Revolutionizing drug development and production with exozymes

We are revolutionizing the development and production of pharmaceutical-grade cannabinoids (CN) by using exozymes. Our platform leverages nature's own catalysts—enzymes—to produce compounds that target the human CB1 and CB2 receptors within the biological endocannabinoid system (ECS).

Combining the specificity of biology with the diversity of chemistry

Our approach to drug development and manufacturing is innovative. Traditional medicinal chemistry uses chemistry to increase diversity, resulting in libraries of compounds.

Currently there is no bio-based approach to make small molecule diversity quickly. The biology approach utilizing plants is slow and, while specific, plagued by contaminants, while the medicinal chemistry approach can be nonspecific and requires extensive screening.

By using exozymes, we bridge these worlds, combining the specificity of biology with the diversity of chemistry. Exozymes allow us to create a focused yet diverse array of small molecules quickly.

Pharma grade cannabinoids ready for GMP

Our platform harnesses the power of exozymes for next-generation synthesis from milligram to kilogram. Our chemistry is optimized for efficient, scalable production in a GMP environment.

While traditional methods often require harsh reagents and costly purification, our exozyme biosolutions processes run in a single pot under mild conditions, reducing energy consumption and minimizing waste.

This enables us to deliver rapid and cost-effective syntheses of complex molecules, all while maintaining the highest regulatory standards for quality and safety.

Enabling fast and specific access to both rare and new-to-nature cannabinoids

The approach pioneered by us enables fast and specific access to both rare and common CNs produced in the plant. The approach is based on production of a single common intermediate molecule, which can then be cyclized by a specifc enzyme to give different cannabinoids.

Also, not only can we enable access to the cannabinoids the plant already makes, but we can further diversify the CNs produced (e.g. CN analogs) simply by changing our inputs to make new-to-nature cannabinoids. These new-to-nature CNs are based on the same core scaffold but have different atoms or cyclization patterns at specific positions, making them reminiscent of the common and rare CNs - but are actually different.

The current status of cannabinoid drug development

The traditional process for developing compounds derived from the cannabis plant, typically involves breeding to make or specifically overproduce the CN natural product desired. However, the process of breeding is lengthy and still produces mixtures of 100s of compounds, making isolation of specific CNs challenging.

Additionally, the yield of rare CNs that are found naturally in the cannabis plant that display unique and intriguing pharmaceutical potential is miniscule, making it a very labor intensive and ineffective way of producing these rare compounds. An alternative method to plants that has been popular over the past half-decade is to engineer a cell (e.g. yeast or bacteria) to make a specific CN. However, in the case of engineering cells, to make each different CN requires a different engineering project, typically resulting in one cell, one product, and difficult, long, and unpredictable development times.

While synthetic chemistry is an option to produce some CNs, the complexity of the molecule(s) in addition to lengthy synthetic routes makes production and isolation expensive in addition to requiring new routes for each new molecule, similar to the situation with cell-based engineering.

Developing new compounds: From years to months

Using exozymes for CN synthesis makes the process very fast, as we can mix and match the inputs and/or enzymes to create virtually whatever we want very quickly. A project to develop a new compound takes months compared to years with other methods, because the iterations are considerably faster.

And while the traditional approach might produce 10 to 20 compounds, we can produce up to a thousand, similar to a medicinal chemistry approach but with more specifity and control. Additionally, our system's cleanliness simplifies downstream processing, making it easy to isolate compounds quickly.

Unlike fermentation or chemistry, which requires optimizing feasibility and scale-up conditions separately, with our approach the same system used to screen for a given CN is the same used to scale. As a result, our enzyme based method allows us to break the traditional development timeline, reducing it from years to months.