This Webull webinar provides an overview of eXoZymes’ AI-enhanced, cell-free biomanufacturing platform and its ability to manufacture rare natural molecules at industrial scale.

EXOZ Chief Commercial Officer Damien Perriman highlights NCT as the company’s lead proof-of-concept, reviews successful preclinical and manufacturing milestones, and outlines a dual commercialization strategy combining near-term nutraceutical revenues with longer-term pharmaceutical development.

The presentation also discusses the platform’s broader applicability to additional molecule classes, including cannabinoids, upcoming commercialization milestones, and eXoZymes’ strategy to build a repeatable, capital-efficient engine for developing multiple high-value products.

Video transcript

Good afternoon and welcome to day two of the biotech sector investment webinar brought to you by Weebull's Corporate Connect service. Next we'll hear from exozymes, ticker EXOZ, a pioneer of AI-enhanced enzymes that can transform sustainable feedstock into nutraceuticals and new medicines.

And now I'd like to introduce Damian Perriman, Chief Commercial Officer. Damian Perriman, Chief Commercial Officer at Exozymes. I'd like to take a little time here today walking you through our story, where we're at, where we're going.

And really it starts in nature. For us, we see nature as a place where some of the most powerful molecules in biology have already been created. The problem though with these molecules has never been in understanding their value, it's been in accessing them.

At Exozymes, we've sold for that access. We are unlocking nature's molecules through a new way of manufacturing. And just to frame this up front, this is not a single product story. So as we go through this, I'd encourage you to think about what happens when scarcity is no longer the constraint.

This is a standard forward-looking disclaimer. I'll keep moving and go back to this point of nature has engineered extraordinary molecules that regulate both metabolism, inflammation, aging, and even more.

But two barriers have kept these molecules locked away. First, scarcity. Many of these very interesting molecules exist in trace amounts. And second is complexity. They're just too hard to synthesize.

These constraints have been one of the quiet bottlenecks of biotech. So even though we know these molecules work, we couldn't bring them into real-world use because they simply weren't manufacturable.

That gap between discovery and manufacturing is what we're closing. We can now make and scale nature's rare molecules at industrial scale, at pharmaceutical purity, and we can even improve upon those molecules for additional features or maybe additional targeting.

This isn't just manufacturing for natural products. It's a platform for creating entirely new molecules that can be patented and developed as drugs in addition to their natural application. And importantly, these three capability areas come together to change the economics, which is the ROI driver.

When you combine scalable supply, purity, and the ability to engineer analogues, we can move from a one-off product model to a repeatable innovation engine. That's what allows us to think about multiple revenue streams from the same underlying system.

Synthetic biology has tried to do this, tried to turn cells into factories for making molecules, but they really struggled to achieve scale. To put this in perspective, cells have been evolved to survive, not to manufacture.

When we use whole cells, we're inheriting all of that biological noise and inefficiency to the true objective of what you're using them for, which is the production of material. At Exozymes, we took a different approach.

We removed the cell entirely. Let me give some verbal color. Back at UCLA over a decade ago, our team's founders came together and asked the question, what if we pull enzymes out of a cell and run them on their own without all of the cells problems? They proved this worked in peer-reviewed work.

Engineered cells had become a boulevard of broken dreams on Wall Street, and Exozymes found a way to navigate around this problem. By isolating just the enzymes, we removed all of those competing pathways, those toxicity constraints, the regulatory complexity inside a cell.

Now we engineer them with AI to get the best possible version of these enzymes. We run them outside of the cell, and we produce just the molecules we want cleanly and at scale. The result is a much more controllable system.

Instead of a biological production system, it behaves more like precision chemistry, yet inspired by biology's very own best catalysts. This is cell-free biomanufacturing. Our first proof point is a molecule called N-trans-caphyl-tyramine, NCT.

It targets metabolism at the root level. By activating a master control switch inside the cells known as HNF4-alpha. It is fundamentally different from GLP-1 drugs. GLP-1s reduce appetite, whereas NCT and its activation of HNF4-alpha improves mitochondrial biogenesis and mitochondrial activity, essentially improving how the body burns fat.

So instead of an approach about managing symptoms like appetite, we're targeting a deeper layer of metabolic dysfunction. And that's particularly relevant right now because in the GLP-1 era, investors, pharma, and the nutraceutical markets are already looking for complementary or even next generation mechanisms.

This has been demonstrated in controlled preclinical models. With identical diets, we saw 30 to 40% less reduction in weight gain in the mouse population. And to just put these numbers into context, 30 to 40% changes in weight dynamics in these controlled models.

It's a very meaningful and exciting step for the biology. Other observations include improved mitochondrial function and significant liver fat reduction. But importantly, what we're seeing is multidimensional effects through activating HNF4-alpha.

We see mitochondrial function, we're seeing fat metabolism, and we're seeing liver health. That's consistent with hitting a central regulatory pathway rather than a single downstream effect. And that's why we believe this is relevant across multiple indications, not just weight, but metabolic disease more broadly.

The key point here is this isn't about restricting calories. It's about changing metabolism. But this only matters if it scales. And we've also proven that. We've been doing that in the last year, we ran 100 liter pilot scale, achieved a 99% conversion of raw material to target product with a 99.6% purity.

And most importantly to the process de-risking is we accomplished this at a third party, where we had tech transferred our process, our operating conditions, our enzyme cascades, and they were able to run it using our instructions and run it successfully.

So this is not a theoretical process, it's an operational process. And from an investor standpoint, this is a critical inflection point. Many technologies work in the lab, but many also fail at scale.

What we've demonstrated here is that the system translates from concept to industrial conditions. And that's what turns this from a science into a viable business. We have two clear paths towards monetization.

First, near term revenue. Nutraceutical products launched through multiple channels, including direct to consumer formulated ingredients, as well as through partners to be formulated into their own systems.

Second, the pharmaceutical upside. Using our engineering tools to make modifications to the naturally occurring version of NCT, we can derive new molecules targeted towards desired indications, creating a pipeline of preclinical candidates and licensing potential into the drug pipelines.

This dual path model is very intentional. The nutraceutical pathway allows us to generate early revenue for the business, build the supply chains, validate the real demand in the marketplace, but also validate the real supply chain and operations.

All of that is leverageable as we look to the pharmaceutical path where we can capture a much larger long term value. So we're not focused to choose. So we're not forced to choose between speed versus upside.

We're building towards both simultaneously. The nutraceutical market alone is over $680 billion a day, growing towards a trillion. But most of the products you would see there don't have strong biology behind them.

This market is shifting from marketing driven, though, to efficacy driven. Consumers, regulators, partners, and even the role of AI in informing people what ingredients they should be adding to their stack.

They are all increasingly demanding products that demonstrate biological impact. And this creates, we believe, a unique opening for something like NCT, which is grounded in mechanistic biology rather than being a trend based ingredient or a new trend based formulation.

Based on where we are in our commercialization journey, we're approximately six, so 12 to 16 months from key commercial milestones, including scaled production and locked in offtake agreements. NCT is just the start.

We can take natural molecules, we can engineer improved versions, and we can turn them into drugs. This is a very familiar playbook to pharma. Natural molecules establish the biological relevance, and then engineered analogues capture that upside value.

What's different here is speed. Because we control the manufacturing platform, we can iterate on analogues much, much faster than traditional chemistry can. NCT is our first proof point. Cannabinoids are the second.

Cannabinoid receptors exist on nearly every cell in the body, which means they are relevant across metabolic, inflammatory, and neurological conditions. But similar to NCT, the problem has always been in access.

Cannabinoids are extremely difficult to isolate, although they only exist in trace amounts. At Exozymes, we are now producing rare cannabinoids, entirely new variants of cannabinoids cleanly and at larger scale.

These can be produced without intoxicating components, and they can be optimized towards specific therapeutic objectives. So this is not a single product company. It's a repeatable system for unlocking entire classes of molecules.

This is where the broader thesis becomes, in our mind, really clear. We're not dependent on one molecule or one market. Each new class, like cannabinoids, represents a new set of applications, new partners, new IP pathways, all built upon that core engine.

We have multiple catalysts ahead of us. These catalysts are largely controllable. They're really driven by execution now, manufacturing, partnerships, product development, rather than what I would call a binary set of scientific outcomes.

We've already demonstrated capital efficiency. This efficiency is structural. It comes from design. We're not running large clinical programs or building massive capex early in our journey. This means we can advance the business with relatively modest capital requirements and reach key inflection points without excessive dilution.

We raised $15 million at our IPO, and we announced just two days ago we had received another grant to support our cannabinoids-based platform, bringing our total grant funding to close to $20 million on top of that $15 million, and strong technical progress achieved with limited capital.

The capital we're raising now, we've already done a soft close towards that of about $6 million, and we're raising more in H2. And we see this as kind of a rare moment where we've got the technical demonstration of the platform working.

We have the first product that is de -risked and revenue is coming into view. And we believe we've crossed from science risk to execution risk. And that's where things get really, really exciting and value gets created.

As I leave you with three things, three reasons to engage now. First, massive and growing category. Second, near-term revenue. Third, this platform with multi-shots on goal and pharmaceutical upside. To us, it's a rare and exciting convergence.

If you step back, I think what makes this compelling is the alignment of timing. These large and growing markets, these validated biological targets, and now for the first time, a manufacturing capability to unlock many of those previously inaccessible yet highly desirable natural molecules.

So we view this as a transition point from demonstrating of works to scaling. We're inviting investors to participate at this inflection point. We welcome interest. And I would like to say thank you and be open to any questions that might arise.

Yeah, thank you, Damian. Very exciting updates. I do see that you received a few questions during the presentation that you can answer. You can find them at the bottom of your screen. Please read the question aloud before answering.

Excellent. I will need to shift into that screen view. So please bear with me one second while I do that. No worries. The first question that came through was how defensible is the intellectual properties surrounding enzyme engineering? We have a ton of patents around our methods for our AI inspired, but our sort of toolbox for engineering the enzymes to function as a pathway.

So it's not a single enzyme. So it's not a single enzyme function. It's the interactions of these enzymes to be a functioning pathway. We also have IP around the methods around controlling that enzyme function.

So sort of a lot of IP that we have locked in on methods of making these molecules. What milestone should we watch over the next 12 to 24 months to gauge commercialization progress? Excellent question.

The key milestone will be the announcement of our supply chain. So where are we manufacturing material? How much capacity we've been able to establish for fueling our market entry in 2027? Another key milestone will be who are the partners we're teaming up with on the market side to create those channels into sort of target consumer segments.

So I would list those sort of the two biggest milestones to be to be watching. How broad is the platform beyond your initial target applications? Being an enzyme pathway engineering business, we're looking at a massive number of molecules that we could go after.

NCT is the first. And I think the really important unlock here is in SynBio to develop a pathway to make a process. It typically took years and many, many, many tens of millions of dollars to accomplish.

We can do this now and we've demonstrated we can do it on NCT in months, 11 months and less than a million dollars. So our repeatable engine moves much faster than SynBio ever has. We've got NCT, we've got a couple of cannabinoids in the pipeline.

We've already got a fragrance compound that got some NIH support to go, say NSF support to go after. And we've got other compounds that are already in the proof of concept hopper to keep this opportunity generator engine turning.

Question here is how capital intensive is scaling the production as commercial demand increases? I've been fortunate in my career. I've scaled seven biological processes from idea into commercial deployment.

I've not seen anything like this before. Self free being a sort of a catalyst process, not a biological process means the number of partners, contract manufacturing partners available to us for scale up is very, very extensive.

We've already qualified 16 different CMO locations for manufacturing NCT and we're narrowing that down to select a few. Our actual process of making product is a normal reactor, right? There's nothing special about it.

It's the enzyme cascade that's special. So that means we get to access equipment very, very easily. So it's a capitalized approach to manufacturing. We don't have to build anything that's special or dedicated to the production process.

Another question came is I'm curious in your view, how do you transition from being viewed as an interesting tech platform to becoming a company with repeatable commercial revenue? Love this. I actually talked on this subject on a podcast that got published yesterday.

We have to shift into product focus, right? When we can talk about molecule led business cases and we can understand what the product can do for a consumer, for a market segment, you know, then we start to get judged by the milestones of that molecule rather than the repetition of the number of partners we have engaged around a platform.

So, you know, driving that business forward, NCT, demonstrating that our platform works for that target has been a really, really key unlock for how we can sort of talk to our investors and talk to our partners about what's possible.

And is this company really unlocking the pace and the speed that's game changing? Another question came in is what does success look like five years from now in terms of revenue mix and customer concentration? Well, five years from now, you know, our hope is NCT is global, that it's addressing consumer stacks for their supplement needs for both longevity or maybe even for weight control around the world.

We also want to see our next compound in the clinic developing, sorry, demonstrating wonderful efficacy, wonderful preclinical screening results. But we also want to see in five years, like another three compounds that are in different stages of commercial scale up or pre-marketing launch.

It's our objective as a business to be in a point where every 12 months we can spin off another molecule with an attractive market and sort of an attractive set of needs that are being addressed through that through that molecule.

Great. Thank you, Damien. That wraps up our Q&A. Thank you again for your time and presentation. Great. Appreciate it. Best wishes to everyone. For more information on ticker EXOZ, please visit their Corporate Connect page on the app.

That concludes day two of the biotech webinar. Please stay tuned for more upcoming Corporate Connect service investment webinars featuring a variety of sectors at www.weebill .com slash webinar or in the learn section of the Webull app.

Thank you for joining us and have a great rest of your day.

eXoZymes Safe Harbor
This content 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 content 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.

Webull: 'Biotech Sector' webinar by Damien Perriman