Welcome to the newsletter. This time we are going to do a slightly longer version than the other times. I will take the creative freedom to sit down and have conversations with my own teammates, dig a little bit deeper into some of the things that I'm passionate about, that we as a team are putting a lot of effort into to basically make the best version of our company, make the most progress without overspending in that. So welcome to the newsletter and today we will be covering a conversation with Tyler, our Chief Scientific Officer and Damien, our Chief Commercial Officer. But it is a newsletter, so let's just take the latest news as well. We were lucky to be covered by Vanity Fair and got a really cool story coming out of that. If you haven't seen it yet, go to our web page and you can find it there under news. And we've gotten a lot of positive feedback on the conversation I had with Lou Bassanise. Lou and I, we have known each other for a while. Lou knows our company well and has been, for that reason, able to ask some really good questions and we got a really good dialogue going there. So if you haven't seen that interview, that's basically the same place. And in December, we basically hit this 100x scale up milestone for NCT that is both impressive on that project itself, but also because the capabilities we are developing as a company are basically growing up so that we can do that over and over again. And keep an eye out for more news on that. We will be sharing that a little bit later in January. So now we get to dive into the science together with you, Tyler. So thank you for taking time to come and basically review the year that passed and talk a little bit about what we're excited about coming up. Why don't we just start with a general question of like, if you were to describe where our technology platform was in the beginning of this year versus now, what are some of the things that could kind of be explored a little? You know, it seems like it's been a significant jump forward. It seems like where we were at the beginning of the year was three years ago, actually. We've made so much progress. And so I think not only have we added additional capabilities, we've demonstrated that we can do things much faster. We've grown up a little bit. We've matured some of our processes, not just on the technology side, but as an organization. And I think we're getting a lot closer and a lot better to being able to translate those initial developments into, you know, successful stories in terms of product development. Yeah. Very cool. The year kind of started with, actually, the year started with a local fire here that a lot of people heard about. I know you personally could observe fire from your garden. Yeah. And without us spending too much time on it, can you just give a sense of how it was for us to be kick-started with a fire? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not necessarily the way that you want to start the year, but I think we came through it. And even though, you know, yes, in that moment looking up and seeing those flames coming, I think looking back, you know, a week later and taking, assessing kind of what the damage was and seeing how the team came together, it was fantastic. You know, I think minimal impact on kind of how we were running aside from, you know, a delay of a week or two. But yeah, we came through. Yeah, exactly. And we have built an even more robust system now if we should ever get into similar challenges in the future. Absolutely. So as one of the co-founders, I was wondering how is it going with getting used to our new name? So I think it's been less of a transition for me as compared to others. I know Paul slips up a little bit. When I first heard 'exozymes' - I think I told Lasse (VP of Comms) - shoot, I wish I had thought of it because it's much easier to say. And I think it's a much better description of kind of what we're doing. Yeah. So I think it's been a fantastic change. And it gives a really nice reference to the inside being inside and the Exo being outside. And that is an easy way of explaining how we are basically taking a technology step forward. So I really like it too. I had a lot of fun going to New York and ringing the bell. That was a unique experience. Yeah, I think it's something special. Also, I got to bring my daughter. And so to see her, you know, she doesn't really know what I do or why I spend, you know, so many long hours outside of the home. And it's like it's great to be able to share that with her and for her to see, you know, the hard work in action and the success of that. Yeah, that was a good trip. And we had a lot of help with the IPO and we got to celebrate those people that helped us out there. Takes a village. Absolutely. And the whole MDB community rallied around us and made that happen. It was definitely interesting to raise money for an IPO where everybody, a number of people at least, kept saying like, are you sure you want an IPO in a year where everything seems to be just cut down the second they are introduced? And well, so far so good. We have done well. Let's go a little bit further into the year. And so also relatively early in the year, we got a grant for what we call BioClick, the BioClick project. That is actually a very important technology element to what we are building. I don't think we've had a good chance to kind of dive into how that works and why we are so happy that we got that grant. Yeah, you know, I think it's a testament to the hard work and the quality of the team that we have. That was led by John and Adrian primarily. And we're really excited about it because it not only allows us to leverage the enzyme engineering and the AI aspect of being able to design enzymes faster, but it brings a new capability in being able to modify small molecules to allow them to be better options for new medicines, new types of wellness molecules, that kind of thing. So the faster that we can modify these small molecules and the faster that we can then engineer the enzymes using AI to develop those catalysts to make them. Yeah, we're really excited about the potential for that. Yeah, I can remember when John a couple of times pointed out to me that chemists, they will look at enzymes and go like, that's just pure magic, that thing right there. Like that makes no sense. So for us to kind of capture the gene in the bottle and make a, this is something that can be reproducibly used in chemistry and in building new analogs of the small molecules. That is really a big part of what opens up this opportunity to have a new pharmaceutical gameplay and be the only people that can do that. So new pharmaceutical using the inspired by nature natural product as a, if we can deliver that product, there's in a number of cases probably a route to supplements or other use cases that is a fast to market. But then making these unique versions of that natural product that we maybe already know a lot about because people have been working with that molecule, just haven't been able to get a hold of enough of it. And now we can start customizing. Tell us a little bit about some of the things we hope to do in general without any specific product. But what is it we are hoping to do with these modifications? Yeah, so I think, you know, BioClick is a really good example of that. It allows us to do what's called a group transfer, which is really make small changes to kind of a natural product scaffold. What that allows you to do is access natural product space that is existing but rare. But it also allows you to make new derivatives. And so as we think about this capability moving forward, it can be applied to not just NCT, but a wide breadth of other types of molecules that people either have tried to access in the past and failed. Or, you know, that could potentially be new molecules that could bring us new opportunities as well. So without mentioning any names, maybe I remember at least a couple of meetings where we have been meeting with pharma-based medicinal chemists. And they have been, let's call it for what it is, a little bit of disbelief that it's even possible and so on. Can you kind of share some of your experiences? Yeah, I think in the pharma space, you know, historically things have been limited to a couple different, when they use enzymes, it's only in a couple of specific examples. And I think usually it's, they really rely a lot on chemistry and the chemical approaches. And so this ability to now link multi-steps of enzymes together to build up complexity, to access chemical space that is difficult for them to access. I think it's, they see it not just as an opportunity, but it's something that they couldn't, they haven't been able to envision until now. And so I think the time is right for these self-free approaches to really make an impact, not just in biomanufacturing, but in pharma as well. Yeah. I really enjoyed the conversations where I could just read the negative body language of like, that can't be true. And then in the end of the meeting, having people like, do you understand? Then you can do this and then you can do this. And what can you do this, this, and this, that, that, that, uh, confirmational change to, to make a point here, uh, between the, the, the, the, the starting position of people's opinion to later. That's, that's just a super cool when that happens. Um, I wanted to chat a little bit about, uh, NCT. So, uh, maybe you've divided up in kind of like NCT in the beginning of the year, NCT halfway in the year, and then NCT in, in, in end of the year. Yeah. Yeah. You know, at the beginning of the year, I think NCT was one of these proof of concept, um, projects where we looked at the molecule and we looked at the, the enzymes and the pathway required and said, you know, we could, we could do that. Um, and it was kind of this question of, can we do it and how fast can we do it? Um, I think we answered both of those questions really quickly. Um, so I think that proof of concept happened as we had expected in a matter of weeks. And then I think it just goes to show you as we've grown through the year and, um, being more mature and, in developing these technologies, we went from proof of concept ID on a paper to, you know, a couple months later having multi-gram material to now, um, you know, in the past couple of weeks, having scaled that up to a significant amount of product, um, that we're really happy and excited about. And so I think it just demonstrates the, the speed and the power, which, you know, if you have a properly designed pathway and, and when it works, it's fantastic. So, so, so something I can definitely, uh, share was, uh, a, a big relief, uh, was like, I, I, I under, I understand that we have a technology that ought to work in the hands of other people. I have just with my startup experience and, uh, building other technologies before seen that sometimes when, when the core team that had built a technology, they hand it over to someone else, then it doesn't work that well. Yeah. Or it doesn't work at all. And like, then you have to go back and say like, what is it actually that is, is not a part of the technology protocol way of doing things that was not transferred, tech transferred the right way. And, and us seeing a very nice tech transfer over and seeing our technologies run in the hands of, of other people. That was something that made me proud, but it might also make you and, and the rest of the team pretty, uh, happy. It's excited. Yeah. I mean, it makes us, it's very satisfying when that happens. I think, um, again, it speaks to all the hard work of the team to make what, what most people look at as a complex process, but to make it simple enough that almost anybody can, you know, you can hand it off very easily. And so you don't need to know a lot about the process as long as the, the recipe and the directions are, are laid out and then it works. And so there's something very satisfying about that. I think we try and develop that into a lot of our processes, um, knowing that at some point we're going to have to transfer it outside of these walls. So somebody else is going to have to do it. And so having that be part of, you know, the design process just makes it easier when those opportunities come. Making sure that it's, it's, it's optimized here and then it's, it's put at scale where, where it is more of a, just maintaining the, um, the, the, the, the production. So that we, we, we kind of take the, the best of both worlds of not having to invest a ton in CapEx and investing in a lot of like buildup. There is a number of partners. That was also this year that really kind of like that started to crystallize that there's a number of people out there that can actually, uh, have capacity, the kind of capacity that we need to, uh, to manufacture. Yeah. And I think these successes just show how it's possible, right? Because, you know, what, what looks like a very complex process when you distill it down into simple unit ops that are, are cheaper, right? And faster in some cases. Yeah. I think now it opens their mind to like, okay, this is possible and this is a viable technology. So, uh, change, changing the topic a little bit, but it's, it's still kind of maps up to, for example, our work at, at NCT. We, uh, um, had a publication this year where we kind of defined, um, basically how exoscience is a, uh, a concept and, and how it works. Tell a little bit about, uh, that paper, how it basically was, was stood up by, by the team. And, uh, it, it became a cover story on, uh, where, where it was published. Yeah, biotechnology. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I think having this idea of cell-free and when we talk about cell-free, we've been dealing with this for, for not just the past year, but for many years. And so, you know, with that, it's a form of an aha moment saying like, let's, let's name ourselves what actually makes sense and describe it well. Um, and I think the team really got behind it and then we sat down and said, okay, well, let's define what we mean by cell-free biomanufacturing, um, and relating it to exoscience and what our, you know, what our goals are and how we go about thinking about problems. I think it's, it's a useful publication. I think it, it helps, um, not just kind of the scientific field to kind of even out what we're talking about, but I think it really helps set the stage for, you know, investors and the laymen to like, look at, oh, when we talk about cell-free or we talk about enzymes, like this is what it is. Right. And so it helps kind of clarify, you know, the, the mud that might've been out there. Exactly. And, and there's been, there's been a number of people that has been kind of like, hey, I want to understand this better. I want to do a deep dive. Then it's really cool to be able to turn around and deliver a publication like that. So, uh, uh, congrats to, to the team on, on also next to all the other things we have had going on, also delivering on, on a publication. It's, it's really amazing how, um, how productive they are in all fronts, you know, from, from the technical side and actually setting up experiments to, to writing manuscripts, to submitting provisional patents, to, to all of it. It is, um, it's incredible. So, um, we scaled up NCT. To scale up NCT, we needed a lot of enzyme compared to what we do when we do things in, in, in tiny, uh, volumes. So can you, can you talk a little bit about how, uh, Paul and the fermentation team basically have, have enabled us to, to make more enzymes relatively seen to where we were a year ago? Yeah. So, so part of that is, um, infrastructure. So we, we've purchased some amount of equipment that's allowed us to now scale a couple orders of magnitude, um, beyond, you know, what we were at the beginning of the year. So that, that's really helped. Um, some of it is the fantastic work of Paul and his team, Alexi, um, to really be able to utilize all that infrastructure to, um, make that protein production process much faster. Um, it's also, you know, Amy and kind of the rest of the, the whole operations team, like setting out the workflows. So that you're streamlining in this whole process from, you know, the enzyme discovery and figuring out, you know, does it express to then, okay, now I'm going to make a lot of it, um, to then power these larger scale reactions. And so it's really a testament to, um, again, the hard work and, and really the, the ability to, to, to, to grow. I mean, so I, I find it utterly fascinating how our technology platform is kind of bits and pieces of different, almost different kinds of sciences, at least different kinds of life sciences that, that are, are being built and then plucks in together. So maybe, um, maybe explain a little bit about how we use a combination of basically, uh, AI on the one side, how we use, um, basically cell-free protein synthesis. So expression of enzymes without putting DNA into a cell, like unpack that a little bit, uh, and, and how it all comes together in, in these building blocks that we use to build, uh, the, the bio solutions. Yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll start kind of high level and say, you know, when, when we think about science and the develop of development of technologies, um, it's really nice to, to utilize things that work and to not force different parts that, you know, can't do something to, to try and do something that they weren't designed to do. This is a little bit kind of the symbiote. And so we're taking pieces that work and putting them together. And so, you know, one of those pieces on the enzyme design side, um, is utilizing, how do you do things faster and more? Um, and how do you leverage, um, and how do you leverage all of the great developments, um, in the past, really in the past year, if not months, um, that are afforded by AI and all those algorithms. And so this is CFPS. This is that, that platform, um, to be able to now screen a lot more variants quickly. Um, but then to get the clean datasets and the high quality data that allows you to funnel it back into some AI algorithm to then learn from. Um, and so that's, that's, that's the potential of that technology. Um, that's why we're really excited about it. Um, and we'll continue to build that platform as well. It, it is where, when, when, when I translate this to, to some of our investors and partners that are non-scientists, um, but I still want to kind of, uh, spread the message of like how amazing it is that this technology is even possible. If, if, if you think about how evolution out of nature is like one generation, a mutation might lead to a benefit over time, that, um, that, that trait, that benefit would then become the, the prevailing one, the, the, the winning, uh, mutation, so to say. And then it will just take a lot of lifetimes for, for things to, to develop over time. We basically sit down and attempt to brute force evolution computationally. What are the mutations that could lead to an improvement? Um, can, can you, can you help people understand a little bit about why that's possible? And, um. Yeah, I think, you know, we're trying to turbocharge that process really to, to really reduce timescales. Um, I think also, you know, one of the limitations for, uh, historically with directed evolution is, you know, you're, you start with a particular point and you go up the mountain. Sometimes that path up the mountain is not the best one, right? Or maybe it's not the peak you actually want to get to and you don't know when you start along that path. And so what this approach allows us to do is take a wider, um, breadth of starting points and really learn from kind of those initial, like, kind of easier journeys up those paths. And then to, to really down select to, to what's the best way to actually do there and get to that, um, better protein variant, right? Enzyme variant. And so, um, it makes it both easier and faster, um, in the long run to design these catalysts, um, much better. So. So we, we definitely also standing on the, on the shoulder of giants, right? Like the, the, the cost of, of DNA, synthetic DNA. So we can sit on the computer and go like, okay, let's try these different snippets of genetic codes and, and see which ones like that. Do you, do you, like 10 years ago, what would that have cost it? And, and I'm just asking you to guess, not give a exact price. I mean, you, you look at like the cost of DNA synthesis and it's at least an order of magnitude that has come over, come down in the past 10 years. I think it's, it's also a function of speed, um, because it no longer takes a month to get things or two months. It takes weeks or days even. Um, so the speed is amazing. Um, and I think it's not just the synthesis of DNA, but it's the ability to predict upfront. So a lot of AI based, um, zero shot models to allow you to make better predictions and then using both, you know, the speed and, uh, cost savings for DNA with these abilities. So like have better predictions upfront. Now, if you can screen faster and put those, you know, translate the, that DNA literally into protein, the faster you can do that and screen it, you know, the better everything is. Yeah. And it, it allows for that, that training loop that when, um, when, when people follow AI development, it's actually the hot topic as of this month. That it's, it's, it's reinforcement learning that is not just taking a data set and training an algorithm to be able to do something, but let it also be able to then understand if it worked or didn't work and then go back. And if it didn't work, then say like, okay, uh, in, in our case, it would be the algorithm strongly believes that this mutation will lead to an improvement. It did not under these circumstances. Learn from that. So don't make that prediction next time. Make a better prediction. So, so, so, so that training thing, I think is, is something that is, is, uh, very hot now. And I would guess is, is one of the big themes for next year. I think, I think definitely next year. And I think, you know, one of the things that you see is that it's really also dependent on being able to generate the data because you can't just put it into a computer and have it spit out. And then, okay, all your problems are solved. Like you actually still have to do some experiments. And so what that allows you to do is now bridge this gap from, um, you know, sequence. So protein has a sequence of amino acids. Um, we can predict structure. So what they look like really well, what's much more difficult is the function, like how they actually perform. And so what we're trying to bridge now is this gap from sequence to function. So the better you can do that, the faster you can do that. And that's the really hot topic in terms of, um, AI capabilities is how do you bridge that gap for, you know, next year and the years to come. And, and a lot of, a lot of credit goes to, to Bastion and the team there to, to, to, to, to basically be able to, to generate a lot of functional activity data. So it's not just like, okay, now we have a little bit of the, the inside, but also, um, map that out so that all the small changes that potentially could be better get measured. Did it go better? Yes, it did. Okay. So that's a great way over in the pool of things we should look at building with and the things where, where the predictions was wrong, uh, harvest them. So that in, in, in, in the future we can, uh, we can train algorithms on basically becoming better. Yep. Yep. What, what else do you think, uh, next year from a scientific point of view, I'm putting you a little bit on the spot here. You are. What, what, what do you think if you were to predict, uh, some of the things we in a year from now, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about happened. Yeah. I think, I think developments on, uh, along the scale journey, because it's not just a matter of like, we have this solution. Um, it's not, it's not a solve problem. There's still some technological developments that, um, need to be put in place to, to really enable and unlock that commercial scale. Um, and so I'm excited to see those, um, those efforts be undertaken. Um, and I think as we look forward, I think we're going to get better at the speed with which we can engineer, the speed, which we can screen and build pathways, um, to, to really define or identify what, what are those next opportunities, right? Beyond NCT, beyond some of the other targets that we already have. And so, um, the better we can do that, the faster we can do that, I think I'm really excited to see what the team is capable of because there are a lot of good ideas and, you know, you take some of the reins off a little bit. And you'd be amazed like, um, at how fast things can get done. Yeah. Yeah. I, I really look forward to that as well. Um, we have a number of internal ideas in our idea catalog that is basically where we take ideas and put it into our incubator where we stress test ideas. If it's something that, that, that can be built, should be built, is, is beneficial, lives up to our internal criteria. Especially in the beginning when we do have some limitations on how many things we can build at a time. That might be different in, in five years from now, we, we can do anything we can think up. But for, for now, picking that. So, so our incubator, that is where we, uh, where we basically, uh, uh, stress test these ideas to see if, if they're ready for, um, for, for the accelerator part where, where NCT, for example, is at and, and becoming a commercial thing. Uh, if you, um, uh, without mentioning any specific, um, in specific, uh, product or, or, or, of the ideas, what, what, what are kind of the things you hope to see come out? Um, uh, if, if, if, if you, if you could just freely hope and guess on what kind of things we were building next year. Yeah. I think there's a, there's a, a, a number of candidates that really fit well into this, you know, health and human wellness. Area, um, these nutraceuticals, these, uh, difficulty access, natural products. I, I, I love natural products. That's where I started. Um, and I think there's a lot of opportunity there and there's a lot of places where our form of cell-free biomanufacturing really makes sense to, to make these compounds. So I think, um, I'm really looking forward to some of those, um, ideas coming to reality. Um, you know, to, to incubating those ideas just enough to, to warrant an acceleration of effort, right? Through the accelerator. So, um, yeah. Cool. Good, Tyler. That's basically what I hope for. And I want to, uh, thank you everybody that, that dives into, to our science and Paul and, uh, Tyler. But Paul is the lead is, is, uh, having a bit of a scientific, uh, podcast where he dives into, uh, some of these, uh, very, uh, deep technologies. That, uh, that we're using, uh, sharing as much as we can without, uh, breaching that we obviously keep, uh, certain things, straight secrets to ourselves. And, and for IP reasons, can't share. But, but we do believe that cell-free is the future of biomanufacturing. And, and we want it out as many places as, as possible. So we do take that on, um, as well. Tyler, thank you. And, uh, we will move on to, uh, to Damien and myself having a conversation about basically what happened over the year from a business perspective. I have been looking forward to this next bit, talking with you, Damien. You and I, we spent a lot of time on the office together. We, we sit in, in the same office next to each other. Um, I am so thankful that you joined our team. I just want to say that, make sure the world hears that. Uh, you joined us in April. April 1. Yeah. And, oh my God, it, you plugged in right away and you started carrying the, the, the weight right away. And we have just been full speed forward. I really appreciate that. No, thanks. I mean, we just got off Thanksgiving. So I feel grateful being here, but Christmas is coming up. So I've asked Santa for some masking tape so we can finally divide our office into an appropriate fair distribution of real estate. Damien and I, we have a lot of fun together on, on a daily basis. I think it's one of the, the, the, the secrets to how you can get, keep being fired up. We, we're very serious when, when we get to kind of solving the problems and so on, but then that ability to, to step out again and, and make a little bit of fun of, uh, from Denmark and from Australia and, and different accents. Yes. And all of that. And, um, I wanted to hear your perspective on biomanufacturing. Where do you think the whole industry is right now? Where did we come from and where we're going to go in the future? Yeah, I think, um, it's been challenging bringing ideas forward in biomanufacturing in that we're able to quickly move through the science of what's possible. What can biology do, but then we struggled in the conversion of those principles, those ideas into things at scale. And it's at scale where you actually make impact, real world impact. And, and remind people, like what, what your, your background, how, how do you have this historical perspective better than, than most? Yeah, I've been working, um, on the commercialization side of fermentation technology for 20 years. Um, I've been fortunate enough to have actually seen a few of those programs to successful completion in, uh, seeing commercialization of a one, four butanediol processor, genomatic, butylene glycology, genomatic, or a handful, handful of others as well. Um, and this was us kind of turning up and saying to the world, we want to use biology now to make the same things you've relied on chemistry forever to make, right? Competing against the very fit, um, very trained professional army, which is the, uh, conventional chemical industry with kind of the scrappy gorilla style here. We've turned up with a new idea and we want to give it a go. Wonderful at the science at the beginning of things, but life gets a little bit harder as you're getting larger in volume and scale and impact because there you really are competing against all the efficiency that the incumbent industry has already sorted out. And so you've got to kind of learn as you go through that sector. And I think that's what's been terribly difficult. We had our delayed David and Goliath moment back when we came up with the ideas of using biology. I don't think we've had our David and Goliath moment when it comes to competing with chemistry at scale. So, so do you think when the, the old value proposition of using cells as small chemical factories that, that, that, that sold really well over the last. Almost, almost decade soon. Um, what, what can we learn from the mistakes there now in this next generation? What, what, what should, what should we be really, uh, cautious about and what should we kind of be heavy about is, is different. I think the strength in using cells is their ability to make almost anything. Um, there's so much wiring within that system that carbon can go in so many different directions. When you feed cells an energy source, cells have this incredible diversity. I've been able to make so very, very much. Um, and we spend so much effort trying to funnel that down to exactly what you want to make, but you're funneling. So you're fighting against all these other things that the cell is doing. I think the interest for me in the exosomes approach was a system where you made just one thing. Yeah. And could you make just that one thing with the beautiful diversity that biology offers you? Um, and if you could, now you're making just one thing and now you can start to compete with where the chemical industry is really, really, really strong and taking that one thing and scaling it up, getting your economies of scale and being competitive. You can bring in those two worlds together was where we were trying to unlock some magic. And it's what we're beginning to see, right? You asked me about April to today. I'm excited because this journey is becoming very real. We're actually seeing this using cells, cell-free technology, exosomes in a cascade. We can get the pathway that you got inside biology, but now that pathway is only making one thing. It's a very good point. It's obviously not very natural for a cell that is set up to take care of all the different things going on in the cell and also basically future generations of cell preparing for cell division and other things. That is the natural thing to do. And all of a sudden we wanted to just make one chemical for us. So, of course, you can easily imagine why there's a bit of a fight in that where what I'm very fascinated about is how the team can look at this almost from an engineering coding perspective of like there's nothing alive. There's nothing fighting us. It's literally like one step at a time. So, like, if we want it there, it's going to be there. And if we don't want it there, then let's not put it there. So, it feels almost like when I experienced computers for the first time as a kid, I was like, wow. I'm literally like, we can build this. And then with a click of a button, you can just repeat it. There's a similar thing here where, like, we built the modules. And then when they work, we can plug them in and out and we can start building with it. But is there any, with all of your knowledge of cell -based versus cell-free and chemistry, is there other big things that kind of stands out to you as being the difference between the technologies? Either in speed or other things. I've heard you say speed before, but maybe you can take that. I mean, speed is really, really important. What we see in fermentation-based systems is it can take days to finish a batch. You know, you set up the fermentation. By the time you've gone through your seed, your propagation, you've got your cell culture built up, you've pitched the raw material, you've waited anxiously for it all to start. But I've been outside our fermentation facilities in Europe for days, waiting for it to start. It starts and then it can run, it does run for days in order to finish that system. Which means you've got all of this equipment and all of this work in progress, this raw material tied up, sitting on the ground, just for days on end before you can finally harvest your product. And moving on with the isolation and recovery. Being able to shorten that down means, well, you can produce more product for the same given footprint. Or you can invest in a much smaller footprint to produce the same amount of product. And I think that is fascinating. Being able to turn over all of that working capital much more quickly gives a much, much better economic outcome. Yeah. That's a really good perspective. So speed is both kind of from the manufacturing perspective. I remember you talking about speed from a development perspective, from idea to, so maybe using NCT as an example a little bit. Like what, give us your perspective on joining the team and seeing what was being built on. I think this is interesting. It's also a little bit hard for me to admit that the technology is moving faster than we can on the commercialization side. Right? That means... You're not used to that. No, no. I'm not used to that. I'm used to... You get partners excited. You get them engaged. And then they're waiting for the results in order to sort of catalyze that next stage or that next phase in partnering and collaboration. Here, we haven't had the soap time with our partners to kind of say, hey, this is who we are. Get to know us. Get to know why we're disruptive. We'll demonstrate a few things. You're going to get your stakeholders involved. And they're going to get all excited. And then two years into this journey, we've got some really amazing results. And we're off to the races. We got to the races in less than 12 months. And we're still building relationships with all of the possible partners we could talk to throughout this value chain. So, yeah, I mean, the message is we've got to get hopping on the commercial side. But our partners aren't used to seeing things move this quickly either. You know, we spoke to a large pharmaceutical company who also makes nutritional ingredients just this last week. And they looked at it and said, oh, you'll be ready for the market in three years. Like, no, we don't want you to put a circle around us and say ready in three years. We're ready in months, right? Get busy. You've got some work to do if you want to be a part of this opportunity. Because I think we've already shown the progress that, you know, we're looking down the tunnel. Like, within a year, we're going to be where you think we might, we otherwise would have been in three years. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. What other things have been either living up to your expectations or been different than your expectations? Oh, well, I've learned a lot more about enzymes. I've learned the difference between nickel pure enzymes and cell lysates. I think I've learned a little bit more about, you know, how fermentation works for supply of the enzymes and the enzymes and how they drive our process. So, you know, spending time, you know, I think that's the benefit of you and I having an office that we could almost jump into the lab facilities from our front door, right? Is we get to be a lot more closer when things aren't going right. We're right there to kind of express our curiosity and find out why. So I think that's been wonderful to have that really short, you know, turnaround time on information. I think what has been exciting is just how quickly we moved through to pilot, but also getting the phone call from our pilot partner saying, we didn't believe the reaction was moving as quickly as it did. We had to go back and repeat all the analytical results. Literally because they were doubting their own eyes. Because, you know, they were doubting the results were in front of them just to confirm that we are actually seeing what we're seeing. I mean, that's pretty cool. Yeah. That's pretty cool. I mean, as a commercial guy, you know, being a partner to these people, because you and I aren't just CEO, CCO. I mean, we're almost like, you know, big brothers to a lot of people here. We definitely are part of the team. Yeah. We bring a lot of sort of counsel and, you know, just a set of ears and a sounding board often for many of the things that go on there. Seeing the successes, I'm so happy for what it means for the people outside these four walls. I was just having this conversation with Amy early on and the growth of the team. It's wild that within a year, almost on an individual basis, you can say, look at how far you have come. Yeah. And then as a team, and then that it happens cohesively as well. So it's not just like one expert becoming more of an expert in that direction and other people in the other direction. It's really pulling in the same direction. That is something I really enjoy this part of building a business. It is a, yeah, very ambitious goal, resource-wise, not as much as people think it should cost. Right. But then people that are passionate and motivated and pulling together and pulling in the same direction. That is really, that's where I get a lot of my motivation from. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Damien, I look so much forward to next year. Would you, without giving the whole playbook away of next year, kind of maybe make a little bit of a prediction on where do you think we're going to be in a year from now? What are the, without mentioning any specific product or something like that, more in a, what is the direction of growth? What is it that's going to happen this next year? Yeah. It's, you and I spend a lot of time kind of chewing on this idea, given that we share an office. I mean, I, I like how we've worked out a dynamic for how to communicate to one another, given that we're like, we've got monitors on our desks and we've literally like got this much headspace to occasionally sort of duck out and the headphones will come off and we'll, we'll swap an idea. And our whiteboard should never be in the background of any video call we do. There's just too many ideas scratched out on that whiteboard. But you and I have kind of occasionally been sketching these, these sort of flow charts on what does 2026 look like? I think if we go back 12 months and then we look at what we've planned for 2026, we wouldn't recognize it. Right. It looks really different. And it's not that we have abandoned our strategy. I think it's just the, the reality of that strategy coming into focus now means that we're thinking about steps that, you know, are really quite substantive for the expression demonstration of our, of our technology. I mean, we have to take NCT further. You and I have talked about the value of having a NCT story where we can deliver a very defined product. Here is our technology package. All right. Here's its performance expectations. Here's the supply chain to support it. Here is the troubleshooting. Here's the backup. The support we'll provide as you work with this NCT technology package. We want to put a bow on it. And I think that's within sight for us in the next 12 months. Yep. We've talked. Finding the right partners to take that and bring that to market. And I think you and I have talked about this as not just one partner. Yeah. We now need sort of a coalition of people who have a different role in the commercialization of this technology. We need to find people to provide the various raw material inputs to the NCT process. We need to find people who want to actually run the production at larger, larger scale for NCT and take responsibility for securing that raw material from the sources we identified and using our process and converting it into product. And we need people who are going to say, you've now got product in hand. We know how to bundle this into a formulation. We know how to create a supplement. We know how to talk to consumers about metabolic health and create this connection between this is a supplement that can address your health and wellness objectives. There's a lot of people who don't know one another yet. Yes. And we're now playing the dating game of how do you bring this group together to make for the best party. You know, it's like we're doing the place settings for Christmas lunch, right? We're designing who gets to sit next to the awkward uncle and who's keeping grandma company, right? We're designing that layout. That is definitely true and very exciting, right, that we get to work through all of those things. Already next year, that is this year, of course, because it's now in January. Yes. That we are shipping this out to people so there's no misunderstanding. We're making all these Christmas puns and people are probably going to be sick of them by the time they hear this video. We need to find something different to riff on. But you're asking me, what else do we see next year? And that is like our core technology, this ability to visualize a pathway to make a hard to make natural product and to then rapidly put together a system to prototype to demonstrate we can make it in a cell-free system and then get to pilot in like months instead of years. The second half of next year, I think we have that chance to go at it again, right? We've talked already publicly about some of the product opportunities we see in our horizon, but we've got other cute things stuck up our sleeve that we'd love to talk to the world about in the appropriate time. But I look to what we could do with some of those possibilities. And I get excited because all the capability and strengths we're building for NCT to get that nice little Boxing Day present now, you know, the bow tied on it. Like we get to do that again and use all of that capability once and once more. And with time, we will be extremely good at turning that around. So despite this is kind of like the first time we're doing it, it's already really fast. I can only dream about where we are in like, let's say, three years from now when we have the whole thing set up to do it again and again. There's a lot of value unlocked. So maybe let's end on that. Sure. What is your hopes and dreams for biomanufacturing? Why is it such an interesting space? And I'll give you my two cents on that as well. You know, for me, I've spent a very long time in my career wanting to work with technologies that could produce things in a much better way. You know, to address things that were either harmful to humanity and take them out of the supply chain to address raw materials that we could no longer source sustainably and replace them with raw materials that we can produce sustainably. To, you know, being able to work with economies in different parts of the world that have been left behind as we have migrated to this world that's so dominated by oil, oil-based energy. And, you know, redistributing that to places where, you know, farming matters, where rural economies matter. To me, bringing all these pieces together makes sense. It's the mission. So I would like to see biomanufacturing create footprints that are in harmony, both with what we need as a society, but in harmony with how we use our resources, use them smartly, economically, sustainably. And I think that's why we are so invested in biomanufacturing. That's basically just to echo on that a little bit. What drives me is this hope that by building a new set of capabilities, that's why we do the new technologies, why we do the science exploration and discovery. By being able to basically open up for new ways of doing either existing things or more important sometimes things that could not be done at all before. Yeah. Kind of that breaking into the new frontiers of resources and therefore daring to hope and daring to dream about a future where there's enough for everybody, where there's no limitations on things. That is something that gets me super, super excited and imagine a future with sustainable abundance where there's literally because we can grow things instead of just consume things. Yeah. We can use the power of nature to supply all of that. Even if that's going to take a lifetime to get there, that's worth fighting for. I think that's why it's been so hard for those of us that have got into this industry to step out and do something different because the mission is so compelling. Yeah. And I like how you took this idea of building upon that platform of making things sustainably to getting into this idea of sustainably and also addressing the future needs of what we'll need in society. You know, we will need materials that have different functionality tomorrow than the materials that we source today. And I think you're right. It's like biology and what we're doing allows us to kind of address functionality and not just address chemistry, but address the purpose of chemistry. Yeah. Great, Damon. I can and will keep talking with you on a daily basis. But for now, I want to say thank you for everybody that listened into our conversation here. And as always, you're welcome to reach out if you have questions and then we can pick those up in the future newsletters. Thank you. Thank you. So to wrap it all up, I have been super excited all year long. I sometimes have a hard time believing all the things that happened was just in a 12-month period. Sometimes it seems like it's like we've been working on this like must have been three, five years because it's so many things that have happened. And other times it's kind of like it was just a couple of months ago since something happened. And then when you look it up, it was much, much earlier in the year. When things move really fast, it kind of distorts the perception of time. And I just want to close up by saying that I want to send a heartfelt thank you to the team. It is you that makes all of this happen. Also, a thank you to all of the stakeholders and shareholders that are standing behind us and allows for this to happen as well. The support is more than just ownership. It is people reaching out with opportunities and offers to help. Please keep doing that. Then 2026 will also be a great year. And on a final note, I just want to say that it has been such an honor to be leading this team. And with all the progress we did this year, I know we are set up for success next year. Powered by. Exozymes.