Dr. Jordan R. Plews, PhD, Co-Founder & CEO of Elevai Labs, Inc, was recently a guest on Benzinga's All Access.
Elevai is a medical aesthetic biotechnology company that develops innovative skincare products and treatments tied to obesity and metabolic health. The company's biotech division is currently developing EL-22, designed to help users of drugs like Ozempic keep lean muscle mass as they lose weight.
The company recently released preclinical data showing promising results for EL-22.
Elevai is a medical aesthetic biotechnology company that develops innovative skincare products and treatments tied to obesity and metabolic health. The company's biotech division is currently developing EL-22, designed to help users of drugs like Ozempic keep lean muscle mass as they lose weight.
The company recently released preclinical data showing promising results for EL-22.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Dr. Palouze, good morning, how's it going?
00:07 - Hey, how are you doing?
00:08 - Doing great, glad to see you back.
00:11 You know, I've been a fan of the company
00:13 in terms of the conversations that we had
00:15 with the products that you have,
00:16 but I know you have some updates
00:17 to provide us here today as well.
00:19 But before we get into that,
00:20 if you could give the viewers a quick idea
00:23 of what is it that your company does.
00:25 - Yeah, LLY Labs is a medical aesthetics company.
00:28 We're developing, acquiring, and commercializing
00:31 disruptive innovations for beauty, longevity,
00:33 obesity, and metabolic health.
00:36 - All right, perfect.
00:37 Now, your biotech division, by the way,
00:40 is working on some exciting things,
00:42 especially in the obesity space.
00:44 If you could give me a little bit of an idea of the EL22,
00:48 but also how does it work?
00:50 - Yeah, so since our customers today
00:53 are primarily doctors focused on aesthetic medicine,
00:56 many of them are prescribing these GLP-1 drugs
00:59 like Ozentby, Wacovy, Manjaro,
01:01 that I'm sure you've heard of.
01:03 And we found that many of them shared these common pain
01:07 points when it came to obesity and metabolic disorders.
01:09 So, you know, people are seeing amazing weight drops,
01:13 often 15% or more of their body weight
01:15 with these GLP-1 drugs.
01:17 But what is talked about less is that a lot
01:20 of that weight is muscle.
01:22 In fact, it's not uncommon for up to 40%
01:24 of that weight loss to be muscle loss.
01:26 So, serious problem, right?
01:28 - Yeah.
01:29 And it's so interesting you mentioned that
01:31 because whenever people talk about it,
01:34 like even for me, right?
01:34 I think you and I talked about maybe last time
01:36 where I've kind of gone through this weight loss journey
01:38 and yeah, I'm seeing the pounds kind of drop
01:40 and sometimes I'll see the pounds go up.
01:41 However, when I get a more in-depth test done,
01:45 then it shows me that, hey, your fat loss has,
01:47 your fat has kind of decreased and your muscle has grown,
01:50 which is why you might be seeing the same weight,
01:52 but internally things are looking better
01:54 than they did say two weeks ago as well.
01:57 On that note though,
01:58 how are the clinical trials progressing?
02:00 - Yeah, so what we've done here is we believe the future
02:05 of GLP-1s is a combination treatment
02:08 that's gonna mitigate this muscle loss.
02:09 So you don't wanna lose the muscle,
02:11 you just wanna lose the fat.
02:12 We know our muscles burning calories,
02:14 it's got physical function attached to it
02:16 and you wanna hold on to that muscle as long as possible.
02:18 So we looked for assets that were really gonna address
02:22 this properly and we found a engineered probiotic.
02:26 It was developed in South Korea.
02:28 It was designed actually for Duchenne's muscular dystrophy
02:32 and that's already been taken through preclinical
02:35 and phase one and so we were able to obtain this
02:39 and now we're building a team around taking this forward
02:43 through an FDA IND in the United States here.
02:47 - And what kind of, Tam, is out there
02:49 for this type of drug?
02:51 - So the markets really responded to these GLP-1 drugs
02:54 unlike anything else.
02:56 The CDC says about 42% of Americans
03:00 are suffering from obesity and Goldman says
03:03 this is gonna be a $100 billion market by 2030.
03:06 So as you look around at these peers that are out there,
03:09 it's a big, big market.
03:12 I think this is gonna prove to be the biggest drug
03:16 of all time by a long margin.
03:19 - Now what about the-- - GLP-1s.
03:22 - What about the EL-22?
03:23 I know we kind of briefly mentioned on that.
03:25 How is that gonna work into everything here?
03:27 - The EL-32? - EL-32, yeah.
03:30 - Yeah, so we acquired two assets effectively, 22 and 32.
03:35 22 is this engineered probiotic that has a antigen
03:40 for myostatin so it's something you take orally,
03:44 your body through mucosal immunity,
03:46 passive mucosal immunity is producing antibodies
03:49 against myostatin.
03:51 Now one of the other main targets is called ActiVan-A
03:54 and so EL-32 goes after myostatin and ActiVan-A
03:58 in a single dose.
04:00 So same platform technology
04:03 and what's really interesting for us is that
04:05 as you see on this graph here, this chart,
04:08 there's a number of options that are intravenous
04:11 or subcutaneous.
04:13 We think the future ultimately is gonna be oral.
04:16 This is something that this technology allows.
04:20 And having it orally taken is a lot easier as well
04:23 to kinda just go ahead and handle
04:25 versus any other methods of having it happen.
04:28 Taking a step back away from this,
04:30 I wanna have this graph still up,
04:31 but you announced, I believe it was like a 330% increase
04:34 in revenue year over year in quarter one.
04:39 How in the world did you attain that?
04:41 - Yeah, it's just a little over 330.
04:44 We're very proud of that.
04:46 This is really building on our foundation
04:50 of customers that are happy, right?
04:52 They're reordering again and again.
04:54 And so we're able to build on that foundation
04:56 and add more and more accounts.
04:58 We're about making products that are built on technology
05:01 that really work, that people are happy with.
05:04 And because of that, they come back for more.
05:07 And so we think that's the real main driver here.
05:10 And of course, we're adding more products
05:12 and more technology.
05:13 Currently, we're getting closer and closer
05:15 to launching our hair product line,
05:17 which we're very excited about.
05:18 - Can you dive into a little bit about that?
05:20 I know there's certain things you can't speak to,
05:21 I understand, but give me some insights
05:24 that might already be publicly available.
05:26 - Yeah, so there's not a lot I can say.
05:29 We've been teasing it for a little while.
05:32 We talked about it, but one of the things
05:35 I would point you to is that,
05:37 we do try to press release everything.
05:39 And one of the interesting ones you might've seen
05:41 was we did a licensing agreement
05:42 with a company called UVA Bio.
05:45 UVA Bio has some great technology
05:47 that was developed using AI to find a compound
05:51 that helps to address mitochondrial health.
05:55 And so if you're familiar with the longevity space,
05:57 if you've heard of NMN, NAD,
06:00 this compound is in that same kind of family.
06:03 It's about mitochondrial biogenesis.
06:05 It's about giving your cells more mitochondria
06:09 and therefore more energy.
06:10 And we feel it's a very good, perfect accompaniment
06:14 to our exosome technology from our stem cell exosomes.
06:18 So this was one of those things.
06:19 It's a one plus one equals three.
06:22 And we do plan to incorporate that technology
06:24 into future products.
06:26 - And do we have a timeline on that
06:27 that you're able to speak to or not yet?
06:29 - I can't give a timeline just yet,
06:31 but it's coming soon.
06:34 - I understand and I respect that.
06:35 You mentioned AI, so let me kind of dive right into it.
06:37 AI is such a hot buzzword, right?
06:40 But how do y'all plan on having AI impact the research
06:44 that is gonna be conducted here?
06:46 - Yeah, so most of our research is still done in the lab
06:50 by highly trained people.
06:52 And I don't see a robot with AI coming in
06:54 and replacing people in the lab very soon.
06:57 I think there's a lot of really cool stuff that we can do.
07:00 Like I said, they developed this technology
07:04 by screening a lot of molecules through AI.
07:07 I think we're gonna see more and more of that.
07:08 It's gonna move from just the really big pharma companies
07:12 being able to afford AI for these things
07:14 to much lower level things.
07:16 So we're gonna keep an eye on this, of course,
07:19 because we're all about leveraging the latest technology
07:22 to make better products.
07:24 - And now on my final question,
07:26 before I kind of turn it over to you,
07:27 we talked about the 30% increase in revenue
07:30 year over year for Q1.
07:32 You've got a game plan, I assume,
07:33 to kind of sustain this as well.
07:38 Any final thoughts from you,
07:39 anything else that you kind of wanted to discuss?
07:41 I didn't get a chance to bring up any topics
07:43 that you wanted to have our viewers get some insights on.
07:45 The floor is all yours.
07:47 - Sure, yeah, no, after this,
07:50 I'm preparing to go down to UCLA.
07:52 They have the LA Best Conference tomorrow.
07:55 I'm gonna be speaking at that
07:56 alongside some really great colleagues,
07:59 a lot of translational medicine stuff going on there
08:02 that I think your viewers might find interesting.
08:06 So really we're trying to develop
08:09 while also build out a team specifically for this bio side.
08:14 So keep an eye on that.
08:16 We do have, I can say other products in the pipeline.
08:21 I can't speak too much about them yet,
08:23 but it's going to be a very exciting year for us
08:25 because we're kind of pushing forward here on all fronts.
08:28 But yeah, if there's anyone
08:31 who's following this GLP One space,
08:33 I'd say look at that LA Best Conference tomorrow.
08:36 That's at, I'd say the UCLA.
08:39 And keep tabs on us.
08:41 Our ticker as you have here is E-LAB.
08:44 And this is something that we really feel strongly
08:48 is gonna be the future of GLP One treatments
08:50 is a combination of a GLP One drug
08:53 and an anti muscle wastage drug to go along with it.
08:58 And we believe myostatin blockers are the way.
09:00 - Awesome, well, hey, look, I appreciate the insights.
09:02 And I know there are certain things you can't speak to it,
09:04 but when you do go ahead and make that information public,
09:06 I'd love to have you back on
09:08 so we can talk about what's happening
09:10 and also how it impacts the business in the future as well.
09:12 But thank you so much.
09:13 I really appreciate your time, Doc.
09:15 - Yeah, thanks for having me.
09:16 Appreciate it.
09:17 (upbeat music)
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