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spk08: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Pressure Biosciences Q3 2022 Investor Call and Business Update. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listening mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Rick Schumacher, CEO. Sir, the floor is yours.
spk07: Thank you, John. And thanks, everybody, for joining us on this gorgeous day. day two days before Thanksgiving we appreciate it very much and I would like to invite everybody to listen a little bit and then we'll open it up for questions and and try to take all the questions we can we're going to try to keep it short because we know it's Thanksgiving week and everyone has places to go we hope and we're going to do our best to keep it short What I'd like to do before I begin is I need to have a forward-looking statement read. And John, John Hollister, are you on? I am. John, do you have that in front of you?
spk04: Because it's not in front of me.
spk05: I have you read it.
spk04: I can do that. The following remarks may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results. Performance or achievements expressed are implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, those detailed from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based. Thank you, John. You're welcome.
spk07: So joining me today are two guys who have joined us before, John Hollister, who you just heard from, who's our head of sales and marketing, and Jeff Peterson, who you heard from before, who's our chairman. So welcome, John, and welcome, Jeff.
spk00: Great to join you.
spk07: What we're going to do is we're going to briefly talk about the financial results of the third quarter. And we're going to talk about some of the business and operational accomplishments of the third and quarter, and then look at some goals of the third and fourth quarter. We were very disappointed. It's not what I and John and Jeff expected for the third quarter. As we mentioned in the press release that went out, two things happened during the third quarter. First of all, a number of orders that we felt were coming in. Most of them did come in, but they came in during the first part of October. And so they're included in our fourth quarter. So we did not catch them in the third quarter. And the second thing that happened, and we've talked about this on this call before, is that we took a big pivot starting at the beginning of the year, where we started to focus pretty much, I would say, 90% of the company on ultra-shear technology. And with that focus, we were not working on trying to bring in additional sales into the historical part of the company, pressure cycling technology in particular. And so it suffered a bit. But we made the point multiple times that this is a new pressure bio. This is a new company. This is a company that's going to be focusing its efforts primarily on ultra-shear technology. The revenue ramp can be extremely quick. and the number of opportunities is tremendous. It is a technology that I think most small companies, even big companies would love to have, and we have it. So we need to put the vast majority of our efforts into ultra-shear technology. So for the reasons that we had several large orders come in after the end of the quarter, after September 30th, and because of the focus of John in particular and Ken and others that that are in sales and marketing into UltaShare to make sure we could launch the product as we have in Q4, we had a downturn in the numbers in Q3. The revenue was down 72%, as you've seen. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. We certainly will open it up for questions, but everybody's seen the numbers. Our revenue was down substantially from 518 to 144,072%. Instrument sales were down 66%. Agrichem sales were down, but there aren't many sales to begin with, although there are sales in the fourth quarter, as we mentioned in the press release. The operating loss was about the same, up slightly from previous quarter, and the loss for shale was down because we've had a number of shares that have been awarded over the year and over the quarter. So we're not happy, but we expected that this could happen. Uh, we were prepared for this to happen because we're, we're gifted. We're blessed with a technology that we think is going to change this company. And we think it's going to change the world. And because of that, we've put a lot of focus in the old, the sheer technology. Um, and, uh, and we're, we're very happy on the other end with the progress we've had in, in ultra sheer. So John, uh, I'm going to turn it over to you briefly. to just add a little bit on to what I say, John takes it every day because he's in charge of sales and marketing. And, and he's the guy that is spending some of his time chasing the historical sales of pressure cycling and a little bit unbearable, but he's also the guy on the line who is smiling every day when he thinks about ultra sheer. So John, you want to add anything to what I just said?
spk04: Sure. You know, I think for me, this is a clear example of why we're so excited about ultra sheer technology, because the base business has been grinding along. We have to work hard for each sale. And when a few of those units and not that many of them just get pushed out because the purchasing cycle is slow or the budgets were slow or the grants didn't happen in the time. It can have a negative effect on one quarter, and then it can push it into the next quarter, and we're going to have a great quarter. And we're experiencing that right now. On the other hand, and we'll talk about this a little bit more in a bit, but we also are feeling the other side of the equation, which is this built-up, pent-up demand, as people learn about ultra-shear, is super exciting for us, and it will clearly – help us accelerate out of this quarter, fourth quarter, and race into the new year. So I think with that, I'll turn it right back over to Rick.
spk07: All right. Thanks, John. So, again, we'll open up for questions if anyone has questions on the – we have not given up on PCT. We've not given up on Barefoot. Not at all. I say we put them on the middle burner. We still have 300 customers out there, close to 400 customers out there, We have instruments in the field. We're taking care of all of that, but we're not spending many efforts at all to try to find new business right now in PCP. And we are spending a little bit of effort and powerful, but not tremendous. But believe me, we are, we are working day and night and figuring out how we manage this incredible technology called ultra sheer as we go forward. And, and again, very happy to announce that the first, That's the first contract that we said we would start to ship in Q4. We've made the first batch. We've got to wait for approval to ship it from internal quality control and external quality control is being done. But we expect that it will be shipped over the next 7 to 10 days. And then we'll be on to batch number two. And then hopefully early next year, we'll be on to batch 5, 10, 15, and 20. So we're very excited about that. I'm going to just touch on some operational highlights because I think they're important, and then we're going to open it up for Q&A and comments. One of the greatest highlights happened on October 26th, so it didn't happen quite in the quarter, after the quarter, and that's when I was on a conference call, a webinar with Dr. Adrienne Dinesse. She's an MD-PhD. She's recognized as one of the top skin care experts experts in the country, if not the world. She's been on QVC for 20 years and sold a half a billion dollars of product. And we were on a webinar together and she was asked, is there any product? What is the deal with Pressure Bio? And she said, we're going to improve some of my products. And I can tell you they're already good, but she wants to make a good product even better. And we're already working on that. She already sent us two molecules that she wants us to, these are active ingredients in oil that she wants us to nano-emulsify and send back to her. And we've already done that. And hopefully in the beginning of next year, she'll start to infuse some of her creams and some of her gels and other products with these new, more effectively water-soluble molecules. But the thing that really got people talking and calling me afterwards was, She was asked if there's anything that she doesn't have out there that she has wanted over 20 years. And she said, absolutely, the number one product that she has always wanted to make and until now has not been able to was a hair regrowth. And she said, and again, the webinar is available through our website. And she said, what I think is that with the UltraShear technology coming from PressureBio, and their ability to get molecules through the skin, and with my ability to come up with what she thinks would be a very effective hair regrowth formula, put the two together, and she's making 1 plus 1 equals 10. So she's very excited about the development. We're already working on it. She had mentioned at the time she thought it might take 18 months, and then in October 26, we put out a press release because she told me, Things are going well enough that she thinks and is hoping to have it out by this time next year. And wouldn't that be terrific to have an effective hair growth formula that's available and shown on QVC 12 months from now before the holiday or during the holiday season. So that was exciting for us. We talked about the launch of our first CBD product that's going to happen in the fourth quarter, and it is happening. We talked about the data that was presented by Ohio State They were able, using UltraShear, to take proteins out of peas and use these for a lot of the plant-based drinks that people are taking. They're getting protein out of plants. But peas are exciting because they're very inexpensive to grow. They grow almost anywhere. But up to now, it's been very difficult to get good protein out of peas. And Ohio State, our partner in the consortium, presented data. at a very important meeting indicating that they were successful in getting good amounts of protein from peas out. So, you know, all in all, we've had a lot of movement in the quarter. We've developed things that have now come into being that will make our instrument work faster, more efficiently, which is always better to reduce our cost as we're making products. And John and Jeff, who's on the call, and I have been out there talking to people and are just thrilled with a number of people that have indicated that they are interested in talking to us once our tolling is set up and raring to go. It is set up. We're raring to go. We started with the first contract. We have several more to start to fulfill. And John and his team are working hard to bring more in. Jeff, we just... Very briefly, you were with us, did a bang-up job helping us out at the very large, one of the largest, if not the largest in the world meeting on cannabis. We went there to let people know about our CBD ability to nano-emulsify CBD, and you walked around. Can you give us a minute or two on your thoughts for our investors on the phone about the meeting?
spk00: I'll be glad to. I actually had the opportunity to attend two earlier conferences, two cannabis beverage conferences with John and with other members of the team in San Francisco and Chicago that were quite exciting and astonishing in terms of the sort of tidal motion going on within the cannabis community, focusing on the beverage space and lower dose of cannabis being provided in such a familiar format given what has gone before it in beer, wine, and spirits industry and how consumers like to take their mood-modifying products and so on. So it was very exciting to see that over the last few months. And then this conference in Las Vegas last week is the pivotal Cannabis Business Conference. To give you a sense of it, simply to cover the exhibition floor and speak to perhaps 10% of the people there was maybe 12 hours of walking on my part over about three days, not to mention the nearly constant flow of people coming to the booth. and the nano emulsion story is something that has circulated, uh, enough now that, uh, there's a tremendous amount of, of anticipatory interest, um, in general. And as we were able to share the story of what we're doing, uh, the light bulbs were just going off right and left. And, uh, it was really, uh, incredibly productive conference.
spk07: John, uh, You want to add something and then we'll open it up for questions.
spk04: Yeah, I would love to. Uh, so, uh, Jeff touched on three of the meetings last couple of months. Uh, we have reentered the world post COVID of, uh, meetings where you actually get to see potential customers, uh, which for those of us who love, love to sell, uh, it was very, very exciting and felt like we were back home again. In addition to the, uh, cannabis drinks expo that Jeff was referring to and MJBiz most recently. We also attended Supply Side West, which was not cannabis related. It's more nutraceutical, cosmeceutical, health food oriented. And also a white label meeting in New York, which is again more cannabis focused. But the message that was uniform is The awareness of the value proposition of nanoemulsions is definitely out there, which is one, great. Two, found a very high level of dissatisfaction with existing processes for achieving nanoemulsions. That is, the products that they're doing or getting created for them are not meeting the expectations And expectations are clearer products that could be infused into, for instance, beverages. Stability, which there were lots of complaints about products separating after they had been processed through these other processes. And we are increasingly confident that what we're, our process, UltraShear technology, is just a superior way to nano-emuls these different products. And we're going to be launching into a marketplace that has expectations for nano-emulsions, but they're not being met by the current offerings. And we are going to deliver and exceed those expectations with ultra-shear technology. So I couldn't be more excited. It's daunting the number of customers that came to us and want us to produce samples immediately and want us to produce immediately. So with that, I'll turn it back over to Rick.
spk07: And with that, I'm going to turn it to John, our host, and we'll open up the floor for Q&A.
spk08: Absolutely. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please indicate so by pressing star 1 on your touchtone phone. Pressing star 2 will remove you from the queue should your question be answered. And lastly, while posing your question, please pick up your handset if listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold while we poll for questions. Once again, that's star 1 if you have a question or a comment.
spk01: Okay, the first question is coming from... It's like the Oscars. They're opening the envelopes. Okay, the first question is coming from Paul Archie with Emerging Growth.
spk08: Paul, please proceed.
spk02: Hey, Rick. This is Paul. I'm a stakeholder and long-term follower of your company. You referenced the webinar with Dr. Dinesh, and in that I recall that she had spoken to some sort of academic who had studied your CBD nano-emulsions. She couldn't provide details at the time due to, I don't know, an NDA or something, but she was very impressed with what she heard, motivated to sign the deal with PVI. That was a big deal. You've also mentioned that you've been sending samples out to a variety of parties, some kind of regular sample program. Can you talk about that program and the feedback that you've been getting from those samples?
spk07: Sure. First of all, Dr. Dinesh did mention that she was on a call with an academic who had analyzed our nanoemulsion. And she's under NDA. We're all under NDA. But she said that she was extremely impressed with what she heard about the quality of the nanoemulsion. So we're happy that she's happy because she is an MD, PhD. She's a lovely person, but she's tough to please. And when she's pleased, you know you did well. And she was very pleased with what she heard. And it was part of the reason she signed a deal with us. So the second thing you asked about were the samples. We have sent samples out. We've sent samples to, let's see, I'd say three different groups. We've sent samples to potential customers. We've sent samples to potential investors. And we sent samples to potential friends and family to get an idea of especially people have been using CBD. And the feedback has been terrific with several potential customers, even recently. I send samples to a very large customer in the CBD and THC area. It's interesting that a lot of THC companies are now adding CBD to their products, and therefore it's a THC-CBD combination, and therefore they need access to good nano-emulsified CBD. And I sent samples to one group that is a very large company in the THC area, combined CBD field. And they followed it up by sending me an NDA today saying they'd like to learn more. So that was terrific. And several other potential customers have looked at our product and have said, we're going to work through a contract. John and I think that we've got a good chance to find a number of additional contracts between now and the end of the year. The second group were investors. It's always nice when an investor thinks about investing in the company, either privately with the company directly when we are able to do that or to public markets. And the feedback I've gotten from these investors is terrific. You know, every one of them has said, you know, it helped me, it helped my wife, it helped my husband. It's really worked. We appreciate it. Where do we get more? In fact, I had someone actually say, you gave me two bottles. I gave one to my very best friend. They live in New Hampshire, and now they want more. Where can they get more? And the third is with a group of friends and family who have issues like arthritis, inflammation, and we've given them samples of CBD, nanomulsified CBD. And I've said this multiple times, maybe even on this call, Uh, I've had, uh, everybody give me a positive feedback and I'm asking for the truth. Don't tell me what I want to hear, except for one person. So, uh, we're excited, but I'm especially excited when it's an investor or, or if it's a, uh, potential customer now that is asking for samples. John mentioned that going around the cannabis show, a lot of people ask for samples and we're going to be doing a run and, uh, and getting together a lot of samples. So, uh, And I'd even say on this phone, this is CBD. It's not a problem to ship this out. It's not a controlled substance anymore. And so if anybody on this phone who hasn't, I know some people on the phone call have already gotten some. If anybody on this phone call hasn't had any CBD, just give me a call or an email, and we'll send it in to info at pressurebiosciences.com, and we'll get you out a sample, a 30-ml sample, one-ounce sample. CBD. Everything's thumbs up. Appreciate that. Is there another question?
spk01: Paul, do you have any follow-ups?
spk02: No. Thanks for the information. I may send you an email. I like what you're saying.
spk07: Beautiful. Thanks for being a stakeholder. Appreciate it.
spk08: Okay, the next question is coming from Rory Jensen, private investor. Rory, your line is live.
spk09: Hey, guys, can you hear me?
spk07: Hear you great, Rory.
spk09: Oh, excellent. So I got John, Jeff, and Rick all here. So I want to first talk about the gala you had at, and I'm going to say the because it's the Ohio State now, in June or July of 2022. And what is the difference between that event and the one you have scheduled for December of this year?
spk07: I'll take it first. There's no difference because the one in June had to be postponed because of issues at the university that they couldn't get everything that they needed, the room and other things to make it worthwhile. And so it was postponed. So I'm glad you bring that up. We have a big gala event. I was told today there's already 20 or 25 people that have indicated that they're coming, outside people. We're inviting a number. It's mostly food and beverage, a lot of beverage people. This is not a CBD or cannabis thing. Remember, our technology works on any active ingredient in any oil. So if it's astaxanthin, which is a powerful antioxidant or vitamin D3 or prednisone or retinol in cosmetics, we can nanomulsify. We cut the oil down. and just spread the active ingredient among hundreds of millions, if not billions of tiny little nano oil drops. So there's going to be a, it's going to be a wonderful time because there's going to be some terrific, terrific attendees who are going to be coming in from a well-known and, and startup companies food, mostly in the food and beverage area that want to learn more about ultra sheer and to have the acknowledgement The credibility of Ohio State behind you, having them publishing papers as they did in presenting in October and September is worth its weight in gold. So they're a tremendous group to be working with. So it is the big event, Roy.
spk09: Okay, okay. And I do have another follow-up here. The UST, before it was we're going to build 13, 15 UST systems, sell them to the customers. Now we've moved away from that. I mean, everybody's all behind you on the UST. So in the future, are you ever going to have outright sales of just the units?
spk07: I'm going to turn this over to our director of sales and marketing and let John take this. Thanks.
spk04: You're welcome. And thank you for the question because it's important. As we've gotten, and you are right in your memory, that we were originally looking at selling these units, it just, as we've gotten closer to the marketplace, and I say marketplace, the multiple channels, whether it's the cannabis, which is a part of the nutraceutical health community, as well as cosmetics, as well as vitamins and other food processing and beverages, it's And as we learn more about our machine itself, it's clear that what we'd like to do ultimately is to lease machines for different market segments. We'll be working with different kinds of customers, including CDMOs for pharmaceutical and nutraceutical, that's contract manufacturers or contract development manufacturers, as well as directly with large customers, but probably more aligned with leases which could include tolls for volume. And in the very near term, as we build a better base and a better understanding of our devices, we will be doing tolling predominantly, working both with the West Coast and as well as we've shared publicly, both West Coast and the East Coast. bases that will serve the regions so that we don't ship things as far. But ultimately, some probably a year or 18 months downstream, we see more devices being placed in other locations where those locations will be tolling or manufacturing. So it's going to be a combination, but it will be rolled out very systematically so that we can keep up with the capacities as well as the capacity of the manufacturing.
spk09: I hope that helps. Yeah, thank you for clarifying that. And I just have one quick, easy one. The West Tolling, I know that's in Jeff's neck of the woods. Is that going? The one in Massachusetts was opened first. Have we done any production out of the West Coast Tolling yet?
spk00: This is Jeff.
spk09: I'm going to turn it over to Jeff.
spk00: Yeah, we have received one of the small benchtop R&D scale systems, which is getting qualified now, and the laminar flow filling facility is getting qualified as well. The instrument is suitable for very small scale demonstrations and product development work, formulation work. not suitable for production capacities, but we'll be using that to do just that, product development, demonstrations, little test market sample quantities to whet the appetite and cement some deals. And then as soon as we have the equipment capacity available to get a larger production system out here, We'll be doing that hopefully during the first quarter and be ready to start serving with total manufacturing capacity.
spk09: Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. I appreciate it and I look forward to it and I think it's excellent technology and I'm glad you guys are going at it hard.
spk00: Yeah, I might add color on a couple of different points. on the testing, both lab testing and the anecdotal accounts, the triangulation on performance of Ultrashere has been almost uniformly astonishing and impressive. In the case of oral delivery route, like through the cheek, under the tongue, and so on, the commentary has been, it's like giving an IV and to, you know, go oral, you know, through the cheek, under the tongue and get blood levels, you know, being reached in the first few minutes and, you know, full dosages transferred, you know, in several minutes is really quite remarkable versus what people have been used to for, you know, oral route and some of the other nano emulsion approaches on the market today.
spk01: Okay. Very good.
spk08: Okay, the next question is coming from Kirk Treiber, private investor. Kirk, your line is live.
spk05: Thank you. To piggyback off of Rory's question, I was under the impression that you were going to have revenues from the $420,000 machine produced as well as producing the product. Can you give me a breakdown or an idea of your breakdown of how much will be from each side next year?
spk07: You're talking about from this site here in Boston and the site in California?
spk05: Yes, I am.
spk07: Yeah. So as Jeff said, the plan is to get a larger instrument, a full production instrument out in California, out and running, hopefully in the first quarter of next year. And he will be a satellite of us and he'll be out there getting the business, the company, Pressure Bio will be paid a piece of what he gets, but it's going to be his business out there to grow, and everything that comes in will be funneled, a portion of that will be funneled into the company. We don't think we're going to be competing because, quite frankly, last year up to this year in talking to people, they would much rather, people on the West Coast would much rather send their employees nano emulsion requests to someone on the West Coast. This is what what brought this idea to bear was a lot of people saying, I really don't want to ship, you know, all of this material across country. I'd rather do it right here or have it done on the West Coast. So in the beginning, obviously right now it's 100% out of Boston. We're just we just did our first run. I want to remind everybody this is all brand new with a brand new instrument that we worked on for the last few years. We're very, very impressed with the instrument. I'm very impressed with my team and the changes they've made to make it more efficient, to be able to increase the capacity. All the things they've done over the last year or two has greatly impressed me, which is why we announced this year we're going to commercialize it. So we're starting out slow. We have three contracts. We have others that I think will be signed shortly, but we do not want to, we've got to crawl before we walk. So, Kirk, the main business is going to come out of here for the next three or four months, during which time an instrument, hopefully by the end of the first quarter, if not before, will be set up, certified and running out on the West Coast. And then, Jeff, there's going to be, there's already a pent-up demand. I tell you, I was at the meeting and there were a lot of, groups from Mississippi West, let's call it, that are interested in nanoemulsions. And I think a lot of that product will go out west to Jeff's facility versus ours. And it's not going to all be CBD. Right now we have three CBD and one cosmetics. But I'll give you a quick, the best story I have coming out of that three-day meeting isn't CBD related, even though it was a cannabis meeting. I happened to be working in the booth and somebody came by. I struck up a conversation and this person, I can't go into too much detail, but this person has a very profitable, very fast growing business where they're putting a number of molecules in their in their booster, let's call it, immune booster that has a number of different supplements in it, vitamins in it. And he said, I have a little bit of an interest in CBD, but I'm more interested in some other anti-inflammatory and some other immune booster molecules. And he looked at me and said, is there any chance that you guys could nano-emulsify something other than CBD? And I chuckled and said, of course. And he said, what about curcumin? And I kind of laughed and said, how about this? I turned around. We had brought curcumin with us, a very large sample of curcumin, 15, 20 mLs. And I handed it to him. And it was just a beautiful yellow, clear. And I said, that curcumin is very, very active, very, very concentrated. And that shows you what we can do. He was very impressed because he's only used curcumin oil. So he went through a number of things, five or six different uh, things that are in his, uh, in his product and he, and they're pretty much all in oil. And I said, do you nano emulsify now? He said, no, I don't. I said, how does it work? He says, it works pretty well. And I'm, he says, I'm knowledgeable enough to know that if you could nano emulsify, uh, all of the ingredients I have in my, in my booster, uh, immune booster, uh, then I'm going to be, I'm going to be doing a favor to my customers. And I might even do a favor to me because then I could perhaps use less and get more out of it because it's now going to be more absorbable. And I, I smile, I shook his hand, said, you're absolutely right. And I said, you and I have a lot to talk about. So we exchanged cards and we've been in touch and we will continue to be in touch because we have, what do you look for? He went there to look for a way to, to, to, uh, find a way to make his oil based, um, um, supplements work better. And we have the answer. high quality and the answer. And so I enjoy that because everything else I talk to people about was THC or CBD or CBG, but this gentleman wanted to know about other supplements. So I was very excited about that. And I think you'll be hearing more on the next call about this because he's very adept at what he's doing and he wants to grow his company. And right now he's only on the West Coast. And he knows that there's a lot of business to be had going east, but he wants to improve the absorption of his products first. And he said, I think you've got the answer. I said, I know we have the answer.
spk05: That's a great answer to me. One other little thing, are there any FDA constraints? And secondarily, it looks like the potential growth of your UST can be incredible. However, it does take money to do that. How are we doing with capital raise? Thank you.
spk07: John or Jeff, I've been talking a lot. Do either one of you want to handle the FDA part?
spk04: Yeah, I'm happy to. So the FDA pathway, which I'm very familiar, I've spent more than 30 years of my life in FDA regulated areas. We're doing the production and we are absolutely focused on producing products under all of the SOPs that are required to produce a safe product. On the claim side, which I think is what you're asking about, we at this stage don't have any interest or are not going to pursue making claims. We're producing products for other people and if they so choose, then we'll have to work with them in order to develop products that are structured to meet the guidelines and the necessary hurdles for becoming a product that has regulatory claims. Most of the products we're working with right now are either nutraceuticals or cosmeceuticals, and we haven't yet bridged any clients that are in the pharmaceutical, but we do anticipate that that's a very big market opportunity. And so obviously we are gearing ourselves in that direction, but that's probably the third layer of our marketplace. You know, the first being right now we're working with some cannabis-based companies and cosmeceutical companies. We probably will be working with some other food-based companies And then maybe the ag chem business also. And then ultimately pharmaceutical. But as you might guess, the pharmaceutical path is the most rigorous for all the reasons you know.
spk01: Yep.
spk05: And how about capital?
spk01: That one I'll leave to Rick. Thank you, John.
spk07: You know, we've... We continue to bootstrap the company. We don't have a big raise out there. Otherwise, it would be filed and everybody would know about it. So it does take capital. So we're looking at different ways of getting that capital. Under an NDA, if anybody is on the phone, if they want to call me, if they have any ideas or any capital, they can call me. We can sign an NDA and talk about it. But right now, I couldn't agree with more, Kirk. We have an amazing technology. We have an amazing opportunity. And we're going to make it work with the capital we have. If we were able to find more capital one way or the other, we could make it work bigger or faster or both. But right now, we're going to make it work. It's so damn exciting. Pardon my French. Damn excited already. So, again, anybody can call me at any time under NDA. There's a lot more we can tell you that would get you, I think, more excited, but I'm pretty excited with just the things we're talking about here.
spk04: And if I might add just one additional layer to that, and that is that the path and the strategic path that we've taken, which is starting out by actually producing materials under this model of tolling, where we're selling concentrated materials that other people are packaging and then going and selling is a, it reduces the cost, the capital outlay burden on us initially, but generates revenue very rapidly and the margins are very healthy for us. And that will help put us into a position to grow in a very responsible manner to ultimately, you know, 12 months or 18 months from now be in a position where we can do more manufacturing of units and placing more of them around. And in that meantime, it also makes us, because we've been a medical device company for 15 years, building a very robust machine that doesn't need a lot of care, that almost operates by itself, takes time to get there. And we've done that. Our barocyclers are very dependable devices. That's one of the benefits of taking our time before we start putting machines everywhere is to make certain it really runs the way we expect it to run. So that's the other part of the process.
spk05: Have you talked with any venture capital firms or are they just too darn greedy?
spk01: Sorry, did you want to go ahead, Rick?
spk07: No, go ahead, Jeff, if you're going to comment.
spk00: In general, venture capital has not been a target audience for this. We've been very fortunate to have a large and diverse group of investors that have supported the company through both equity and debt as we continue to announce progress on over time. As Rick alluded to, we'll be delighted to talk to folks that have interest in exploring what they could do with their capital with us. The other dimension of this that I think should not be overlooked is the very significant potential likelihood and fit that will likely emerge from a strategic relationship with some key multinational players. As Rick alluded to in responding to a question earlier, we're kicking off the Food and Beverage Consortium in collaboration with the Ohio State University. That has already had a very significant number of major companies, global names, that have been in contact and evaluating already even prior to the the formal kickoff coming in December and although you know you've heard quite a bit of discussion around the cannabis CBD arena because it is such a convenient sort of hot tip of the spear area for market penetration with this technology the really enormous opportunities are beyond cannabis in nutraceuticals, in pharmaceuticals, agrochem, food and Bev, cosmeceuticals. You know, the opportunity we have partnering with Dr. Dinesh is our first cosmeceutical customer where she has, you know, a history of over a half a billion in sales and existing products. going out at the $20 million a year kind of revenue rate gives us a platform for a fast entry in an existing active customer base. But we have in the nutraceuticals arena and others demonstrated remarkable examples of what the products can do And that has led already to having literally a couple of weeks ago the president of a global multibillion-dollar multinational coming out to visit Pressure Bio to have very material discussions about next steps in working on a nutraceutical class product. I don't want to say more about it than that, but it gives you a sense of, the scale of players that are now starting to, you know, lock focus on little old pressure bio and the opportunities as we partner with them and to potentially bring strategic investments in to support our acceleration is an exciting additional dimension.
spk05: Thank you very much.
spk07: Jeff, I would, this is Rick, I would add something to that that's exciting to me. It is, to me, where we are today is much further along than we were even at the last conference call. I've had a number of investors call and say, why haven't you signed a deal with a big company here, a big company there? The bottom line is that we're a company developing an amazing technology. And until it got out there and people could start testing the samples and start seeing the results from acknowledged people, it just it just didn't have the credibility it has the credibility now it's going to have more credibility every month from now we have academics that will be publishing and we're excited as heck to have them published because we know that that we have the best in class in the world we know that now I say it without any hesitation we have the best in class in the world right now and we also know that may not stay that way for years to come so we've got to keep pushing ahead but but I'm telling you Jeff's right. Two weeks ago, the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company showed up and said, may I come by? And said, I got an hour and spent three hours with us. And it was awesome. This is not a one-off. This is happening now all the time. So expect to see some movement in all of these directions as we go forward because we had to get past that threshold and we've gotten past that threshold. We had, I'm going to guess 75% of the people that showed up at our booth came directly to see us. It wasn't because they were walking by and we nabbed them in the, in the aisle. They came to see us cause they'd heard about us. So we've hit a, uh, a point now that's very different than we were even two or three months ago. I want to add one more thing. Uh, You're talking to part of the team. There's another member of the team that has been mentioned in press releases, but I don't think has been mentioned on a conference call. His name is John Westlake. John is a very important part of our team. John, I have to tell you, I was blown away, amazed. John has been in the cannabis field for eight or 10 years, and I've been told he knows everybody, but you hear that about a lot of people. guess what? John Westlake knows everybody. Absolutely everybody. Uh, John Hollister was in the booth and, uh, uh, for a much more time than me. And he told me, John, you told me that almost everybody that came over on their own or that you or Ken or, or, or Jeff Reinab, um, knew John or John, John knew who they were. He looked up his phone. He said, he's got 6,000, people in his phone that are related to cannabis. So, so John is a resource that is going to be amazing. He's also one of our contracts. He's, he's, he's going to be getting material and he's going to be bringing in, you know, sub, sub people, you know, white label and sub distributors from all over the country. And he's got a pent up demand that, that, that he's going to keep us going day and night. We're going to have to look at double shifts and weekends and things like that, I believe, next year. Because just the people he brought over were in, I'm not kidding, it must have been several hundred people that he knew or that knew of him. He's a great member of the team. He's working with, he was here yesterday. He's going to be here tomorrow. He is, he lives in mass and he's going to be very effective to us. He's going to keep us on our toes and we're going to keep him on the toes. So it's a great match. So I just want to give out to John. You're welcome. Speaking with John, John, the host, are there any more questions?
spk08: Yes, we have a couple questions in queue. The first coming from Terry Beecher with Etico Partners. Your line is live.
spk05: Hey, Rich.
spk07: How are we doing? We're doing well, Terry. Happy Thanksgiving to you. Haven't talked to you in a while.
spk06: Same to you. I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but 12 months ago, we were at 241, and I was told and I told my clients about this incredible potential. Six months ago, I told my clients at $1.90 that that we were going to focus on UST. It was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Three months ago at $1.80, I was able to tell them, hey, hey, hang on. The orders are coming in. Now revenues are down 72%. The stock's at $1.19. You know, what do I tell my investors? And I own a ton of shares myself. I'd just love to hear what one of you guys thought how you would respond to their question about do we keep this, do we take a tax loss, or do we buy more? And I'll listen for an answer.
spk07: Well, we are not allowed to say you should buy more, but I certainly think you should look at buying more. You should consider buying more. We're under... we're in a blackout period. So some people have asked, why aren't you buying? And I say, I sure wish I could, but we're in a blackout period. So we can't.
spk06: The bottom line is investors.
spk07: I tell people that number one, I don't control the market. And number two, we've made a pivot and that there is all, there's a little bit of a, of a hiccup on a pivot and, We've stopped focusing on a business that is terrific, but it's going to take a long time for it to be profitable. And we've pivoted to a business that can ramp up extremely quickly and bring revenue and profits in a year or less because we've made that public. We think we'll be profitable before the end of next year. And it doesn't mean that you have to wait to the end of next year because this is a process. I believe we said something in today's press release about a hockey stick. I've never really believed in hockey sticks, but I think we have one here. I think we have one here because we just came back from a meeting and there are hundreds of people that are there looking for what we have because they can't find it anywhere. And we have it and it's the best in class in the world. And we started to make it and we started to sell it. And starting in the next week or two, you'll see that we have shipped it because we've already said we're going to ship it in the next week or two as soon as we get QC release. And so it started, Terry, and I can't tell you whether it's going to take two weeks or two months, but it's not, in my opinion, it's not going to take two years. It's started. The process has started. So we just ask you to hang on a little bit more, believe in the team here, believe in the technology, and we're going to come through for everybody because we're all investors. Jeff, John, and I have all put our personal money, and none of us are rich, into this uh we've borrowed money to put into this uh so i hope that speaks uh about how much we believe in this technology i can't wait for january february march and i can't wait for the next phone and the next conference call i just can't wait because i know what could happen over the next five months jeff john you want to add you know i'll make the observation that uh you know you were telling your clients
spk00: about the exciting prospects for UST and what a buying opportunity it was at $1.90. At the time you were having that discussion, UST was a lot more talk than proof, and today it's a lot more proof than talk. We're now producing and delivering first production quantities of it with more teed up to follow quickly and the kind of examples of results that you heard discussed already. So I think the situation looks far more attractive today. As we alluded to in the press release, it's disappointing when you have some timing results that put a little salt in the wound when we make a strategic decision to reallocate resources and know that we may see some perturbation. But then you get some timing issues that made third quarter look a bit more sore. That's, frankly, an annoyance. But as we indicated in the press release, our discussion today, The future is clear and bright in our minds, and that's where we're focused and we're driving and have tremendous confidence about what will be achieved in the next year.
spk06: All right, guys, thank you very much.
spk07: So, Terry, just to take away from what Jeff said as I was listening, thinking as an investor, what I just heard is that the company Is more substance and talk now the company's already said they're on target to have an all-time record quarter So if last quarter was a harbinger of things to come it ain't going to come because we've already gone out on the limb and said we've already done more in the first half of this quarter than we did all of twice as much as a all of last quarter and So I'd go to the, you know, the investors should know that the company is going to, is on target to have a record quarter. And this is with only a hundred thousand dollars coming from Ulta Shear. So what's going to happen when this pent up demand we've been talking about and these additional contracts and, and, and, and Dr. Dinesh gets on QV, QVC to start selling product that has our material in it. I would say, you know, Now is a good time, a very good time to look at pressure bio. It's driven me crazy all my life. Why? When stocks go down, it's the one thing that people run away from when they should really look and say, is there substance behind that company? And going down, is it a time to buy? Because now I can get two for one.
spk01: So those are the thoughts I would have. All right. John, any more?
spk08: We have one remaining question in queue. Okay. Coming from Tom Ellison, private investor. Tom, please proceed.
spk03: You mentioned you completed your first CBD emulsion tolling contract batch. Can you give us a ballpark size of a typical contract?
spk07: It's a pilot, and we've made this clear, Tom. Hello, by the way, and happy Thanksgiving to you out in California. and appreciate your continued support. You know that. We signed the contract. And please remember, this is the first commercial manufacturing run on the machine. And it's the first commercial manufacturing run that we've done in CBD or in anything. And so we and the customer decided we'd do it in three tiers. The first tier would be a 500 vial roughly order. The second tier would be 5,000 vials and the third tier would be 50,000 vials. And so we just completed the first 500 and expect to do the second one, 5,000. And I should turn this over to John Hollister because John speaks to the customer every day, knows the customer inside out. So John, would you like to add anything to what I just said?
spk04: No, you're spot on, and part of it is this rational launch. All of us have commercialized, all of us on our team have commercialized different kinds of products over our careers, and this is just a good way for us to tease out processes that are new to us, the bottling, packaging, and shipping. Ultimately, our business is going to be shipping what we refer to as totes, which are large volume products, but in these initial runs, We're actually very active in helping source bottles and sprayers, containers, packaging, labeling, et cetera, all the way, if you will, vertically integrated through the process. And so it's helpful for us to do that in smaller steps. So we're really looking at this. First batch we've just completed as an alpha. Our next one will be the beta. And then the third one is really the commercial step. This is a fun one for us because Safer Medical in Montana is very focused on the veterans of our country and helping them with some of the things that they're dealing with. And the gentleman, George Akerson, is really committed as a veteran to helping these people. And so we're excited to work with him and get through this process. But it should not be forgotten that we're about to do this with a second we'll start the same process with a second customer and then layer on a third customer and over the course of the next six months we will add another four or five customers in different market spaces that will be doing the same thing so all these just build on each other and as each one of these customers has the potential of adding a second or third product to this mix those just add to each other so by halfway through next year uh we will be doing a very large volume with multiple different products in multiple different categories. And as I said earlier, they are from a revenue perspective. And that's, I think, what the investors are looking for. They want to see revenue coming into our company. And this will definitely change that perspective of our company very, very quickly.
spk00: I'll add to John's comments. to just make the observation that one of the other benefits of the small pilot batch approach and this scaling approach is with the small pilot batches, we will typically with the client be focusing on a market testing, market feedback cycle in that initial batch in particular to make sure that we're capturing testimonial input that will help support the product as we roll it out downstream, as well as capturing any early information on tweaking the product. If the flavor profile or whatever that the client has worked out with us isn't satisfying as well as they'd like, we'll do a tweak on that. uh, before you've got, you know, 50,000 of them in the field. So it's a smart stepwise approach that we think will build credibility and success levels on the successive steps.
spk03: When do you reach tier three on any customers?
spk07: Good question. I was just about to answer that. Um, this is not something where tier one takes three months and tier take two takes another four months. This is something where tier one and tier two together take two or three months maximum, we believe. So we expect... Not mid-year, two or three months. Two or three months. So we're talking about first quarter. I expect that the large manufacturing run for safer medical will happen in the first quarter, and we will be billing as we make it and ship it So this is not going to be middle of next year. No. This is why it was so important to get this first run out and the second run out in, let's say, November, December, January. Get them done because they're pilots. They're going to teach us a lot. And then we do the large run. And think about this. This large run, we've looked at it and we've given the little indication that we believe the first contract could be worth a million dollars to us, which 900,000 of that, of course, is coming from the big run or so. But we're not talking about what John just mentioned. This same group is interested in having two or three more SKUs or two or three more products, and they think they can sell out faster than we're going to be conservative and say, we're going to make you 50,000 vials, and then that's going to satisfy you for a year. they're looking at us like we're crazy. Like, you know, we'll be back long before the end of the year. So that is no longer a million-dollar contract. You can make that a much bigger contract if they come back more often than once and if they add a number of different SKUs. So that's one contract for one large manufacturing run for next year. And, you know, I think the chances are that we might be wrong. It might be more than one run and one SKU next year. And that's for each customer.
spk03: So it's exciting.
spk07: Might be wrong in the right way. Yes. I'm sorry.
spk03: What was that? Tier three. Have you figured out tier three? How long would that take your company in one total station to satisfy?
spk07: Well, again, as I just said, tier three, we, we look at it as a one year, um, amount of product for one year. Um, Being very conservative.
spk03: What is the processing time? Would it take you a week, a month?
spk00: It's very quick. On the large-scale equipment, I mentioned the small R&D-scale equipment that we've put into our facility out here on the West Coast that's suitable for little demos and so on. But the large-scale equipment like we have at Ohio State can produce on the scale of four liters a minute, potentially faster than that. Um, so our ability to, um, satisfy requirements at a 50,000 bio level and so on is, you know, is measured in, in hours.
spk03: Okay. That's good. Uh, one other question on our message board, a lot of people are asking about this study on the bioavailability. Um, it's been written up. I assume it's probably been re is it been peer reviewed and in the publishing, do we know anything about that when that will happen?
spk07: Well, there's a lot of rumors going around. We have asked academics to look at our material, and we've asked them to publish it when it's done, and we've had studies done. They're not published yet. At some point, they will be published. We would like them published in peer-reviewed journals, and I can't tell you what the results are, but I can tell you I can't wait for them to get published.
spk03: Okay. Do you have any estimates, any ballpark this quarter or next quarter?
spk07: I'm hoping every week, I wake up Monday morning hoping that's the week that we see at least one publication in a peer-reviewed journal. You know, I am a scientist. I've published a number of papers, and I understand that Sometimes you send it in and it gets sent back because they want to have some changes, some additional data or whatever. Sometimes you have a colleague that said is not ready for primetime. There's all different things that can happen. But I am optimistic that that one of these weeks in the near future when I wake up will be the week that at least one study is is published. And there's nothing like having a a national or world-renowned scientists publishing in a peer-reviewed journal saying that your material is good or great. So we're anticipating that. And we're going to do more studies with more experts. And I'm not saying it lightly. We are the best in class that I am aware of today, best in class in the world.
spk03: We're doing a great job. I'd like to say, too, that I'm glad you're going to get Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 because you've got to get this perfect. You don't want to have any issues, right? This is your reputation on the line. Right.
spk00: That's all I have. We selected one of the top handful of academics acknowledged as an academic leader in cannabis around the globe. to perform the study, and they are focused on getting this to publication on a fast timetable. So as Rick said, we're optimistic of something coming out soon, but it's not in our hands to control. I certainly expect that within the first quarter we'll see it out, and we hold our breath as to whether we can see something this year.
spk03: Well, great job to your team, Rick. Thanks.
spk07: I appreciate that. Thanks. It's fun when you love your job and things are going well, and especially when you're releasing a product. As probably many people on this call, certainly the three people on this end have all done, it's extremely exciting when you're about to release something that you think will change your company, if not the world. And this will change our company. I'm glad we made the pivot. We'll take whatever arrows we have to take from the down of the third quarter. Please don't forget, we're having one heck of a fourth quarter, which will help our cash flow a lot, which is great. And we're going to be shipping our first product. So all these positives, back to Terry's question, I think I would pose all these positives to somebody and say, yeah, you waited, but But don't give up the ship now because they're, you know, lands in sight.
spk08: Okay, gentlemen. Anything else, John? We have no further questions in queue.
spk07: You know, this is going to be a short call and it might be one of our longest, but most of it were Q&A. And so we, as you know, we take all questions. So I'll end it and just say thanks. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Thanks for giving us a chance to bring you up to date and to tell you all the exciting news that we told you, along with the disappointing news comes, we think, a lot more exciting news. Please stick with us. A lot of you stuck with us for not months, but I know years, and we're not asking you to stick with us for more years. We hope that in a short period of time, if you so desire, we hope you're able to get something out of the stock that's higher than what you paid for it. That's our goal. And we're working very hard to do it. So happy Thanksgiving to everybody. And thanks for joining us on Thanksgiving week. And we'll talk to you after the fourth quarter and looking forward to it.
spk01: Thank you. Thanks all. Happy Thanksgiving.
spk08: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.
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