Cibus, Inc. (CBUS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the HCW @ Home investors session with Calyxt ticker symbol, CLXT. My name is Amit Dayal and I cover the Cleantech Renewable and Sustainability team at H.C. Wainwright. We have had Calyxt under coverage for roughly 1.5 years now, and we picked up coverage on the name as it sits very well with our sustainability team. Calyxt is applying its technology and know-how to improve generic trades in plants to meet the growth in demand for specialty ingredients. We believe Calyxt was the first company to bring a gene-edited food product to the U.S. market in the form of its high-grade soybeans, with applications in food service and food manufacturing. Calyxt has recently made a shift towards higher-margin business model, leveraging its PlantSpring and BioFactory platforms. We believe the company's technology and offerings play into several macro themes that are still in the early stages of developing. And we will be touching on those topics today. From Calyxt, we have Michael Carr, President and CEO; and Bill Koschak, CFO, with us today. We will not be in a Q&A with the audience today, but if anyone is interested in following up with Michael or Bill after the call, please get in touch with us, and we can try and make those arrangements. So with that, I will turn to Michael and Bill, welcome to both of you.

Michael, I'll start with you. I guess, you took over as CEO roughly around 9 months ago. And maybe, if you just talk a little bit about the company's strategic pivot and the fundamentals that support potential successful outcome from this move.

So it's really a fascinating story here. And Calyxt has a history of 12 years of developing this technology. You made a good point there, Amit, starting out. We were the first company in the world, to my understanding, of gene editing the soybean plant. And that technology has created a tremendous foundation for what Calyxt is today. I guess in simple terms, Calyxt is a biotechnology company. It always has been. The general difference is and what we're -- what you describe here as a pivot is the end markets that we sell into. Historically, the company was focused on the agricultural markets. But late last year, we pivoted into a focus on new end markets, mainly cosmetics, nutraceuticals and pharma. And really, what you would describe as a synthetic biology space, where we're now taking that foundation of technology that was developed over 12 years and apply it in these new innovative spaces that are focused on sustainability. And that's really the driver that you're seeing with the end markets that these customers have high-value ingredients that they need sustainable solutions for. And as a synthetic biology company and specifically, a plant-based synthetic biology company, Calyxt is uniquely positioned to address those sustainability needs.

Understood. And Michael, is there a way to quantify some of these problems that customers are chasing? Is there anything specific you can talk about in terms of these customers coming to you and asking for certain solutions? Is it just driven by the shift in consumer sentiment looking for cleaner ingredients? Or is there any other drivers that we may not sort of top of mind for us that you are speaking to, with customers about?

Yes, good question. And one, certainly, some of this does stem from end consumers demanding sustainable and plant-based solutions in their products. If you look at the cosmetics industry, there's a description that they have now called Clean Beauty, and it's the type of product that is going to be clean in nature, but then really, plant-based and sustainable. If you look at from an aggregate market or a macro perspective, there was an interesting study done by the Boston Consulting Group on less than a year ago. And they determined that over the next 30 years, $30 trillion, with a T, of the global economy is going to be affected by nature-based or plant-based products and solutions to address those sustainability issues that we see here globally in the global economy. You also have companies around the world. I think, 1 in 5 of the top largest companies around the world have already committed to a 30% reduction in their carbon footprint. In order to meet those kind of goals, they're going to have to be using plant-based solutions and plant-based ingredients. And we're seeing that in a lot of the customer interactions that we are going through. One sort of anecdotal story that we like to share is one of our employees recently went to a cosmetics counter of one of the large retailers. And the first thing that she was asked by the sales representative is what are your sustainable goals for the cosmetics that you're looking to use. So now, in addition to seeing the end customer really demand sustainability, the producers of the products themselves have now been proactive in their approach. A lot of it is a result of the decarbonization or reducing of their carbon footprint that they've committed to, but also the fact that they realize their customers are interested in that and are willing to pay for it and provide those high-margin products to its customers.

Understood. And Michael, you -- originally, the company started with efforts to execute, maybe, on the agricultural side. Now, you've pivoted a little bit to cosmetics and nutraceuticals, et cetera. Are you still working on ag-related opportunities? Or is that something not too much of a focus view right now?

Well, again, as we started off by saying, we've got over 12 years of experience in technology that we've developed. That's over 12 years of intellectual property. So we continue to work on that from a licensing standpoint. We have an active initiative there. I mean, if you look at the revenue drivers of our business is with our PlantSpring platform, the development cycle, which you mentioned. Our BioFactory, which is the production aspect of the entire process. And the third lever is the licensing revenue where we can sell into those traditional markets that we work in, and so we're actively working on that as well.

Okay. Can you -- that's a good pivot into sort of PlantSpring and BioFactory. Could you give us just a high-level overview of what these platforms are and maybe, how they're differentiated from other providers in the market?

Sure. So as you look at the synthetic biology space, the vast majority of the players, and we call them peers, are focused on microbes or single cells and then fermentation to produce the compounds. Where Calyxt is differentiated and rather unique is that we're a plant-based. So we actually use that technology that we've developed over time in engineering plants to express certain compounds that are sustainable in nature and/or that may be finite in nature. And we develop it through our PlantSpring technology platform, that's where the development process goes, the engineering works. We then transfer what we have, it's called our proprietary plant cell matrix. It's literally a multicellular structure, again, different than what you would find in the typical synthetic biology company. We placed that in our BioReactor or BioFactory for production. And so it's 2 distinct platforms. You'll find some companies in synthetic biology that only really focused on the development, but it's important for us that we not only have the development, and then the production as we look to solve our customers' demands of those sustainable compounds.

Understood. You've highlighted the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning as a part of these new efforts. Can you talk about some of those efforts? And whether these are organic sort of features are developing internally or in-house? Or are you relying on third-party providers initially and then we slowly bring those capabilities announced?

Yes. This is an important initiative for us, something that we started late last year is that we began to focus on these new markets. And initially, our AIML is focused on our development cycle that also beginning of the BioFactory in the production cycle there. As we go through the PlantSpring platform process and create the development of these compounds, we start out by designing then engineering and then verify that we're actually producing the compound. The designing phase of the process, there's literally thousands upon thousands of pathways that you could engineer our plant cell matrix to end up with a compound. So where the AIML comes into place is being able to accelerate that process. Similarly, as the plant cell matrix goes into the BioFactory to produce the compounds, there's all types of adjustments that you can make during that process. And again, leveraging AIML makes that quicker. So our current standard process is about 36 months from the beginning of the design phase. Design, engineer and verify takes about 12, and then we put it into our pilot BioFactory for another 24 months. Of course, our goal is to accelerate that as quickly as possible, make that time frame short. Although if you would compare currently into other players within the industry, that's actually a quick cycle period from beginning to really, that scale production. But the AIML is an important tool for us to accelerate that over time.

This 36-month development period, Michael, can that be potentially shorten in the future as you improve your own capabilities?

Most definitely. And of course, that is our goal. But already, we've seen instances where we've been able to shorten it. We've created a proof-of-concept compound called betanin, which is a colored, an antioxidant. We are able to actually develop that through that process in less than 3 months. So instead of 12 months of the development process, that took place in less than 3. So depending on what the customer is really after and then the complex of the compound. And of course, if we continue to apply the AIML, it will only increase in time.

One of the sort of questions that come up with respect to synthetic biology companies is that in the lab and in simulation, et cetera, these things work nicely. But then, when you take it to commercial scale production, then people have problems producing it at scale, et cetera. How do you sort of position yourselves to overcome any of those challenges? Is there anything in the technology or in your process that is unique that allows you or positioned you for high probability of success in scaling these ingredients, et cetera, in the commercial scale?

Yes. I mean, it's a great question. I think this is one of our big drivers and area of focus. In simple terms, one of the aspects of our business as we changed here and at the end of last year is that we've moved the production from the field, right, which you have a growing season, you have the risk of weather, you have the other challenges that are presented, into a controlled environment that can operate 24/7. So you're eliminating a lot of the risk that you would have associated with producing the field. One is certainly productivity. Instead of a growing cycle that takes place once a year based on seasons, you can be able to grow and produce these compounds in a 24/7 basis. The other area that I think we've been able to really accelerate is what we call our plant cell matrix, and that is that multicellular structure. If you look at plants by themselves, they have multiple cells. They have defensive cells to protect themselves. All these things have been developed since the beginning of time in order to make sure that they are effectively bringing what they're designed to produce. If you compare that to whether synthetic biology plays, which use a single cell in a fermentation, it's much more challenging to make sure that, that is going to be effective because you're dealing with a simple single cell without that defensive mechanism, with some of the characteristics that you would have with a multicellular structure. So we look to our scaling process has to be somewhat protected by that. Now, we have just moved into our pilot facility, and that's gone from the lab scale to our pilot, which is a 200-liter BioFactory, which is fairly typical, as you see in other industries, particularly pharmaceuticals as they begin to scale, they go from the bench for the laboratory to that 200-liter. So we're on track in that regards. But clearly, to your point of the question, an important part of what we're focused on and where we're very, very specific as to our activities.

Understood. You've highlighted that you are targeting higher-margin applications and ingredients. Could you provide any examples of things are going after and get where you have, maybe, more interest from customers?

We'll pull Bill in on this question because this is an area that he spent a lot of time as it relates to our financial models, but Bill, you want to start off and touch on the TPP and then how we look at this?

You bet. So we are -- as we select the customer demand-driven compounds for development, we use a target product profile, TPP. It's a pharma-driven approach that wants us to be very selective in terms of which compounds we choose to develop for customers. So somebody that might show up the list of 10 or 15 compounds that they like us to develop for them. Not all of those would be good candidates for us, so maybe for them. So we start with things like in the TPP application. Can our plant cell matrix produce the desired compound. Usually, that's a class of chemistry, so something like tetraponera schulthessi that we would start with. And then we would look to what are the financial metrics associated with it along with a number of other factors that are part of that. And so the financial factors would be things like, how big is that customer's demand pool, what quantity of the product are they purchasing today, what's the dollar value of it? And importantly, what's the price. And we're targeting large demand pools and mid-double-digit margins, call it, 50% total gross margins for those compounds that we develop for people. And so the way we look at it, as we need to get from the customer agreeing them to through the development process. And that would unlock for us, significant pools of very high-margin product-related revenue. That's the focus of our activity here. From a development perspective, our expectation is that the -- in many cases, the customer will fund the development, but not all, right? It will depend upon the industry. The customer, how big the opportunity is. Things like exclusivity and a number of other factors, I think, as we sort all that out. We've had a lot of good conversations with folks about what to do and what types of molecules to go after. The TPP application has proven to be very beneficial to us because it keeps us away from what all the lower-margin commodity-like products that we could certainly do, but we'd rather focus on the high value end of the market as we start this off.

Bill, so once this compounded molecule is developed, you mentioned exclusivity. Is that how we should think about it? So that particular company will only have access to this particular compound? Is there an opportunity to maybe, monetize that molecule with other customers or...

Absolutely. And so the way we think about it is, certainly, if somebody would were to fund the development, it's likely to be exclusive. If they don't, like we do not see. And there's all sorts of flavors at between them. One of the common things in -- 1 of the 3 end markets that we're going after is that there's periods of exclusivity for development, right? So you might develop something for somebody and say they get 3 years of exclusivity, then you could market it to anybody else. And so that, that is our expectation, right, is that we would -- the nature of the products that we're going after from a development perspective, we probably grab the exclusivity for a period of time and then have them have the ability to market to others.

Would you develop any compound sort or organically, given your ability to sort of gauge some of the ingredients that are being used in various nutraceuticals or cosmetics products. You develop it organically and then, take it to market? Or is that something that may happen in the future, not now?

I guess -- I was going to say, yes, I would say, yes. I mean, our primary driver, and just a little bit of a departure from the past business model, is that we're customer demand-driven. And so historically, Calyxt would develop technology and then look for partners that they could leverage. Our focus now, and as Bill sort of outlined, is to talk with our customers that have these plant-based sustainable needs, sustainable compounds that they want to address. And so we begin with that. And that's the real driver for the business. But there are a couple of compounds that we've identified that are very attractive, not only one for our technology, but to also, for the end customer as well. But the primary focus are those compounds that are customer demand-driven, that list that the customers have. What's exciting about working in that regard is that they know the compounds that they need to address, but additionally, they have a strong idea as to the economics associated with those compounds. And to Bill's point earlier about the TPP that allows for us to go through our process and identify the compounds that are going to be the most successful for all parties involved.

And Bill maybe, can you talk about the business model around developing these compounds? So you charge some upfront fees to develop the compound? What are the margins on that? And then, once you scale the production and start supplying the customer with the compound, what are the margins on that? And are any margins or revenues potentially tied to eventual sales of those products? Or are you staying away from any royalty-type arrangements? And just charging upfront for supplying the customers given our fixed margin.

You bet. So think about our revenue streams, there's -- there's 3, I'll add one to your question, which is the potential for licensing revenue for the intellectual property that we have, as well as the traits to be developed historically, products we're developing for an outdoor egg, where somebody may come to us and say, "Can you do this for me?" It's the soy product that we're doing for a food ingredient manufacturer that is looking for a replacement for palm oil. So we have that licensing revenue stream. There's that type of product development for agriculture. It's one element of focus for us, Michael alluded to that earlier. And then as you think about the BioFactory related, PlantSpring and BioFactory related business model, that's pretty much cut into 2 pieces. During the 36-month development cycle, we have a really good estimate of what our costs would be. Our expectation is that the customer funds some of that, it will depend upon the customer and the end market, right? Some end markets are more likely to pay for that development work than others. If we were to get a during that time, our objective is to make a margin, but it's unclear to us as we continue to talk with potential customers where that will all shake out. And then again, for us, the value here is to get to the product-related revenue. When we've got a compound that a customer needs, the customer demand-driven approach that we're taking here. We've got that customer demand-driven compound in production, our expectation is we generate revenue from the sale of it to that customer, and the margins are in the mid-double digits that I talked about earlier, a target of 50%. So compounds itself for hundreds of dollars per gram or kilogram -- sorry hundreds or thousands of dollars per gram is the target based on that TPP application. And so that is our focus, Amit. And so just to get to that compound under development and the value from the company's perspective, think about it on an NPV perspective, the value of that NPV is associated with the product revenues.

Great. Understood. And the cost of developing compound will depend on the situation, I guess, and you will assess those as they arise and so on.

It's really driven by 2 things, because our TPP starts us on the path to say, can our system do it based on what we know about the chemistry that's desired by the customer. And so we have a really good idea before we begin that we should be able to get to production. So what really drives the cost is how long does it take to get through the pilot stage of production. So the shorter we can compress that to get to commercial, the lower the cost of development truly are, right? If we think about that 36-month cycle, 12 months is time in the lab in 24 months, as a rule of thumb, is a time and pilot. If we can compress either of those, right, it helps, but compressing that pilot cycle really helps. And so that's the way to think about it in terms of the cost and the time.

You are targeting 2 to 4 compounds this year or by the end of 2022, I guess. Are these all expected to come from customer specs?

Yes. Our intent is to have those 2 to 4 compounds that we have under development by the end of the year come from customers. They could all come from a single customer or they could come from 4 different ones.

Understood. So are we close to signing on the initial one or two of these? Like, how should we think about -- how these will be announced, et cetera? And just to get success of timing related to these milestones?

Yes. I think what Bill just outlined is what we've shared. Obviously, probably, Q4 by the end of the year. I would say, from my perspective, we're really encouraged with the -- with our discussions and where we're at as it relates to that goal. As I mentioned earlier, one of our main thesis, if you will, as we divided this moment or late last year and into these new end markets is that we had an understanding the belief that the customers in cosmetics, nutraceuticals and of course, pharma had specific compounds that they needed a plant-based synthetic biology solution for. And in addition to that, that they would have what the economics were surrounding those compounds. And with that is borne out, it's borne out to be true. As we talk to customers, they have specific molecules, and as Bill articulated, we're able to go through our TPP and are currently and actively doing that and reviewing these molecules from customers, as well as the economics associated with it. So at this point in time, and again, in relation to that goal, we feel really good with where we're at.

Understood. And with relation to -- just touching on a macro level, right, in terms of some of these supply chain issues, et cetera, do you see the market sort of coming to you guys now for these types of solutions coming from -- just from that angle, any thoughts on how demand for your type of offering or your solution would be supportive, given these recent macro developments in the market?

That's a great question, Amit, and something that we're excited about. And clearly, the supply chain issue, the global supply chain challenges that we're seeing, I think, speaks very well to our process. Our BioFactory and how it's designed is modular in nature, meaning they can handle multiple compounds at once on the different sizes. Our current BioFactory, the 200-liter is actually in our offices here in Minneapolis and have been able to put in any sort of footprint. One of our customer discussions, we had a customer ask if we could, in fact, place a BioFactory within their production footprint, within their facility because they were looking to address their carbon footprint with that production facility. So that sort of modular nature, the ability for it to be placed anywhere, again, very, very different from when we were following a different model and relying on in-the-field production, if you will, farm-based. Now, we're able to put it in these controlled environments, literally anywhere in the world and can be able to address the customers' need, whether it be supply chain, carbon reduction versus sustainability. So we think it's really a nice benefit for us right now.

Understood. How should we think about putting in place like a larger facility? I mean, I know it's not a need today, Michael, but in terms of a larger BioFactory or production infrastructure, how far down the line is that? Any sense of how you should think about those things?

Well, I think the one thing I would look at, and Bill can touch on this more, I think, a little bit is that our stewardship of capital, I think, has gone very well over the last couple of years and certainly as it relates to CapEx. But I think the #1 driver here for us really is that we're customer-driven. And so it depends. Some of the molecules and compounds we're looking at are not tremendous volumes, and we could actually be producing them at a production level within our current pilot facility. But more importantly, is that we're going to be customer demand-driven as it relates to increasing the capacities and capabilities, as we continue to scale and scale through this pilot and we look to the next phase, it's going to be first and foremost, customer-driven. Bill, anything more you'd add on that?

Yes, I would. The company's approach for handling that go-forward manufacturing sort of the base business model is to use, what we describe as infrastructure partners, for that production. So they would use likely some form of existing capacity they have. They have to make some modifications to it, but if they have reactors, bioreactors that they could use, our PCMs could go in there. And our view is that they would be willing to make some modest level of investment to convert those assets over to produce for us because they can earn a return as the manufacturing organization for us. In the process, we would leverage their expertise. And so from our standpoint, that's our go-in business model, with potential customers. At the same time, Michael mentioned this as well, is that a customer may want to put the BioFactory in their facility, in which case, we would work together to find out how we would get that paid for. But from the company's perspective, we don't have any current plans to make significant capital investments in production capacity because we believe we'll be able to find it through the work we would do with infrastructure partners.

Understood. I know, Bill, Michael, you get this on your earnings calls, et cetera, recently as well. Can you talk about your burn rate, your balance sheet, et cetera? How should we just think about your needs over the next few quarters in terms of executing against the plans you have?

You bet. So we're really pleased, Amit, that we were able to get a capital raise done in late February. We closed on February 23, net of $10 million of proceeds from that. It enabled us to extend our runway into late 2022. And we continue to be good stewards of our cash, have confidence that into late 2022 runway is relevant. That reflects a plan that has us growing and scaling our business. It's not -- we're just trying to not invest, so we're hiring people to augment our skills in business development, in AIML and in chemistry, which are 3 areas that we need to have as we continue to grow and scale the BioFactory and ensure that we can achieve their milestones that are in front of us as it relates to both pruning the technical feasibility and capability of the BioFactory and landing customers, right? Those are 2 big areas for us as we think about where we need to go. And so we're good with the runway that we've got. We've got to do some work. The other important factor is that, that run rate not only includes committed customer cash. So to the extent that we've got licensing -- potential licensing revenues, potential development revenues from the BioFactory. So they're not included in that forecast of late '22 for the run rate, because we've only included committed to customer cash in that number.

Understood. So in that context, right, can you maybe, set expectations for investors, how they should look at the financials, right? I mean, not from a quarterly perspective, but maybe, from an annual perspective or even for maybe, a 2-, 3-year time horizon, relative to some of these milestones that are coming into play for you guys potentially. Michael, any thoughts on how investors should think about those types of things when looking at Calyxt?

Yes. A couple of comments. I'll have Bill jump on the longer-term version, but I think you hit it right on the head, it's the milestones. I mean, it's a biotechnology company. We're very, very focused on specific milestones. And milestones, really, through the entire company. All functional departments are very focused on not only the corporate milestones, but their individual department milestones. Of course, we've shared the goal here of 2 to 4 compounds under development by the end of the year. Throughout the year, we have technology milestones that our R&D department is focused on. We touched on earlier the importance of AI and ML and continuing to accelerate the pace of our development process, making it shorter in duration, as well as the BioFactory. There's milestones related to our BioFactory self as we go through scaling. Again, we just moved from that lab stage and to that standard next step, the 200-liter process. So we continue to do that and then focus on that collectively as a company. Bill, in terms of the financials from a longer, you mentioned NPV, which is a big driver as it relates to this, but what else would you add?

Yes. I think as we look at our financial profile, the balance sheet is very clean. There's -- we have no debt. We don't have a building lease that looks like a financing lease on the balance sheet. The balance sheet itself is clean. Our cash balance is $14.9 million at the end of the calendar year. and now, higher as a result of the capital raise. We'll report our number for the quarter in a couple of weeks. And as we think about the P&L then for a second, our P&L to a back, including in 2021, we included the wind down of the soybean business. So our revenues will fall significantly. I would expect our revenue in 2022 to be comprised primarily of revenues from licensing and product development for agriculture with some BioFactory revenue likely to occur as well, with the product development revenue from the BioFactory, but the revenues will be much, much lower than they were in 2021. From an expense perspective, our target for 2021 was to have cash operating expenses be at $25 million or less, and that same target is in place for 2022. And so that is sort of how you can dimensionalize what the P&L should look like. And as we look forward, we would expect, based on that development cycle of 36 months or less and to get to commercial scale production, we'll fund some of our operating expenses through licensing and other customer-related cash. And by this time in 2025, at the very, very latest, we would have product-related revenue that would ramp very quickly associated with the BioFactory production that we're going to be doing for customers at that time.

Understood. Michael, you touched on -- we talked a little bit about these recent supply chain disruptions, et cetera, being a little favorable to how you are positioning yourself. Can you talk about any other macro drivers that are very compelling and maybe, investors are thinking about those, but you are seeing some of those things starting to play out for us please?

We've talked quite a bit about sustainability. And that definitely is one that is out there, and I think everybody sees it. Obviously, you cover that -- those sectors yourself. It's just interesting, just anecdotally, to see the number of positions in large corporations. We have Chief of Sustainability and Senior Vice President of Sustainability. We continue to see that. And of course, those folks, as they roll into those positions, have specific goals and mandates that they are driving for their companies. The other area that I think is probably less apparent, but I think equally important, if in some cases, not more so, and those are compounds that are simply finite in nature, and you just can't get access to. We're seeing some of those throughout all the end markets that we're addressing. You particularly see it in some cases, within the pharma sector, where you have compounds that are derived from a certain plant or a tree that can be derived any other way. It cannot be synthesized. As a result, you have a finite resource, really, in the world and those things come up quite a bit, and present, I think, pretty good opportunities. So as we look at macro environments, we're looking clearly at sustainability, the role of decarbonization that everybody is really sort of embracing. Then also, those compounds that are simply finite, they are attractive in terms of their capabilities, but companies just simply can't get their hands on.

Understood. Is there a primary ingredient that we leverage? Like, for example, ethanol coming from corn or people using sugarcane. Is there any primary ingredient that we are sort of using as for our process?

No. So we have what we call our plant cell matrix which I mentioned earlier, which is our proprietary engine. It's really the driver, so we'll go in and we'll engineer that to specifically address the compound that the customer is looking for. And then that PCM where the plant cell matrix is placed within our BioReactor, and that's the plan, for a lack of a better description, is what's producing the compounds that our customers offer. So that's sort of proprietary approach. And this is really sort of an important thing. Oftentimes, I get asked the question about competitors. And my comment immediately is there's a lot of synthetic biology companies that I view as our peers. And the reason is as opposed to same competitors is they're using single cell microbes and fermentation and we're using that multicellular approach. There's actually a slide in our investor deck that is fairly simple, but it's very, very important. It talks about the number of known compounds in the world. There are roughly 170-odd thousand known compounds. If you look at those that come from single cell bacteria, microbes that would be used in fermentation versus the number of compounds that come from plants, about 80% of them come from plants. And what that really shows is the one the capability of what plants can do, but then also, due to their complex structure, their multicellular structure, the complexity of compounds that can be addressed. So there are some compounds that the single cell in that microbial and fermentation approach is probably better, usually more commodity-type compounds. But then, you can see the power of what a multicellular plant can do it in terms of the complexity and the size of opportunity that a plant plays in terms of compounds it can address.

Understood. So from a sort of a moat perspective, how important is this differentiation relative to, say, your peers? And once the compound is developed using sort of your geology platform, how difficult will it be for us to replicate something like this? Just any color on sort of that angle or thinking?

Well, one, we think it's huge. And I think it goes back to our opening comments or your opening question as it relates to the history of the company, with 12 years of IP work being the first company to gene edit the soybean, being able to engineer clients as the company has been able to do. And so that's certainly unloaded and of itself. I think you'll also find that where we're excited is the technology path we've chosen is that complex plant versus that single cell. As we've had discussions with customers, we do know of specific instances where a customer has tried to use a traditional synthetic biology, again, the microbe and fermentation approach and simply have not been successful in producing the compound. And so those are discussions that we're pretty excited about, because it speaks exactly to the differentiation that we have as a plant-based in bio company versus a single cell in microbial company.

Understood. In terms of milestones for the next 18 to 24 months outside of contract wins, et cetera, is there any other sort of R&D-type milestones that we should be looking for? Any highlights that you can share that as part of the strategic efforts over the next 18 to 24 months?

Yes. We haven't shared anything specific up to this point. And then obviously, that's something that we're very focused on. As I mentioned earlier, I mean, it really transcends the entire company. So whether it be R&D and the AIML. Even in Bill's group, on the financial side. Clearly, infrastructure partners is an area that we're focused on and can continue to look to drive milestones there. That's an important part of our scaling process. So the milestone nature of a biotechnology company is certainly part of the company's culture and focus and something that we literally talk about daily.

Understood. Is there an ability for you to open up your platform, your AIML capabilities, your data library, et cetera, to other developers? You may not be focused on certain things, but they can be outside developers who may have an interest in leveraging all the work you've done and your capabilities to work on their own ideas, et cetera?

Yes.

Is there a possibility?

Yes. Yes. A great question. So one thing about the AIML, on your earlier question, we're driving that ourselves. We're not using a third party, but we are using data that's publicly available to ADAS. So we have a significant amount of data internally, again, not only from that 12 years of tenure of focusing on this, but what's going on, on a daily basis as. With all AIML platforms, it snowballs over time. The more information you get, we augment that with information from outside the company. But there's also going to be pathways and learnings, if you will, as we go through this process, that's not going to directly speak to those customer demands. And so as we go down the road on our AIML path, that is definitely something that we've already aligned with and we'll be looking forward to monetizing.

Understood. Any last thoughts or comments you have before we wrap it up, Michael or Bill, in terms of what investors should expect from you guys over the near term? Why people should be looking into the stock today? I know it's had a pretty good pullback with the rest of the market. Value proposition looks extremely favorable from a risk reward perspective. Just any thoughts on -- parting thoughts on why this is a good time to enter the story for investors who may be on the fence, et cetera?

Well, what's interesting, I think, is -- and Bill touched on this, is that we were able to raise capital in February. As you know, Amit, personally, it's have been very challenging time for the capital markets and particularly, for our segment, biotechnology in general. I think the fact that we were able to do that says a lot about where we are and what we're doing. Last week, we were at the Global Synthetic Biology Industry Conference, which was great to see all of our peers and we touched on it a little bit today and hearing what's going on. There were several customers in representation there, larger products companies that were there. And really, seeing how our efforts, what we're doing, that differentiation as a plant-based synthetic biology company resonates with the market and really, where companies are now committed to sustainability, as well as finding ways to address compounds that are finite in nature. So the positioning of Calyxt, the technology of Calyxt is very, very attractive. And I think, again, back to the capital raise in February, we're seeing those folks really understand that. Bill, would you add anything else here?

No, I think that's a really good summary, Michael.

All right, guys. That's all we have for today. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Michael, Bill really appreciate the time you have taken to educate us a little bit more on the opportunity ahead of the company. We look forward to seeing you at our conference in Miami. And like I said earlier, if anyone has an interest in following up with the company, with Michael or Bill, we can try and make those arrangements. And so with that, signing off. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Bill.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you.