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According to Grandview Research , a microbiome therapeutics market worth about $95 million in 2022 is expected to grow at a kegger of more than 38% between now and 2030 . Bcc research says $509% by 2027 . Pick a number , it doesn't matter .
They're all huge projections and , in fact , quite surprising when you juxtapose those bullish forecasts to the number of microbiome therapeutic companies that have recently struggled or altogether shuttered . 4d Pharma , evalo , finch and Kaleido come to mind .
But it's not all bad news Ceres therapy for CDIF was just approved after some failures along the way , but the earlier casualties have come at the hands of a combination of tough capital market conditions that couldn't keep up with cash burn and some rightful regulatory hurdles associated with the safety of donor microbia .
I'm Matt Piller , and my guest on today's episode of the Business of Biotech is the founder and CEO of a microbiome company that's weathered the regulatory storm , having recently emerged from a clinical hold on its phase 3 program in graft versus host disease .
Now Ereve Afagard is looking to navigate the company to success with microbiota therapeutics aimed at the hematoma and immuno oncology spaces . He's here to tell us all about it . Ereve , welcome to the show .
Thank you very much . Welcome for listening .
I'm thrilled to have you . I'm going to get to the market conditions soon enough . I want to get your reflections on that . I want to talk about what you guys are doing differently in this space to ensure success , especially as late stages you are . But I want to get to know you first a little bit . Your background is certainly compelling and interesting to me .
You earned a master's degree in automation engineering and IT and you initially applied . From what I understand correct me if I'm wrong you initially applied that education in the steel industry . So tell me a little bit about that and why the wholesale change into the life sciences ?
Yes , so it could look strange , but there's a rationale .
In fact , I started working within the IT consulting business , then I moved to the steel industry and when I was working on the steel industry , I was in charge of some significant business transformation involving the implementation of ERPs such as SAP , oracle applications e-business streets , the way it is called today and in fact , at that time , a US company , bayerad
contacted me because they had a very significant failure with their distribution system and their distribution system was based on one of the two . I was mastering the IT tool I was mastering , and so I jumped to Bayerad in Paris . Bayerad is a headquarter in California and I've started to work with them . First year we did a very good job with the team .
We succeeded in the stabilization of the system and at that time , bayerad started to do a lot of acquisitions in Europe , deals going from 50 million euros to half a billion . Bayerad is a family-owned company .
I've been involved with the M&A team , mainly because I was good in terms of managing projects with my background , and I've started to do the website then to discuss with the business team in charge of the instruments . That's a company selling both instruments and reagents for lab testing , so I've started to expand .
I had a recognition from the family of Bayerad and that's how it has started for me to go on the business side . So in 2006 , I started to go more in international business the health care sector and started to become like an operation officer instead of being a technical guy . So that's really how it started .
Yeah , that's pretty wild because you know I used to cover for a long time .
I covered the IT space and ERPs were in my coverage area and I know that when you're working in systems implementation , like ERP systems implementation , you get a pretty intimate look at a business , right Like you get an intimate look at the comings and goings of raw materials and finished product in business .
Was that exposure to , as I said , the resource acquisition and allocation of the life sciences business intriguing to you ? Like , was it that ? Was the product and sort of the substance of the of the business intriguing to you , or was it just the systems ?
No , no , honestly , to be very transparent with you , I was working in a small city in France where you have this steel industry , and my girlfriend at that time she was in Paris working on the finance sector , so there was no opportunity for her to go in the city where I was living , and for me it was .
I've worked five years with this company , so that was the good timing for me to do something else . So that's , that's just the way it happened . But then after , the story is different .
When you , if you consider my entering to the earth care sector in 2006 , after that , for me it was obvious that I needed to continue to work on the earth care sector because I've learned I would say I've learned how to buy a rod . What's the earth care sector ?
Then I've participated to LBO leverage buyouts with a lab testing company , and after that I've created my farmer . But when I created my farmer , that was a timing for me where I was really keen in understanding the innovation and everything .
And I've been exposed to the macro biome and I was early on , early on , convinced that it was potentially something big in terms of changing the way we're going to be approaching and met medical need , but it's not the most important .
The most important for me was that I'm the son of two parents diagnosed with a cancer and when I've been exposed to the macro biome , I said , oh my goodness , we have something we have not looked after in terms of certain conditions , which is the case for GBHD , because when I've created the company , there was no drug approved at all in the world .
So I said that is what I want to do , and that's not nine years and with the mad farmer , I've never spent so long in a company . But today , for me it's obvious . So the beginning of my career . You know , you , it's like a little bit of a scale .
You go one after one , and now that I found what I was looking for without knowing it , I'm not willing to change anymore .
Yeah , no , that's fantastic . What was I want to talk about ? What was what was perhaps a difficult transition ? You were a very , very much a systems , process , process oriented guy and I can see where like that would play well in a role like yours now . But there were also obviously challenges , right .
So what was challenging along the way in making that transition ?
So the most challenging for me was to understand the biology and the science behind the microbiome . That was a very big challenge for me . I was lucky enough to be well accompanied by the people I met researchers , doctors . They trust me from the get go and they have spent time with me to teach me what I know today .
I've also taken courses on the internet , for example . I followed massive online courses from the University of Boulder , colorado .
So I've worked a lot to understand the science and indeed , with the engineer mindset I would say , I've started to apply what I've learned as an engineer together with a new science I was acquiring and but that was that was very difficult for the first two to three years .
That was very difficult because the science today is pretty mature , but at that time it was . It was really difficult , especially to find the right positioning for the product , because when I also started the company Ceres you mentioned into the introduction and also the biotics , they were already on the field . So they were , they had already taken a position .
So for me there was no option to do a me to company . That was really to do something different . So we decided to position ourselves in the field of oncology , which makes sense for me because of my own family story .
And that was a big challenge because at that time nobody believed that by modifying the microbiome you're gonna do something on the patient side . Just by modifying the microbiome , everybody was thinking might work in close to the end if it's a different story .
So the second challenge , in top of the science acquisition , was really to convince people that we are not esoteric . We know what we do and I've been working with academic institutions to generate evidence , evidences and everything . But this second element was a big , big challenge as well regarding the journey .
I don't like coming into it from sort of a layman's perspective , if you will , inspired to develop therapeutics in oncology by your own family experience , what did you know at the time and how did you become aware that there was possibly some link between the microbiome and cancer ?
I mean , in other words , like if you came in purely with the motivation , like I've got the time , the resources and the willpower to create a pharmaceutical company that seeks to address oncology , you might start with I don't know a model plan a lot about , or a cell therapy for instance .
At that time you just said it like the link between gut health and oncology had not it's still an exploration right it hadn't been clearly established . So why would you start there ?
I mean I'll evidence what I'm saying . But intuition was very important and I give you support to that intuition . When I started the company , in fact my mother she was not diagnosed with a cancer , she had GI issues . It was not a cancer . Immediately after I've created mad pharma , I collected the stools of my mother and I did the sequencing .
And when I get the results from the sequencing I say oh , my goodness , what's going on ? And it was full of pro-inflammatory bacteria and everything . So that was even before she got diagnosed with the cancer and at that time it took six months to get the results of sequencing . Today it's two weeks , just to give you the acceleration .
But I was that convinced that I said no , it's not a chronic disease , which was the diagnosis . And I've taken the results of the sequencing and I met with gastroenterologists and everything and nobody was able to explain to me . They were just saying it's not a good microbiome . But I don't know what to tell . And like , a year ago there was a publication .
So seven years after there was a publication in Germany showing that the kind of microbiome that my mother had is a signature of pancreatic cancer and that was a pancreatic cancer . So that's for me how you start from challenging the consensus . It's not what you think , mr Doctor , that's something else . I don't know what to do , but let's explore .
And from that I said no , it's not what you are diagnosing . Diagnosticking to my mother , and I know it , but nobody was able to put a name on something which I understand , because the science was not there at that time . So that's why it's a mix of providing evidences of something which is more intuition than anything else .
But that's how it started from the end .
So it starts there , and now you've got to rally some support . You've got to get people interested . You've got to get scientists who can help you validate your assumptions interested . You've got to get investors interested to fund what you're doing . So walk us through a little bit of that . How'd you rally that support ?
So you started the introduction by saying that the microbiome field is a little bit suffering as we speak today . It's true , like for the entire biotech segment , I think . If you look in the US at the number of IPOs since the beginning of the year in the life science sector , that's like peanuts .
So the biotech sector in general is suffering because the investors they are risk adverse . Clearly , the microbiome is not an exception . You mentioned a few companies that failed and some others which are unstable . So having good investors since the get go was important . I've been lucky to .
In fact , when I started the venture , I was an entrepreneur in residence with an investor , so he immediately invested 2 million euros which might look ridiculous in the US , but in France it's pretty decent and immediately after that they introduced me to other investors .
And because we had a step-by-step approach where we were generating data like every six months , we have demonstrated that we are in a position to stay something , to claim something and then prove that we can deliver as per the promise . And we have gained . Slowly and slowly we have gained the trust in the field and we had two other investors 18 months after .
At the end of the day , before the IPO , we had in total , nine investors and all the investors they have always reinvested . So the investor from 2014 has reinvested up to the IPO and even after , because we did another follow-up early , 23 , and they have again all invested .
So I think it is very important to show that you deliver and that's where we have been able to aggregate some very good investors , knowledgeable on the field , most of them . They are knowledgeable with either the innovation in general or , more precisely , the macro biome . So that was one element .
Regarding the second kind of stakeholders , the doctors , we have always involved them into the design of the trial . We have talked a lot with them . We really value their inputs . We are not like a very big pharmaceutical company where we get what you want from the doctors and then you do your own protocol .
So we are really open innovation , connected , listening to people and here again , that has helped a lot because the doctors of today , they are the prescribers of tomorrow and we have worked very well with them .
We have good connection with the academic institutions in Europe based on the fact that we have always co-constructed the plan with them , and I think that's the most important elements . France is also a little bit specific regarding the macro biome .
I have to say , among the six most prolific publishers of patents , three are French academic institutions , they are in the US and there is one in China . But we have a very good science regarding macro biome . It's a historical business for us . So also it has been super helpful to be in such as an ecosystem .
Yeah , yeah , that's interesting . It brings to mind a conversation I recently had with a scientist who had an idea that was not obvious and she talked about how difficult it was to get investors to buy into an obvious idea when sort of the mindset is to move with the prevailing wind .
So in oncology , I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about how you crafted and communicated the story around your pitch , for instance , because in oncology , as I said , like the investor community is likely to buy . I mean , you look at the proliferation of ADC , antibody drug , cogic companies in oncology right now .
It's huge and growing because it's a trend right . The wind's blowing that way and investors are likely to go there . Now a company comes out and they say no-transcript . Well , you know we think we can affect health outcomes and oncology through the gut . You're bound to get some skepticism , right .
So there's a bit more of a storytelling job to be done on your part . So share with us some insight into what that storytelling entailed .
So there's the storytelling and I would say the positioning as well . When we started in GVHD there was no drug approved .
Just to say a few words on the disease itself , that's a rejection of the stem cells that have been injected to a patient and it's a pretty difficult disease because in fact the immune cells transfer to the patient , they are attacking the tissues on the recipient side and that's purely on immunological disease and the immunological disease has been created by the stem
cell transplantation itself . So it's not like natural and it's a very , very difficult condition and showing from the get go , saying from the get go , that you're going to be treating these diseases by modulating the microbiome 90% of the people they will . They will laugh .
And what we did in fact is that we said we have good reasons to believe that it would be okay because of XYZ . And immediately after we started the , we found , based on that , we found the enough money to start .
But immediately after we started the clinical trial also , we managed to launch on early access program , a compassionate use program , and here we started to receive requests because our explanation and education to the doctors worked pretty well and the doctors they have started to prescribe our product , even if it was still in phase two and we had initial success and
I would say we have been good in terms of the study to take me with investors , but the I would say we have been also good in terms of taking educating the doctors . And then the doctors , they did the job . They are talking between them . They said you should try , because here we are talking about patients with a survival at two months of 20% .
So those doctors , they are ready to try anything and we have been always provide .
I would say we have been always trying to help the patients and the doctors and it has been appreciated and from that we have also built the story by saying , by explaining which is through , that we are really a patient centric company and also we have few investors that are either a family of patients or ex patients as well .
We will raise a pretty decent amount of money after the IPO or at the IPO with patients and their family too .
Yeah , yeah . How has investor appetite improved with clinical progress ? Have you seen , people , that clinical progress kind of proving its way out into increased support for what you are doing ?
So the investors they have more appetite as we are generating clinical data , because we are less risky , that is for sure . But where I've seen the most change , especially since we have entered the phase three , is with the interest from the pharmaceutical company . Before that it was difficult for the pharmaceutical company to buy a microbiome story .
That was difficult . Now that we are in phase three and also now that we are expanding in solid tumors , which is a very trendy therapeutic area , we have a lot of descriptions , but we have something that we have not before we have incoming call . Before that we were running everywhere in the world with only its success .
Now it's like when we go to buy or , for example , it's really way more comfortable as compared to what it was before .
So that's where I've seen the most change and it's also a little bit of hope for the field , because what we really need now is validation with pharmaceutical company that they are interested in the field , and I think it's even more important than investors .
For emerging biotechs , scaling the process , development and manufacturing of biologic molecules to clinical standards can be a challenge . However , you don't need to go it alone . Don't miss an episode of the Business of Biotech podcast where we offer insights on regulatory funding and other essential topics .
The pod is brought to you in collaboration with CITIVA , a global provider of technologies and services that advance and accelerate the development , manufacture and delivery of therapeutics . Check out their resources at CITIVAcom . Backslash emerging biotech . You know there's a truth in biopharma around sort of the rising tide lifting all ships right .
Like when you see an approval and a specific indication or a specific modality . Other companies in that same space tend to feel a left , and it works the other way as well . Like when their market conditions are tough and you see companies that are working in your space going downhill or tends to drag the entire space down .
What are you seeing now in terms of where the market goes from here ? We've acknowledged the tough conditions . What are you seeing now is in terms of where the market goes from here and how your company is positioning itself to either take advantage of that or to differentiate itself from those companies that are kind of falling off .
I would say today we are at a phase where we have the advent of the first wave of companies , which comes with an advent of a first kind of modality , and the more we will be progressing in terms of waves a little bit like for COVID , you know , we can have many waves the more refined and complex will be the product .
So today we are still at the edge of the dener-derived product , as evidenced by the approval of Rebiota and Vost in the US . So we would be very happy to see a commercial success in terms of having the regulatory approval , so that we are still in wave one . But we see more and more new companies emerging with either direct or indirect modalities .
That could be metabolites isolated from the gut , it could be phages , it could be consortia , it could be many things . So now we see more and more , I would say , products that are different . So we really start from the tools and from that you can derivate many products .
And from the first time also , we see products that are not dener-derived products showing clinical benefit . That's what we see when you are going at Congress and that's very promising because that means , I mean , I'm not the kind of person who believes that one modality will check all the boxes .
I mean , what we do for GBHD , for example , is very promising and everything , but I would agree that sometimes it might not be sufficient . You might need our product together with an immunosuppressant , for example . So that's really the way I see it for the future and the fact that we have many modalities .
It's a very good sign and , as I said , we see data with products that are not dener-derived . They are different products . We see also others having good results glioblastoma with molecules , so they are more in the peptide kind of modality and that's a big boom and I think , of course , we need to find all the financial resources to support that .
But I see the field really expanding from those initial success that we have mentioned already with the two approval in the US .
Yeah , I want to get my mind around your approach to clinical trials a little bit . You think about early microbiome therapeutic companies focusing on C-diff , which is a natural and obvious indication . You said , hey , we can go out there and make a clinical trial happen . It's a pretty direct route .
We're going to find patients with C-diff and we're going to enroll them in our clinical trial . Not so direct with GVHD , it's a more complicated patient recruitment process , I would assume . Tell me a little bit about that . How have you gone about navigating that patient recruitment aspect of your clinical trial in GVHD ?
First , we need to open a lot of centers to have only a little number of patients . It's clear when we will close the clinical trials , one-third of the clinical centers , they will not have recruited even one patient . So indeed you need to have an infrastructure which is large . That means you need to rely on a very , very robust CRO and everything .
You need to be closed from the hospitals and the investigators . We are going on site . Every time there's a patient , they have questions , we work with them very closely because it's a first-in-class . They never manipulate it such as a product . As I said , patients they're all dying or close . All of them are dying . That's only 22% survival at your month .
Sometimes they could be hesitating to provide these products made of microorganisms to a patient which is immunocompromised , which is undustable . We have a specific structure . Every time we have a screening we immediately call the center and everything . That's for the GVHD program , which is a niche market .
Then after that we have another positioning for the second product which is more adjuvant to the existing treatment . Here we are not that concerned with our recruitment . That's for all patients receiving stem cell transplantation here , especially in the hematology oncology field .
Now the potential of improving the outcome for the patient is well-recognized by the doctors here . Because it's an adjuvant not directly treating the disease , I think it would be more easy to recruit patients . The first trial in GVHD is indeed something where you need a .
There's a French expression which says if you want your code to give milk , you need to be close from your code . That's exactly what we do .
I can see that you mentioned some of the stakeholders obviously the patient , the doctors . You've made it very clear that the relationship with the doctors has been very important . What about , in this case , cell therapy companies ?
Have you found value in collaboration , some form of collaboration with the cell therapy companies that are administering these hematopoietic stem cell transplants ?
Yeah , today , to be very concrete , we see there are a few papers showing that the fact that you have a dysbiosis before cell therapy , for example , you have a lower outcome regarding the response to the CAR-T . We see a lot of academic centers now doing observation . They collect tools , samples from the patients and everything .
Now we see that there's a link between the quality of the response you get and the microbiome , the composition of the microbiome at baseline . Today that's exactly where we are . We are exploring collaboration with academic centers to provide our products to , I would say , normalize the microbiome before the patient gets the CAR-T cell .
That's another avenue where we think there's a potential . It's a good point . We are a little bit like where we were with the HSTT , the stem cell transplantation , a few years ago . It's also starting on the CAR-T cell field .
When you see , I would say , the CAR-T cell when they work , but it's very , very expensive and it comes with a toxicity , the fact that you couldn't move or guarantee the results of your procedure is super important . The potential here is also super important . That's also the direction we are considering as we speak today .
I got to ask you about this . I mentioned in the intro to the episode that you recently I think in the springtime emerged from an FDA clinical hold . Congratulations on that , by the way . Completely One of those things that's not uncommon .
Despite that hold the company's progress towards phase three trials I'm not saying it was lightning speed , but it was relatively quick . You've made good progress since finding the company , I guess . A two-part question . One to what do you attribute the progress you've been able to make to get to this point in your clinical trial effort ?
Two what advice would you give to other biopharma leaders who have a stumbling block along the way , who get hit with that pause button during their clinicals ?
Yeah , answering first the second point . The issue that we were facing with the FDA is a related fact that we are pulling the material to get a standardization and everything , which has not been a problem in Europe . It has been a problem when we wanted to go in the US as a European company .
We were lucky enough to be able to continue the clinical trials in Europe . We have accumulated data on 150 patients as we speak today . I think the FDA was pleased to see that we have human data showing that it's safe . It has helped a lot in terms of the resolution .
Of course , the FDA have requested other things in terms of the possibility and everything , but the most important is that we have been able to continue the clinical trial . I would say the advice if I'm legitimate to provide an advice , by the way is first , don't give up . It's not because one agency is saying no , that's the other one going to say no .
The patient is a patient . Let's continue where you can continue , because it's all about innovation . I'm not concerned about the fact that the FDA put us on hold . It's part of the process . The FDA has never approved in the past a good product . They needed time for the evaluation On top of that , that was at the timing of the COVID and everything .
It's part of the process . You need to be able to multiply the opportunities to get patients . If I would have been a US company , I don't know if I would have survived , because if you are based in Boston , you have to validate your domestic market first , as we did in France . I don't know if I would have survived if I would have been in the US .
My advice is really to multiply the channels . Here we can leverage on the complexity of Europe where you need to deal with 20 , 26 members . It has a lot of drawback . But also here we have been able to continue the recruitment . It's very important . It's innovation . That's what I learned from the IT field . You're going to fail sometimes . You're going to learn .
It's part of the process . That's very important to be able to continue your development . Why we have been recruiting that much . For example , the reference in a methodology oncology is the Ash American Society of a Mathology , which is taking place once a year in the US . We have been presenting data . We are an eight-year-old company .
We have presented data six years in a row . We had all presentation for the last three editions . The microbiome . It's super trendy , even for the doctors . For the first presentation it was only posters . We had a queue . We had a queue that had a poster , which is not common . During the whole presentation we filled the room pretty easily .
The microbiome is really something that the doctor is interested with . Based on this educational exercise that we did with the doctors , it has been very prolific .
While we're on the regulatory topic , the company obtained orphan drug status . Tell us a little bit about what the advantage there was and what advice you might have for other companies who are pursuing some accelerated status with FDA and or EMA .
Yeah . So ODD , especially in Europe , is very advantageous because you do not pay for anything . For example , if you are at ODD , you have an expansion of your exclusivity to write on the data and also you don't pay anything in Europe when you do the feeding . So it's super , super , super advantageous .
So the regulation in Europe is changing that will become more and more difficult to get the ODD status , but it's recommended to go there and then with the FDA , you know it has been difficult to interact with the FDA in person for the reason we know COVID and everything .
I do not think we are back on track with having physical meetings , taking time to discuss the topics and everything . So I think having ODD and especially fast-track designation and everything that puts you in the priority to have really two meetings , not a return response only with the FDA , which sometimes could be challenging because it's difficult to send a letter .
You receive an answer . That sometimes could be difficult . So having that status is super important because once again , it's innovation First in class . You need to multiply the interaction with the FDA and if you don't have that , it's more difficult . So having those fast-track designation and ODD is very important . It's very important .
Yeah , Excellent . I never thought about a global approach to clinical trials with multiple agencies as being like strategic from a redundancy perspective before , like if things go a little bit haywire here , we can still perhaps move forward in this program .
You know , I always sort of thought of that strategy from a patient recruitment perspective or you know , a very , very specific patient population , your AFRICAN perspective . But it never really occurred to me that there's like risk avoidance and the redundancy of clinical trials in multiple regulatory jurisdictions .
I'm not from the field , so that's maybe why I thought in a different manner .
Yeah , yeah , I don't know . I mean , maybe you know , maybe I'm just naive and I don't realize that that's like you know very important , important thinking on everyone's part .
But I mean all of us US , europe , everywhere , all of us . We want to bring innovations to patients and we might have different concerns . And if you can validate some milestones with different agencies . I know another microbiome company , for example , has been a stud in France for certain reasons . I know they have started in Belgium .
They have provided human data , not non-clinical data , and from that , the French agency , they say that's okay , you check the box .
Yeah , yeah , that's fascinating . So , beyond oncology , you guys are working on investing in microbiome therapeutics and CNS diseases like ALS . So tell us a little bit about what's different between that approach and the approach you're taking in cancer .
So what's come ? What I would say , the scientific rationale is that within oncology we are targeting to restore two things the barrier function to avoid translocation of bad bugs and everything , plus the restoration of the immune homeostasis Between neurological and psychiatric disease . Here it's a different story .
That's the link between the gut and the brain , mainly , and that's about the neuroinflammation , because most of the immune cells , 80% of the immune cells , they reside within the gut . So there's also a link between the neuroinflammation and the status of your gut . So that's the scientific rationale , what we have among the neurological disorder , psychiatric disorder .
We have not chosen isomer Parkinson's . We have chosen exactly what we did for the GVHD . We have chosen a disease where the patients are dying ALS . You have diagnosis from time to death . To diagnosis it's three years maximum . So that's also where we have seen the most potential in terms of benefiting for the patients .
So it's not a scientific reason , but in terms of the positioning . That was very important too . And here again we work a lot with the patients . We have a patient association . We have a collaboration with A patient . Association is within the DSMB , that's a safety monitoring board .
We have designed the clinical trial with the patients because they have issues with the motility and everything . So we are doing it a little bit like we did for the GVHD . Part of what we do is instructed by the patient themselves and you get that when you have patients with very high on medical need .
And that's what is in common with the strategic positioning in oncology and especially in GVHD . So two elements the science , where there's good rational , we see these biosies on patients with ALS , but also the positioning is driven by the intensity of the medical need .
Well , thank you for that update and thanks for the update on the clinical progress you told me . I know we're running short on time here . You told me earlier in the conversation that this is the longest position that you've held consistently over the course of your career nine years , did you say .
Yeah .
Yeah , and I've heard from multiple founders and CEOs and biopharma who've told me like it's every day . I wake up . I feel like I'm working on a new job , because there's a new challenge to face every day , so it doesn't really get old . But what do you see coming down the pike for you , like what's next ?
I want to get a perspective on what's next for you and also what's next for Matt Pharma , like where the company's going from here and where you see yourself going from here .
Yeah , for Matt Pharma . First , I've sequenced the different phases of the company because at each time you go from phase A to B you have to change the resources , the skills you need and everything . So today we are at phase four , which is a pre-commercialization .
So for me it will be super exciting to see with Matt Pharma two things the commercialization of the first product , matt 13, . That would be for me something you know I want to put in my shemine at home .
And the second element we have not discussed that much today about that , but we have also designed a new technology which would be a donor , independent , co-tutivating , very complex technology that we have developed . I like to see the proof of concept , meaning phase two , on that technology , because I'm a co-inventor of this technology too .
So that would be my achievement at Matt Pharma . Once that is done , for me I like to mix a little bit more what I've learned in the past with the IT things and especially artificial intelligence and everything I think there's going to do , which means at the cross between the artificial intelligence and microbiome .
I believe there's many things to do on that field , so that may be for me of interest .
Yeah , that new technology . Real quick on that . The new technology that you referenced is that sort of a platform technology or is that a technology that you anticipate will develop or result in new and different candidates for Matt Pharma ?
It's a platform that will generate new candidates , and what's disruptive and unique regarding the technology is , in fact , that we have identified , for example , to start with , the application . It will be more easy to explain . We said this patient to respond to immunotherapy . He needs this kind of phenotype with a microbiome .
So we have developed a technology where we can assemble ecosystems together and we can grow them together . So what knows to do the industry is to grow one bacteria and then you do an assembly . But us , what we believe , is that the ecosystem is very important and the ecosystem , the normal microbiome , is roughly 250 species .
You have 250 species , I have 250 species , hopefully , and what we are doing with this technology is we are growing the bacteria together , and that's where is the technical challenge , because one bacteria could take 20 minutes to reproduce or they can take longer .
So if you don't control the process , at the end of the day you have one bug , because it will take over the control on everything , and we have managed to define a process where you can grow the bacteria together by keeping the similarity , which provides you an opportunity to have like no limit in terms of the scalability , because if you do an assembly of
different bugs . You need hundreds of bioreactors here . It's a production where you have one system and you can produce unlimited amount of material .
Wow , all right , so that's part two . We're out of time , but part two when I have you back on the show Aravay . Part two will be on building a complete microbiome ecosystem and then part three will be on Aravay's new adventures with artificial intelligence and the microbiome technology . How about ?
that . Let's hope you are true . Yeah , it's a good conclusion .
We'll go with that . I'm gonna let you off the hook for today , but I really appreciate you coming on . It's been a fascinating conversation and I thank you for the glimpse into what's going on at Matt Pharma .
Thank you very much , matt , and I'll talk to you soon Sounds good .
So , that's Matt Pharma founder and CEO Aravay Affegard . I'm Matt Pillar and this is the Business of Biotech . We're produced by Bioprocess Online with the support of CITIVA , which demonstrates its commitment to new and emerging biopharm companies .
At CITIVAcom backslash emerging biotech , If you like listening in on conversations with biopharma leaders like Aravay , subscribe to the Business of Biotech podcast . Sign up for my newsletter at bioprocessonlinecom backslashbob . Also , be sure to leave us a review , let us know how we're doing and , as always , thanks for listening .
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