Speaker 1: I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I lived in
Speaker 1: South Africa for the first twelve years of my life
Speaker 1: and at the tend age of twelve and a half,
Speaker 1: my parents decided to leave South Africa. They didn't agree
Speaker 1: with the government at the time, it was an apartheid government.
Speaker 1: I had an older brother that had to go into
Speaker 1: the army and I didn't want my brother going into
Speaker 1: the army and fighting for a cause he didn't believe in.
Speaker 1: And my parents were very much part of the anti
Speaker 1: apartheid movement and wanted us to grow up in the
Speaker 1: right kind of environment. So twelve and a half thirteen
Speaker 1: moved to Sydney, Australia, where I had the more formative
Speaker 1: part of my education secondary education. I went to university
Speaker 1: at the University of New South Wales. My story is
Speaker 1: more of a school of hard knocks in the sense
Speaker 1: of how I got to where I got to, and.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: But I was very fortunate to be part of a
Speaker 1: unique program where I was on scholarship between industry and
Speaker 1: the university for a group of five of us in
Speaker 1: the areas of marketing and commerce. As part of a
Speaker 1: scholarship program. I did that for three years. I got
Speaker 1: a little bit frustrated. I felt like I needed to
Speaker 1: leave Australia. You know, it's like this little island at
Speaker 1: the end of the world, far far away. And I
Speaker 1: was very lucky to be able to receive an opportunity
Speaker 1: to do an exchange program with a university in the US,
Speaker 1: with a college in the US, and I spent a
Speaker 1: year which very much influenced me, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Very grateful for this.
Speaker 1: I spent a semester abroad at Babson College in Boston.
Speaker 1: Babson's the number one school in the US for entrepreneurial
Speaker 1: studies and that really started to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit
Speaker 1: inside me. I was amazing professors and the way things
Speaker 1: worked at that time was Australians were allowed to actually
Speaker 1: work in the US for.
Speaker 2: As long as you studied.
Speaker 1: And after finishing my semester abroad, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: go back to Australia.
Speaker 2: I wanted to work and I started to apply for internships.
Speaker 1: But it was really tough to get an internship when
Speaker 1: you didn't you know, you were this little kid from.
Speaker 2: Australia and I was very lucky.
Speaker 1: I interviewed for an internship at Pepsicola in Boston, and
Speaker 1: I was accepted as an intern, and I started my
Speaker 1: career at the back of a truck with a two eeler,
Speaker 1: literally getting up six o'clock in the morning and being
Speaker 1: one of those, you know, very challenging job delivering products
Speaker 1: to South Boston to Back Bay, up and down the
Speaker 1: streets of Boston. And that's really where I started to
Speaker 1: learn and understand the importance of how to bring consumer
Speaker 1: brands to the marketplace and understanding the power of executing
Speaker 1: the right way.
Speaker 3: Well, you had an incredible journey, and we're going to
Speaker 3: talk a lot about your really wonderful resume because the
Speaker 3: one thing al that I got from it is there's
Speaker 3: a lot of diversity going on between the soda company
Speaker 3: and high tech and now what you do for the
Speaker 3: last four and a half years a CEO of Bioharvest Sciences,
Speaker 3: which is an incredible company that we're going to find
Speaker 3: a lot out about it with the mission and what
Speaker 3: you do, but it really is revolutionary when our listeners
Speaker 3: and CEOs and future entrepreneurs get to hear what you're
Speaker 3: doing right now, because it really truly is extraordinary. I'm
Speaker 3: going to have you dumb it down for me because
Speaker 3: I'm still learning as I go here. But it's about
Speaker 3: fruits and plants and really helping everybody out there when
Speaker 3: it comes to that. So, but before we do that,
Speaker 3: I want to talk about your journey out of school.
Speaker 3: And you know it's not going to surprise you a
Speaker 3: lot that you started doing really hard work right out
Speaker 3: of the gate and out of school, not exactly what
Speaker 3: you want to do, but you work your way up
Speaker 3: the ladder. So if you could maybe kind of capitalize
Speaker 3: your journey after that, after your interning at PEPSI and
Speaker 3: the things that you did, because because it really truly
Speaker 3: is an incredible resume. So if you could get everybody
Speaker 3: kind of the highlights, we'd love to hear that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, I want to go backwards to go forwards
Speaker 1: because I think it's important because my story really is
Speaker 1: a story of an immigrant and you know, coming to
Speaker 1: and I'm sure many of your listeners have similar backgrounds.
Speaker 1: I came to Australia as an immigrant. My parents came
Speaker 1: with literally very little money. Anything that I wanted, whether
Speaker 1: it was going to the movies or anything that was
Speaker 1: considered a luxury I had to work for so at
Speaker 1: the age of literally fourteen, I was lucky.
Speaker 2: I was pretty tall. I looked sixteen.
Speaker 1: In Australia at the time, you had to be sixteen
Speaker 1: to legally work.
Speaker 2: And off I went as a fourteen year old and
Speaker 2: I started to work.
Speaker 1: At that time, it was Saturdays and Thursday nights, so
Speaker 1: you worked like sixteen to twenty hours a week. And
Speaker 1: I started in a delicatessen and learning how to slice
Speaker 1: meat on a slicer and do window displays, and that
Speaker 1: taught me how to do merchandising. And then I got
Speaker 1: promoted with a speaker and a headphone to start to
Speaker 1: do sales in the shopping center.
Speaker 2: And you know, there I was.
Speaker 1: On a Saturday talking about you know, silver side nine
Speaker 1: ninety nine ladies and gentlemen coming in to cut price deli.
Speaker 1: You've got the best silver side and cheeses and off
Speaker 1: our wents. And that taught me, you know again, how
Speaker 1: do we engage with customers all the way through to
Speaker 1: dish being a dishwasher, apprentice, butcher, and you know, at
Speaker 1: that time, you would do anything in order to get
Speaker 1: some cash to be able to enjoy the benefits of
Speaker 1: what people around you were enjoying, but you just couldn't afford.
Speaker 1: So I think that taught me the value of money.
Speaker 1: And then I was lucky to get a scholarship. But
Speaker 1: the opportunity in the US started at Pepsi cod I
Speaker 1: spent in Pepsi. I was able to you know, I
Speaker 1: had a lot of lucky breaks. You know, works dynamic.
Speaker 1: I had a boss who basically quit all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: What do we do, We need a merchandiser. Take the
Speaker 1: Australian kid. Put him in that job. If I went,
Speaker 1: I learned how to merchandise and now I was CBS, Walgreens, Walmart,
Speaker 1: resets and learned the area of merchandising. And then one
Speaker 1: of the sales guys just didn't come to work, and
Speaker 1: the business development sales guards said, take the Australian guy.
Speaker 1: And you know, Dennis, I was very lucky in my career.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of breaks.
Speaker 2: For example, at that time, if you can remember, there
Speaker 2: was this great movie that Americans were infatuated with. There
Speaker 2: was an Australian movie called Crocodile Dundee absolutely put your shrimps.
Speaker 1: On your barbie, right If you remember that and here
Speaker 1: I was at that time, I had a much thicker
Speaker 1: Australian accent because I wasn't married yet to my South
Speaker 1: African wife, who's been my sweetheart from when I was
Speaker 1: twelve years old.
Speaker 2: That's another story we can we can talk about it.
Speaker 4: By the way.
Speaker 3: By the way, I do want to tell you that's
Speaker 3: the first and the four years I've done this series,
Speaker 3: a Paul Hogan reference has been thrown into CEOs.
Speaker 4: You should know, so bravo, do you, sir?
Speaker 2: Well, Paul Hogan.
Speaker 1: I owe a lot of my career jumps to Paul
Speaker 1: Hogan because there I was, you know, going in and
Speaker 1: pitching coke versus PEPSI all these different accounts, and because
Speaker 1: I had this stick Australian accent, people remembered me and
Speaker 1: it just helped me get those sales over the line
Speaker 1: and I was.
Speaker 2: Started to win.
Speaker 1: I started to win all these accounts in Fennel Hall
Speaker 1: and all these strategic places in Boston, and before I
Speaker 1: knew it, literally, I was running business development in Boston
Speaker 1: City at my Pepsy Van or if.
Speaker 2: I went to every single lead and converted it.
Speaker 1: And end of the end of my internship came up
Speaker 1: and I actually was very fortunate that Pepsi Cola USA
Speaker 1: was willing to sponsor me from a visa perspective, come
Speaker 1: to the US working operations for two years and then
Speaker 1: going to purchase New York.
Speaker 2: So there I was.
Speaker 1: I had to go back to Australia tell my parents
Speaker 1: I was going to live after immigrating from South Africa
Speaker 1: to Australia.
Speaker 2: I had to tell my Jewish mother that I was
Speaker 2: going to be leaving, leaving Australia, going to live in America.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you know much about Jewish
Speaker 1: mother's guilt, it wears on you. And after having the
Speaker 1: discussions with our parents, I said to them, Okay, I've
Speaker 1: got three months here in Australia to finish off my
Speaker 1: undergraduate degree. Wherever the best job is, I'm going the
Speaker 1: best jobs in Singapore. I'm going to Singapore. The best
Speaker 1: job is still with Pepsi USA. I'm going to the US.
Speaker 1: And I was really lucky. At this time, the Coca
Speaker 1: Cola company was looking to hire ten middle managers to
Speaker 1: develop and nurture with intense training over a one year
Speaker 1: program in Australia, which is a very mature market. Develop
Speaker 1: market and then send those managers into Asia. This is
Speaker 1: now we're talking nine to ninety six, ninety seven. Asia
Speaker 1: was pumping. You got the growth of China, the growth
Speaker 1: of Indonesia, and I was very lucky because of my
Speaker 1: experience at PEPSI I got accepted onto that Coke program
Speaker 1: and that Dennis was the start of an amazing eighteen
Speaker 1: year career that I'm so grateful for. Where I spent,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve years in Asia in multiple different roles
Speaker 1: running businesses across Asia Pacific, including in China, where I
Speaker 1: was headed up all of marketing and innovation for the
Speaker 1: China business, where I.
Speaker 2: Was responsible for fighting the Code Wars.
Speaker 1: Which had a very interesting time in the history of China,
Speaker 1: built a billion dollar juice business with the Minimate brand,
Speaker 1: launching the Minime brand in China, and was responsible for
Speaker 1: all the marketing around the Beijing Olympics. And I was
Speaker 1: able to then follow that up with going back to
Speaker 1: South Africa, which is a really interesting opportunity from a
Speaker 1: leadership perspective, where in South Africa leading up to the
Speaker 1: twenty ten World Cup, I was responsible for the marketing
Speaker 1: for that and also leading the organization, the marketing and
Speaker 1: the commercial organization at a time where it was critical
Speaker 1: from a diversity perspective to change the nature of the
Speaker 1: organization to reflect the rainbow nation which South Africa is
Speaker 1: today is so well known for.
Speaker 2: And that was an amazing leadership experience.
Speaker 1: So, you know, basically twelve years in Asia, three years
Speaker 1: in Africa, and then I got sent to the US
Speaker 1: initially to head up marketing for the Glasow business unit,
Speaker 1: which is brands like Vitamin Water, Smart Water, the Power
Speaker 1: Aid sports drink line, and the energy portfolio. And I
Speaker 1: was fortunate there to very quickly be able to take
Speaker 1: over as general manager of that business unit that I
Speaker 1: did for three years up until twenty fourteen. So that
Speaker 1: really gave me a lot of global experience from running businesses.
Speaker 1: You know, I started the business for Coca Cola locally
Speaker 1: in Mongolia. I'm an honor in Mongolian. I'm really happy
Speaker 1: to say there were like four countries in the world
Speaker 1: where coke was not producing locally at the time. It
Speaker 1: was Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Mongolia. And the company
Speaker 1: had found a partner and I had the opportunity of
Speaker 1: really being able to work with that partner, build a business,
Speaker 1: build food law in Mongolia with the local Mongolian authorities
Speaker 1: and really upgrade the whole industry. And when I say,
Speaker 1: I'm almost like an honorary Mongolian in the sense of this.
Speaker 1: It's just a huge affinity to the people, such wonderful people.
Speaker 1: And when you have an ability to come into a
Speaker 1: market and ubscull people and be able to pay people
Speaker 1: more money and help them progress in their lives. You know,
Speaker 1: these are the great benefits of what companies like cocon
Speaker 1: Cola do all around the world, from an economic development
Speaker 1: and professional development, female leadership, diversity, really critical human values
Speaker 1: that are so important today that I had the benefit
Speaker 1: of being part of for eighteen years.
Speaker 3: I want our listeners to trust me on this one
Speaker 3: that we could talk to Alan for a couple hours
Speaker 3: about everything he did before Bioharvest, because it's such a cool, diverse,
Speaker 3: incredible journey. But this is one of my favorite questions
Speaker 3: that I get to ask any CEO or founder or
Speaker 3: entrepreneur on this series when it comes to the current
Speaker 3: place you're at the last four and a half years
Speaker 3: as a CEO, and I can certainly see what bioharv
Speaker 3: Sciences was interested in you and the diversity that you
Speaker 3: brought and all the change and a risk taking that
Speaker 3: you've done.
Speaker 4: I'm very clear about that.
Speaker 3: But what did you see in this company that made
Speaker 3: you say I want to join them as CEO.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a great question, Dennis.
Speaker 1: So it's important to understand my journey because before I
Speaker 1: got to Bar Harvest, I went from the front of
Speaker 1: the aeroplane to the back of the aeroplane, and from
Speaker 1: the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta to the Red Rooftop
Speaker 1: Motel in Atlanta. I don't want to disparage the Red
Speaker 1: Rooftop Motel for great people that run their place.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: And so I went into startup World and together with
Speaker 1: two Israeli partners because I moved my family, I wanted
Speaker 1: to become an entrepreneur. Hit the age of forty, I
Speaker 1: kind of had a I would say, a positive midlife crisis.
Speaker 1: I always had a deep connection to wanting, as a
Speaker 1: religious tuition observant Jew, to have my family live in Israel.
Speaker 1: And I moved the family in twenty fourteen, and I
Speaker 1: also wanted to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit inside me in
Speaker 1: a way that you know, it was outside of the
Speaker 1: corporate environment. And together with two partners, we built a
Speaker 1: big data, IoT and software company in the beer industry,
Speaker 1: which we were very fortunate. We had a lot of
Speaker 1: luck and we landed up exiting after four and a
Speaker 1: half years, and and I was a bush Imbev, the
Speaker 1: largest brewery in the world bought our company. I worked
Speaker 1: as part of the deal. I had golden handcuffs. I
Speaker 1: had to work for them for a year. They were
Speaker 1: a great company, great management, amazing people, and I actually
Speaker 1: ended up working for them for another year. But I
Speaker 1: got to the stage where, you know, it was kind
Speaker 1: of ironic. I was the oldest guy in the high
Speaker 1: tech company right at that time. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: forty five, forty six years old, and I kind of
Speaker 1: felt that I, you know, again, I was back in
Speaker 1: corporate America and I needed to unleash that entrepreneurial spirit
Speaker 1: again inside me.
Speaker 2: And I got introduced to bio Harvest.
Speaker 1: Sciences through a friend of mine, and Wow, when I
Speaker 1: came to this company, what I saw and the best
Speaker 1: way to explain it, because I came to the company
Speaker 1: initially as an investor, what I saw was an R
Speaker 1: and D gold mine, the most amazing technology to unlock
Speaker 1: the secrets of plant biology, to be able to be
Speaker 1: a bridge between the power of the plant kingdom and
Speaker 1: all the pto medicinal compounds and fighter nutrients that are
Speaker 1: contained in plants, and to be able to have a
Speaker 1: technology that can democratize all those critical fighter medicinal nutrients
Speaker 1: compounds that I found at such small levels, but to
Speaker 1: be able to find a way to manu to produce
Speaker 1: it at such scale that you can democratize the power
Speaker 1: of these molecules and change the world of health and
Speaker 1: wellness hundreds of millions of people, but doing it in
Speaker 1: a way which preserved the planet for generations to come.
Speaker 1: And as a father of three kids who were quickly
Speaker 1: growing into their teenage years, I felt this significant, compelling
Speaker 1: desire to want to do something from a professional perspective,
Speaker 1: which was much more in the spiritual stage of my life,
Speaker 1: where I wanted to leave a legacy, a lasting legacy
Speaker 1: that my kids would be super proud of.
Speaker 2: Me, that was a legacy that literally.
Speaker 1: Changed the lives of millions of people. From an overall
Speaker 1: specifically health and wellness perspective, and what I saw by Harvest,
Speaker 1: I saw an R and D Company was a gold
Speaker 1: mine of R and D, but they didn't. Like many
Speaker 1: R and D companies, they didn't yet have the knowledge
Speaker 1: on how to unlock this R and D and commercialize
Speaker 1: it and bring it into the global marketplace. I still
Speaker 1: landed up investing, even though that was a risk in
Speaker 1: my investment. I was so blown away with the IP strategy,
Speaker 1: with the clinical trials that they've done, with the regulatory strategy,
Speaker 1: and the regulatory approvals that already received, all the way
Speaker 1: through to the scalability of the technology, which is so important.
Speaker 1: At the time, I never thought I was going to
Speaker 1: be the guy that was going to be, you know,
Speaker 1: unlocking that and bringing the technology to the global market.
Speaker 1: And I invested in the company and I literally went
Speaker 1: away with my family and I got a phone call
Speaker 1: from at the time the CEO of the company, who
Speaker 1: was the largest investor and an amazing man who's become
Speaker 1: a dear friend and a partner for the last four years.
Speaker 1: His name is doctor Zaki Rakiv and doctor Zaki. He
Speaker 1: was the co founder together with doctor Yoki Kagai, and
Speaker 1: he himself has a very impressive resume.
Speaker 2: You should have him on his show as well.
Speaker 1: Entered voice over Internet, the cable modem and they had
Speaker 1: invested his money similarly to my desire to change the world.
Speaker 2: Wanted to take the money that he had made there and.
Speaker 1: Build a buyotech company ultimately that was going to be
Speaker 1: able to change the world, leveraging the power of the
Speaker 1: plant Kingdom. And doctor Zaki called me up and he said, listen,
Speaker 1: you drove me crazy during the due diligence process, and
Speaker 1: I really did.
Speaker 2: You know again, going back, I don't come from money.
Speaker 1: Every dollar I've earned from where I was at a
Speaker 1: delicate testant all the way through to exits, every dollar
Speaker 1: is a dollar. So if I'm investing like one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars or five thousand dollars or more, it's the same
Speaker 1: due diligence, right, drive some people crazy. But he said
Speaker 1: to me, listen, besides driving us crazy with your due diligence,
Speaker 1: I realized I need a professional CEO to come in
Speaker 1: and to run the company and to be able to
Speaker 1: really bring this technology to the world. And at this
Speaker 1: time my heart started to beat and it was the
Speaker 1: kind of adrenaline rush.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I realized at the time, Wow, this is an opportunity
Speaker 1: of a lifetime, and almost Dennis, an opportunity if you
Speaker 1: think about it, if you go back to my days
Speaker 1: with a two wheeler at the back of a Pepsi
Speaker 1: truck and as a merchandiser and as a sales guy
Speaker 1: all the way through to all the roles I did
Speaker 1: in the Coca Cola company, and then going into high
Speaker 1: tech as an entrepreneur and being bootstrapped. I couldn't have asked,
Speaker 1: you know, for a a better training camps, multiple training
Speaker 1: camps in order to be able to take this company
Speaker 1: who at the time had just gone private just sorry,
Speaker 1: I had just gone public, and to be able to
Speaker 1: manage this company and scale the technology and bring the
Speaker 1: amazing molecules that day had already developed to the marketplace
Speaker 1: and impact people's health and wellness.
Speaker 2: And so it was a very quick decision.
Speaker 1: For me which I made, and after unraveling some of
Speaker 1: my responsibilities with annalser Bush, I started as CEO.
Speaker 2: In the company in June of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: I tell you it's been the best four and a
Speaker 1: half years of my life from a professional perspective, and
Speaker 1: I would probably say from a personal perspective, because when
Speaker 1: you're professionally happy, you're personally happy, and it works the
Speaker 1: same way but it's just you have positive energy, you're energized,
Speaker 1: and you know, we've now built an amazing business where
Speaker 1: where we've brought to market our molecule, our key molecule,
Speaker 1: which is a red grape cell molecule. And just to
Speaker 1: kind of go back, maybe for your listeners to explain
Speaker 1: the technology, might just take like two minutes to explain
Speaker 1: the technology of what we do, as people might find
Speaker 1: it interesting and.
Speaker 2: It may help some of the future questions that you have.
Speaker 1: But basically, we've invented a technology called botanical synthesis. So
Speaker 1: people have probably heard of chemical synthesis, some people have
Speaker 1: heard of biosynthesis.
Speaker 2: What we do is botanical synthesis and what does that mean.
Speaker 1: It's a big word, but simply what does it mean
Speaker 1: technology platform where we can take the plant once and
Speaker 1: as you know, plants have these critical phyto medicinal compounds
Speaker 1: that are found in very very small levels that it's
Speaker 1: very very difficult to be able to unlock these molecules
Speaker 1: in a way that's consistent, in a way that's economically viable,
Speaker 1: and in a way.
Speaker 2: That you can actually build patents because you can't patent nature.
Speaker 1: And this is these are the three core reasons why
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry they started with the plant and move to
Speaker 1: chemical synthesis, because when you chemically synthesize a compound, it's consistent,
Speaker 1: it's cheap normally, and you get patents. So what our
Speaker 1: technology does is it allows us to take the plant.
Speaker 1: Once we understand exactly where in the plant are the
Speaker 1: cells that produce these critical phyto medicinal compounds. We take
Speaker 1: the cells, We grow the cells in a petra diish,
Speaker 1: and we do literally thousands of experiments where we change
Speaker 1: the nutrition we feed the cells, We change other variables
Speaker 1: like the light, the temperature, and a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: other variables that I'm not allowed to talk about, which
Speaker 1: are part of our IP box.
Speaker 2: And at this stage we get the cells to do
Speaker 2: two things.
Speaker 1: One, we get the cells to produce the exact same
Speaker 1: mirror of the phyto medicinal compounds that the plant produces.
Speaker 2: We call this mirroring. Two, we can.
Speaker 1: Identify a specific phyto medicinal compound that we want to
Speaker 1: increase by an order of magnitude by changing the variables.
Speaker 1: We call this magnification. So in the case of our
Speaker 1: red grape cell, we produce a very unique compound called
Speaker 1: pissis vitral. Passirisvitral is the gold standard of resveratrol because
Speaker 1: it has the highest level of solubility. It's twenty five
Speaker 1: times more soluble than regular resvertrol, and it's much more bioavailable.
Speaker 1: Stays in the body for at least twelve hours for
Speaker 1: two peaks, one after one hour, one after five hours,
Speaker 1: so it's like the Rolls Royce of resveratrol versus all
Speaker 1: other resvertrol that comes from polygenium.
Speaker 2: It's called transfers vitual.
Speaker 1: It's much less soluble, much less bioavailable, and we're the
Speaker 1: only company in the world that can produce pi seed
Speaker 1: res vitrol together with all the other polyphenales from the
Speaker 1: red grape, computing catogen costine, anti sinis and tannons because
Speaker 1: we magnify the levels one hundred times at least one
Speaker 1: hundred times versus what's found in the red grape. And
Speaker 1: at this point, Dennis, we lock the cells, we create
Speaker 1: a cell bank, and we never have to go back
Speaker 1: to the plant. And then what we figured out how
Speaker 1: to do, and by the way, all of this is
Speaker 1: non GMO. We don't need any way change the molecular
Speaker 1: structure of the actual cell itself. And then what we
Speaker 1: figured out what to do is how to actually take
Speaker 1: these cells from a petri dish and grow them in
Speaker 1: massive industrial scale bio reactors thousand leader plus and economics scale.
Speaker 1: We do this in eighteen to twenty one days. The
Speaker 1: cells multiply, they produce the fat and medicinal compounds.
Speaker 2: We harvest the cells, we take out the water.
Speaker 1: We're left with the rich mud of highly efficacious, soluble
Speaker 1: by available end product that we dry and today it
Speaker 1: goes into dietary supplements. We have as a company where
Speaker 1: science based everything we do is backed with clinical trials,
Speaker 1: double blind placeibo publish and peer reviewed scientific journals. And
Speaker 1: in the case of our red grape cell molecule, which
Speaker 1: we call vinear v nia, we've been able to demonstrate
Speaker 1: the ability to significantly increase dilation of arteries after taking
Speaker 1: one capsule every day for ninety days. And arterial dilation
Speaker 1: is so important because it increases blood flow and Dennis,
Speaker 1: blood flow is the most critical part of your body's
Speaker 1: operating mechanism.
Speaker 2: No blood flow, no quality of life.
Speaker 1: With more blood flow, you got more oxygen, more nutrients
Speaker 1: flowing to the body. Tiss your cells and organs, which
Speaker 1: means you have more physical energy, more blood flow to
Speaker 1: the peripher part of the brain. Our molecule gets below
Speaker 1: the blood brain barrier, so we're able to increase blood
Speaker 1: flow and critical parts of the brain. Normal brain flow,
Speaker 1: more mental alertness, maintains blood pressure within already normal levels.
Speaker 1: We're able to help reduce oxidation of LDL cholesterol and
Speaker 1: oxidative damage to the cells. So this is a product
Speaker 1: that now we've brought to the marketplace. It's a subscription
Speaker 1: subscription based product and it's really validated the power of
Speaker 1: our technology platform. We sell it as a supplement in capsules.
Speaker 1: We've just launched a superfood coffee. We're about to launch
Speaker 1: a tea in the marketplace, all direct to consumer.
Speaker 2: We don't go through retailers.
Speaker 1: After spending all my time with retailers, I said, thank
Speaker 1: you very much, we're now going to go direct to consumer.
Speaker 1: I always want to be directly connected to the consumer.
Speaker 2: It's so important not.
Speaker 1: Just to have the cash cycle that you need as
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, so you have the voice of the consumer
Speaker 1: directly in your ear all the time. And today our product,
Speaker 1: we have more than six thousand verified reviews four point
Speaker 1: eight out of five verified rating, and we change people's lives.
Speaker 1: And this has been the validation of the power of
Speaker 1: the technology platform that we have. We have an olive
Speaker 1: cell molecule that we're going to be bringing to market
Speaker 1: the end of next year which has the most potent
Speaker 1: anti inflammatory called verbosca side from the olive cell, which
Speaker 1: is going to target liver health as well as lestra
Speaker 1: health and bone health to bone and joint health. And
Speaker 1: now that we've scaled the business and we've developed the
Speaker 1: technology and it's so mature, we made a conscious decision
Speaker 1: to open the technology to other companies and earlier this
Speaker 1: year we opened up a CDMO, which is a contract
Speaker 1: development and manufacturing organization with existing contracts. We have contracts
Speaker 1: with pharmaceutical companies, with nutrition companies to develop unique molecules
Speaker 1: for their businesses, leveraging their muscles so that we can
Speaker 1: really democratize these molecules from plants and impact the lives
Speaker 1: of hundreds of millions of people. That's why I think
Speaker 1: I have the best job in the world. I'm really
Speaker 1: the chief plant officer for the world. Ultimately, we're leveraging
Speaker 1: our technology to be able to bring the power of
Speaker 1: the plant kingdom, and the world is now realizing that
Speaker 1: if we don't start to responsibly utilize the power of
Speaker 1: what we were given, whether it's from God on Day three,
Speaker 1: evolution of creating the world, or whatever evolution theory you
Speaker 1: subscribe to, there are five hundred thousand plants that contain
Speaker 1: the secrets and answers to so many of the challenges
Speaker 1: that we as human beings are dealing with. And fortunately
Speaker 1: the world is becoming a lot more integrative in their
Speaker 1: thinking as it relates to the whole world of health
Speaker 1: and wellness. So the timing for our technology really is
Speaker 1: perfect from leading farmer companies starting to go back to
Speaker 1: the future because they started there, and going back to
Speaker 1: the plant kingdom for the next generation of therapeutic solutions
Speaker 1: to address current indications today where there's no solution ninety
Speaker 1: five percent of rare diseases, so there's no solution out there.
Speaker 2: So I'm having the time of my life. It's brutal hours.
Speaker 1: I have an amazing team, but when you're changing people's
Speaker 1: lives every day, and you know, I'm fortunate that I
Speaker 1: get forty to fifty reviews because the direct to consumer
Speaker 1: subscription business we're getting reviews. I get forty to fifty
Speaker 1: reviews from people every day that keep my blood pumping
Speaker 1: in addition to me taking two vinear a day, but
Speaker 1: keep me going from a spiritual perspective because it's, you know,
Speaker 1: being an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: It's dealing with a company on the public market.
Speaker 1: You're dealing with all these challenges, scaling expectations of investors.
Speaker 1: But wow, I mean, it's been an amazing four and
Speaker 1: a half year journey. I have an amazing team together
Speaker 1: with my partner, doctor Zaki Rakim, going back to brought
Speaker 1: me into the company.
Speaker 2: He's a chairman of the company, and the two of us.
Speaker 1: That are very very dedicated management team and nineteen employees.
Speaker 1: You know, were mission focused to change the world. With
Speaker 1: the north star of developing ten to fifteen molecules from plants.
Speaker 2: I've got to change the lives and.
Speaker 1: Health and wellness of hundreds of millions of people by
Speaker 1: leveraging the power of the plant kingdom in a way
Speaker 1: that preserves the planet for generations to come.
Speaker 4: Well, it's pretty extraordinary.
Speaker 3: Of all the things you talked about, and admittedly as
Speaker 3: a B minus student in both are sciences and chemistry,
Speaker 3: I understood most of what you were talking about. But
Speaker 3: here's what I would like you to do, because I
Speaker 3: know that you're a believer in this and knowledge is power.
Speaker 4: And when you.
Speaker 3: Talk about what you're exactly doing with your company, as
Speaker 3: you work with all of your clients and heading them
Speaker 3: down to the consumer, the consumer wants to know what's
Speaker 3: going in their foods and maybe how they're processed or
Speaker 3: not process and how they're growing and all that. So
Speaker 3: your clients and the consumers want to know about this
Speaker 3: and need to know about it. But I'm sure the
Speaker 3: education process is going to take some time, and I
Speaker 3: imagine that as you work with people, those are conversations
Speaker 3: that are happening right now. So as you see the
Speaker 3: technology continuing to evolve down the road and you're working
Speaker 3: with these clients who are delivering to the consumer, what's
Speaker 3: the overall plan of educating everybody of all the great
Speaker 3: things that are coming out of this.
Speaker 1: So look, firstly, the world is changing rapidly and consumers
Speaker 1: are understanding the need to move to cellular based technologies,
Speaker 1: whether it's meat cells, chicken cells, our space that we
Speaker 1: own and we've.
Speaker 2: Been you know, global leaders of because we've been doing
Speaker 2: it for seventeen years.
Speaker 1: The company was started in two thousand and seven, amazing
Speaker 1: team of female leaders from our founder, doctor Jokika Gai,
Speaker 1: doctor Malki Dosai, VP of R and D, probably the
Speaker 1: best planned cell biologists in the world, and a number
Speaker 1: of other members of the team or PhD plan cell biologists.
Speaker 1: My CEO runs manufacturing, doctor Elana Beltze, she's a PhD
Speaker 1: plan cell biologist.
Speaker 2: So it's like it's all in the DNA.
Speaker 1: So you know, the world has started to understand, the
Speaker 1: regulatory environment has started to understand, and you know, we
Speaker 1: as a company when it's when it's related to the consumer.
Speaker 1: For the brands that we're building in our director consumer business,
Speaker 1: we invest a lot of resources educating the consumers, helping
Speaker 1: the consumers understand the power of our technology, because when
Speaker 1: you understand the power of the technology, you understand the
Speaker 1: magnitude of impact of what you're putting into your body,
Speaker 1: the cleanliness of it, because we grow all of ourselves
Speaker 1: in aseptic by reactors, so there's no funger size, there's
Speaker 1: no insect the sides, there's no verbal sides. You're coming
Speaker 1: to our manufacturing facility, it's a really it's a sterile facility. Right,
Speaker 1: you've got to be cold, I mean literally glay everything.
Speaker 2: And biological facility.
Speaker 1: And because at the end of the day, consumers want
Speaker 1: to understand more. They're so open to be educated. And
Speaker 1: when you take the time and you obviously you have
Speaker 1: to simplify to understand it and you explain to it.
Speaker 2: So a lot of.
Speaker 1: TV that we do, we're explaining to consumers our process
Speaker 1: and our technology and how the technology works. And you know, mirror,
Speaker 1: magnify and multiply. This is how we do it because
Speaker 1: this is the future. This is the future of everything
Speaker 1: from food all the way to preventative therapeutic solutions. This
Speaker 1: is the future because the world cannot continue the way
Speaker 1: it is operating today. Look at what we've just experienced
Speaker 1: from a global warming perspective, right, you know, look at
Speaker 1: our friends in Florida, right, and the southeast of dealing
Speaker 1: with right.
Speaker 2: You know, the.
Speaker 1: Magnitude of impact of our actions from an industrial perspective
Speaker 1: for the last one hundred and fifty years has taken
Speaker 1: its toll on the world. You cannot There are today,
Speaker 1: for example, one hundred and forty drugs on the market
Speaker 1: that contain critical active pharmaceutical ingredients from plants. If you're
Speaker 1: one of those companies, your supply chain is at risk.
Speaker 1: Your supply chain is at risk because of global warming.
Speaker 1: Your supply chain is at risk because there's not a
Speaker 1: consistency in your raw materials, because you don't know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen from let alone, day to day, month
Speaker 1: to month, year to year, and you're not able to
Speaker 1: control the economics, and you don't have a moat around
Speaker 1: your technology. So this is where our technology becomes so
Speaker 1: critical for everybody, from players who are in the RX world,
Speaker 1: all the way through to if you think about cosmetics
Speaker 1: companies today, the consumer today, Dennis has voted as saying
Speaker 1: to cosmetic companies all the top ten, all the way
Speaker 1: through to the small guys, don't give me any active
Speaker 1: molecules that come from chemicals. I'm not putting chemicals onto
Speaker 1: my skin every single day.
Speaker 2: For thirty years, consumers have voted, you.
Speaker 1: Know, a major change right now, and technologies like ours
Speaker 1: become really poignant and critical for those industries all the
Speaker 1: way through to just the simple nutrition chain. Think about
Speaker 1: what Stevia has done for the overall let's call it.
Speaker 2: Food system.
Speaker 1: But I would even go broader to say the healthcare system,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, you know the
Speaker 1: perils of sugar when you don't have an active lifestyle
Speaker 1: and you have a seventy lifestyle, right, this is what
Speaker 1: you know the American health and wellness system is dealing
Speaker 1: with today. The unintended consequences of this Stevia came in.
Speaker 1: It was a decent tasting non nutature sweetener that had
Speaker 1: a following.
Speaker 2: But what if we could develop the.
Speaker 1: Next generation, the next generation of non nutature sweetener where
Speaker 1: there was no trade off versus sugar, but ultimately you
Speaker 1: were bringing a non nutature sweetener into everything that you ate.
Speaker 1: It would change the whole healthcare system based on the
Speaker 1: perils of the underlying perils of the biggest challenges of
Speaker 1: a healthcare system. So this is where our technology really
Speaker 1: is anchored in all these different areas and.
Speaker 2: Why these partnership with key companies are so critical.
Speaker 1: Whilst we execute our game plan on a director consumer business,
Speaker 1: launching all of our own products which just brings us
Speaker 1: significant scale and learnings so that we can apply them,
Speaker 1: or to our CDMO Contract Development Manufacturing organization with these
Speaker 1: key partners. So the world is changing, education, the consumer
Speaker 1: wants to be educated. We just have to change the narrative.
Speaker 1: And that's what we did. When we brought our resverratrial
Speaker 1: to the marketplace, people said to me, Elan, you're crazy.
Speaker 1: There's every other resvitraal product out there. You go into Amazon,
Speaker 1: every other is viratual product out there that use polygonum Japanese,
Speaker 1: not weed.
Speaker 2: How are you going to differentiate? No chance. That just
Speaker 2: made me more motivated to try.
Speaker 1: And figure out a way, and I just realized that, look,
Speaker 1: you just have to change the narrative to consumers. We
Speaker 1: have clinical trials, we have an amazing technology. Let's just
Speaker 1: give them the respect and help educate them, spend the
Speaker 1: time the investment in the right kind of For example,
Speaker 1: we brought the best medical and animator in the world
Speaker 1: on board to work with us, and David built three
Speaker 1: beautiful videos top videos of medical animation explain to consumers
Speaker 1: basically the power of our molecules and how are molecules
Speaker 1: work in your body? And that was critical and those
Speaker 1: videos have been seen by thousands and thousands of people.
Speaker 1: So you have to be willing to invest in education,
Speaker 1: and the consumer's ready for it.
Speaker 2: They are ready for it.
Speaker 1: Specifically if it's going to change their lit from a
Speaker 1: health and wellness perspective and protect the planet. And so
Speaker 1: when you're hitting on those two areas, you have the
Speaker 1: ear of the consumer.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I agree with that, and I'm glad you addressed the
Speaker 3: education part because as much as we wanted, I think
Speaker 3: once again, knowledge is power.
Speaker 4: We need to know what we.
Speaker 3: Wanted, what's good for us, And it sounds like the
Speaker 3: future is bright. We are running out of time, Aline,
Speaker 3: and I do want to do this and just maybe
Speaker 3: do a little recap if we could, and just get
Speaker 3: some final thoughts from you. It really is truly amazing
Speaker 3: and just the four and a half years as you've
Speaker 3: been there at CEO at this incredible company about what
Speaker 3: has change and what the future like.
Speaker 4: It's blowing me away.
Speaker 3: The technology that you guys have patent and what you're
Speaker 3: doing as you do direct a consumer. Let's just get
Speaker 3: some final thoughts and recap everything. The floor is your, sir,
Speaker 3: that some final thoughts.
Speaker 1: Look, I would just say to all those CEOs out there,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're doing something that you love.
Speaker 2: And you really feel is making a change in the.
Speaker 1: World, you're aligning your heart with your values, and when
Speaker 1: your heart and values are aligned, then no matter how
Speaker 1: big the challenge out there is, if you have a
Speaker 1: great group of people around you.
Speaker 2: And I'm so blessed to have an amazing team.
Speaker 1: And I've shared a number of the different people in
Speaker 1: my team, including our chief medical officer who's from John
Speaker 1: Hopkins and has a whole interesting story himself.
Speaker 2: Everybody's just you know, got their own unique story, and
Speaker 2: everybody is aligned with the strength of a team.
Speaker 1: And when there's heart and soul and it's all congruent
Speaker 1: with your values, your values as parents in some cases
Speaker 1: in my team, your values as grandparents.
Speaker 2: Because in the world of biotech ages.
Speaker 1: Everything right, age is everything that's the high tech and biotech.
Speaker 2: You're able to climb a.
Speaker 1: Mount Killerman Gena and back ten times over because you're
Speaker 1: going to be facing and every few months we face
Speaker 1: some really challenging hurdles. But because there's such conviction and
Speaker 1: such deep belief in the impact of what we're doing
Speaker 1: and our desire to really change the world, that you're
Speaker 1: able to actually conquer those hurdles. And so I just
Speaker 1: say to people like specifically, like for me, I'm so
Speaker 1: blessed that at the age of forty five, I really
Speaker 1: found my call him. Honestly, like you, Dennis, I think
Speaker 1: I was a nightmare for all my biology teachers, right.
Speaker 1: I think I flunked out every class except one on biology.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to talk about right.
Speaker 1: But I just found that when I came to this
Speaker 1: company and spending time with doctor Jokika, who's the mother
Speaker 1: of the technology and amazing also she has thirty years
Speaker 1: of experience in the pharmacide and the biotech side. Together
Speaker 1: with doctor Malkett, I just became like a spongergame because
Speaker 1: I realized that they.
Speaker 2: Simplified it for me.
Speaker 1: They helped me understand what they were doing. And I
Speaker 1: realized that if I could tell their story and if
Speaker 1: I could work with him with all my experience in
Speaker 1: manufacturing and in high tech to be able to scale
Speaker 1: the technology, we as a team to change the world right, right,
Speaker 1: And what better way to wake up? Like this is
Speaker 1: why I wake up in the morning and I'm pumped
Speaker 1: and I'm happy. Like literally, I always when I sit
Speaker 1: down with all my staff members and I do like
Speaker 1: a media review or check in, and I always ask them,
Speaker 1: when you wake up in the morning, where are you
Speaker 1: on a scale of one to ten. One you don't
Speaker 1: want to get out of bed, you can't even open.
Speaker 2: Up your eyes.
Speaker 1: Ten you can't wait to get out of bed. By
Speaker 1: the way, there's very few people in this world that
Speaker 1: are tens. For the last four and a half years,
Speaker 1: I've been like a nine to nine and a half, right,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. And that's really driven by the fact
Speaker 1: that every day I'm focusing all my energy because there's
Speaker 1: no politics in our company.
Speaker 2: This is either thing all.
Speaker 1: Those CEOs out there dealing with politics pulling knives out
Speaker 1: of your back. It sucks energy when you're mission focused.
Speaker 1: When everybody comes to work, from a biologist to manufacturing
Speaker 1: to literally my team in manufacturing that I'm working with
Speaker 1: the bioreactors, everybody understands this bireactor is going to produce
Speaker 1: twelve kilos of our red Grapes video product and it's
Speaker 1: going to change the lives of a few thousand people.
Speaker 1: Everybody's all focused the energy on the outside, their hearts
Speaker 1: and values are aligned. It's all positive energy, and it
Speaker 1: just allows for you to be able to achieve success
Speaker 1: in a way that is so satisfying. And that's what
Speaker 1: I would say to those CEOs out there. Find the
Speaker 1: space where your heart and your values are aligned, where
Speaker 1: ultimately you can be in your spiritual phase of your
Speaker 1: professional career. By the way, it can happen much earlier
Speaker 1: in life. The earlier the better. You can just stay
Speaker 1: there for longer, but make sure you don't spend your
Speaker 1: time and energy doing something that your heart and values
Speaker 1: are not aligned. Get out of it, get out of
Speaker 1: it quickly. And I was lucky that all through my
Speaker 1: career I was pretty much aligned. But when I got
Speaker 1: to the world of biotech and I saw the impact
Speaker 1: of all my energy, Wow, right, like it really it's
Speaker 1: such a virtuous cycle of energy that permeates individually and
Speaker 1: from a team perspective. And this way we can really,
Speaker 1: you know, fulfill our calling of unlocking the secrets of
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand plants that are out there that are
Speaker 1: ready to be conquered and utilized in a responsible way,
Speaker 1: responsible way that leaves the planet in a situation that
Speaker 1: generations to come will be able to enjoy in value.
Speaker 3: Well, so, well said man, thank you for that. So
Speaker 3: you've got a great website, whoever designed it. It's beautiful,
Speaker 3: it's easy to navigate. Let's give the website for everybody
Speaker 3: who wants to check out a little bit more about.
Speaker 4: Exactly what you and your team do. Add Bioharved Sciences.
Speaker 4: What's that? What's a u ur L the web?
Speaker 1: So the r L is Bioharvest dot com, bi h
Speaker 1: A r V e st dot com. And if you
Speaker 1: want a little more at a product Vinia, you can
Speaker 1: go to Vinia dot com, v i NI dot com.
Speaker 3: All right, and sir, before you go, I'd like to
Speaker 3: pay you a compliment. I've talked to a lot of
Speaker 3: CEOs and entrepreneurs on this series for the last four years.
Speaker 3: There is a common theme about getting up every day
Speaker 3: and being excited about what they do, having the best
Speaker 3: team members on the planet that sometimes are usually more
Speaker 3: smarter than them and are very good at what they do.
Speaker 3: The communication, having fun, working your tails off, being jacked
Speaker 3: up about.
Speaker 4: What we're doing and what the future is.
Speaker 3: But also your passion and your enthusiasm come loud and
Speaker 3: clear through our conversation. And I will give you a
Speaker 3: personal story that I relate to a lot of people
Speaker 3: that listen to the series in my industry. What I
Speaker 3: do and I'd like to think over the thirty years
Speaker 3: of what I do, I do a pretty good job.
Speaker 3: But every hiring manager lon that's ever said, hey, Dennis,
Speaker 3: do you know.
Speaker 4: Why I hired you?
Speaker 3: It wasn't for all your gifts and what you brought
Speaker 3: to the table, what you're good at. I brought you
Speaker 3: because of your passion of the industry. And that comes
Speaker 3: loud and clear that you're passionate about what you do.
Speaker 3: And I think that's a good lesson for all the
Speaker 3: entrepreneurs in future CEOs that if you're passionate about and
Speaker 3: you're willing to take chances like our guest has, you're
Speaker 3: probably going to succeed. So I want to pay you
Speaker 3: that compliment because that came through loud and clear.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. And you know you've got to
Speaker 1: be passionate about.
Speaker 2: What you believe in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I agree. That's where Will said, well, listen on.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for a valuable time, continued success.
Speaker 3: It really is extraordinary where you and your team are doing,
Speaker 3: and we really appreciate you joining us on iheart's CEOs
Speaker 3: you can do.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Enjoyed the opportunity to talk with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.