Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. There's a
Speaker 1: lot going on when it comes to in Vita. They
Speaker 1: just reported their quarterly update. It included a first quarter
Speaker 1: revenue beat, a smaller loss per share than analysts forecasts
Speaker 1: from the year UH and also from the year before
Speaker 1: and UH. On Monday, the company said it agreed to
Speaker 1: buy Genosity. It's a genomics company. I hope I'm saying
Speaker 1: it correct correctly, offering software and lab solutions to basically
Speaker 1: enable development and deployment of complex sequencing based tests. We're
Speaker 1: definitely talking about genomics. Uh. The company also got a
Speaker 1: big investment from a group led by soft Bank. So
Speaker 1: let's get into it and our investment management. We talked
Speaker 1: to Kathy Wood a lot. It is the largest shareholder
Speaker 1: in in Vita according to our Bloomberg data. So let's
Speaker 1: bring in in Vita CEO Shan Jar George on the
Speaker 1: phone in San Francisco, Sean, good to have you here.
Speaker 1: I'm scrambling, scrambling to get to you because I really
Speaker 1: want to talk about your company. Um, how are you good? Good?
Speaker 1: And really and shape being here. Thank you, well, you're welcome.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. And I have to say, you know, we
Speaker 1: do talk to Cathy Wood and the companies that she
Speaker 1: put on puts on her radar. We really like to
Speaker 1: dig a little bit deeper into them. So tell us
Speaker 1: for those not in the know and familiar with your company,
Speaker 1: tell us exactly what you are doing in the genomics space. Sure,
Speaker 1: so we our mission as a company. We've been at
Speaker 1: it for ten years now, investing heavily in bringing genetics
Speaker 1: and genomics squarely in the mainstream medical care for billions
Speaker 1: of people around the planet. We're absolutely confident that the
Speaker 1: fundamental personalized power of genetics can impact medicine to the
Speaker 1: to the better for all of them, uh, improving outcomes
Speaker 1: and lowering costs. And that's and that's what we've been
Speaker 1: up to. And I think now, uh now that it
Speaker 1: is becoming more apparent to a lot more people just
Speaker 1: how impactful genomics can be. We're really appreciative of investors
Speaker 1: like Kathy at ARC and others are the entire top
Speaker 1: of our capitalization. It's full of investors who really see
Speaker 1: a significant phase change coming in healthcare, largely fueled by
Speaker 1: genomics and we're we're really we're really proud to be
Speaker 1: a leader in it. So genomics testing, I mean, at
Speaker 1: one point I think it was expensive. Um, it took
Speaker 1: a while to get here. But tell us exactly what
Speaker 1: you do in the services you provide and who you
Speaker 1: provide them to. Absolutely so. And it's good to set
Speaker 1: a backdrop. You know, when we started the company, a
Speaker 1: single test which would look in the form of you
Speaker 1: and your doctor, whether it be for a disease or symptoms,
Speaker 1: or of yourself or your child, whether you're starting a family.
Speaker 1: You know, a single gene test to take a sample,
Speaker 1: run an analysis of a single gene and return the
Speaker 1: result costs four or five dollars a large number of
Speaker 1: genes upwards thirty dollars. We now, through our efforts and
Speaker 1: investing in reducing the cost of that and expanding the
Speaker 1: amount of information available to clinicians, indications that test now
Speaker 1: is two hundred and fifty dollars for a large number
Speaker 1: of genes to assess essential information that affects. Frankly it
Speaker 1: affects or truly it affects. One in six individuals have
Speaker 1: genetics at the core of their health condition and so
Speaker 1: We offer that service to people like I mentioned, who
Speaker 1: have a family history, whose child children have symptoms, they
Speaker 1: themselves have symptoms women starting I think of having a child.
Speaker 1: There's a variety genetic testing screens available UM to really
Speaker 1: give give the best best outcome, best outlook UM for
Speaker 1: for a healthy, long and healthy baby uh and and
Speaker 1: and increasingly now looking towards UH. You know, as as
Speaker 1: an individual ages, you know, there's an awful lot of
Speaker 1: technic goes on in oncology area cancer, both to assess
Speaker 1: an individual's risk as well as to use genomic tools
Speaker 1: to evaluate what therapy, what you know, very affected target
Speaker 1: therapies could be could be useful UM, perhaps much better
Speaker 1: than you know ten twenty years ago therapy uh and
Speaker 1: and and and now on the cutting edge of that
Speaker 1: is using the generic tools to detect whether or not
Speaker 1: that therapy is working and if not, to find that
Speaker 1: cancer coming back as early as possible and help the
Speaker 1: oncologists make the next best step they in the future.
Speaker 1: For sure, we've you know, on a to take cardio
Speaker 1: vascular cardiology of cardiovascular disease as genetics is a direct
Speaker 1: cause of it. Very little people, very little veronal number
Speaker 1: of individuals get that information today, that's going to change
Speaker 1: in the next few years. And we're really excited, like
Speaker 1: I said, excited to be leaving the charge. So right now,
Speaker 1: how much of your cost equation is just the build
Speaker 1: out new lab and production facilities? I know you, I
Speaker 1: think you did one some news in April in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: So how much of kind of you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of holding you back from profitability right right now? Is
Speaker 1: the build out? Yeah, you know, it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: little of both. There's the physical build out. Frankly, that's
Speaker 1: that's not that's not really the majority of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: we are expanding, we are expanding, rere bursting of the
Speaker 1: schemes here on the West coast in fr Francisco, we're expanding,
Speaker 1: putting in two hundred thousand square foot production facility in
Speaker 1: North Carolina and RTP. But the real cost of doing
Speaker 1: it kind of comes down to the sample collection and
Speaker 1: the targeting of the gene them that you're interested in.
Speaker 1: And then the major driver as more and more information
Speaker 1: is gathered over the years is in the interpretation of
Speaker 1: the genemic information and the delivery of actionable effective you know,
Speaker 1: next steps for patients in the clinician and that's a
Speaker 1: that's an immense effort and that's what we've invested the
Speaker 1: most in. It's a technology stack. It's an infrastructure, software
Speaker 1: and tools for experts, for our experts to medical genesis
Speaker 1: to deliver that information and work with the patient and
Speaker 1: their and their um and their clinician on what it means,
Speaker 1: what the implication is for them, their family, and what
Speaker 1: the best next steps are. Sean, So we're talking about
Speaker 1: what you guys are doing. You said the bulk of
Speaker 1: some of your costs have to do with the interpretation
Speaker 1: of the of the data and what an immense effort
Speaker 1: that is. So when does the equation kind of change
Speaker 1: in terms of lots of demand. You know, you guys
Speaker 1: are seeing pretty you know, pretty impressive top and bottom
Speaker 1: line growth, but when does it become a much more
Speaker 1: profitable business in your view? Yeah, it's a fantastic question.
Speaker 1: You know, when we we genuinely see this you know,
Speaker 1: phase transition that's coming here in healthcare with with genomics
Speaker 1: very much at the center of it as the catalyst
Speaker 1: that drives to you know, massive and defendable operating cash
Speaker 1: flows in the future. And the key to that is
Speaker 1: this technology infrastructure that we've been developing in a differential
Speaker 1: cost advantage to deliver a general's worth of information to
Speaker 1: patient and their caregivers across any disease, across any stage
Speaker 1: in life, and all the data that comes along with
Speaker 1: that and the relevant genomic information, then informing on next steps,
Speaker 1: and then subsequently tracking outcomes, feeding that back into the
Speaker 1: engine and coming up with um even even better utilization
Speaker 1: for genomic data and even better outcomes that even lower costs.
Speaker 1: And that is a virtual cycle that we are absolutely
Speaker 1: confident in creating a business that, you know, call it
Speaker 1: two to five years from now, will be able to generate,
Speaker 1: like I said, really begin generating massive operaty cash flows.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's a complete shift in the
Speaker 1: way that this information has been used today. And as
Speaker 1: a leader in it, we tend to be there, we
Speaker 1: tend to continue to be and we were certain that
Speaker 1: it's the industry dynamic will shift where it's a it's
Speaker 1: a winner. Take most well, and you're almost a five
Speaker 1: point nine billion dollar market cap company, give me an
Speaker 1: idea of how massive this industry potentially could be. And
Speaker 1: there's multiple players, to be fair, but you know, give
Speaker 1: us an idea of is this something that people are
Speaker 1: born are people multiple times will need to have genetic
Speaker 1: testing be done? Um? Yeah, so I mean this and
Speaker 1: this is the key to the whole is the key
Speaker 1: to the whole thing, the investment thesis, what we're currently doing,
Speaker 1: how we're executing in the future. One in six individuals
Speaker 1: has a genetic indication that drives there there in the
Speaker 1: majority of their healthcare outcomes. Um. That that is if
Speaker 1: you want to translate that to the market, you know again,
Speaker 1: they're there it pretty much we believe will be anybody
Speaker 1: born in a modern healthcare system. Uh you know, is
Speaker 1: it ten years from now, fifteen years or not, something
Speaker 1: like that. But that's where this is going about one
Speaker 1: to two billion people, uh, in those in those modern
Speaker 1: healthcare systems around the globe. And our feeling is that
Speaker 1: our services that we provide from from creator the grave, well,
Speaker 1: instead of being today what it is a relatively expensive
Speaker 1: single tests, one test at a time based on symptoms
Speaker 1: and and kind of clinician inquiry, will turn into something
Speaker 1: looks more like an information service for a few hundred
Speaker 1: dollars per year for those that number of people. This
Speaker 1: information will be on tap and available for people before
Speaker 1: they know they need it, two clinicians before they have
Speaker 1: clearly identified the cause of symptoms or family history, and
Speaker 1: certainly UH increasingly UH using that advanced genemic technology to
Speaker 1: be able to identify who's the highest risk and detect
Speaker 1: that onset of that disease far earlier than we are today,
Speaker 1: which in any one of these conditions we all know
Speaker 1: is the key. You're preventing delaying, lowering the cost of treating,
Speaker 1: and in many cases outright curing those disorders. And to
Speaker 1: be fair to make sure, like our audience is cleared,
Speaker 1: genomic is very different from genetic testing. Well, I'm really
Speaker 1: glad you brought it up. We don't see it any
Speaker 1: differently Historically, you know, yeah, historically genetic testing has kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, if you think about the roots of the
Speaker 1: industry has been very much a genetic tests have been
Speaker 1: relegated to kind of the measure of last resort when
Speaker 1: when nothing else could could sort out what was going on,
Speaker 1: an idea of an indication or a problem the patients
Speaker 1: spurred a clinician to think I'm gonna oder genic test
Speaker 1: or typically specialist and then it was typically a pretty
Speaker 1: narrow focus test and on one gene one sometimes even
Speaker 1: one marker once it's a marker. And now as as
Speaker 1: the technology is evolved, and certainly there's been technology involved
Speaker 1: in the generation of that information that's allowed it's very
Speaker 1: much like it's a technology called nextionary generation sequencing. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like Moore's Lalyan computing in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: That's driven then the ability to look at more and
Speaker 1: more this information at once, which people tend to call genomics.
Speaker 1: In our view, it's it's all the same. What is
Speaker 1: the biggest risk for an individual and what do you
Speaker 1: do about it? And that is that is the use
Speaker 1: of this information and healthcare right listen, we just scratched
Speaker 1: the surface, and our producer Paul bred and I were
Speaker 1: talking about this and we knew we wanted to do
Speaker 1: two blocks with you. But we hope you will come
Speaker 1: back again in the future because I feel like we
Speaker 1: want to dig even deeper so that people kind of
Speaker 1: understand even more of what you are doing and love
Speaker 1: to get an update on the business down the road.
Speaker 1: Sean George, he is the CEO of and VT, joining
Speaker 1: us on the phone from San Francisco.