WEBVTT - Oil Drop Eases Inflation Woes 0:00:02.529 --> 0:00:06.210 Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. 0:00:06.650 --> 0:00:07.070 News. 0:00:11.250 --> 0:00:14.530 Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Krisner. Crude 0:00:14.630 --> 0:00:18.000 oil prices are lower at this hour on some indications 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:19.919 that the U.S. and Iran may be closer to a 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.960 solution regarding the Strait of Hormuz. Axios had reported earlier 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.840 Secretary of State Rubio told allies the U.S. will not 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.780 initiate strikes against Iran for now. Rubio saying the focus 0:00:31.820 --> 0:00:35.020 will instead be on using sanctions. And at the same time, 0:00:35.060 --> 0:00:38.530 we learned that Iran and Oman discussed an interim framework 0:00:39.090 --> 0:00:42.949 aimed at resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Joining 0:00:42.990 --> 0:00:44.989 us now for a closer look at what's happening in 0:00:45.030 --> 0:00:48.629 markets is Bloomberg's Paul Dobson. Paul is executive editor for 0:00:48.729 --> 0:00:51.900 Asia Markets, and he joins from our studios in Singapore. 0:00:52.300 --> 0:00:54.280 I want to talk in a moment about the inflation 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.440 story vis-a-vis the PCE, which we are expecting tomorrow morning 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.020 in the States. Can you give me a sense right 0:01:01.060 --> 0:01:05.470 now of where the inflation debate is, particularly in the 0:01:05.530 --> 0:01:10.890 context of continued declines in the price of crude oil? 0:01:12.390 --> 0:01:12.610 Yeah. 0:01:12.670 --> 0:01:16.210 Hi, Doug. So definitely the crude oil is shaping a 0:01:16.250 --> 0:01:20.830 lot the inflation outlook. I think there's a secondary factor 0:01:20.850 --> 0:01:23.369 in the back of people's minds now, again, about the 0:01:23.430 --> 0:01:28.450 tariffs rising again against various nations, including Canada. But Let's 0:01:28.470 --> 0:01:31.890 focus on oil for a moment. So we have Brent 0:01:32.270 --> 0:01:39.470 going back below 90 this week with some reasonably sharp moves. 0:01:40.590 --> 0:01:42.610 And the situation in the Middle East still seems to 0:01:42.670 --> 0:01:45.170 be very nebulous, but there do seem to be more 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:49.680 efforts to try to get more crude out of the 0:01:49.780 --> 0:01:53.000 Gulf area with or without the US. So I think 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.360 that the economic sanctions are announcement that we heard from 0:01:56.410 --> 0:01:59.450 Bessent kind of told the market two things. One, the 0:02:00.030 --> 0:02:06.270 possibility of military threats is reduced, is minimal. And two, 0:02:06.310 --> 0:02:09.329 that the efforts to try to get the supply going 0:02:09.389 --> 0:02:13.030 again will continue in the meantime. So I suppose there's 0:02:13.070 --> 0:02:16.350 some hope in the market that we will get more 0:02:16.870 --> 0:02:20.210 or continuation of more flows coming out and going in. 0:02:20.530 --> 0:02:27.220 We have this conversation going on between Iran and Oman, again, 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.680 a little bit foggy, but again, sort of pointing to 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:36.070 the idea that there may be more energy flows coming 0:02:36.130 --> 0:02:38.730 out into the global market. And so all things being equal, 0:02:38.770 --> 0:02:42.530 lower crude oil prices would help to bring down a 0:02:42.610 --> 0:02:44.709 little bit of that inflation risk, which is one of 0:02:44.750 --> 0:02:47.570 the big things that we've seen weighing on long-term government 0:02:47.590 --> 0:02:48.270 bonds recently. 0:02:48.530 --> 0:02:50.609 Yeah, no doubt about that. And as I mentioned a 0:02:50.630 --> 0:02:53.500 moment ago, we'll get the Fed's preferred measure of inflation 0:02:54.110 --> 0:02:56.930 Wednesday morning in the States. That is the personal consumption 0:02:56.990 --> 0:03:00.790 expenditures price index. And it comes just a few days 0:03:00.850 --> 0:03:04.290 before we'll hear from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh at the 0:03:04.350 --> 0:03:08.220 Jackson Hole Symposium. Now, Warsh, as you well know, Paul, 0:03:08.260 --> 0:03:12.180 has faced some criticism recently for not being forthright in 0:03:12.260 --> 0:03:16.160 his views on the economy, particularly with regard to where 0:03:16.290 --> 0:03:20.190 inflation is in the Fed's eyes. Give me your best 0:03:20.270 --> 0:03:23.389 sense of what the market is telling us right now 0:03:23.490 --> 0:03:26.550 about the concern over inflation and what we may hear 0:03:26.590 --> 0:03:27.070 from Warsh. 0:03:27.990 --> 0:03:30.829 Yeah, so it's going to be crucial what we do 0:03:30.870 --> 0:03:33.590 hear from him, although I think the expectations for what 0:03:33.630 --> 0:03:38.430 we actually get may be relatively low. He's got all 0:03:38.450 --> 0:03:41.470 of these different panels and work for or task forces 0:03:42.230 --> 0:03:44.830 looking into, you know, sort of the future shape of 0:03:44.850 --> 0:03:46.850 the Fed. And it may be that a lot of 0:03:46.890 --> 0:03:48.750 what he says is we'll wait to see what the 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:53.610 outcome of that those reports is before taking more action. 0:03:53.650 --> 0:03:56.010 What the market really wants to know is what is 0:03:56.050 --> 0:03:58.740 the Fed's reaction function? You know, what will it do 0:03:58.810 --> 0:04:02.990 if inflation does continue to accelerate rather than slow? When 0:04:03.030 --> 0:04:05.890 will be the trigger for the Fed to think about 0:04:05.990 --> 0:04:10.960 hiking more forcefully? But whether he goes into that or 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.220 not remains to be seen. And it may be, given 0:04:14.260 --> 0:04:18.260 he doesn't like providing forward guidance, that he chooses not 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.170 to go in that direction with the speech. So inflation 0:04:22.190 --> 0:04:26.450 expectations then, you know, and the Fed credibility then comes 0:04:26.510 --> 0:04:28.890 back into the debate. And I think it's more the latter, actually, 0:04:28.930 --> 0:04:31.289 that's the concern for the market than the former. The 0:04:31.310 --> 0:04:34.150 breakeven rate has widened a little bit, but it hasn't 0:04:34.170 --> 0:04:36.620 been the only factor that's been pushing up government bond 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.680 yields recently. I do think you also have that concern 0:04:39.700 --> 0:04:41.880 that the Fed is, you know, just going to be 0:04:41.900 --> 0:04:44.140 behind the curve or happy to let inflation run a 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:49.070 little bit hotter. And therefore, investors will demand more higher 0:04:49.110 --> 0:04:52.910 yields in order to own US government bonds. Again, that's 0:04:52.970 --> 0:04:55.909 not the only factor that's contributing to the higher yields. 0:04:55.950 --> 0:04:59.490 There are lots and lots of reasons for that and 0:05:00.370 --> 0:05:04.640 reasons that Treasury Secretary Besant has started to voice a 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:09.300 little bit more concern about the rise in those yields. 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.880 So when you talk about a number of factors involved 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.660 in pushing US yields higher, to what extent do you 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.610 think corporate supply coming to the market, a corporate supply 0:05:19.630 --> 0:05:22.370 that's related to the build-out of AI has been a 0:05:22.410 --> 0:05:23.090 factor as well. 0:05:23.730 --> 0:05:27.290 I think it's a significant factor given the amount of 0:05:27.990 --> 0:05:30.410 debt that's coming to market and going to come to 0:05:30.470 --> 0:05:34.770 market as well, which is a significant amount and all 0:05:35.170 --> 0:05:38.480 in quite a short space of time. And so for 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.520 bond managers, if they're looking across the spectrum of options 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.150 available to them, if you have highly rated debt offering 0:05:46.190 --> 0:05:51.850 a yield premium over U.S. Treasuries with a decent-looking payback horizon, 0:05:52.790 --> 0:05:56.130 then fund managers may choose those assets rather than the U.S. 0:05:56.150 --> 0:05:58.030 government debt. And so there is that little bit of 0:05:58.070 --> 0:06:02.950 competition for all of the fixed income that's coming into 0:06:02.990 --> 0:06:04.750 the market at the moment. So I think that that 0:06:05.250 --> 0:06:09.990 supply factor is an important one. I do think what 0:06:10.050 --> 0:06:14.640 we have seen is a slight increase suggestion from Besant 0:06:14.660 --> 0:06:16.719 that he will curtail a little bit of the supply 0:06:16.740 --> 0:06:19.870 at the back end of the yield curve by doing 0:06:19.900 --> 0:06:25.530 some more buybacks. And that has narrowed slightly the yield 0:06:25.610 --> 0:06:28.910 premium that investors demand to hold treasuries over swaps, so 0:06:28.950 --> 0:06:32.570 the swap spread. Therefore, it sort of points to the 0:06:32.630 --> 0:06:34.920 idea that treasury is a little bit more in favor 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.360 relative to swaps. And so that has been a positive 0:06:37.420 --> 0:06:40.320 sign on the supply demand balance from Besant. But I 0:06:40.380 --> 0:06:44.700 also think when you're looking at the economy overall things 0:06:44.779 --> 0:06:47.240 things are all right right Doug things are looking pretty 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:48.960 decent at the moment and I think that one of 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.780 the other things the market is taking into consideration at 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.880 the moment is that we're in a higher interest rate 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.240 environment because the neutral rate is higher than it was 0:06:58.300 --> 0:07:01.820 in that sort of period uh through the 2010s to 0:07:01.940 --> 0:07:06.360 to post-covid kind of time factor and so um you know, 0:07:06.420 --> 0:07:08.960 the economy can run at a hotter clip, especially if 0:07:09.220 --> 0:07:12.080 all of these AI investments start to pay dividends, and 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.990 therefore you will see interest rates higher for longer. It 0:07:15.030 --> 0:07:17.170 doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, but it 0:07:17.230 --> 0:07:20.610 does mean that investors will demand higher interest rates on 0:07:20.650 --> 0:07:22.090 those longer term bonds as well. 0:07:22.190 --> 0:07:24.190 So as long as we're talking about AI, we have 0:07:24.210 --> 0:07:27.310 to talk about NVIDIA. After the bell in the US tomorrow, 0:07:27.330 --> 0:07:30.290 we'll get earnings for the latest quarter The stock was 0:07:30.470 --> 0:07:33.090 up in the New York session on Tuesday by something 0:07:33.330 --> 0:07:36.790 greater than 2%, recovering just a small part of the 0:07:36.850 --> 0:07:42.140 losses that had been recorded over a seven-day losing streak. 0:07:42.940 --> 0:07:48.120 How much is the market still attached to positive results 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.290 from NVIDIA if it's going to indeed push higher stilts? 0:07:52.310 --> 0:07:54.360 Yeah, I think that this is an interesting one because 0:07:54.380 --> 0:07:59.040 Nvidia obviously is the biggest company in the US market 0:07:59.180 --> 0:08:02.280 in the world and therefore has a pretty big bearing. 0:08:02.900 --> 0:08:04.820 And what it says in the deals that it does 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:10.750 have the power to influence stocks beyond its own share price. 0:08:11.060 --> 0:08:12.710 But what I do think is that that influence is 0:08:12.730 --> 0:08:14.730 starting to wane a little bit. If you look at 0:08:14.790 --> 0:08:19.830 the overall index reaction after the Nvidia earnings, I was 0:08:19.870 --> 0:08:26.290 reading in macro man column overnight, the positive impact from 0:08:26.310 --> 0:08:29.310 the video earnings is lessened. And in fact, sometimes after 0:08:29.330 --> 0:08:31.330 the earnings, even if the stock has a good day, 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.920 maybe the overall gauge can have a bad day. So 0:08:35.900 --> 0:08:38.860 it's less critical than it used to be. And that's 0:08:38.940 --> 0:08:44.120 because there's a lot more alternatives or competitors or other 0:08:44.500 --> 0:08:46.330 ways to look at it. But in terms of the 0:08:46.380 --> 0:08:49.690 messaging that it will give us about the outlook, for, uh, 0:08:49.730 --> 0:08:54.510 demand for chips and for data centers, uh, globally, you know, 0:08:54.650 --> 0:08:57.250 there there's very little that can give us as much 0:08:57.290 --> 0:09:00.310 information as they can. So it will be definitely all 0:09:00.450 --> 0:09:03.939 eyes on that. Um, as usual, Doug, you know, I 0:09:04.220 --> 0:09:06.420 think we say this every time that expectations for the 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.080 earnings are extremely high already. So it's got a high 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.240 bar in order to beat. Um, but I think that 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.220 people will nonetheless, you know, uh, pay attention to the numbers. 0:09:15.770 --> 0:09:18.110 and also to what the outlook and the forecast that's 0:09:18.170 --> 0:09:19.590 provided by Jensen Huang will be. 0:09:19.770 --> 0:09:22.510 All right, Paul, we look forward to the NVIDIA earnings, 0:09:22.570 --> 0:09:25.020 at least covering it here. We'll have the latest for 0:09:25.059 --> 0:09:28.300 you on the Daybreak Asia podcast next edition. For the moment, 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:30.860 I want to thank Paul Dobson for joining us. Paul 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.429 is Executive Editor for Asia Markets, joining from Singapore here 0:09:34.490 --> 0:09:44.660 on the Daybreak Asia podcast. Welcome back to the Daybreak 0:09:44.700 --> 0:09:48.179 Asia podcast. I'm Doug Krisner. We go next to Hong Kong, 0:09:48.300 --> 0:09:53.250 where the Asia Innovation and Technology Enterprises Going Global Summit 0:09:53.450 --> 0:09:56.670 is underway. This gathering is designed to help Asian tech 0:09:56.710 --> 0:10:01.869 firms evolve from being regional champions. to global players. It 0:10:01.910 --> 0:10:04.630 was there we caught up with Neo Zhang Ming. Neo 0:10:04.830 --> 0:10:08.770 is founder and CEO of MindRank AI. He spoke with 0:10:08.820 --> 0:10:10.030 Bloomberg's Min Min Lo. 0:10:10.770 --> 0:10:13.079 For people who are not so familiar, tell us a 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.540 little bit more about your proprietary AI drug discovery platform. 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:18.920 How is it a game changer in the pharma sector? 0:10:20.020 --> 0:10:23.740 Yes, so traditionally the drug discovery and development has been 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:27.820 a trend arrow process. So by leveraging the power of AI, 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.479 now the process has shifted from a trend arrow towards 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.500 more predictive and more capital efficiency and faster process. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.920 And you have mentioned that I think it reduces your 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.790 cost by about 60% or so. Where exactly is the 0:10:42.830 --> 0:10:43.809 cost reduction coming from? 0:10:44.510 --> 0:10:47.650 The majority of the cost reduction from the preclinical stage, 0:10:48.170 --> 0:10:51.390 but now we see a lot of advances in the 0:10:51.550 --> 0:10:55.370 clinical stage as well. For example, from the target discovery, 0:10:55.670 --> 0:11:01.050 the biological understanding to move from the molecule design, which 0:11:01.110 --> 0:11:05.569 is the chemical-related design, So we utilize some multi-parameter optimization 0:11:05.590 --> 0:11:11.220 strategy and algorithms instead of treating the human in the loop. 0:11:11.750 --> 0:11:14.900 And I understand that it shortens the timeline of the 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:16.459 drug development process. 0:11:16.059 --> 0:11:16.459 Quite a bit? 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.980 Yes, indeed. So humbly speaking, we can reduce by half 0:11:22.140 --> 0:11:25.440 of the time and also probably 10 times for the 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.400 preclinical capital efficiency. 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:31.920 So one of your key assets right now, as far 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.160 as I understand, is a weight loss drug that is 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:39.710 in phase three clinical trials, aiming to launch in 2028, 2029. 0:11:39.710 --> 0:11:44.170 But there are so many well-established brands like Eli Lilly 0:11:44.190 --> 0:11:46.730 that already have existing weight loss drugs. How are you 0:11:46.750 --> 0:11:48.280 going to wrestle market share from them? 0:11:49.260 --> 0:11:52.059 Yes, indeed. So yeah, we do have a small molecule, 0:11:52.540 --> 0:12:00.990 GLP-1 antagonist. So basically, we see a very differentiated profile 0:12:01.150 --> 0:12:04.720 in the clinical trials. So we expect it to launch 0:12:04.790 --> 0:12:08.559 in the fourth or fifth. in the Chinese market. And 0:12:08.820 --> 0:12:13.300 we see a very obvious weight reduction, efficacy, and also 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:17.400 safety profile. So our job operating face-to-face study was only 0:12:17.740 --> 0:12:19.920 less than 1%. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:24.740 So, very low drop-off rate. What is your pricing point 0:12:24.780 --> 0:12:27.900 going to be like? What is your distribution channel and 0:12:27.940 --> 0:12:30.450 your path to commercialization? 0:12:30.490 --> 0:12:34.170 Yes, so for the commercialization and also manufacturing, actually, we 0:12:34.230 --> 0:12:40.429 are relying on very experienced public partners. So, that's not 0:12:40.450 --> 0:12:43.170 the strength of MedRank at the current stage. 0:12:44.190 --> 0:12:46.630 So as far as I know, you're still a loss-making 0:12:46.710 --> 0:12:52.020 company at this point. Realistically, when can you reach profitability? 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:52.980 How long would it take? 0:12:53.990 --> 0:12:58.410 Yeah, we are very focused on the capital efficiency, but 0:12:58.670 --> 0:13:01.840 we don't have a very clear goal to reach the profitable, 0:13:02.340 --> 0:13:06.179 because now we are still pre-revenue stage. And after the 0:13:06.220 --> 0:13:12.680 launch of the first blockbuster drug in 2028 to 2029, 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:17.290 we can expect a huge revenue income per year. But yeah, 0:13:17.510 --> 0:13:21.410 probably after another few years, when we become a Bell 0:13:21.450 --> 0:13:25.730 Pharma company, we can have a clear milestone or timeline. 0:13:25.770 --> 0:13:29.090 What is your revenue projection for your blockbuster drug? 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:34.260 In mainland China, we expect to reach several billion per 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:35.120 year RMB. 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.900 And again, there are a lot of existing drugs, not 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.590 just from the international companies like Eli Lilly, but the 0:13:42.650 --> 0:13:45.729 local companies like Hong Rui, for example. I know they're 0:13:45.750 --> 0:13:49.630 also developing their weight loss drugs. How are you going 0:13:49.670 --> 0:13:51.010 to secure your market share? 0:13:52.710 --> 0:13:58.200 Basically we aim to produce the safe and efficacy profile 0:13:58.270 --> 0:14:01.720 and also since it's an oral small molecule so the 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:06.640 major competitors they have injectables so means we are easy 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:11.300 to carry and also from the safety wise profile yeah 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.000 we have a very low GI adverse events happen. And 0:14:15.090 --> 0:14:20.390 also from the, for example, liver-related and metabolic advantages, we 0:14:20.450 --> 0:14:24.850 see a very clear differentiation. And that comes actually from 0:14:24.890 --> 0:14:28.330 the very differentiated biological design. 0:14:30.700 --> 0:14:33.180 And I know that you were part of the NVIDIA 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.760 Startup Accelerator program many years ago before the US export 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.320 controls come into place. And I believe you were using 0:14:40.500 --> 0:14:44.300 NVIDIA's chips and its architecture as well. But since the 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:49.050 export controls came in, has that impacted your compute capacity 0:14:49.150 --> 0:14:52.330 or your ability to access their. 0:14:51.510 --> 0:14:59.190 Hardware, for example? Yeah, that gives us some influence, for sure. Traditionally, 0:14:59.250 --> 0:15:03.620 we have built a small cloud computing by ourselves. That's 0:15:03.700 --> 0:15:08.580 located in our Hangzhou office. After that, when we want 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:12.200 to expand to a larger scale of computation powers, we're 0:15:12.220 --> 0:15:16.370 relying more on our partners such as Amazon or Alibaba, 0:15:16.410 --> 0:15:21.670 their cloud computing cluster, which means that's more expensive. 0:15:23.230 --> 0:15:26.790 So it's more expensive. Does it affect the capacity or 0:15:26.820 --> 0:15:28.140 the efficiency of the compute? 0:15:28.980 --> 0:15:32.000 Indeed. So because we're really a third party instead of 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:36.110 our proprietary pipeline, so from the data security and also 0:15:36.170 --> 0:15:40.050 from the overall solution, we need to take more care 0:15:40.150 --> 0:15:41.930 of that process by ourselves. 0:15:42.210 --> 0:15:45.600 As part of that NVIDIA Startup Accelerator program, what was 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:49.490 the relationship at the time? Was NVIDIA invested or supporting 0:15:49.540 --> 0:15:53.670 you in any other way besides offering the technology? And 0:15:53.710 --> 0:15:57.620 how has that relationship evolved given the broader geopolitical environment now? 0:16:00.350 --> 0:16:03.530 In 2023 and 2024, we have some close discussions with 0:16:03.550 --> 0:16:07.550 the Nvidia team in China and the States. We talk 0:16:07.590 --> 0:16:11.970 about certain opportunities, but since the tension between Chinese and 0:16:12.430 --> 0:16:17.760 US governments, I think that has shifted. 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.900 So in that case, are you looking to pivot elsewhere? 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.520 Are you looking for alternative investors? How are you dealing 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:25.840 with this sort of fallout in the geopolitical front? 0:16:26.780 --> 0:16:30.040 For the funding perspective, our main investors are from the 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:36.050 healthcare sector. We are planning to be in the pre-IPO 0:16:36.090 --> 0:16:39.430 stage recently, so we are going to meet a lot 0:16:39.470 --> 0:16:42.510 of internet or TMT investors. 0:16:43.210 --> 0:16:46.590 Are these mostly Chinese capital, or how much interest are 0:16:46.610 --> 0:16:49.160 you getting from international investors, and what is your timeline 0:16:49.180 --> 0:16:49.580 to the IPO? 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.120 Yeah, we see the IPO is very natural when we 0:16:54.180 --> 0:16:58.060 reach the next milestones, which is the big deal for 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:03.200 the GLP-1 small molecule and also other BDs when that happens. 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.980 Do you have a guidance of a timeline that we 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:07.520 can expect? 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:08.869 Yeah, probably next year. 0:17:09.109 --> 0:17:09.399 Okay. 0:17:10.930 --> 0:17:13.610 You are actually still a very lean company. I believe 0:17:13.630 --> 0:17:16.310 you have 50 employees and yet you have already quite 0:17:16.330 --> 0:17:19.780 a large pipeline of drugs in development. Can you tell 0:17:19.820 --> 0:17:23.460 us about what else are you pouring research into? What 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:25.500 else is closest to commercialization now? 0:17:26.060 --> 0:17:29.649 Yes, so apart from the metabolic disease space, we are 0:17:29.690 --> 0:17:32.810 very focused on the other, we are very interested in 0:17:32.850 --> 0:17:36.750 the CS space, which is longevity space. So in 2023, 0:17:36.750 --> 0:17:42.080 we are in the consortium, which is funded by TAMIS 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.080 from Singapore and the US government. So we study anti-aging 0:17:46.420 --> 0:17:50.199 and discover the new biological findings. to try to intervene 0:17:50.619 --> 0:17:55.850 the CNS disease. And apart from that, we have developed 0:17:56.250 --> 0:18:02.490 the novel platform that's not only to target the protein targets, 0:18:02.850 --> 0:18:06.710 which is small molecules and also antibody and other modalities 0:18:06.810 --> 0:18:08.409 such as SRNA drugs. 0:18:09.500 --> 0:18:12.340 And aside from developing your own drugs, I wonder, are 0:18:12.380 --> 0:18:15.950 you getting interest from other drug companies to license your 0:18:16.010 --> 0:18:20.470 proprietary drug discovery software? It's called MAP, right? Are you 0:18:20.490 --> 0:18:23.790 getting interest to license and maybe co-develop drugs with you? 0:18:24.590 --> 0:18:29.310 Yes, for the medicine, we do have some interdisciplinary. under 0:18:29.350 --> 0:18:34.580 CDA discussions and we expect that to happen in 12 months. 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:39.220 We will have some BD recently. But apart from the platform, 0:18:39.300 --> 0:18:43.700 traditionally we've been partnering with a few public companies including 0:18:43.820 --> 0:18:46.139 Merck from the States and also a lot of public 0:18:46.180 --> 0:18:48.430 companies in China and Hong Kong. 0:18:49.250 --> 0:18:52.270 So your key asset right now, the weight loss drug 0:18:52.310 --> 0:18:54.530 that you're about to launch in China in a few years' time, 0:18:54.550 --> 0:18:57.210 do you have plans to sell that overseas as well? 0:18:57.270 --> 0:19:00.490 And has there been challenges in getting the regulatory approval 0:19:00.530 --> 0:19:01.690 and the certifications? 0:19:02.130 --> 0:19:02.850 What's the progress? 0:19:03.710 --> 0:19:08.290 Yeah, the first generation of the drugs, the single target 0:19:08.310 --> 0:19:11.629 is GOP1. We are about to launch it in a 0:19:11.690 --> 0:19:15.750 few years. But we are also developing the franchise, the 0:19:15.770 --> 0:19:22.760 portfolio of the obesity and So we expect to have 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:27.460 some novel new drugs to launch or to be licensed 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.200 to partner with our partners in a few years. 0:19:32.300 --> 0:19:33.740 International partners as well. 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:38.200 That was Neo Zhang Ming, CEO and founder of MindRank AI, 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.240 speaking with Bloomberg's Min Min Lo from the sidelines of 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:46.240 the Asia Innovation and Technology Enterprises Going Global Summit in 0:19:46.290 --> 0:19:49.609 Hong Kong. bringing you their conversation here on the Daybreak 0:19:49.690 --> 0:19:55.470 Asia podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the 0:19:55.530 --> 0:19:59.550 Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Edition podcast. Each weekday, we look at 0:19:59.570 --> 0:20:04.020 the stories shaping markets, finance, and geopolitics in the Asia-Pacific. 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.590 You can find us on Apple, Spotify, the Bloomberg Podcast 0:20:07.630 --> 0:20:11.030 YouTube channel, or anywhere else you listen. Join us again 0:20:11.070 --> 0:20:14.410 tomorrow for insight on the market moves from Hong Kong 0:20:14.530 --> 0:20:19.360 to Singapore and Australia. I'm Doug Krisner, and this is Bloomberg.