What happens when a hospitality veteran with a passion for problem-solving discovers her new puppy is predisposed to joint issues? For Paloma Newton, it sparked, naturally, led to an Australian-first in pet healthcare.
Paloma's path to founding Elita is anything but conventional. Infact, her entire journey is about as unconventional as can be, but like most great innovators, the meandering path is the one most often taken. From call centres to cocktail bars, advertising agencies to venture capital, her career spanned across many industries before she found herself asking a deceptively simple question: why can't I bank my dog's stem cells for future use? When veterinarians responded with 'great idea, but we can't do it,' she recognised not just a gap in the market but a genuine opportunity to improve pet healthcare.
The science behind Elita's approach is both elegant and powerful. By extracting and preserving a pet's own stem cells while they're young (currently during routine desexing), owners gain access to a biological insurance policy. These cells can later be used to treat conditions like arthritis, hip dysplasia, and potentially even kidney disease – all without risk of rejection since they're the animal's own cells. 'The worst thing that can happen is they don't work,' Paloma explains, contrasting this with pharmaceutical options that often carry significant side effects. Currently, they bank enough stem cells for ten potential treatments, making it remarkably cost-effective compared to donor stem cell therapies.
What makes Paloma's story particularly compelling is how her varied background became her superpower. With no formal science training, she approached the problem with fresh eyes and a beginners mind, both of which pair perfectly with her determination to execute quickly. 'My style of being a founder is execution over everything,' she says, describing how she built the company from CoLabs before even hiring scientists (bold move, we know). This fearlessness, coupled with a vision for more ethical healthcare that extends beyond profit margins, positions Elita Genetics at the forefront of a transformation in how we care for our animal companions.
Curious about banking your pet's stem cells or learning more about this revolutionary approach to pet h
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andrew Gray, we'll delve deepinto the intersection of biology
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(00:22):
systems thinking.
Join us on a journey ofdiscovery as we explore how
transdisciplinary innovation,informed by life's regenerative
patterns and processes, couldhelp us catalyze a transition
towards a thriving future forpeople and the planet.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the Strange Attractor
(00:47):
.
This time around, we sat downwith Paloma Newton from Alita
Genetics and we delve into, Iguess, her origin story and how
she got here and what she's beendoing.
And yeah, this one'sparticularly exciting because
we've kind of been activelysupporting her since you know,
as you find out, as it comesfrom a, the seed of an idea, so
(01:09):
it's been really fun getting towatch this grow throughout the
entire process.
Um, we hope you really like herstory.
I think it's a great one, uh.
So, yes, uh, enjoy thisconversation with paloma from
Alita Genetics.
Welcome, thanks for having me,paloma.
It's been a hot minute tryingto organize this one, I feel
(01:32):
like almost since you guys movedin.
We were like soon Soon, weshould do this Soon.
So why now?
How come I've managed to catchyou now?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
soon.
So why?
Why now?
How come I've managed to catchyou?
Now well, um, firstly, this isthe first time I've been on the
other side of a podcast, somaybe a bit of fear you can.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
You're just so
welcome to interview me if you
want.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Thank you, that might
be my gumby spot.
Yeah, um, no, we've just beenreally busy building the company
you definitely have.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Um, yeah, it's been.
It's actually been such aamazing thing to witness this
from like.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I don't even know if
you'd registered the company
when we first no, I came to youand was like how do you build a
lab?
Because I heard you did one ina shipping container and I might
need to do something.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, that's, that's
about right.
Yeah, so it's been really fungetting to watch this happen
from like ideation to, you know,benchtop and actualization, and
then starting taking the firstsamples and all of this sort of
stuff.
So it's been and then evenparticipating.
You know, I'm going to havesome samples from my dog as well
, which is pretty exciting.
Yes, but yeah, I mean mean,let's pedal back a little bit so
(02:49):
tell us about your backgroundand then maybe how you also got
to be where you are now withelita yeah, for sure, I
background is a um, I used tothink this was so niche and, you
know, personal, but it's notlike.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I think a lot of
people that find themselves in a
founding role have a similarstory, but my background is
pretty erratic, I would say atbest.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
ADHD brain yeah
pretty much.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I actually finished
school and I was working in a
call center while I was savingup to go to Japan and I was so
bored.
But I think working in a callcenter was probably like the
best training of all time,because you just learn to talk
to anyone.
But I was so bored and mypartner at the time was playing
music and he was playing at thislittle cocktail bar and I was
(03:38):
there drinking and complainingabout my job and the guy that
owned it was like come and workhere.
And I was like what?
And so I went and worked atthat cocktail bar on Crown
Street in Surrey Hills and thatkind of actually then landed me
in like a 10-year hospitalitycareer where I opened
restaurants with like celebritychefs and ran restaurants and
(03:59):
kind of got to this weird pointwhere I was, I think, 23 and I
was like the youngest GM of arestaurant in Sydney and was
just like why, like how did Iget here?
Um, and I kind of snapped outof it and realized that I loved
hospitality.
I still love hospitality, Ihave so much respect for it.
But I think at 23 I started tofeel like I was hitting a bit of
(04:22):
a glass ceiling and was like,oh, if that's where I'm hitting
this my own personal feeling ofa glass ceiling then probably
something else needs to happen.
And I wasn't very creativeminded because I just went.
Well, what did my parents do?
Both of them worked inadvertising.
So I'll just go to advertising.
And during my hospitality decade, I guess, I did two degrees
(04:44):
which were both useless.
So I did a bachelor of visualarts, majoring in photography,
and then I did a master's inpublishing and I actually turned
down.
A chef said we'd just done apop-up restaurant and he was
like, oh, do you want to come toTurkey?
And like, run front of housefor this restaurant, we're gonna
do.
And I said nah.
And like, run front of housefor this restaurant, we're going
(05:05):
to do.
And I said nah, I've really gotto finish my master's, because
that's halfway through.
And I remember like not goingto Turkey and standing in a
print press factory inAlexandria or Marrickville on a
master's, like excursion, dayout, watching the actual
newspaper get printed andthinking to myself, well, I've
(05:25):
really cooked this like I'm withthe dinosaurs peak moment right
there um, and so, yeah, Ifinished the degrees and I
didn't really know what to doand I had this like art and
publishing and both my parentsworked in advertising.
So it kind of made sense to goand work in an advertising
agency and I loved that job.
That was my first ad job.
I got free reign.
(05:46):
I don't know why, but I gotfree reign to do as much
not-for-profit stuff as I wantedto, um, as long as I got my
actual work done so is thatwhere some of the grapevine
stuff comes into the picture?
not really so.
What happened actually is myfirst not-for-profit that I
started myself before grapevine.
Very similar concepts.
Actually I was working inadvertising.
(06:07):
This is a bit of a wild storyso I'll try and like tighten it
a bit.
You can google it for the fullstory, but send it.
I know exactly where you'regoing, yeah so I was in my 20s,
working in it in hospital no,this was pre-advertising, sorry,
I was working hospitality,still in my 20s, and this is
where the not-for-profit themethat kind of comes in and out of
(06:29):
my career, as you'll hearstarted.
But I was in my 20s, working inhospitality, working in bars,
and a friend of mine basicallygot attacked on the internet by
some guy we didn't know,screenshotting her Tinder
profile and essentially likecalling her promiscuous in much
less polite words.
Anyway, we jumped on and wewere like hey, this is
misogynistic, yada, yada.
You know, I was at universityand a staunch feminist, so I was
(06:53):
trying to school these youngmen on the internet, because
that always works.
And, um, it just ended in likea lot of like death threats and
rape threats and I was like thisis crazy.
So I went to the police, notbecause I was scared, but just
because I thought it was like itshould be illegal.
There's like a justice thing inthere, right.
Anyway, the police were like no, we can't do anything, we don't
(07:13):
know what the internet is.
And I was like what?
And they were like yeah, wedon't even have Facebook, we're
told not to.
And I just like could not?
My brain didn't compute whatthey were talking about.
So we went to the media andthat blew up in this like two
year long um group at the timehad no idea about marketing, so
we called it sexual violencewon't be silenced, which, like
(07:35):
now, as a marketing person, theidea of calling it that blows my
brain out.
But um, good jingle though.
Exactly but um, but no, weended up going to court and
basically it was the first casewhere using a carriage service
to menace, harass or causeoffence was tried for an
(07:55):
internet troll, essentially.
So there was a lot of media.
I mean, we went to the mediabecause the police wouldn't
listen and within about twoweeks I was on the project uh,
triple j, triple j, hack abc.
We ended up being on the coverof grazia uk.
At one point it just went likegangbusters and the police kind
(08:17):
of came back to us and were likeoh, we've actually decided that
we think we might want to likeprosecute this.
I wonder why.
And so we then did that and wewon the case.
Um, although like, justice is ayou know whatever concept, but
we won the case.
And I think the more excitingthing was we were then invited
to help write the revenge pornlaws in New South Wales.
So that was kind of my firstforay into like building
(08:40):
something, genuinely intobuilding something.
I think at the height of thatwe had a Facebook group with
like 10,000 people which at thetime Facebook was like how you
built community dog years.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
That's like a million
now, right?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
yeah, exactly, and I
mean some of the things we got
to off the back of that like weheld again.
Like at the time we were likeliving in the inner city in
Sydney, had a lot of friends whoare artists and musicians,
things like that, so we heldfundraisers.
I remember we raised a bunch ofmoney at one point for a
indigenous women's shelter thatwas run by indigenous women.
So we really tried to use thatplatform as much as we could for
(09:14):
good.
But like none of us knew whatwe were doing, like most of us
were either uni students orworking in hospitality.
But I think now obviouslyhindsight, you know, gives you
more context.
But I think that definitely wasa early, an early sign that I
might, that I might be liking tobuild things, because that
(09:34):
theme kind of runs through right.
Like even when I went intohospital, even when I was in
hospitality, the way that Iwould end up in these places
where I would be like building anew restaurant or helping
someone open a pop-up, like itfelt like a constant pushing
back.
And even then in advertising,probably the reason I loved that
first advertising job so muchwas because I got so much
freedom to like build my clientsand do these not-for-profit
(09:56):
things, and part of the reasonthey hired me was because of the
work I'd done with that group,so they were like we'll keep her
engaged by letting her donot-for-profit work, which is
actually so clever, and I don'tthink they would do it today it
sounds like almost, like aalmost like an early version of
what, like a four-day work weekwould have been right.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, I mean, have a
day to do what you want, so to
speak their prerogative was morelike do it when you can.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
So I was like getting
into the office at.
I mean, advertising is crazy.
I was getting into the officeat like 7.30 and leaving at 10
pm every day.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, no, no thanks.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
But I thrived in that
environment.
Like, I think that's probablyand I don't think that's
necessarily a good thing, but Ithink when I'm really passionate
about something, I find it verydifficult to switch off and
obviously that's becomesomething I've learned to
balance.
But I do find that if I love it, I don't care how long I'm
doing it, because it's notpurely work for me.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
It's play as well as
work right.
It's like you find that flowstate in it, or it's like this
is really fascinating and you'rejust drawn into it, rather than
it feeling like effort.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, and I mean also
I was being paid so badly
because junior advertisingpeople are paid.
I think I was being paid sobadly because junior advertising
people are paid.
Like I think I was on 60K ayear and I was working crazy
hours and I found out that ifyou worked after 7pm they would
buy you dinner and get you anUber home.
So it also just economicallymade sense to just work all day
and not go home to work but juststay in the office and work and
(11:20):
get free dinner.
It's just good math.
And then from there, soadvertising loved it really did
ended up moving to Melbournebecause the best advertising
agency is Clemenger BBDO inMelbourne.
So obviously I had to go andwork there.
Um, and I kind of got there ina roundabout way making another
(11:40):
agency pay for me to get toMelbourne.
But, you know, ended up there,which is what I wanted, um, and
then very quickly I was like ohno, like I don't know if I want
to do this and it was just thismoment of shit like agency is
great, I had a lot of fun, Iloved it, I learned a lot,
strategically particularly.
But campaigns are three monthsand I would work so hard on
(12:02):
getting this campaign out andthen it would just be over in
three months and there wassomething about that that I
found like deeply unfulfilling.
So you would work really hard.
Then you would get really drunk,right, because the campaign was
going live, which felt like alot of fun, and it was a lot of
fun and you did work really hardand then the campaign would be
live and I remember like chasinga bus down the street to like
(12:24):
take a photo of the ad and thenit was over, and in an agency
you never get data on how itwent or, and like the marketing
team, often like the clients Ihad were like Nestle, bayer, bmw
, like the marketing team don'tever get that data.
Um, and so at the time I had afriend who I was talking to and
(12:46):
he had a couple of startups andhe had said to me oh, you should
work in startups and I was likeI don't really know what that
means.
So a long journey basically ledme to working at a place called
Baraha, which was aself-driving car technology
startup, and then from there Iwent and built a brand for
another not-for-profit, becauseI kept trying for another
not-for-profit, because I kepttrying to do not-for-profit work
(13:06):
.
I kept wanting to do it get thatwater in you, yeah um, but from
there went into a little knownVC called Blackbird for a little
bit, but um, I think going backto like I know this is a quite
a long way of little bit, but um, I think going back to like, I
know this is a quite a long wayof describing how I got here.
(13:27):
But going back to that reallyearly bit of building, it almost
felt like when I was atBlackbird I was watching other
people build things as someonewhose job was kind of to watch
other people build things, whichagain I got quite unsettled by.
And I think there are notablemoments where I start to get
unsettled and then I kind oflike self-implode because I know
(13:48):
that I shouldn't be doing thething that I'm doing.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, I think that's
a.
I mean, first of all, I thinkthat most people feel that and
then don't do something.
So the fact that you'recatching that and course
correcting is it's an admirablething, because it is painful to
like realize that you've climbed, let's say, uh, this mountain,
(14:11):
and then you look over andyou're like, oh god, this is the
wrong mountain, you know andand I've experienced that as
well like going in digitalmarketing agency and content
creating and all manner of otherrandom things prior to um,
dropping into collabs and Ithink that look, where am I
trying to go with this.
I think there is actual meritin that as a strategy writ large
(14:34):
, but I won't go there.
But it's like you realize thatand you go, oh no, like I'm
going to have to go down and trysomething else and come back up
and like a lot of people justget stuck in that space and then
they're not really working welland they're not really like
questioning their happy, happy.
So in a way, it's kind of like,yeah, kudos to to making that
happen.
Um, but I, this is going to bereally um, nerdy.
(14:55):
I think it's something to dowith like optimal foraging
strategy and adhd beingbeneficial, because you're just
like, oh well, there's nothing,I'm going to go move to greener
pastures.
And it's interesting seeing howthat pattern of like let's say
psychosocial behavior, canactually be beneficial if you
know how to work with it and youhave enough self-awareness to
(15:16):
see when that happens and gookay, cool.
And then taking that skill setand applying it somewhere else.
So all the digital marketing,content creation stuff that I
did beforehand, um, when I was,you know, creating the content
for companies or doing modeling,it's like you, you learn all
these things and then suddenly,oh wait, this is all incredibly
relevant when building a brand,or so I can see how to your
(15:37):
point.
It's like you look back andit's all non-linear, it's all
over the place, but what you'vedone and all those skills you've
accrued along the way, as soonas you get to this point, you're
like, oh great, I have all ofthis behind me to then channel
into this new initiative, orthing 100, like I joke all the
time that the training to be afounder is is like one part call
(15:57):
center, three parts hospitality, three parts advertising and
the rest is just sheer stupidity.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
But like it's true,
like every as as much as it
sounds so erratic and makes nosense.
Now all those skills that arefrom each of those individual
pathways make total sense to me.
Um, but then, like, how Alitacame about was my co-founder,
jackson, and I were working atBaraha and at the time we were
actually spitballing heaps ofstart-up ideas, like I think we
(16:27):
decided very early on that wewere going to start a business
together and some were reallybad, like really bad.
One was quite good and I thinkwe would have killed it, but it
wasn't as good as Alita.
But basically, when we gotEdgar, our dog it was COVID, for
context we got him in the lastlockdown.
(16:47):
We almost made it through allthe lockdowns without getting an
air fryer or a dog, um, but wegot both in the last one and and
we found out that.
So we basically I had only everhad dogs from the shelter Like
that.
That was just to me how you geta dog, and so that was the plan
(17:08):
going into it.
I think one day I woke up andwas like I want a puppy.
And I just felt like my wholetwenties I was like I'm not
ready to get a puppy.
I know that it's like so muchwork.
And I suddenly woke up and waslike nope, I'm settled, I'm
ready now.
And I went to look for a puppyand at the shelters that we were
looking at again like hindsightI probably just should have
waited, because it was themiddle of COVID, but there was
(17:29):
just no.
There was a lot of older dogswhich would have been lovely,
but I really did want a puppy.
I wanted to like nurturesomething and I think I knew it
was the only time we were evergoing to be at home that much.
And the only puppies that werethere were just so
non-compatible with ourlifestyle.
Like I, I'm not a hard ass, Ican't train a dog.
That needs really hardcoretraining.
Like I'm too much of a softie.
(17:49):
And then we were like, oh,maybe we'll like buy a puppy.
And that was like, oh well,what kind of dog?
Like I've never thought aboutacquiring a dog in that way.
Loved golden retrievers, andthen we found a girl who was
half golden retriever and andhalf cocker spaniel and we were
like, oh my god, that's theperfect dog.
And so we got him.
And I had never like, because Ihad never owned a dog.
(18:12):
That was like a bred dog before.
I didn't even know you couldlook up like disease indicators
or like predispositions.
So I just went down this rabbithole and found out he was
predisposed to arthritis, hipand elbow dysplasia on both
sides, which to me feltterrifying because I was
obsessed with this dog.
And from there it was likeeverything from.
(18:35):
We started cooking his food, notactually straight away as a
puppy, just because we learntthat there's quite a few like
nutritional requirements whenthey're little.
So we were buying his food whenhe was a puppy, but as soon as
it was like ready and we I meannow we have a dog nutritionist
but we started looking at likenaps, scheduling and like how
long interval walking and likeall these things that he needed.
(18:57):
And during that process Ilearned about stem cell
therapies and I learned aboutstem cell banking and I was like
, oh great, like you know,problem solved.
And then we went to the vet andI was like, hey, you know,
while he's a baby can we storehis cells and they were like, oh
, that's a great idea, we justcan't do it.
I was like what do you mean?
You can't do it?
She's like we just don't havethe like.
(19:19):
I wouldn't even know how to doit.
I was like that seems like asolvable problem.
So we went to a couple morevets and just kept asking, just
kept being quite inquisitive.
At the time it wasn't like abusiness idea yet.
It was just me trying to figureout if we could do something.
And I think, like the fourth orfifth time, I was like this is
(19:41):
crazy.
And by that point I'd startedresearching the global landscape
and the fact that stem cellshave been used in horses for 20
years.
I was like this is insane, thatyou just can't do this and
that's kind of well, it wasn'tthat easy.
I then started you know havingto plant the seed in Jackson's
head and then be like oh, wow,did you know that Australians
(20:02):
spent 33 billion dollars ontheir dogs in 2022?
And like doing the marketresearch.
But once we validated themarket, we basically I think
this is a bit of a cliche, butit's a true one we kind of got
to the point where there weremore reasons to do it than there
were not to, and so then I quitmy job and started pestering
(20:22):
you about how to build a lab.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Uh, I remember it.
I remember vividly the firsttime that you sort of came in
and you, just you just wentstraight to it.
You're like how do I build alab?
I want to do this thing.
You know, not even no smalltalk, just straight to it, just
like I'm just picturing youdoing the exact same thing, just
just walking into these vetsand being like I want to bank my
pet stem cells yeah, that'spretty much how it went.
(20:45):
I don't know, because I hear yousay six.
I'm like no one goes to sixvets.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
No one goes to six
vets, just because oh no, I was
definitely angling for somethingthat's an expensive like well,
we had a membership and everytime you go to the vet you get a
different vet.
So, oh, so you just went to Twodifferent locations, six vets
in total.
Yeah, he had a lot of oh, Ithink he's got a bit of a limp A
(21:12):
lot of that going on, yeah,yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I think he's just
like emotionally unwell.
Yeah, there's something goingon.
Yeah, yeah, might be his gutmicrobiome.
Can you just check that for me?
Oh, that's great, okay.
So I mean, I feel like thispaints a really good picture of
how, like, it's come to be rightand all those different
backgrounds, and you know mixingall that stuff into a cocktail
shaker, like you were saying.
But I guess what I'd be curiousabout understanding as well is
(21:43):
that interesting background thatyou've got there.
Has that shaped like?
How has that shaped the visionfor Alita and what?
Where you're wanting to go intothe future, like because it is
a unique background you've got,and I'm very curious to see if
you think that that's yeah, ifthat's played out in the way
you've stepped into this newrole, um, or if it's like the
personal, scientific,entrepreneurial thing is just an
(22:04):
emerging thing that you'refiguring out as you go I mean, I
think, firstly, we wouldn'thave done this if it wasn't for
jackson's background, like thefact that he was a biomedical
engineer, he had experience instem cells, like through another
business that he worked in.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
There was a bunch of
things that made it possible to
do this.
I think, with the way that I'vedone everything else, I'm
actually very comfortable withnot knowing things Like I,
because when I was inadvertising I worked as what we
call a suit, which is basicallylike I mean, actually now I
think it's an incredible job andI think it taught me so many
(22:38):
skills.
But it's known in theadvertising industry as kind of
being like the go between person, like you're, you're, you're
client facing, but you deal withstrategy, you deal with
creative, you deal with like,you deal with production.
You're, you're the joining,you're, you're the weaver, so to
speak yeah yeah, but you'realso in charge of the
(22:58):
relationship, so you write thebrief.
So it's it.
It's funny because to me it'salmost like a mini founder role,
like it's your job to take theclient's idea or what they want.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
It's like managing a
team, pulling together something
Correct, going to strategy.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Like I spent most of
my advertising career trying to
decide if I wanted to dostrategy or if I wanted to do
production.
And because I was really luckyin the teams I was in, I got to
do a little bit of everything,but in hindsight, like that was
actually the perfect role for mebecause I enjoy building and I
enjoy doing all the things alittle bit.
I don't need to be a subjectmatter expert in anything.
(23:32):
I'm actually really comfortablenot knowing anything.
I think one of the big benefitsof me being the founder of my
business is, you know, veryearly on we realized we needed
to find some great scientistsand we did that.
And because we're very good atselling the vision, we were able
to get like incredible staff,one of which before I mean don't
show this to the OTO, but oneof the which before we could pay
(23:52):
them, like we obviously didequity and a whole bunch of
things.
Um, but like when you'rebuilding something that requires
technical or scientific inputbut it's a commercial business,
I think there's a massive valueto being a person who doesn't
have the background in any ofthat, because nothing makes me
(24:12):
feel more comfortable thansaying to my team explain it to
me like I'm an idiot because Ijust I don't have any ego around
like how we get there, so myfocus is purely on the problem
solving, which is the bit thatI'm obviously good at.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, no, it's
interesting hearing this because
obviously you know Tina Funderas well from Alt Leather.
Amazing, similar sort ofamazing, right, you're both
amazing.
Thank, you.
That's a similar sort ofbackground, right?
So digital marketing agency.
Oh, here's a problem I've comeacross you, right so digital
marketing agency.
Oh, here's a problem I've comeacross.
You know, well, I'm going tocreate this company.
Oh, great, now I, I'm createdthis company and I can't find
(24:50):
any like sustainable, non-pebased materials or I guess how
hard could it be to find peopleto make it?
And it's.
I see this pattern playing outquite a lot and it is
interesting to see how quicknon-technical founders get
things done versus someone whomight have had a long and
illustrious career as anacademic or working at a crown
(25:11):
research institute like a CSIROor something you know.
They might be like absolutelyamazing technically, but then
it's almost like if you, if thishas been something you've been
in for like 10 years and youknow you've been in there so
long, if this has been somethingyou've been in for like 10
years and you've been in thereso long, like you, kind of, a
lot of the times your thoughtprocess is tram-tracked within
what you're doing, where you'vegone, and sometimes learning
(25:33):
these additional skills can takea little bit longer and like
there's less of the all.
Right, we've got to iterate,we've got to rapidly do, and I
find that those who've had anarts degree or a design
background.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's really
interesting seeing the different
approaches that they'll take tosolving a problem, um compared
to technical founders it's alsojust ignorance, right like, but
it's true like I didn't knowwhat we couldn't do, so
therefore, I could do anything,because I didn't know what could
, what could trip us up, becauseI I couldn't see the science
(26:06):
more than like, well, this worksand this works and this works,
so like, just make it workthere's a venn diagram that's
like, that's the science I getand now that we have incredible
scientists like they tell mewhat I need to know, but I tell
them what we need to solve andthat's like a great and I mean
jackson obviously obviously getsa little bit more of the stress
(26:27):
of what that actually lookslike.
But I don't think as a CEO or afounder, it's really my job
necessarily to be in thenitty-gritty, day-to-day solving
the.
My job is to be like well, thisis the problem.
We have to get to X.
Who do we need?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, and again it's
like not, not.
I think every type of founderhas their own problems to have
to solve.
Right, it's like the technicalones they need to be learning,
the marketing, the communicating, all of that sort of stuff, the
, the vision building, um, allof that sort of stuff, whereas
you know then the, thenon-technical, you know you have
to find the right team, allthat sort of stuff.
It's not that one way is betteror worse.
(27:03):
It's just interesting seeingthe different patterns and the
different places that peoplehave bottlenecks, and it really
feels like it seems like becauseyou also raised like pretty
quick, you got your initialfunding to get sort of
everything to where you are now,like relatively speaking.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, I mean I think
that comes with a little bit of
privilege as well, though rightLike I'd been in the startup
ecosystem.
I'm like English speaking firstlanguage.
Fair play, fair play.
Like I mean, it's still hard,it's really hard.
You know we took longer to raisethan I wanted to, but we were
able to close capital early,which was, like, obviously
incredibly beneficial instarting stuff off.
(27:43):
But you know, I think, also justbeing in the startup ecosystem
having worked in VC even not fora very long time and not as an
investor there's still that whenI talk to founders now I have a
bit of a rule where I willalways take a call with a female
founder if they need help, andso I see a lot of female
founders with early stage decksand it makes like my first deck
(28:07):
was so embarrassing and I stillhave it just to humble myself,
but like it makes you realize,just like how much privilege
there is even just being aroundthe startup environment, like
the amount of times I meet afounder who's never even been in
a startup before and I findthat so much more impressive and
courageous that they wouldthink to do this, because some
of the words that I considerjust to be common sense, like,
(28:30):
like, not common sense, but likethings that I've just become a
part of right you've justabsorbed yeah.
So you've just been around andit rubs off and you're like, oh,
I understand that yeah, and I,you know I usually take calls
for 15 minute calls and I'lljust spray feedback at them and
so often they're like what isthis acronym?
And I forget that there is alike an inherent privilege of
having been worked in startupsand I do think, like I know,
(28:53):
that this is a very long way ofdoing it.
If you've got like a bangingidea that you want to get out
right now, but if you have thetime to at least do one year in
a startup before you try and doit yourself, it'll give you so
much more of a head start thereis a real like.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Uh, I think of this
like apprenticeship.
Yeah, you know quite a lot ofnew and young founders we have,
like we've had, come to us andthen, you know, work with us,
even down to their new site atnotting hill, um, and they're
just like learning the ropes,getting exposure.
And it's the same with us, likewe've, now that we've supported
like 35, 40 different companies, like you start to see what
(29:25):
works and what doesn't.
And we've seen people gothrough all of these journeys
and hit certain bottlenecks,that we have this really
privileged and I use that sameword as well.
We have a privileged positionto be able to sit here and watch
what's going on and theninterface with the government
and being like, hey, here'swhere we need funding and
support, versus like maybe amore, I guess, like a consultant
(29:45):
or someone coming in and doingall desktop research.
It's a very different approach.
When you're I don't like to usewar metaphors I was going to
say in the trenches, we can comeback.
Come on, you're a marketingexpert.
Can you hear good, it's aFriday afternoon, seb, I'm so
sorry, I know I can't believe.
I put this on you just beforewe're going to go out for friday
(30:07):
.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
what a better time to
do it but, no, I, I agree, and
I think, like going back to yourearlier point of, or question
of, you know what?
What does this background makeme different as a founder?
And I think like the honestanswer is that my style of being
a founder is execution overeverything.
Like I think you've just hit apoint which is a lot of people.
(30:28):
I did a lot of desk research,like before we, but even my desk
research wasn't desk researchLike my desk research was
talking to a hundred dog ownersor like going to different parks
every day dragging poor Edgarout, you know, like way too many
times a day and like getting infront of people like I heavily
(30:50):
lean into execution because Iworked in hospitality, because I
worked in advertising, becauseI worked in these industries
where you can't just sit thereand like send emails, meal's not
gonna make it.
No, you gotta do stuff.
It's like very physical andthat's how I solve problems,
which is why we came to you soearly and we were like right,
we're doing this idea.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
And if only everyone
did that like honestly, so so
needed.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, we're going to
build a lab and it's like we
built that lab.
I ordered my first thermoFisher order, which took me like
two weeks, cause I didn't knowwhat anything was.
Every single time I had toorder something, I had to figure
out what it was.
I remember this, yeah, and thenthere was like 50 variations
and I'm like it's not quite likeAmazon.
No, I was like DMEM.
Is DMEM the same as Trypsin?
Like I'm learning science wordsand I'm like what's a pipette?
(31:37):
And I wanted to get the lablike ready, wanted to do it
before the scientists got hereso they didn't get into an empty
lab, right, and I had this fulllike kitted out lab.
Obviously I did my own, likelittle how to make stem cells,
course but then I just was like,oh, I've built the lab, but now
(32:00):
I need scientists.
You know, there's a balancebetween when to execute.
Yeah and.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
but, as we said again
, that's I think it's comes back
to that thing that youmentioned earlier around like
where am I?
And like having that ability tostop and reflect and be like am
I doing the right thing?
Am I, where am I right now?
What's going on?
And that to me it sounds like,whether intuitively or not, it's
like applying the designthinking feedback loop of like
let's go, you know, design,build, test, think about it,
(32:31):
iterate, and that sort ofapproach is so, like, so
valuable when you're doing astartup.
Um, so I feel like we've spokena lot now about that, but I'd
love to to delve into.
So stem cell banking for pets.
Now, as soon as I hear that,the back of my head is like
that's got to be like 15 grand.
(32:53):
No, right, no idea.
Yeah, I know right, obviouslynot, but like you know how, like
, because I imagine that wouldhave to be something that you
deal with all the time is,people have this preconceived
notion that this is probablyjust something for for elites
yeah for wealthy people orsomething like that.
So I'd like to understand, likebecause this it's not really the
(33:14):
case with what you're doingright, like things have
progressed a lot more now it's alot more affordable, yeah, um,
maybe if you could just talk usthrough, I guess, the whole
process yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
So we look it's we.
We wanted to build a model thatcould be as inclusive as we
could physically do it in acapitalist society, like that's
the fact, um, and so we reallyhad to anchor what we wanted.
Like, I won't compromise on theproduct itself, or the, or the
service, or the experience forthe customer, that's the one
(33:47):
thing I won't compromise on.
So the way that we've built thecompany and I mean like we went
to market a couple of weeks agoso we're well and truly live
but from the customer's side itfeels like a software product.
You sign up your pet and, asfar as you know, you book your
when you're.
We have to tack our servicesonto an existing procedure, so
(34:10):
the easiest one at the moment isto sexing, um, but we're
working on on getting for anytime your pet goes under general
anesthesia.
So you basically fill in thething with us.
You get the yep, you're in, youknow, pay your deposit and then
you basically tell us when yoursurgery date is and who your
vet is, and then you just justkind of walk away and as far as
you're concerned, it's donebehind the scenes.
(34:32):
We organize all the logistics,send out the kits to your vet,
make sure that they've gotguidelines on how to get the fat
sample, and then it's just assimple as you take your dog to
their normal appointment, wetake a fat sample, then we get
that back to our labs.
We basically do a bunch of workin the back end and there's a
few different products that kindof come out of that, but the
key one is that you get 10 vialsof 10 million cells.
(34:55):
Per vials 100 million cells allup, so essentially 10
treatments and your vet or anyregistered vet really can
request those.
They just have to be registeredand we have guidelines on
different things that they canuse those for.
So the global obvious practiceones are things like
osteoarthritis, elbow dysplasiaand hip dysplasia, which is kind
of wrapping back to where thisall kind of came from.
(35:18):
But the goal for us longer termis that if your pet has you know
, for example, we had a customerwe spoke to really early on
whose dog had kidney disease andthis was the kind of kidney
disease that there was no realcure for and she was desperately
looking for stem cells becausethere's some really great
research coming out of Americaon stem cells being used for
(35:40):
kidney disease.
And that's because the way thatstem cells actually work is
that they go to the site ofdistress and they omit growth
factors, or you know, there's awhole bunch of different growth
factors.
The one that most people knoware exosomes because they're
currently in a lot of skincareproducts.
But there's all these differentgrowth factors right which help
(36:00):
to repair different parts ofthe body.
And she was just trying to gether hand on stem cells because
she'd seen that it was going towork and the reality was she
didn't really have anotheroption.
And so, once you've got your petcells banked, if you've got
something where you don't haveanother option, the thing about
autologous or personal stemcells that you've banked for
your own pet is the worst thingthat can happen is that they
(36:22):
don't work.
That's like truly the worstthing that can happen.
There's no side effects.
It's their own dna, it's theirown biology.
There's no rate of rejectionlike from an immunoregulatory
response, like your bodyrecognizes your own cells.
Welcome back, yeah welcome backbud, um.
And so storing means that you dohave them for the really
(36:44):
obvious things, like theosteoarthritis, like the elbow
and hip dysplasia, and meansthat you do have them for the
really obvious things like theosteoarthritis, like the elbow
and hip dysplasia, and meansthat you can try something
proactively that you alreadyhave stored down, rather than
having to wait till a.
It's so bad that suddenly yourbest friend can't jump in the
back of the car and go to thebeach with you.
Right, you can go.
Oh, there's a bit of a limpthere.
We've already got these cellsin the bank.
Let's just pull them out andgive it a crack and see if we
(37:05):
can prevent it early.
But then on top of that, godforbid, something does happen
where you have limited options.
The science is progressing soquickly globally on stem cell
therapies and what they can beused for.
Every single day there'sanother use case coming out of a
research institution overseasthat if you're in a position
where you have limited tools inyour toolbox, then this is just
(37:28):
another tool that you have inyour toolbox that your vet can
trial something so, on that note, I'm really curious how, how do
they get to trial this like?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
how?
Like if I go to the vet now andI'm like yo, I've got stem
cells in a bank, it's in my labCan we put them in my dog?
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah.
So firstly you'd probably go tothe vet and say, hi, my dog is
exhibiting XYZ symptoms, andyou'd listen to your vet and
they'd give you options, as theyusually do.
So normally you get like atiered approach to care.
Then you know you could go awayand decide to do one of those
or you could get in contact withus and say this is what we're
dealing with and we would gothrough.
(38:11):
You know we have a massiveresearch repository here at the
lab where we store what'shappening globally.
But if you were like I don'twant to trial this steroid or
you know, let's useosteoarthritis as the obvious
indication for right now, if youwent to your vet and said, look
, we stored stem cells, we wantto use those, most vets aren't
(38:33):
going to bat an eyelid.
For context, when we started thebusiness, the first thing I did
was get the Veterinary SmallAnimal Surgery textbook
published in 1992, which iscracker of an edition which is
still used.
So I looked up the syllabus atlike Sydney Uni and and I got it
(38:56):
and it's actually quite a smallbook and I was reading through
it and like not you know, notlike studying it, but like just
reading through it to get ageneral vibe and the last
chapter was on stem cells and Iwas like what?
And the thing is, the way thatthey are used is it's pretty
standard.
It's it's injectedintravenously, or sometimes
(39:18):
intra-articulately, which isjust into the joint.
But the reality is it's not ait's not a hard thing to do and
stem cells as a category is notsomething that we haven't met a
single vet yet who's beenoutwardly shocked about what
we're doing.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yeah, it doesn't.
I mean it wouldn't be shocking,because any vet is.
This is what's fascinating.
This is the difference betweenwhat's studied and what's
applied right.
It's like, to your point,they've been learning about this
since like the 90s or the 2000s.
We've known that it's possibleand it's just it's just taken
this long for you to.
And this is like a classicfounder story of like.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Obviously this should
exist, but it hasn't well, it's
taken so long for it to be likeconsistent and accessible.
That's actually what we'resolving for the stem cell side
of it.
We're not really really solvinganything Like.
We have a.
We have a function that's goingto allow us to unlock a bunch
of things for pet owners andhopefully unlock a bunch of
(40:14):
different treatment avenues.
And you know we're doing somuch R and D on that side so
that the people that have theircells banked will have the best
options for the best healthcarefor their pet.
But the actual problem thatwe're solving for our customers
is just access to something thatis consistent and reliable,
repeatable and transparent.
Like every single animal'stissue that gets um, you know,
(40:38):
goes through our lab, the sameprocesses are applied to it.
A tiny bit of it is cut off forR and D, which is in our
service agreements.
It a tiny bit of it is cut offfor r&d, which is in our service
agreements, which is to make itbetter um.
But you know, as I said, likeyou take a fat sample, we give
you 10 vials of 10 million of 10million cells per vial.
You know you have that umbefore.
(41:01):
It wasn't.
That it's not possible.
It's not even that it's notnecessarily available.
I mean, you asked me about costbefore.
So, as I said, I wasn't goingto compromise on the quality of
the product, but we also wantedto make sure it was rational
within the existing options.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
I mean vets are
expensive to begin with.
So like I mean I took my honey,just got a toenail taken off
and it was like $900 later.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
So like I think
people expect that things are
going to be a little bit moreexpensive, I imagine with furry
friends rather than Well, theinteresting thing about vets
being expensive and this is atopic and like I totally get
where you're coming from but thething about Australia
particularly is that we don'tpay for healthcare at all.
Right, like you've neveractually paid the cost of what
(41:48):
healthcare costs, so thereforeyour understanding of the value
is kind of skewed.
In America, when you go to thedoctor, you get an itemised list
of what it costs, right, andeven if you do have like great
health insurance or whatever,you still get an itemised list.
So you still have a consciousunderstanding of the cost of
healthcare, which we just don'thave here.
Now.
(42:08):
We obviously don't haveMedicare, although I think we
should, but whatever.
So it's the only time that wepay for health ourselves, like
it's the only time.
So the cost of, while it feelsexpensive, it's because there's
obviously the cost of staff,there's obviously the cost of
rent there, there's obviously.
But then there's also, like thecost of sterility, right, which
(42:29):
we know as from a lab.
There's the cost of the kits,there's the cost of keeping
those environments sterile, howexpensive it costs to run one
exactly so, like I, I get, I getthat, but I think it's not just
that, like what we tried to dois we tried to be like, well, we
want to give this really highquality to do?
Is we tried to be like, well,we want to give this really high
(42:50):
quality personalized stem celltherapy option?
Right, obviously, there's allthese things that we have to do
to make that possible, but tomake it accessible, what's the
current alternative?
The current alternative isdonor stem cells which have a
high rate of rejection that wasgoing to be actually my next
question.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Which people
hypothetically, if you build up
enough of a backlog and saytheir dog dies, but they get
another one, can they use thosestem cells?
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Yeah, potentially in
the future, but I think, like
right now, we're focusing onwhat we call autologous.
So there's two kinds Autologousis your own, allergenic is
donor.
We focus on autologous stemcells because, from the
literature, the therapeuticbenefits of your own cells are
just higher.
Right, there is obviously afuture where that might be
(43:35):
possible, but right now we'refocused on this because you can
get donor stem cells at themoment.
Where they come from is, Ithink, relatively questionable.
It's not super transparent, Ithink, relatively questionable.
Um, it's not super transparent.
Um, and so what we did was weunderstood what the cost of
(43:59):
those was.
One round of donor stem celltherapy is $4,000.
If you have two joints notuncommon right, right to get
bilateral elbow dysplasia orsomething like that that's 4 000
per joint and this is anaverage.
They go up and down.
If you then have to get anotherinjection 12 months later,
oftentimes you'll do a firstinjection and then six months
(44:20):
later or 12 months later, youmight try a second one.
It adds up right, oh yeah, ohyeah.
So we were like, okay, well, ifthat is the average, if that is
the standard for a product thatwe believe is less of value,
it's allergenic, it might reject.
It's not got as good of blahblah.
Then how can we make ourproduct basically way better and
(44:42):
value wise way cheaper?
So at the moment, if you payupfront, which is obviously the
cheapest lifetime option, it's$4,000, and that's for those 10
vials that we talked aboutearlier.
10 million cells per vial, so100 million cells all up.
So you're essentially getting10 treatments for the same price
(45:02):
as you would get one donor stemcell injection.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, I hear that and
it's just like it's wild to
know that there can be such abig difference.
We were touching on that it's 10to 1 versus normal treatment.
Yeah, the fact that it is um,autologous, first, allogeneic,
yes, because I prompted you todo that, but then you were also
going somewhere else before thatand then I threw that curveball
in there, um, but I think,probably just speaking about the
(45:27):
fact that the tech is waybetter now, but just no one's
really gone there and done thisyet.
So I guess, maybe to lead intothis because unless you want to
go back to you know that wherewe were just before with that
thread, otherwise to bring itback, which I think will still
be a bit related, would be likeI'm kind of curious, like what
(45:52):
do you think the systemicbarriers are for you, or that
were there to stop people fromdoing this like?
Or what's stopping you now?
Is there anything?
It's infrastructure, is it likejust legality stuff, or is it
like a cultural thing?
Or is it now just the righttime for all of those?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
I think it's the
right time.
I also think the cultural thingwill just be educating right,
like just educating that this ispossible.
It hasn't been possible before,so people haven't thought about
it, it's not in their mind.
Data set because it's not beenan opportunity.
I think, like, what are thestructural problems that have
(46:26):
enabled this not happeningbefore?
A little bit of a throwback tokind of what I mentioned before,
like we have to build thiscompany to be successful and do
the best that we can for ourcustomers within the framework
of the capitalist society thatwe live in.
Right, I think the reason thishasn't been done before is
because majority of health isdictated by pharmaceutical
companies right, it was true.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
No, dude, I'm with
you on this one, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
And so we talk a lot
about you know there's enough
data about X drug becausethere's been these massive
clinical trials that have beendone on X drug.
But those have been paid for bythe pharmaceutical company.
So the pharmaceutical companyare the people that decide on
what goes through clinicaltrials.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
So we use small
molecule drugs and all these
sort of things for treatmentsrather than using, like, stem
cells or giving them healthyfood.
It's the same thing, samepattern that plays out with
humans is there's a perverseincentive baked into the system,
and it's not necessarily likeit's not like it's these drug
companies' faults, it's the factthat they have to pay so much
bloody money to get it through,to be able to prove it.
(47:29):
But then, yeah, all of thatwhole system can easily be kind
of hijacked and it means thatsomething like this, which might
make a lot more sense and stillhas a healthy margin, but it's
not as healthy a markup as it'sa margin that's healthy in the
sense of you know, in order tobuild something that is
self-sustaining and will allowus to develop more opportunities
(47:49):
from your pet's own healthycells.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
That means that you
avoid drugs with side effects or
potentially going throughinvasive surgeries, right?
Speaker 1 (47:59):
It's working with
biology instead of against it.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Exactly and it's like
in order for us to discover.
You know, yes, we can,absolutely.
You know, you can use yourcells today for osteoarthritis
or for hip dysplasia, for elbowdysplasia or even, uh, for
crucial ligament tears.
Right, these are mscs, are thecells that we work with at the
moment.
They're great for bone muscle.
Um, that's their, that's theirreally healing power.
(48:21):
There's other things that arecoming up, but for us to find
out more about those otherthings that are coming up, yeah,
we have to have a bit of marginthere so that we can run our
own clinical trials, right?
Speaker 1 (48:30):
okay, that's what
that was.
Where I was going to go nextwas oh, there's a few places I
was curious, like it sounds likeyou're going to end up becoming
your own vet, potentially.
You know, there's one partthere and then the other is like
, yeah, are you going to bedoing research, further research
, because it sounds like you'regathering all of this
information.
You're going to have quite a adeep database of of what's
possible.
And then I, are you thenexploring?
(48:52):
Well, here's where people havelooked.
Is there anywhere else thatpeople aren't looking right now
that we think is useful orviable, and therefore we're
going to start exploring, doingresearch in that?
Speaker 2 (49:03):
so yeah, absolutely.
I mean I think we joke thatwe're going to be an ethical
pharmaceutical company, like.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
That's a like a non
when are you jumping over into
humans, man, no I just love dogs.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I think they deserve
it more.
Um, no, but we, we joke thatwe're going to be an ethical
pharmaceutical company, but theactual way that we're doing this
is is actually, uh, prettystandard.
It's basically commercializedresearch, right?
So we start with what is knownand what can work, and that is
the bread and butter.
And you know, sadly, one infive dog gets osteoarthritis.
(49:36):
So this is something that needsmore options and a lot of the
options out there.
People are not happy with theside effects for some of the
options that are out there, theinvasiveness or the cost, you
know.
For some of the options thatare out there.
The invasiveness or the cost,you know for some of the things
that are out there are just notwhat's best for your dog,
necessarily.
And so having something that isnatural, that is from their own
body and that we know once whatI said to you earlier, like the
(49:59):
worst thing that can happen isthat it doesn't work, and that
is the worst thing that canhappen with any well.
That is not the worst thingthat can happen with any drug
right.
The worst thing that can happenwith any well, that is not the
worst thing that can happen withany drug, right, the worst
thing that can happen with a lotof other drugs is that the side
effects are so bad thatsomething even worse happens,
right, but you know that they'resafe.
But they've also got this longlist of except for X, y, z,
(50:22):
right.
So, like we are giving you aproduct where the worst thing
that you know that can happen isthat it doesn't work and that
is a risk you take any time yougo down any treatment avenue is
that it might not work.
Um, the best thing that canhappen is that it works and
you've avoided, uh, side effects, you avoided surgery, etc.
(50:42):
But to your question around theresearch side of it yeah,
absolutely, I mean I thinkthere's so many diseases out
there that I'd be really keenonce.
But to your question around theresearch side of it, yeah,
absolutely, I mean I thinkthere's so many diseases out
there that I'd be really keen,once we're in a position that
we've got, you know, the humdrumgoing and we're being able to
service our patients and ourowners really with what they
need right now that we can startto put more resources into,
(51:04):
like what's next.
And I think, because we'recommercialising research and
we're doing it from apatient-led perspective.
It means that we can also askour patients what are you most
concerned about?
What are you worried about Like?
What are the things in yourbreed that you know are
predisposed that you want abetter option for?
Speaker 1 (51:21):
I just had another
thought.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Yeah, I can see it.
This is great.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Yeah, I know had
another thought yeah, I can see
it's great.
Yeah, I know you're seeing itpop up.
Um, I can, I'm just I'm gonna,we're gonna go there.
I apologize, I'm gonna take ita bit off track.
What about wildlife?
So, like I'm just hearing yousay all this and I was like, oh
shit, like this, like thebushfires that we had in 2019,
all the animals with burnt skinall this sort of stuff.
(51:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah so is there afuture where because I imagine
this is cats and dogs really atthe moment like probably not
doing birds or parrots or Notyet We'll get there.
Yeah, we'll get there.
We'll get there, but like yeah,because you were saying it's
being used in the equineindustry and all that sort of
stuff but I could imagine thiscould be used for I think the
(52:09):
sky's the limit right, it goesback to look.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
We talk about wound
healing a lot.
Wound healing is a reallyexciting avenue.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
It's something that's
already working.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
You're going for
exosome research as well 100%
the biggest barrier for us,which isn't really a barrier
like.
If we had enough patientsrequesting it, we could turn it
around pretty quick.
This is the beauty of the stemcells Once you have the stem
cells, cells figuring out how tosuspend that inner gel, for
(52:34):
example, to be able to use itfor wound healing less of a
problem.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Cells are already
there, it's, it's.
It's a fascinating thingbecause, like, have we explained
what stem cells are?
Probably not I can do.
We want to go into that alittle bit, go there, because I
think helping people understandthe fact that they're kind of
like upstream, yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
I have a great way of
describing this in a really
dumb way, which is the way thatI kind of first really
understood it in my brain.
But our body is made up ofmillions and millions of cells.
Every single part your hair,your skin, everything is just a
different kind of cell.
Right, stem cells are justcells that don't have jobs yet.
So, like you imagine, a stemcell walks into a party right,
(53:11):
he could become a DJ, he couldbecome a bartender.
Like, a stem cell is justbasically fresh out of high
school.
It doesn't know what he wantsto do.
Yet when a stem cell enters thebody, they go towards what they
want to be next.
So there are different kinds ofstem cells.
There are pluripotent stemcells, multipotent stem cells,
which basically means like howmany things they can become.
(53:33):
The stem cells we work with aremultiplotent stem cells, so
they can become a bunch ofdifferent things.
But probably the most excitingthing about stem cell research
and development in the past sortof 10 years is again our
understanding of what stem cellsactually do in the body.
So the best thing about stemcells is, as I said earlier,
they go towards the site ofdistress, right, they're like
(53:53):
you pump them in and becausethey're trying to find a job.
They're trying to find a jobwhere they're the most like.
Like us, we look for a jobwhere we're going to have the
most impact.
Right, that's what a stem cellis doing in your body.
It's going where can I go thatI'm going to be the most useful
or I'm going to have the mostimpact.
So if you imagine and like,let's use kidney disease,
because it's one that I've beenlistening to a lot of vets talk
(54:15):
about over in the us latelybecause I think it's a really
interesting one.
So if you've got kidney diseaseand let's say you've got an
otherwise healthy dog, there wasactually a case I was listening
to with a vet recently whereshe same dog it had
osteoarthritis in a knee andalso had kidney disease.
So she did two injections.
She did one interarticular, sointo the joint for the
(54:36):
osteoarthritis, and then shejust did like a general IV of
stem cells and the stem cellsfrom the general IV went
straight to the kidneys, becausethe kidneys are basically
emitting signals that it'sdistressed, and so she started
to see improvement across boththe knee because she had
injected cells directly into theknee so they went to that side
of distress.
But then the ones that weregoing towards an organ were just
(54:59):
straight into the bloodstreamand just made their way to that
organ because they go towardsthe side of distress.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
That makes sense to
me, coming from a biology
background.
Right, they're just picking upon whatever the hormones might
be that's floating around, butit's fascinating.
Do you know how quick?
Not that it's relevant.
Like, is it like?
Speaker 2 (55:15):
I think it would
depend on the indicator that
you're looking at and I think itwould depend on and look, I'm
obviously not a scientist butI've definitely read a lot more
than the average person aboutthis.
I don't think there's adefinitive.
What we know for osteoarthritis, for example, is that generally
(55:38):
we start to see a change in,like the way that the animal is
sort of from a limp perspectivein about two weeks and then
usually within about six weeksthey're back to, depending on
which study you look at, 40better than they were before and
then further on it kind of getsbetter and better.
Um, so I think time depends onwhat you're healing and what the
(55:58):
what, the uh like what theoutput of that disease is.
But I think in the kidneydisease one and I might have to
fact check myself after this,but I think it was results
within three weeks.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
Yeah, like actually
Pretty crazy yeah.
But yeah, I mean.
The other thing to add aboutstem cells is there was this
like very big misconceptionabout 10 or 15 years ago when
stem cells first sort of gotlike heralded and the
misconception was that they weregoing to go in and like regrow
a bone, right like you couldjust pump stem cells into like a
(56:34):
broken thumb and the wholethumb was going to regrow.
That was incorrect and that'swhy we try and stay away from
the word regenerative, because Ithink it puts the wrong uh, it
puts the wrong idea intopeople's head of what stem cells
actually what their power is,rather than what's actually
possible.
What's actually happening isthat stem cells, they decide
(56:54):
where they go, they decide whatthey want to be, and then they
start admitting growth factors.
So they start sending outgrowth factors that can help
with that area of the body andwhatever, whatever needs to
happen in that area of the bodyin order to repair.
So it's less about regrowth, orregeneration, if you will, and
more about repair.
Speaker 1 (57:15):
Okay, repair and
restoration, which in the
regenerative design literature,are the steps just before
regeneration.
But I get, every place hasdifferent ways in which they use
words and, to that point, Ithink a really big issue with
science is like you have nooffense marketing people come
along and be like this shit'sgoing to solve life, you're
going to live forever.
And then it's like no, actually, what do you know?
(57:38):
It's like way more complex andcomplicated than what we
actually think, but here's howit can be applied.
And because you've sold thisbig vision and then you're
delivering on this, they're likeoh, whereas you're saying, yeah
, look, there's a lot that couldbe there, but here's where we
start now.
You're not doing it the otherway around, which I think
Intentional.
Speaker 2 (57:55):
Yeah, Goodbye you.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
I appreciate that.
Just flip the script a littlebit.
Who do you look up to or whoyou were inspired by, like on
your journey?
Like I know, we mentioned Tinabefore as someone who's doing
cool things, like, is thereanyone that you look up to I
(58:17):
don't even like the word look upto, you know that makes it
sound so bad.
Is there anyone that you'rejust like damn, that's really
cool, or I admire that, or thatwas a really useful piece of
advice.
Speaker 2 (58:34):
Yeah, so many.
Um, I'll start with like themore like esoteric.
I don't know them in the like.
Do you know what I?
mean like the, not not like inthe past or in the future, no
just like people that I don'tknow, like that I find
incredibly inspiring um, celinejulia, who is the founder of
loyal, which is the longevitydog drug company.
I'm incredible, like look herup, she's amazing, she's just
amazing.
So they're they're doing thefirst ever longevity drug for
(58:56):
dogs.
Um, I think a lot of peoplesent it to me being like, oh my
God, competition, and I was likenah, hand in hand collaboration
babes like the dogs, livelonger.
We want their joints and, youknow, all of their organs and
function to be to be keeping upwith with their longevity.
So, um, she's awesome.
I I also just really like theway she talks about, uh, animal
(59:19):
health and the implications thatanimal health has on human
health, and just her generalviewpoint of the world.
I I have a huge amount ofadmiration and respect for
Where's she from.
Is this?
Speaker 1 (59:31):
America?
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (59:32):
Yeah, yeah, Loyal Dog
is the company.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
Really good branding.
Speaker 2 (59:35):
Oh, amazing, yeah,
yeah, and her background
actually is in science and she'sjust had like an incredible
impact on the space.
So that's one.
I think there are like far morepeople closer to home that I
have a lot of adoration andrespect for my first boss in
startups.
(59:56):
His name is Craig Davis and, uh, he was the founder of Sendl
and I mean, most people in thestartup ecosystem will know who
he is, but he was just such acalming force on me, I think,
like calming yeah, I'm not verycalm.
He tried to get me to meditatea lot yeah same yeah, not for me
.
Um, he was just.
He was really good at helpingme navigate a world that I don't
(01:00:21):
know like.
His advice was always.
He was really good at listening, he understood who I was, he
never tried to change who I wasand he helped me channel all the
good and bad parts intosomething better.
I think I mean famously, one ofhis like feedback points for me
once was that I had a slightlyunhealthy bias towards action
(01:00:43):
and I was like what do you mean?
He's like slow it down.
But yeah, he was a massiveforce, just in my early startup
area, I guess, of helping mechannel some of the erratic into
something more productive, andalways believed in me along the
way as well.
You know he hired me at Barahabut then I checked in with him
(01:01:05):
kind of each different journeypoint and I mean you know we
check in when we can, but he'scurrently sailing around Europe
for three years, which he'swanted to do his whole life with
his wife.
So it's quite sweet, thatsounds fun, it sounds ideal,
yeah, um.
And then there's like loads offounders who I find really
inspiring.
(01:01:25):
I mean you mentioned tinaalready.
I find tina really inspiring.
Um, george from vow, I like, Isee a lot of the kind of
problems we're solving, althoughvery different in in what
they're doing, and I had thepleasure of going and seeing
their site last week in sydneyand really, yeah, it was sick
fun, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
oh, so cool there's a
little glass wall between the
yeah, well, they've got thesecond building now too.
Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
It's just like yeah,
huge insane and so that was
really cool to like go um tosomeone who's doing something
like kind of similar butdifferent to you.
That's kind of in the future asin obviously it's now, but for
us we're so early, so seeingwhat could be from someone who's
done such a great job.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
And I think it's to
your point before about how do
we frame this.
The privilege of that, likebeing able to see that, it's
like the four-minute mile or youknow that classic story.
It's like if you don't knowwhat's possible, then you don't
know you can go for it.
Going and seeing something likethat I can imagine as a founder
.
It's like damn, like we can dothis, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
I think we both stood
there and we were like I mean
also like I just think whatwe're doing is so much easier
and simpler, but I was standingthere and it gave me this
understanding of the scale ofwhat we could achieve.
I think, and I mean, george hasdone like insane things so much
cheaper than anyone else in theworld would be able to do
because of the like specialtythat they have in house, right?
(01:02:47):
So I think it was that was cool.
And then I mean there's otherpeople that like, even like
katie bashing day, who also is xvow, but she's, um, you know,
basically decided to just buildher own yeah, media city
scientific, build her own fbsreplacement frs.
Um, saw a.
Saw a market that isinconsistent very similar to us
(01:03:09):
in a funny way, again, rightworking with cells, but like saw
a market that was inconsistentand unapproachable.
And and she's just decided tobuild something new from her lab
out in barrel.
And like we again, we had thepleasure of going to barrel and
oh, dude such a lovely, it's sonice yeah, like I could.
I could see why people wouldmove out there.
I would get bored, but I it wasbeautiful for the three days we
(01:03:31):
were there but got to go andsee her lab.
So I think like, yeah, there'sso many people that I look up to
and I think we're really luckyto have even like Zoe Milgram,
who's got Eugene, which is, youknow, at home fertility testing
company in Australia.
Like there's so many peoplethat I don't know if I was doing
(01:03:52):
this 10 years ago, if I wouldhave the same chance to have as
many people to look up to.
And I feel very like lucky thatI have that yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
it's been interesting
watching this ecosystem grow to
where we are now even like, andbeing a part of that, and
watching now what feels like itmight not have been possible,
you know, even five or ten yearsago, just because you you
didn't know or you couldn't findthe right person.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Now it's easier to
thread things together in the
ecosystem, so I'm really I mean,even with you guys, like this
is not an ad for CoLabs by anyextent Sponsored by Alita
Genetics, but I don't think wecould have started this company
in Sydney.
I think about it a lot and it'ssad, and I mean, george is a
(01:04:40):
good example of someone who wasable to do it, but you know, he
had a connection at King'sCollege and was able to work out
of you know their labs, whereasneither of us went to a school.
Actually, I don't think Georgedid either, but I just wouldn't
have known how to start thoseconversations.
So I think the barrier to entryof even being able to get a
(01:05:04):
space to work in in Sydney wasreally high, which is, you know,
one of the reasons we moved toMelbourne.
Um, but I do think there's aparticularly in Melbourne.
There's a lot of support in thebiotech and science space.
Um, like the Victoriangovernment has done a really
good job of fostering thatsupport.
Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
They're partially
back to you no, they're thinking
about it.
Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Confidential, but
yeah, I just think the ecosystem
has grown a lot.
And back to your kind ofquestion about my background as
well.
10 years ago it would beinconceivable for someone like
me to do this and I think it'sreally interesting because we've
(01:05:46):
touched a little bit on ai asif someone like me, someone
without a background in science,someone I don't I don't think I
could have done this 10 yearsago.
I really don't.
I don't think, I don't know,and maybe maybe it's like a,
maybe I'm wrong.
I mean, I've been wrong so manytimes in my life so it wouldn't
be shocking.
But I don't know if I wouldhave had the even chat, gpt and
(01:06:09):
things like that, like theamount I'm able to go through
and not have to have someoneelse like when I'm doing
research on a paper.
My background is not academic.
I did really well at uni infine art or I did really well in
my publishing masters where Iwas literally marking up
(01:06:31):
manuscripts, but deep researchon a scientific paper is not
something that I have anybackground in, um, and so having
things like AI even to justsense, check and go back and
forth or ask questions aboutwhat things mean or get things
dumbed down again like I.
I can ask my scientists all thetime hey, explain this to me
(01:06:52):
like I'm five or whatever, andthey'll do it.
Then that comes back to likethe benefit of not being a
technical founder is I justdon't have any ego around not
knowing stuff.
Like I don't care if I don'tknow anything, cause I don't
know most things.
So like it's fine.
But, um, without bothering themall the time, like I just have.
We have so many resources atour fingertips to be able to
learn stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
It's actually crazy
the exponential access to tech
and things like that that cannow help people.
I think even now, like just thelast six to twelve months, like
some of those new features thatare coming out.
It's deep research on chat, gptinsane, crazy, like it's crazy.
And there's these new likeagents that they're bringing out
(01:07:35):
soon.
We looked into it like, oh damn, we can't afford that, but like
it can actually start doingthings for you, you can be like
go and book this restaurant.
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Yeah and it'll like
yeah, that was one of our early
ideas that we didn't do.
Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
That stuff is
horrifying.
Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
But also I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
It's exciting if it's
used for good, not just for
like scamming, oh yeah oh, yeah,for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
But I mean like at
the end of the day, like the
interesting thing about that isbehind ai.
Is your intention, right?
Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
I think this all the
time, with how you frame it and
question it and speak with it orto it it's.
It's a really fascinatingexercise and even just
self-awareness how you, how youinteract with it with anything.
Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Yeah, like what's
your like, who are you?
Interesting thing to do is askchachi piti what it thinks of
you as a person yeah, do it.
Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
No, it's good.
Okay, fine, that's gonna beconfronting.
I'm sure, um, I'm sure I don'treally want that to happen.
We'll do it before drinks, butI will, okay, we'll do it.
We'll do it.
We'll do it together.
Um, no, that's gonna beembarrassing, like you were a
bit of a nerd.
It's fine Badge of honor.
(01:08:41):
Yeah, exactly it is now.
Definitely wasn't back at highschool, no, no, you had to be
the sporty one.
Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
It definitely wasn't
me.
Yeah, no, really.
Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
No, sporty, sporty, I
feel like you'd be.
I mean, you're really good atlike verbal tennis, so I thought
maybe I was really gonna debate.
Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
You're right.
I don't think that most kids inhigh school didn't consider
that a sport.
God, I wish we went to the sameschool yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
So what is if
everything goes well?
Because, like you've said thisa couple of times, like I've
heard you mention, um, you know,like the, the not-for-profit
background so I'm assuming thatfor you, success isn't just
grounded in financial return oninvestment, like if this goes
well.
What does success look like foryou?
Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
yeah, I think about
this probably more than I should
at the moment because we haveto get there first, but, um, I
had so many like moonshot ideasabout the ways that I would like
us to be able to going back tothat like ethical pharmaceutical
ethos.
Um, you know, there's there'spartnership programs that I'd
(01:09:45):
love to do with shelters in thefuture.
There's so many things that stemcells are really good for, um,
and they're particularly beingused for right now overseas.
Like things like muscledystoprophy, which can happen
when dogs are poorly bred, right, um, a lot of dogs that get
dropped off at shelters, forexample, will get dropped off
because of health issues,because people don't want to pay
(01:10:06):
for them, and so, to me, like,if we get to a point where we
can have, you know, our own kindof pledge, one percent thing,
where we can kind of give backto like all the dogs that people
are treated, but that wouldjust make me really happy.
But I think, like, as we growthe business because I do come
from, I don't know, like abackground of like wanting to
(01:10:28):
build ethical companies andbelieving that we can have
medicine without having to relyon just capitalistic ways of
thinking about, like, drugdevelopment.
I hope that what we are able tobuild is not just a company
that obviously solves theseproblems for our patients and
their owners, but becomes toactually be a company that shows
(01:10:50):
you that there's a better wayof doing personalised biological
medicine, which can avoid, youknow, things that I don't think
are necessarily good foreveryone.
Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
No, I hear you there.
I actually never had that chatwith you about all this sort of
stuff, but I felt like I couldtell, given on your background
or your pedigree, consideringwe're in the pet space that yeah
, there was going to besomething more than just
generating revenue.
Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Yeah, but I mean,
like the other thing is, I don't
want to come across as likebeing anti-medicine, because I'm
not at all.
I'm pro-medicine, I'm, you know, pro-vaccines.
I believe that medicine hassolved some of the biggest
problems in the world, but it'snot a binary thing, right?
Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
no, this is the stuff
that it's so frustrating about
when you just watch dialogue isum, there's gray, yeah, yeah,
all, yeah, all of the all of theworld is gray, there's no.
There's no left, right oranything like that.
It's like everyone has nuanceson multiple opinions and
perspectives, and I think it'sall about context to that point.
Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
You were sort of
saying it's like we're really
good with medicine when it comesto acute issues, less so good
with chronic less so good withsystemic or preventative, like
all that sort of stuff I thinkthat's also my like big ethos
that I'm starting to learnthrough building this company,
which is like there's so muchmore that we could do in the
preventative healthcare spaceand also like why I keep talking
about it being another tool inthe toolbox is you don't have to
(01:12:12):
pick one thing.
Like it's it, the best thing isif you've actually got options
and you've got access to as manythings as you can have, like.
I know that there's a lot ofnaysayers on the personalized
medicine thing and I think thatthat's going to take time to
figure out how we dopersonalized medicine.
But I don't see any negative tothe idea of personalized
medicine.
I obviously see the financialnegative that a lot of bigger
(01:12:36):
companies say about having topersonalize because obviously
it's cheaper to batch everythingfor everyone.
Right, maybe, maybe, but that'skind of my point.
Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
Exactly.
It's because that's how we'vemade this system.
Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
It's how we've always
done it.
But if we keep doing what we'vealways done, then we'll always
get what we've always got right.
Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Same thing with
agriculture and everything that
we currently do it's like weneed to get out of this
mechanistic, reductionistapproach to doing things where
it's like just maximum, like asmuch quantity, or maximize this
without thinking of nuance.
Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
And that's my job
right, like as a founder, like
we are lucky that because we'reworking in the pet space, like
there's, there's differentlatitude to working in the human
medicine space, which means wehave an opportunity to do things
differently in the hope ofdoing things better.
Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
And there is an
opportunity and a potential that
by doing this version where youpay for your own right but then
you get more for what youbanked essentially, yeah, no, it
makes sense to me and, as we'vediscussed as well a little bit
earlier, it's like we don't knowwhat the future holds, like
there might be all of theseamazing things that can come in
(01:13:39):
the next five to ten years whereit's like, oh damn, there's
like whole different raft ofthings that we can do now.
We had no idea and I guess thatedge case of what's emerging is
going to be really fascinatingfor this sort of space.
Yeah, maybe I'll.
Maybe I'll hit you up with acouple of more cool, um, more
questions, because I think whatwe're just talking about there
kind of kind of touches on likea worldview shift in a way that
(01:14:00):
needs to happen away from, youknow, conventional medicine
being the only way to do thingsit's like there's going to be
elements of this narrativestorytelling coming through what
you're having to do.
Um, and yeah, I'm curious, like,what else do you think from
that world shift perspective?
Do you think that needs tohappen for this to become a more
readily acceptable thing?
(01:14:21):
Or do you think it's less aboutthe perspective of that?
Like, like, for example, do yousee a future where you could be
collaborating with these pharmacompanies?
Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I don't think, maybe Imaybe the thing is I don't think
this is I don't really considerwhat we're doing
non-conventional.
If I'm honest, I see it as like, probably because I know the
breadth of the data that'shappened globally, right, and I
know how long this has been likenoodle done, I actually see it
as quite conventional.
(01:14:52):
I just see it as hard to accessat the moment because I don't
think we've figured out.
I actually think the deliverymechanism of the product is less
conventional, because I don'tthink we've figured out I
actually think the deliverymechanism of the product is less
conventional.
I don't think the productitself is non-conventional.
I think that it's been reallydifficult to figure out a way to
get this to the owner or thepatient, but I think it's
becoming far more and moreconventional, even in the human
(01:15:14):
space, like the amount of peoplethat you'll hear of that have
had stem cells in their knee orwhatever.
Have you?
Um, I think that the way ofdelivering it, I think that the
the kind of personalized avenueto understanding more disease is
(01:15:34):
cool and non-conventional and Ihope that that opens up both in
, you know, our area of animalsand even hopefully one day, in
the human space.
But if I could go and storesome of my own cells tomorrow to
like and you can do it withbabies, right, but it's called
blood bank, so it's kind ofspecific for, like, blood
(01:15:58):
cancers and things like that Imean, at the moment, to be fair,
it could progress from thereover time, but it's much harder
as an adult human to get accessto that.
It's fascinating, right.
If someone else wants to go outand do that in the human space
they'll like hit me up and I'llgive you some tips.
Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
You've got some spare
room in the door.
Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
Oh God, imagine
mixing that up.
Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Nope, no, no, I meant
I'd love someone else to build
the human version.
Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
I'm sure there'd have
to be something in America.
Man Like that stuff's.
Yeah, they're just bankrupt.
All the billionaires are justlike I want to live forever.
Yeah, yeah, so sad.
Well, I think yeah, yeah, sosad.
Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Well, that's another
thing we think about, right,
which is like this is like alongevity offering for your pets
, really, and I think they kindof deserve it more.
And I don't mean that in like apessimistic, screw the humans
way, but I mean that dog life isshorter, and why shouldn't it
(01:16:57):
be longer if we can make itlonger healthily?
And why shouldn't it be longerif we can make it longer
healthily and from their ownbiology, why not spend more time
with them?
You know, I think that theygive us so much and they deserve
so much more than what we givethem.
Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
Yeah, I think that's
an interesting point, like is
there anything?
Or have you like just going onthis journey and thinking about
what it's like, like the, thehealing potential of all of this
sort of stuff and what'spossible for for pets?
Like, yeah, I was gonna saylike, is there anything you
think that we could learn fromthis as humans?
Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
yeah, absolutely.
I mean, there's gonna be somuch that comes out of the data
that we build that the humanspace will learn from, like.
I foresee that definitely beingsomething in the next couple of
years.
I think like.
What I've learnt from doing allthis, though, is that we just
we're so laser focused on ourown problems, which I understand
right, like humanity and deathand life is like such a big
problem that humans want tosolve.
(01:17:57):
It's not a problem.
Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
It's not a problem,
it's not a bug, it's a feature
of existence.
Just throwing it out there.
Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
No, I get that, I get
that.
Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
You mean health span,
not necessarily lifespan, right
?
Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Yeah, I do.
But I also mean, like theamount of.
You know, all of our medicalresources from a capital
perspective go into humandisease.
And I'm not against that, likeI understand that we want to
cure disease, like that'srational to me, but so little
goes into our animalcounterparts and we get so much
from them.
You know, they are there whenwe go through heartbreak.
(01:18:30):
They are there when we are sad.
They are unrelenting in theircare and kindness for us.
And it's not that I don't thinkwe should spend resources on
curing human disease.
Of course we should.
But I wish we would just spenda little bit more time on
helping those around us, and I'mobviously thinking about this
from a companion animalperspective, because that's
where we're focused right now.
But even back to your pointearlier on conservation and
(01:18:54):
things like that, why aren't wespending more energy, time and
resources on problems in societythat we know are happening,
like the bat colonies inMelbourne that are really
suffering at the moment right,or the koalas that suffered from
?
I think we sometimes forgetthat we exist in an ecosystem
that isn't just about us and wewouldn't be here without them A
(01:19:17):
hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
Yeah, we're totally
dependent on that.
I suppose this is obviously youknow, this is a topic that I've
rant on about for so long yeah,um, but yeah, exactly exactly
that we are deeply embeddedwithin this web of life on which
we depend for our survival, andto that point, so much of the
time where we're focused on thehuman realm without
acknowledging the more thanhuman world that makes it all
(01:19:39):
possible, and I, yeah, I justfeel like you know what you're
doing, the work that's happeninghere there might be all of
these potential cascadingflow-on effects for ways in
which we can support that morethan human world.
Um, so it's going to beexciting seeing if something
like that might come about yeah,we'll never say never.
Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
I mean I'm sure that
if we like solve all the dog
problems, I'll be like what next?
Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
and you're gonna have
to have like five things on the
go at once.
That's just how you workexactly that's it, yeah, um,
where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
oh my god.
Everywhere at the moment youcan find me and our chief morale
officer, edgar Allen Paws,who's the catalyst for the
business.
On LinkedIn.
You can also find both of us onInstagram.
You can find Alita Genetics onInstagram.
On TikTok at alitageneticscom.
You can sign up your pets atalitageneticscom just the
(01:20:34):
sign-up button.
Yeah, you can find us in loadsof places.
Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
Just reach your brain
and just look Email me.
Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
Yeah, you can find us
in loads of places, just email
me.
Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
Yeah, drop you an
email.
Okay, sweet Cool.
No, thank you for taking thetime to sit down.
Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Thanks for having me.
I feel like we covered a lot ofground.
Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
We covered some
ground.
There's still a lot more groundto walk on.
We can do a part two.
Part two, that's it.
We'll rope you back in soon,don't you worry about it.
Awesome thanks, sam cool.
Thank you.
All right, you made it to theend, congrats.
Yeah, so lots of stuff happeninghere at colabs at the moment.
Um, we've just had a string ofevents on um which have been
(01:21:14):
really fun, really interesting.
Um, our impact program has justrelaunched again for round two,
so that's six months of freelab space to those doing impact
oriented innovation that is,bio-led or bio-inspired.
Um, so if that's you or someoneyou know, get in contact.
We'd love to have a chat withyou.
(01:21:35):
Oh, and our biomaterial reportin collaboration with Collective
Fashion Justice is almost goinglive.
So, for those who don't know,we're really keen to try and
advocate for and support theemergence of a biomaterials hub
here in Australia with aspecific focus on next-gen
regenerative materials that arebio-based, materials that are
(01:22:00):
bio-based.
Uh, we think it's a reallyimportant leverage point for
facilitating the shift towards acircular, bio-based and more
regenerative economy, and wewelcome anyone to reach out who
might be curious about gettinginvolved, helping us set it up,
stewarding the co-design processyeah, um, so if that's you, and
that could be for the builtenvironment, or for fashion and
textiles, putting it out there.
(01:22:21):
Drop us a line, say good day.
Let's build something awesometogether.
All right, that's enough for me.
Enjoy the rest of your day,night, morning, whatever it is,
and we'll speak to you soon.
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