Willow Biosciences Inc. (WLLW) - Fri Mar 26 - 10am PT / 1pm Anyone has a record of this ?
i Never heard about it. I did found someone's summary about it but can't confirm it's accuracy
but most likely is. I rather listen to the real thing. Anyone has anything on it ?
here is the summary but keep in mind. I rather hear the real thing.
Trevor Peters Webinar - March 26, 2021 - my key takeaways.
OK, here are some of the highlights of today’s presentation by the illustrious Trevor Peters. If I get anything wrong, please correct or comment.
They are looking at completing 40 batches (of CBG) per annum, which equates to about 50, 000L or 5-10 tons per year. Generally speaking, they can get the cost down to about $2500/kg in small tanks and $1000 or lower in the larger tanks. He referenced completing 30 – 40 batches in 2022.
The fermentation takes 5 days, and the downstream process takes another 5 days. So, 10 days all in.
They will be completing a 10,000L run in “very near future” (also used the word “imminently”) . This is commercial scale. They will have (CBG) product for sale Q2, Q3, and Q4. They will take this time to work out any bugs, although it seems they don’t anticipate any major issues.
He was very excited to discuss research coming out over next few months, especially related to topicals and the health and wellness arena. He said there is good data to go behind CBG. He was especially excited about “safety data”, as he mentioned this a few times and how this will be well received research on CBG. He suggested that CBG may be better suited for health and wellness.
He spoke directly of Jazz/GW and how they will need 30-40 tons of CBD JUST to create Epidiolex in next 5 years. When asked whether he could see Willow being a supplier, he discussed a 6-12 month process that would be needed to vet a new producer which, theoretically, could mean they could sell direct to Jazz. He didn’t specifically say this was in the works, but did mention Jazz and Epidiolex, specifically.
There was significant discussion on demand and how this might be influenced by shelf life, lack of contaminants (a wide variety of them), and the ability to move beyond borders easily. This will keep the supply chain moving and provide a steady supply of highly pure ingredients to customers. He mentioned shelf-life numerous times and how the high purity level of their product positively impacts shelf life.
Interestingly, they haven’t “decisively decided” whether THC-V, CBG-V, CBD-V will be next in the pipeline. There are others that might be next instead but I don’t recall him alluding specifically to which one. It sounded to me like THC was more likely, but I could have misinterpreted that.
He described Willow as a “One stop shop” to assist potential customers with their current product lines and other products. He was referring to their ability to biosynthesize any cannabinoid. He said they are an “ingredients company” but very interestingly did not rule out the chance to co-manufacture products with existing brands, which would get them closer to store shelves. There was some comparison to Intel Inside. He discussed the opportunity for sub-branding in the future.
They have had a half a dozen pilots since September 2020 and have worked out a lot of bugs/kinks, although admits that there is still work to be done and they will not rest on their laurels. He reiterated that they have a good process working at pilot and are ready to shift into the larger environment. There are some unavoidable technical risks that lies between scaling up from 10000L to 50000L but they feel pretty comfortable it will go well and will successfully optimize the process. He came across as realistic but very confident in this regard.
When asked about patents, he stated they are almost entirely related to how they generate the yeast cell. They are always working to make tech better and “building an IP moat”.
When asked about competitors, he clearly said Amyris was not high on list of competitors and referenced the lawsuit. He seemed vey dismissive of this company IMO. He did mention there are 2 or 3 others with Demetrix (private company) being at the top. He described the relationship as “healthy competition” and as a “sister company”. Ginko Bioworks/Cronos was another but stated it was hard to identify how much of competition they are because they don’t provide a lot of disclosure. He mentioned, to a lesser degree Lagos and Crayos (sic). What he did say is that in this space, competitors have to have the money, the team, and the partners to be successful. If one of these is missing, they fail.
He admitted that there will, undoubtedly, be a few producers, but the barriers to entry into the industry are high, so this will all be limited. I got the distinct impression that there will be lots of business to go around.
They burn about $1M/month in operating costs, so the current cash flow of $47M gives them a very nice cushion while they move into revenue generation.
When asked about acquisitions, he was very dismissive and stated it was not on the radar and there was nothing worth looking at.
These are my notes. I strongly encourage you to watch the video when it is made available, as you may extract or glean additional or different information.
EDIT: Feel free to use or amalgamate in an epic DD post. Please note that I'm a nobody though...I just took notes.