Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. But last year
Speaker 1: McKinsey came out with a report and they noted that
Speaker 1: the bio economy could have a directing economic impact of
Speaker 1: up to four trillion dollars a year over the next
Speaker 1: ten to twenty years. One company working in that world
Speaker 1: is in Scripta, Shri Kazaraja Cook. Let me try it again, Shrekazaraju.
Speaker 1: He is president and CEO of the digital genome engineering
Speaker 1: company that we just mentioned in Scripta and he joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone in San Francisco Street. Forgive me
Speaker 1: from the mispronunciation. It's what I can't even read my
Speaker 1: own notes or fonetics. Um, but it is good to
Speaker 1: have you here. And I have to say that my producer,
Speaker 1: you bet, my producer and I were talking earlier that
Speaker 1: this was just something that we love to talk about.
Speaker 1: Tell us, first of all, um, how are you doing
Speaker 1: what the past year has been like? Yeah? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, Carol, thanks for having me on. I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of Bloomberg Radio. I listened to it every morning,
Speaker 1: so I did want to say that before he started,
Speaker 1: UM in the morning, you didn't say the afternoon. Now
Speaker 1: I'm a little worried. Now I'm just kidding a yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish I could listen all day. UM. Well, the
Speaker 1: last year has been phenomenal on many fronts. UM. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the the opportunity we're going up against has gotten a
Speaker 1: lot more visibility, and we'll talk about what that means
Speaker 1: in the bioeconomy, but it is going to be something
Speaker 1: that I think people start hearing much more about in
Speaker 1: the additional dimension that it adds to the potential of
Speaker 1: our economy and to society at large. UM. The pandemic
Speaker 1: has obviously made it tough for for us, as it
Speaker 1: has for many other companies who are innovating UM. But
Speaker 1: we have very dedicated employees who have been in the
Speaker 1: lab diligently working. We've had our commercial teams diligently preparing
Speaker 1: to to launch our our first commercial product, the Onyx platform,
Speaker 1: which we announced just a few weeks ago that we
Speaker 1: we shipped our our first commercial unit. So UM, we
Speaker 1: are trying to make progress despite the pandemic. We'll tell
Speaker 1: us exactly what the bioeconomy is. Yeah, So, so it
Speaker 1: is UH, as I said, it's to me, it's a
Speaker 1: it's an additional dimension to the economy and new referenced
Speaker 1: at the outset McKenzie statistic. Another statistic from McKenzie last
Speaker 1: year was that in principle, approximately of the physical inputs
Speaker 1: to the economy could be biologically produced. And when you
Speaker 1: sort of take a step back and think about that,
Speaker 1: that explains the magnitude of what we talked about with
Speaker 1: the bioeconomy. Biology has played an important role in the
Speaker 1: last decade on discovery and life sciences and even in
Speaker 1: the production of therapeutics. However, bioeconomy is larger than that.
Speaker 1: It affects many more industries beyond just healthcare, and it
Speaker 1: has much more far reaching impact into products that all
Speaker 1: of us touch every day. And and there's a couple
Speaker 1: of themes that are sort of catalyzing this movement UM
Speaker 1: and some of them are very familiar to us. That
Speaker 1: the movement to sustainability UM, the movement to to climate change,
Speaker 1: to adapt to climate change, and the basic movement around
Speaker 1: just greater performance and efficiency of our of our products
Speaker 1: and businesses. So there are so many confluent catalysts that
Speaker 1: are really accelerating this movement in the bio autonomy. So
Speaker 1: I feel like we're speaking tree and kind of broad
Speaker 1: strokes here. So tell me, like drill it down, like
Speaker 1: does this include things such as growing food and labs,
Speaker 1: growing organs and labs? Like is tell us kind of
Speaker 1: when we get down to a granular, granular level, like
Speaker 1: what exactly this means? So, so the most common things
Speaker 1: that you might read about if you were to Google
Speaker 1: Google it would be UM in agriculture, crops or plants
Speaker 1: that are disease resistant UM that are they're characterized traits
Speaker 1: that allow them UM to to to grow and prosper
Speaker 1: more efficiently. So agriculture is a place where you might
Speaker 1: hear and see this a lot. And as our global
Speaker 1: population grows, as we're trying to get more efficiency out
Speaker 1: of the land and water um in in plants UM.
Speaker 1: This is one area that a lot of companies are
Speaker 1: looking for to see UM innovation and benefit cosmetics. You
Speaker 1: find that that also are starting to talk about using
Speaker 1: UH gene engineering to to manufacture more sustainable UM cosmetic products.
Speaker 1: We also see it if you kind of move back,
Speaker 1: you know, and I said it is beyond healthcare, but
Speaker 1: if you kind of move back to healthcare, even in biologics.
Speaker 1: You know, just today I was talking to a researcher
Speaker 1: in Europe who was very keen in his study of
Speaker 1: antibiotics antibiodetics. Antibiotics haven't really been advanced in the last
Speaker 1: two decades, and many of the organisms in the body
Speaker 1: have have shown resistance to antibiotics. So researchers are studying
Speaker 1: what causes that and can we identify and isolate those
Speaker 1: parts of the genes that contribute to that so that
Speaker 1: we can design more effective antibiotics in the future. So, really,
Speaker 1: as you can tell just such a wide range of
Speaker 1: potential application, I want to get right back to our guest.
Speaker 1: Shree Kasaraju is with us. He's president and CEO of
Speaker 1: the digital genome engineering company is called it SCRIPTA and
Speaker 1: Tree still with us on the phone in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: So Shri, tell us about kind of where your company
Speaker 1: fits into this world of the bioeconomy, what you are
Speaker 1: specifically doing, who you're working with, sure, Carol, So the
Speaker 1: mission for in script is to enable researchers to realize
Speaker 1: the full potential of the bioeconomy, and specifically what that
Speaker 1: means is in our in our first product that we're launching.
Speaker 1: It represents the first digital genome engineering platform in the
Speaker 1: world that can sit on a bench in a lab.
Speaker 1: This initial platform is for microbial so yes Nikoli organisms
Speaker 1: And just to kind of put this in the context,
Speaker 1: can it do a typical experiment, a gene editing experiment
Speaker 1: that a lab may have done with a couple of
Speaker 1: PhDs over the course of many months up to a
Speaker 1: year now can be done in a matter of weeks
Speaker 1: or months and it's an incredible savings of time. But
Speaker 1: more importantly, the scale um of of edits that this
Speaker 1: can produce in a single run can get up to
Speaker 1: ten thousand single edits and parallel, So there's incredible power
Speaker 1: in the scale of this platform UM, and it's really
Speaker 1: opening the minds of many researchers that we speak to
Speaker 1: about what kind of work and research they could do
Speaker 1: with it UM. So that's that's the Onyx platform, and
Speaker 1: behind it UM we're in development on several other very
Speaker 1: exciting platforms as well. Can you talk to us at
Speaker 1: all about some of the partners or the some of
Speaker 1: the areas that you're working in specifically, I know you
Speaker 1: talked about kind of applications of this UM so I'm
Speaker 1: assuming a lot of it is either agg or healthcare.
Speaker 1: I mean, where is it. Well, we're just getting started commercially,
Speaker 1: so we announced our first commercial shipment to gene mill
Speaker 1: UH in the UK in Liverpool. UM. There are two
Speaker 1: main categories of folks that that we're talking to right
Speaker 1: now about about the platform. One is your your core
Speaker 1: academic research centers and to our our bio industrial companies
Speaker 1: and the range of industries that that represents your your right.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a it's a very wide range, UM.
Speaker 1: And but many of these folks are already utilizing Crisper
Speaker 1: in some way, meaning they're doing some form of gene
Speaker 1: editing UM in house already UM. And they're looking to
Speaker 1: to really make those experiments more efficient, but also explore
Speaker 1: what more can they do with a more powerful system
Speaker 1: and platform. So, Okay, forgive me because I'm thinking we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of listeners and we have a really
Speaker 1: smart audience. UM. And I'm gonna unt this is not
Speaker 1: my world, but it definitely interests interests me in terms
Speaker 1: of gene editing and kind of where this is all going. So,
Speaker 1: if you were sitting down with someone to explain kind
Speaker 1: of the potential because it sounds like we're on the
Speaker 1: cusp Uh, there's a lot out there already, but there's
Speaker 1: so much more that could be done when it comes
Speaker 1: to the bioeconomy or uh, the genomic engineering that you
Speaker 1: guys are involved in. UM, how would you explain it
Speaker 1: kind of to a lay person in terms of how
Speaker 1: it might impact us in the years to come? Also
Speaker 1: as an investor kind of who will be the players
Speaker 1: involved in it? Because I am curious about kind of
Speaker 1: your own future. Yeah, sure, yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: So to put this into context, if we think about genomics,
Speaker 1: and even with COVID, we've heard about some of these
Speaker 1: terms of the technologies that are being used. PCR and
Speaker 1: next gen sequencing are amongst some of the biggest step
Speaker 1: function changes in our history as it relates to genomics,
Speaker 1: and those are all around reading genes and that's provided
Speaker 1: us incredible information. We've utilized it in a variety of
Speaker 1: ways for research, even trying to develop UM diagnostics or
Speaker 1: or even things to fight things like the US the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen virus. What what what Cristper has done is
Speaker 1: provided a step function change against those prior historical advancements
Speaker 1: Now with Crisper, we can edit genes. We can write
Speaker 1: genes instead of reading them, and that the opportunity around
Speaker 1: that is massive. When you when we speak to researchers,
Speaker 1: they're trying to create as much they call it variation.
Speaker 1: That means as much things to study around, something to
Speaker 1: learn as possible. But it's not just about research and information.
Speaker 1: Now with with gene editing, we can also create new products.
Speaker 1: And that's the biggest change with this advancement of what
Speaker 1: we in script as well as others are going to
Speaker 1: be doing, as we're not only going to be understanding information,
Speaker 1: but we're going to be creating products um with this
Speaker 1: technology as well. And that is where the breath of
Speaker 1: the opportunity is just so incredibly massive that that we're
Speaker 1: all quite excited about it. Well, So tell us about
Speaker 1: this billion dollar Series E finance round. I think it
Speaker 1: was led by Fidelity. There's also funds and accounts from
Speaker 1: t ro Price that are involved in it. Tell us
Speaker 1: about that and and that kind of that money. What
Speaker 1: will you guys plan to do with it? This this
Speaker 1: is a just an incredible market I know, you know
Speaker 1: all the listeners know that from watching the market environment
Speaker 1: we're in and seeing the premium for for innovation and
Speaker 1: growth companies UM, and specifically in in the life sciences.
Speaker 1: You know, this whole area of gene editing also has
Speaker 1: been extremely robust and a lot of capital going against
Speaker 1: it because there's a lot to do. UM. We we
Speaker 1: looked at this round as as an opportunistic financing UM.
Speaker 1: We were well capitalized. UM. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: alternatives for companies to raise money to go public. UM.
Speaker 1: We think we got the best of both worlds. We
Speaker 1: got really world class long term investors, and we also
Speaker 1: retain the ability to to grow our business privately, you know,
Speaker 1: which affords tremendous flexibility UM and the opportunity to to
Speaker 1: explore new areas. And so the hundred and fifty million
Speaker 1: dollars you know, I use the word opportunistic, it's really
Speaker 1: around going after additional areas that where we can bring
Speaker 1: our technology UM to more and more researchers. So those
Speaker 1: are these are things down the road beyond what we're
Speaker 1: already developing with either Onyx or our Mammalian platform. What
Speaker 1: is the growth of the company do you I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you're early in what are your expectations going forward,
Speaker 1: this is such as we've established such a large market.
Speaker 1: The the focus for for us is exactly that, having focus,
Speaker 1: picking certain areas and customers and really showing success of
Speaker 1: our platform. So it might be contra to what someone
Speaker 1: might think about, you know, really growing going fast and
Speaker 1: growing fast for us that the long term future gets
Speaker 1: solidified and much stronger if we can be successful showing
Speaker 1: customers applications where they can use this technology, gene where
Speaker 1: they can do things they haven't done before. So when
Speaker 1: we look at this, and when I think our investors
Speaker 1: who got involved in the series, he looked at this,
Speaker 1: it wasn't about driving um platform revenues or sales, you know,
Speaker 1: this was about how do we secure our place as
Speaker 1: a long term impact you know that can drive a
Speaker 1: new paradigm change, not just for the technology but for
Speaker 1: us as an organization. You know, they they've encouraged us
Speaker 1: to be aggressive and invest um and to take our
Speaker 1: time making good decisions. You know that that aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: short term oriented, but can drive greater long term stability
Speaker 1: and success. We think this is going to be a
Speaker 1: new large market and so being early, being smart about
Speaker 1: how we build a company for the future are our paramount. Well,
Speaker 1: we look forward to hearing more and I hope you'll
Speaker 1: come back and by then, hopefully I will have your
Speaker 1: name down Pat Tree uh Kosaraju. He is the President
Speaker 1: CEO of the Digital Genome Engineering cow Bunny in Scripta
Speaker 1: and we appreciate his time. Shares it Dell by the
Speaker 1: way up about eight point four percent, and the after
Speaker 1: hours saying it's going to spin on em Ware software
Speaker 1: unit by the fourth quarter. Have a good and safe evening, everybody.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg