Genetics Revolution in Healthcare

buy Genosity. It's a genomics company. I hope I'm saying it correct correctly, offering software and lab solutions to basically enable development and deployment of complex sequencing based tests. We're definitely talking about genomics. Uh. The company also got a big investment from a group led by soft Bank. So let's get into it and our investment management. We talked to Kathy Wood a lot. It is the largest shareholder

in in Vita according to our Bloomberg data. So let's bring in in Vita CEO Shan Jar George on the phone in San Francisco, Sean, good to have you here. I'm scrambling, scrambling to get to you because I really want to talk about your company. Um, how are you good? Good? And really and shape being here. Thank you, well, you're welcome. You're welcome. And I have to say, you know, we do talk to Cathy Wood and the companies that she put on puts on her radar. We really like to

dig a little bit deeper into them. So tell us for those not in the know and familiar with your company, tell us exactly what you are doing in the genomics space. Sure, so we our mission as a company. We've been at it for ten years now, investing heavily in bringing genetics and genomics squarely in the mainstream medical care for billions

of people around the planet. We're absolutely confident that the fundamental personalized power of genetics can impact medicine to the to the better for all of them, uh, improving outcomes and lowering costs. And that's and that's what we've been up to. And I think now, uh now that it is becoming more apparent to a lot more people just how impactful genomics can be. We're really appreciative of investors like Kathy at ARC and others are the entire top

of our capitalization. It's full of investors who really see a significant phase change coming in healthcare, largely fueled by genomics and we're we're really we're really proud to be a leader in it. So genomics testing, I mean, at one point I think it was expensive. Um, it took a while to get here. But tell us exactly what you do in the services you provide and who you provide them to. Absolutely so. And it's good to set

a backdrop. You know, when we started the company, a single test which would look in the form of you and your doctor, whether it be for a disease or symptoms, or of yourself or your child, whether you're starting a family. You know, a single gene test to take a sample, run an analysis of a single gene and return the result costs four or five dollars a large number of

genes upwards thirty dollars. We now, through our efforts and investing in reducing the cost of that and expanding the amount of information available to clinicians, indications that test now is two hundred and fifty dollars for a large number of genes to assess essential information that affects. Frankly it

affects or truly it affects. One in six individuals have genetics at the core of their health condition and so We offer that service to people like I mentioned, who have a family history, whose child children have symptoms, they themselves have symptoms women starting I think of having a child. There's a variety genetic testing screens available UM to really give give the best best outcome, best outlook UM for for a healthy, long and healthy baby uh and and

and increasingly now looking towards UH. You know, as as an individual ages, you know, there's an awful lot of technic goes on in oncology area cancer, both to assess an individual's risk as well as to use genomic tools to evaluate what therapy, what you know, very affected target therapies could be could be useful UM, perhaps much better than you know ten twenty years ago therapy uh and and and and now on the cutting edge of that is using the generic tools to detect whether or not

that therapy is working and if not, to find that cancer coming back as early as possible and help the oncologists make the next best step they in the future. For sure, we've you know, on a to take cardio vascular cardiology of cardiovascular disease as genetics is a direct cause of it. Very little people, very little veronal number of individuals get that information today, that's going to change in the next few years. And we're really excited, like

I said, excited to be leaving the charge. So right now, how much of your cost equation is just the build out new lab and production facilities? I know you, I think you did one some news in April in North Carolina. So how much of kind of you know, in terms of holding you back from profitability right right now? Is the build out? Yeah, you know, it's it's it's a little of both. There's the physical build out. Frankly, that's

that's not that's not really the majority of it. Okay, we are expanding, we are expanding, rere bursting of the schemes here on the West coast in fr Francisco, we're expanding, putting in two hundred thousand square foot production facility in North Carolina and RTP. But the real cost of doing it kind of comes down to the sample collection and the targeting of the gene them that you're interested in.

And then the major driver as more and more information is gathered over the years is in the interpretation of the genemic information and the delivery of actionable effective you know, next steps for patients in the clinician and that's a that's an immense effort and that's what we've invested the

most in. It's a technology stack. It's an infrastructure, software and tools for experts, for our experts to medical genesis to deliver that information and work with the patient and their and their um and their clinician on what it means, what the implication is for them, their family, and what the best next steps are. Sean, So we're talking about what you guys are doing. You said the bulk of some of your costs have to do with the interpretation of the of the data and what an immense effort

that is. So when does the equation kind of change in terms of lots of demand. You know, you guys are seeing pretty you know, pretty impressive top and bottom line growth, but when does it become a much more profitable business in your view? Yeah, it's a fantastic question.

You know, when we we genuinely see this you know, phase transition that's coming here in healthcare with with genomics very much at the center of it as the catalyst that drives to you know, massive and defendable operating cash

flows in the future. And the key to that is this technology infrastructure that we've been developing in a differential cost advantage to deliver a general's worth of information to patient and their caregivers across any disease, across any stage in life, and all the data that comes along with that and the relevant genomic information, then informing on next steps, and then subsequently tracking outcomes, feeding that back into the engine and coming up with um even even better utilization

for genomic data and even better outcomes that even lower costs. And that is a virtual cycle that we are absolutely confident in creating a business that, you know, call it two to five years from now, will be able to generate, like I said, really begin generating massive operaty cash flows. It's a it's a it's a complete shift in the

way that this information has been used today. And as a leader in it, we tend to be there, we tend to continue to be and we were certain that it's the industry dynamic will shift where it's a it's a winner. Take most well, and you're almost a five point nine billion dollar market cap company, give me an

idea of how massive this industry potentially could be. And there's multiple players, to be fair, but you know, give us an idea of is this something that people are born are people multiple times will need to have genetic testing be done? Um? Yeah, so I mean this and this is the key to the whole is the key to the whole thing, the investment thesis, what we're currently doing, how we're executing in the future. One in six individuals has a genetic indication that drives there there in the

majority of their healthcare outcomes. Um. That that is if you want to translate that to the market, you know again, they're there it pretty much we believe will be anybody born in a modern healthcare system. Uh you know, is it ten years from now, fifteen years or not, something like that. But that's where this is going about one to two billion people, uh, in those in those modern

healthcare systems around the globe. And our feeling is that our services that we provide from from creator the grave, well, instead of being today what it is a relatively expensive single tests, one test at a time based on symptoms and and kind of clinician inquiry, will turn into something looks more like an information service for a few hundred

dollars per year for those that number of people. This information will be on tap and available for people before they know they need it, two clinicians before they have clearly identified the cause of symptoms or family history, and certainly UH increasingly UH using that advanced genemic technology to be able to identify who's the highest risk and detect that onset of that disease far earlier than we are today, which in any one of these conditions we all know

is the key. You're preventing delaying, lowering the cost of treating, and in many cases outright curing those disorders. And to be fair to make sure, like our audience is cleared, genomic is very different from genetic testing. Well, I'm really

glad you brought it up. We don't see it any differently Historically, you know, yeah, historically genetic testing has kind of, you know, if you think about the roots of the industry has been very much a genetic tests have been relegated to kind of the measure of last resort when when nothing else could could sort out what was going on, an idea of an indication or a problem the patients spurred a clinician to think I'm gonna oder genic test

or typically specialist and then it was typically a pretty narrow focus test and on one gene one sometimes even one marker once it's a marker. And now as as the technology is evolved, and certainly there's been technology involved in the generation of that information that's allowed it's very much like it's a technology called nextionary generation sequencing. It's kind of like Moore's Lalyan computing in the seventies and eighties.

That's driven then the ability to look at more and more this information at once, which people tend to call genomics. In our view, it's it's all the same. What is the biggest risk for an individual and what do you do about it? And that is that is the use of this information and healthcare right listen, we just scratched the surface, and our producer Paul bred and I were talking about this and we knew we wanted to do

two blocks with you. But we hope you will come back again in the future because I feel like we want to dig even deeper so that people kind of understand even more of what you are doing and love to get an update on the business down the road. Sean George, he is the CEO of and VT, joining us on the phone from San Francisco.