This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer from Bloomberg Radio. So a name from Milatara audience is Jamie Matzl. He's Senior Fellow at the Atlanta Council, former director on the U S National Security Council of the State Department, and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Founder and chair of the global movement One Shared World. He's also a special strategist for Wisdom Tree, which leverage data from Jamie and its construction of the Wisdom Tree by a Revolution Index
and the Wisdom Tree by a Revolution Fund. It's an a t F targeting companies expected to be impacted by advancements in genetics and biotechnology, and that fund about to be launched. Jamie joins us with more, along with Jeremy Schwartz, whose global head of research over at Wisdom Tree. Both are joining us on the phone in New York City. Jamie, welcome back, Jeremy. Nice to have you here on Bloomberg
Business Week. So, um, tell us about how you two got together, Jamie, I know this is something that's been on your radar for a long time. Yeah, well, thanks so much. Carol's thrilled to be back with you and you and I for years, and I've been talking about
these issues. When my book Hacking Darwin Genetic Engineering in the Future of Humanity came out, um we talked about it, and the big issue is that we are we humanity are at the earliest stages of a revolution that is already changing the way we do and think about healthcare.
But this is like the equivalent of the early days of industrialization or the early days of the Internet revolution, where the incredibly powerful tools of the genetics and biotechnology revolutions aren't just going to transform healthcare, but these same capabilities will overtime fundamentally transform a lot of other fields, including agriculture, material energy, data storage. And so I've always
thought that this was just an incredible investment opportunity. And then last year, um I somebody reached out to me and it was Jeremy Schwartz, And Jeremy, you wanted to the story from here? Yeah, Jerry, what was it about it that was so appealing to you? Guys? Well, you know, we've been doing a lot of investment around these big trends we're calling mega trends and growth opportunities. And I read Jamie's book, Actually one of my friends had highlighted
as something that he was doing some investing around. I read the book and I was like, Wow, these are these are really big picture trends that's changing our lives UM And then I started thinking about how do we identify these companies on an ongoing basis? And I just reached out to Jamie and said, let's start the conversation. Are you interested in collaborating on something like this. We've been working with deep, thoughtful partners in this collab reform.
You need to really know the space and know the cutting edge technologies, and I view Jamie as this biology guru who really could help us guide the big picture. What are the important technologies, what are the important companies? And getting some collaboration from Jamie on identifying these technologies and companies has has has been a really great experience here. So what's the data specifically behind the index that ultimately led to the a t UM Jamie, what was what
was it the data that was specifically used? Because I think you know, when you're talking about things that can impact agg materials, data storage, I mean there's a lot there to unpack. So there's a lot there. But what we were looking at is parts of all of these different sectors where these revolutionary tools of the genetics and biotech revolutions we're going to empower new business models, new ways of doing things. And one great example of this that's very intimate for many of us are these m
RNA vaccines. And so you and I, Carol, have talked about this the miracle of these mr and A vaccines. They're very different from the polio vaccine, for example, which was a dead or attenuated version of the polio virus. What the mRNA vaccine is we are basically injecting new instructions to ourselves to produce something that otherwise our bodies
can't produce, which is this this spike protein uh. And then we have a natural immunological response, but that ability um to kind of manipulate in many ways the code of life. It's the mr and A vaccines aren't just about vaccines. This technology is a platform for thinking differently about how we treat all sorts of diseases going future,
including lots of cancers and possibly even Alzheimer's. But the mr and A technology also has huge implications for how we think about growing crops and disrupting the way we think about fertilizers. The same is true with with tissue
engineering and regenerative medicine. There's a transition and translation of all these great technologies from healthcare into thinking differently about how we cultivate food and precision agriculture, and so that we're trying to really capture areas of these technologies where the revolutionary tools are leading to new and disruptive business models. All right, gentlemen, sit tight for a second. Got to do a little bit world of national news here on Bloomberg,
But we'll come right back and continue the conversation. We're gonna get back to Jeremy Schwartz, global head of Research over at wisdom Tree, along with Jamie Metzel, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, former National Security Council official, on the phone in New York City, but talking about this new Wisdom Tree by a Revolution Index and ultimately the Wisdom Tree Bio Revolution Fund. I want to get back
to our two guests. It is Jamie Metzel, Senior Fellow Atlantic Council, former director on the U S National Council at the State Department on the Senate Form Relations Committees, also special strategist for Wisdom Tree. He is still with us along with Jeremy Schwartz, global head of Research at Wisdom Tree, and talking about the launch of their new Wisdom Tree by a Revolution Fund UH in e t F, which actually launched Thursday. So forgive me because I think
I miss spoke before. Both of them still with us on the phone in New York City. So let me ask you, Jeremy, talk to me about the interest in the fund so far. You know, it's a these type of funds, Uh, They're easy to understand, and then you get news stories like the Biogen announcement on the new Alzheimer's drug treatment up four percent. Biogen is actually the top holding in w DNA today, which is the you know,
it's large and we're seeing good uh early conversations. One of the first clients I've talked to said they don't like very niche fund. A lot of folks fund folkus just on healthcare or the genomics theme. But what we are unique at is providing exposure to more than just the human health elements of things from Jamie talked about the tradition energy and agriculture and food and the new development that biogy is going to impact all these other sectors.
So I have high expectations. I think this is going to be a a great story and and a fund that gets a lot of interest. Yeah, exactly, Well, it does sound like a basket that's going to expose you to a lot of different things. I mean, Jamie, as you mentioned, you know, it's agg it's you know, manufacturing it. Really it's not necessarily I think you hear biotech and you think medicine science, that's part of it, but that's
just a component that's that's exactly right. The way I say is that healthcare is the first station on this journey. And part of that is because human health is so important to us, and part of that is because we're investing such a large percentage of our total GDP in healthcare.
But these same underlying technologies, as I was saying before, that are driving the massive transformation in healthcare as we move from our world of generalized medicine to precision medicine, and we have all these new technologies that are allowing us to have these amazing vaccines and gene therapies and regenerative medicine, all this great stuff. It applies in all
of these different sectors. Because the core issue is we are developing the ability to read and understand and manipulate in some ways the basic source code of life, and that scares a lot of people. But um, there are a lot of things that we're doing that we can just do in a better way. We we dig up oil and we go to wars over it, um, but we can create it using things like from things like algae. The same is true with different kinds of protein. We
think of data storage. Um, we we know that we can have silicon chips, but you can dig up We just didn't this and I didn't do it, but dig up a DNA from a mammoth from a million years ago and it's still readable. So it's you know. As you know, Carol, I also write science fiction. I do a lot of thinking about the future, and this is really the intersection of science and science fiction. But it's happening in real time now with massive economic implications, and
I have to say it reminds me a lot. I've been talking with Kathy wood over at our Investments for seven years, and she kicked off her company and she taps completely into the innovative space. She in particular has a fun that's just focusing on the genomic revolution, which was up a percent last year. About before that, it's kind of treading a little bit of water in terms of performance UM this year. You're fun though, the biotech and pharmaceutical exposure really is the bulk of the investments
at this point. Are you concerned at all though that the run you know has kind of already happened. What makes you confident that it has the legs to keep going because your exposure, even though it applies to a lot of the world, is still really concentrated in particular in that biotech UM space. Uh, Jamie or Jeremy Jamie, you want to take that, sure, Well, I'll speak in
general and I'll let you Jeremy go specific. There is a lot of excitement in this in this space, but we are at the very earliest stages of this, as I was saying before, of this transformative revolution. And so yes, I mean there are some companies that have gone up a lot, and they've and they've pulled back UM, but
we're going to see more and more of that. I mean we we there would have been these same kinds of trends in the early days of the Internet revolution where there were some stocks that got bit up and then they and then they pulled back. And so for us UM, the bet is not on one individual stock.
Our bet is on this this megatrend. And I think that's what's so interesting, and I think novel about our fund is that we have a lot of maturation in the healthcare field, but it's way it's very early in these other areas like agriculture and materials and energy, and so we're going to see this same kind of growth at some point. And that's why the distributed bet um
in our view makes sense. But Jeremy Well and Jerry, let me just jump in for a second, because I do wonder, as I said right now, if I look at the allocations, you know, the exposure to biotech and pharmaceuticals, I think it's like fifty six for biotech and about pharmaceuticals, I would assume as the impact of the work that they are doing impacts you know, healthcare, agg food, electronics,
that potentially you're holdings will evolve to reflect that. You'll you'll have more of the companies that are being impacted by it. That's right. And when you look at the broad industry, I mean there's funds that are as narrow as thirty companies and as broad as hundred fifty companies. We're at around a hundred and fifteen at the start, and we are trying to get the companies at the most cutting edge of technology. So we think we are going to be in in the companies at the cutting edge, um,
but we are so managing risk. Our our portfolis roughly equally way to spread out, so you get only around one percent in the top holding. So it's diversified exposure to the themes at this cutting edge. And I do think your point is exactly spot on that today it was around human health, and then we think over time these other sectors, as more companies become public, there's a big pipeline in things like the agricultural space and development
of different food technologies. We think those companies coming to market will be green editions over time, and we're gonna we have an index committee reviewing this on a semi annial basis and we'll look to add companies as we think most appropriate over time. Well, looking forward to hearing more to guys, and especially as that evolution happens. Thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate it. Jimmie Metzel Uh you know him well. He's been on our
air a lot. Senior fellow at the Atlanta Council, former National Security Council official, and as we mentioned, special strategist for the Wisdom Tree. He helped his data in the construction of that Wisdom Tree Buy a Revolution index, and now the fund that has launched it launched last week. The Wisdom Tree By a Revolution funds are thanks to Jamie as well as the Jeremy Schwartz, Global Head of Research at Wisdom Tree.