application areas they want to meet.

With this exciting development, bringing our company to the first commercialization opportunity of our core technology, we're also starting to look for partners. Partners that would like to work on NCT together with us, but also partners that by looking at the NCT business opportunity, realizes that they know of a small molecule, a natural compound that they would like to bring to market.

What really, really impresses me is how quickly the team has been able to move from idea to proof of concept in about six weeks, and then coming together with conviction that this is a target we really want to commercialize, and moving into a spin-out in a matter of 12 weeks. This is the conviction pin that our industry needs to be able to move with expediency and urgency towards meeting the demands of our future markets with the technology in our hands today.

When we look at the potential of NCT and how fast, how cheap and precise we have been able to build that, we get very excited about the many other things we will build together with partners over the coming years. Once again, we're super excited to be here and to be sharing this story with the world, with our colleagues in the world of SynBioBeta.

eXoZymes Safe Harbor

This press release 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 press release 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.

eXoZymes launches subsidiary, NCTx, to unlock a promising compound for gut and liver health