WEBVTT - The Biotech Start-Up Making Vaccines for Bees and Shrimp 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.160 Hello, all thoughts listeners. So you were about to listen 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.560 to an episode that we recorded back in April when 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.000 there was a lot of news around trade and tariffs, 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.520 so you might hear us reference that quite heavily. It's 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.000 a very interesting episode and I think you'll enjoy it. 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:17.840 Take a listen. 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:32.120 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.639 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Authoughts podcast. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:41.120 I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:42.080 And I'm Joe Wisenthal. 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.400 Joe, do you remember when you were a kid, presumably 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.120 you went on road trips like across America? Do you 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.440 remember how filthy cars used to get on road trips 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.840 because of like hitting millions and thousands of insects? 0:00:57.880 --> 0:00:59.200 Do you remember this? I thought you were going to 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.240 say how how filthy cars get inside as a kid, 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.080 and I was like, my car is filtering inside. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:05.959 It's disgusting. 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:08.680 But I do remember that, and I you know, they're 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.000 like weird things like people like you know, like insects 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.520 and like people have talked about how like this is 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:15.440 like one of those mysteries. It's kind of like chemtrails. 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.480 Why did car windshields get filthy? 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:19.360 Yeah? 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:21.040 I didn't know this was ever going to become an 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.240 odd lots topic, so I'm pleasantly surprised. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:24.720 Well, I have a lot of thoughts on this. So 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.840 one the buggiest place I ever used to visit was 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.560 in Arkansas with my Grandma in the summer, and I 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.680 remember like the car just being like disgusting, not only 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.520 because of insects, but because there are also a lot 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.319 of armadillos there, and armadillo's I don't know if you 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.200 know this, but when they're frightened, they jump up, so 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.920 they tend to get caught in like truck girls. Anyway, 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.800 this is probably too much information, but I also I 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.880 tried to read a book on insects once and the 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.760 lack thereof in today's natural world, I guess, and it 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:57.720 was called The Insect Crisis. And it's one of the 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.880 few books that I had to stop reading after like 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.480 three chapters because I just found it too depressing. 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.720 By the way, I just want to say, ay, I 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:07.120 liked it. 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.240 Whenever this episode is getting released, we're recording this April 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.040 twenty fourth. I appreciate a break from like or not 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.799 talking about stuffs every second. Two You mentioned armadillo's. It 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.120 reminds me of the famous sort of left wing Texas 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.400 populist Jim Hide Tower wrote a book There's Nothing in 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.400 the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos, 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.760 a work of political subversion. So thank you for reminding 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.120 me of that book. And I agree read that. 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:32.919 I don't remember the other thing I was going to say, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:33.520 so keep going. 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.720 Okay, Well, anyway, you know, I'm starting on a depressing topic, 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.960 which is there has been this notable decline in insects 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.760 over the past couple decades. And if you talk to 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.960 old people like us, Joe and me, we will say 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.720 that there is a notable lack of insects just when 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.359 you're out and about and you know, driving on highways 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.880 or whatever. But all of that said, this isn't a 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.160 doom and gloom episode because we're actually going to be 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:02.840 talking about some interesting efforts to kind of arrest that decline. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.320 And you know, Joe and I, we've taken an interest 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:09.600 in biotechnology. It's recently, especially in the context of the 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:13.880 US versus China, but human biotech is not the only 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.800 thing out there. There is a pretty big industry around 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.800 animal and insect biotech, and I know nothing about it. 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:22.919 Pretty much and I find it very interesting and we 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:23.760 should talk about it. 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.080 We should and also look, pets and animals are a 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.519 huge industry, and so for when it comes to biotech, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.160 non human animals are huge. And of course the other 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.720 context besides the US versus China and biotech is of 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.600 course the cutting or the gutting some would say, of 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.760 sort of core research from the federal government level. So 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.960 this intersects with industrial and political trends. And so even 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:50.080 though it's not a terriff episode, I'm looking forward to. 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.240 Well not just that. So you know, one of the 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.240 foremost examples of insects species that has been in decline 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.440 is honeybees, of course, and those are constantly in the news, 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.800 the lack of honey bees. And we all know if 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:03.880 we don't have as many honey bees, well then we 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.160 don't have as much honey, But we also don't have 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.640 as much other types of foods because they are very 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:09.800 important pollinators. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:10.160 You know. 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:12.280 I just one last thing for me. When I was 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.320 in college, I lived in a vegan co op at 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:15.840 the university. 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:17.200 Do you have a bee hive? No? 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.680 But I had this business idea, Oh, we should have 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.320 hand pollinated produce and sell it to grocery stories as saying, 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.760 this is the only true vegan produce you can have 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.200 because we don't even use bees in the process. I 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.280 never did it, but I thought that'd be a good business. 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.000 Oh my god, have you ever hand pollinated something? No, 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:34.880 it's fun. 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:35.920 Oh, so you can do it. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.680 Yeah, you got like a little like feather, little rag, 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:40.760 and you sort of spread the pollen around while doing 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.240 your best like biz impression. You have to be in 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:44.359 the mindset of a bee. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.520 If I were back at you know, twenty two years old, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.040 I'd make a big radical stand about only eating hand 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:50.000 pollinated produce. 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:51.360 Don't make the bees work. 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:52.280 Yeah, it's cruel. 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.080 Okay, all right, Clearly we could talk about bees and 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.520 insects and armadillers for probably another hour or so, but 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.640 why don't we get straight to us. We have the 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:02.920 perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with, a net Kleiser. 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.960 She is the CEO over at Dallen Animal Health, which 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.719 has been doing some really really interesting things in the 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.640 field of animal biotech. So, Annett, thank you so much 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:12.719 for coming on our thoughts. 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:14.960 Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:15.480 to be here. 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.080 I'm very excited to talk about something other than the 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.240 tariffs for a start, and I do like talking about 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.320 the natural world. But like, first off, why don't we 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.480 just kind of add some context to where we are. 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:32.520 Why is animal biotech an important field to be investing in. 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.880 Well, a lot of of what we depend on in 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:40.440 food and agriculture. You've talked about pets. Of course they are, 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.919 you know, companions, they're very very important to us. But 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:48.760 a lot of what we eat depends on animals. So 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.000 not just the typical production animals that we think about, 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.960 which you know, the cows or chickens, but also you 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.600 know fish or shrimp. And then one of the the 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:05.120 most important workhourses probably that we have, is the honeybee. 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:11.880 Because our most nutritious foods wouldn't grow, wouldn't exist if 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:16.240 it wasn't for these little animals that buzz around and 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:20.159 pollinate them, or apples, and it's actually the most nutritious 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:24.320 foods that we have wouldn't exist, whether it's almonds or 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.839 pumpkins or onions. So they are extremely important and we 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.680 need to protect all of these animals, not just our 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:37.880 companion animals, but also these really important production animals, livestock, 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.320 everything that falls in it, and so biotech has a 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.960 big role to play, not just on the human side, 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:46.640 but also on the animal side. 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.360 What do you tell us what DULLN Animal Health does 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.039 in your role there and give us some background about 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:53.760 your work. 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.200 Specifically, Yeah, happy to do so. So down on animal 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:02.080 Health focuses on these animals. We're a biotech company. We're 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.200 about six and a half years old, so we're relatively 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:11.040 young still, but we focus on what we called underserved animals, 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:17.120 which are primarily insects invertebrates, and we developed the world's 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:22.560 first vaccine for honeybees to protect them from diseases. They 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.800 get diseases, they get sick just like any other animals, 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.160 just like we do. They get viral infections, they get 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:32.640 bacteria infections. And despite the fact that they are so 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.920 important for our survival and so not just food production 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:41.000 but biodiversity. You had mentioned that the whole insect decline 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:45.360 are extremely, extremely important in a bigger picture, there is 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.880 nothing or there was nothing out there to really help 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:54.720 them fend off diseases. And so we decided to set 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.400 out and change that and decide, you know, these animals 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.200 they need they need protection, they need our care and 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.800 we can't just complain about the insects. We also need 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:08.960 to we need to protect them, and so that's what 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:09.360 we do. 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.160 I have so many questions already, but perhaps my biggest 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:17.000 one is how does a honeybee vaccination actually work? Because 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.400 I imagine you're not all going out there with tiny 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:25.680 little syringes and inoculating millions of bees, which would kind 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.440 of defeat the purpose of having all these pollinators do 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:30.640 our work for us. How does it work? 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.200 Yeah, we want to be kind to them, we want 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.280 to be careful, and you had you know, because some 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.160 of us are older. And when I was a child, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.360 I remember how the nurse came to school and gave 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.719 us a sugar cube with the polio vaccine on it. 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:50.200 And this is very similar. The queen gets a sugar 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:54.000 paste to eat in her early stages before she gets 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:58.720 introduced into the new colony, and we just mix the vaccine. 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.200 It's an aural vaccine, it's a liquid. We mix it 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.600 into that sugar paste and she takes it up biting 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:08.520 in a nutshell. 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.119 And then she spreads it I guess to her offspring. 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:11.680 Right. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:17.960 So insects have this interesting phenomenon that the maternal animal 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:23.559 passes on information about a disease that is in the 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:28.040 environment to the next generation, and the queen does this 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:33.160 via the eggs, so she there isn't disease in the hive. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.200 There are pathogens in the hives, she can't get sick. 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.880 A lot of these these diseases are infant diseases, their 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:44.880 larval diseases, so they threaten the brood just when they 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.240 when they emerge from the egg. And so the queen 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.080 takes these passogens up and passes little pieces of it 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.719 to her ovaries, and the developing larvae will see this 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.560 piece of a pathogen and say, oh, there's something out there. 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.440 They mean system gets upregulated and before they hatch, and 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.720 they are protected when they hatch. And this is a 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:11.280 mechanism that is widely a scene in insects and invertebrates 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:15.480 and actually also in chickens and other animals. And so 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:21.600 what we do is just use that naturally occurring phenomenon 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.400 and the way we only have to vaccinate the queen. 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.800 Expose the queen to a dead bacteria that can't infect anything, 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.839 and the next generation is protected. It's pretty clever little 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.320 magic wand that you you know, put over the hive. 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.719 So within the field of animal biotech or even more 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:47.079 specifically rare animal biotech, or even more specifically B vaccine biotech, 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.360 I can imagine multiple different areas of what you'd call 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.920 business or value add creation. So there's the raw science 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.959 of like what does the molecular structure of a B 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.440 vaccine look like? Then I would agen there is the 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:05.680 challenge of turning raw science into something product tized that 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.520 can be distributed and sold at a profit. And then 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.560 there's the actual sort of distribution of it. So going 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.760 out to the actual customers, here's a product that exists. 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.800 Where does your company sit specifically, how much is it 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.920 at the raw science level, and how much is it 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.840 the productization of raw science, all of it. 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.160 I'm laughing. You don't see me laughing, but I'm laughing 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:35.840 because that was actually what we were faced with when 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.680 we decided to do this company. This was very early 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:45.240 academic research at the University of Helsinki when I by 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:49.400 accident stumbled across it. The university had brought me in 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.920 to look at their life science portfolio to see if 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.679 there's this company that could be spun out, if technology 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.520 a pattern that could be licensed to an existing company. 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.840 And typically when you do this, you know, you see 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.520 a lot of really interesting research. I mean, universities are full, 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:11.400 it's just amazing, amazing research. But you know often is 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:15.520 there are incremental, small, you know, improvements that are really 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.120 important to move us forward, but they're really these completely 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:24.679 out of the box idea this way. And so I 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.040 stumbled the research. Happened to be in the office at 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.480 the university when I was there, and the director called 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.360 her in and said, you know, Daia, why don't you 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.360 tell these folks about your idea for a B vaccine? 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.120 And I just got really intrigued, because you know, somebody 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.120 needed to do something. I told myself and you know, 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:42.560 this is. 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.600 Your CSO founding Cso I'm looking at your website, Dahlia 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:46.480 Fried talk. 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.600 Tech right, And so she's a professor at the University 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.680 of Gratz who was at Helsinkie and now she's in Gratz. 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:58.680 And so this was really early research, very early data 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:04.160 showing that this might be possible. The company then had 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.280 to start completely from scratch to find a strain to 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.000 go out and you know, infected hives, build a string connection, 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.880 go to the regulator. There was no regulatory pass, there 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.640 was no development pass. How do you conduct clinical tries? 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.200 Nobody had ever done this before, so there was the 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:29.160 whole development of the product that could then go out 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.200 into the market. And then there was no model of 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:35.120 how There were no channe. I mean, if you if 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.800 you develop a new shoe, you go to a shoe 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.760 store and that's where you sell the shoe. For a 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:45.080 B vaccine, there was that didn't exist. So there was 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:45.800 no discharge. 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.680 No, there's no B clinics out there. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.160 There's no retailer on Fifth Avenue or you get your 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:53.199 insect vaccines. 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:54.040 There's no channel. 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.480 If your beehive is sick, you're not going to call 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.079 a vetinarian. And they were carrying the hive into the 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.400 veterinary clinics, like can you look at my queen? You 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.960 know right? That doesn't you call your neighbor, You call 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.200 you know, your father or your grandfather that had bees. 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:15.200 So it's a complete Even these large beekeepers and in 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:19.720 the US, when we're talking large beekeepers, they have seventy 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:25.760 one hundred thousand, one hundred and twenty thousand colonies. Wow, 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:32.560 these massive operations that are pollinating our crop during this 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.440 our apples you know, the beautiful apples that you get, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.960 you know, the bit whole foods, and it's like they 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:44.960 need these big beekeepers, these big producers. But still there 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.640 is no veterinarian that comes by. There is no you know, 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.240 so it didn't exist. So we have we are creating. 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:57.480 Everything done basically is writing the playbook on how do 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.000 they develop these products, how do you get them licensed, 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.200 how do you commercialize them, how do you roll it out? 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.640 How do you work with the industry, and not just 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:14.280 with the industry, with state veterinarians with it's much bigger, 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.400 and these are these are global problems. I was talking 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:22.760 to one state government veterinarian in Europe who was then 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.040 asking me, well, we don't now really know what to 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.840 do here. What's the opinion of the World Health Organization? 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.160 And I say, you must be kidding me. You' say 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.400 the World House. But let me call them, you know, 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.120 let me pick up my phone and figure out what 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.760 they have to say about this. So really what we 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:44.440 had to do is the whole from bench to customer 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.560 and with the customer. It's exciting when you have an 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.160 opportunity to do that and to figure it out. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:08.800 I have so many questions about this, not just the 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:13.560 regulatory portion of this and the commercialization, but specifically to 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.520 begin with on the funding side, So you're doing something 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.320 relatively new, and I imagined if you go to a 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:24.960 traditional venture capitalist or a traditional investor in biotech and 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.880 you say I have a b vaccine, I'm sure some 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.120 of them are very excited because it's novel and it 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.280 sounds kind of cool. But on the other hand, it 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:35.640 is this kind of brand new thing, and I could 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:39.120 see some people being a little bit surprised. What are 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.000 those conversations like when you're first trying to raise funding? 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.040 Right, So it has changed a lot over the last 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:50.000 six years, thankfully, but in the beginning when I set out, 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:55.840 it was really clear we did not fit any investment 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:02.920 themes so well, not animal health because even though bees 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.960 are classified as livestock, they are not. You know, it's 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.639 the pets, it's the companion animals, which the biggest, but 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:14.359 then the traditional ones the cows and the chickens, but 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:19.639 not bees. That just falls outside animal health investment. On 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:26.560 the agaculture side, most architect investors will look at microbiomes 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:34.400 of trees, drones, surveillance, more position agaculture technology driven AI 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.679 those themes, and then you have the food tech investors, 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.919 which are further upstream. Right, they look at the honey, 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.760 but they don't look where the honey came from. So 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:49.120 we fell into this complete Noman's land there was in 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.880 food tech. There were a couple of investors that at 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.520 the time a lot of money was going into alternative 0:17:55.600 --> 0:18:00.000 protein production to lower you know, to be more sustainable, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.280 a lower CEO two impact and meet meats right, the 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.560 meal worms and and and grasshoppers for animal feed and 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:13.359 human food production. They were really interested in this because 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.679 they said, well, we had a complete blind spot that 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:20.080 these animals could get sick too, but vaccines was not 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.080 in their in their target so they couldn't invest in us. 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.720 So there was literally nobody that so it was it 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:33.760 was in the beginning, it was heavily angel funded because angels, Yes, 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.480 they want to make money. These are rich individuals that 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.960 that want to make you know, money with their investments, 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.880 but they also they are driven by by they want 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.480 to do you know, good in the world with with 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:51.640 their wealth. So the return expectations are and their timeframe 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.119 is a little bit different, and so they they really 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:59.320 backed this. So we were entirely entirely angel funded, and 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.119 then a lot of globally so not very few US 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:09.320 actually European Canadian growers that came from the agricultural space, 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:13.240 from the animal health space, but not vcs. And it 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.199 was in twenty twenty two, I don't you might remember 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.919 when the market went down. It was a cosible clime 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:25.160 for everyone, especially startups. Was in a few weeks. All 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.080 the discussions that I had and fundraising, you know, people 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.639 were jumping off left and right, and somebody asked me 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:36.680 to speak at a climate and space conference, and I said, 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.320 Climate and space. But when you're raising money, you take 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.720 every opportunity you can to spread the word. So I 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.720 went and there were these amazing talks about you know, 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:53.560 refueling stations in space and you know, hotels and you know, 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.880 whatever you have and these batteries and everything. And then 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:02.560 I came with my with my b vaccine and telling 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.200 the audience that this is great that you know, because 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.560 of climate change, we have to go to other planets 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:11.199 and we have to be prepared for this. But in 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:15.840 the meantime, we really need to solve this problem because 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:18.800 we're never going to be able to solve it here 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:21.000 on this planet. Or any other planet. If we don't 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.280 protect insects, we may not like them, but they are 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:31.320 incredibly important for human survival, plant survival, all living organisms 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:35.520 need these little you know, we can do wetland restoration, 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.080 it doesn't matter if we don't have insects to live 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.200 in them. And sure enough, at the end of the night, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:49.120 I was approached by several climate investors we sees sustainability 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.880 in climate that understood the importance of what we were 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:59.480 doing and had more flexible investment themes and a longer 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.240 term and I was able to get funding. And so 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:05.840 now a lot of the investors of we're talking to 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:07.560 come from that space. 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.280 I think this is so fascinating because something that's come 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:16.600 up in the podcast before in various contexts, is this 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:18.719 idea that like, you know, we think of like this 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:23.680 wall of capital out there that exists and it's seeking return. Well, 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:27.960 whether it's banks, whether it's vcs, whether it's private credit firms, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:32.440 et cetera. There is specialization and there are categories of things. 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:34.879 And we talk a lot about this, particularly more often 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.320 in the context of certain energy texts. They sometimes they 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:40.400 call it the missing middle, this idea that there are 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.679 theoretically profitable investments out there, but it's just not in 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.879 anyone's specific wheelhouse. 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:49.920 And no one is in charge of the B vaccine. 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:51.119 Yeah you know. 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:53.520 Yeah, so it's like not something that someone has specialized. 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:57.600 And so even the theoretically profitable on some time horizon 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:02.640 investment doesn't happen because there isn't that I guess domain 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.920 knowledge or very specific domain knowledge. Where are you today 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:11.440 in terms of both funding but also in productization and distribution? 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.960 Right? And I think there is one really important aspect 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:20.040 to it. I believe one of the reasons why they is, 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:22.960 you know, you have the specialization and you have these 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.120 I mean investors are they are willing to take risks, 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.480 Banks are willing to take risks, but there is still 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:34.960 going to be an assessment of return. And as of return, 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.560 you can only do if you know the market, if 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:43.159 you have understanding of how the market works. How to 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.399 go to market strategy is who's going to pay for it? 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:51.919 If you are developing a product that the world hasn't 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:55.480 seen before, how are you going to price it? Well, 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.520 you know, it's a total crystal ball that's in front 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:02.359 of you, and invest is are managing other people's money, right, 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:04.840 you know, it's a they can't you know, it's it's 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:09.080 a it's a huge turtle to make the argument. We 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:12.920 believe that, you know, somebody is going to pay X 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:16.320 for this novel product because you know, if you go 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:18.920 out and do market research and we've done that and 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.199 ask if there was a vaccine, how much would you pay? Right, 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:26.000 an investor expects you to do that, and but people 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:28.080 have no concept. This is like if you go out, 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:30.359