Clint Betts
Yaky, thank you so much for coming on the show. You're the CEO of Pluri and tell us about that. That's a biotech company specializing particularly in 3D cell technology, which is fascinating. Tell us what all that means and how you became the CEO.
Yaky Yanay
Thank you for having me on the show. I am looking forward to this discussion. So, for me, becoming a CEO and actually coming into the biotech industry is a little bit of a funny story. I came to this industry because of a graph, which I don't think happens too much in life, but I came to the biotech industry because of one graph that showed the change in life expectancy. I saw this graph 20 years ago, which basically said, "Well, humanity, you have doubled your life expectancy in the last 150 years." Doubled. I said, "Oh gosh, that can't be." And I took a deeper look into that and understood, after a good investigation, that's the place where I want to be. Biotechnology and life science create a better future for all of us. And the way that I'm doing it, including the way that we do it, is using cells.
We're using different cell types to create products that all of us need from healthcare, food security and more and that's quite a fascinating industry and company that I have and I feel blessed to work within in this industry, do what we do.
Clint Betts
Yeah, what is 3D cell technology? Give us a breakdown of that.
Yaky Yanay
So 3D technology is a way for technology to grow cells, and let's go one step earlier in the process. The one thing that I know, and really it's very obvious, but it's still shocking, is that cells are the building blocks of life. Everything on this planet is built from cells. You are built from cells; I'm built from cells, but also our food, pets, trees, whales, bacteria, every organism on this planet is built from cells, and once I realized that I felt like in the movie Matrix, that you start to see the Matrix and you see it breaking down.
And what I've been doing since I got this understanding is that it was almost two decades ago that we created a product out of this tiny organism. The most important one, and this is what brought me to the industry, is how we create new ways to treat human beings in order to allow ourselves to age gracefully and to be able to continue to treat [inaudible 00:03:07] patients. You are based in the US. I'm sure you see the healthcare spending that's going on all over the Western world, and I understand that we need to find new ways to treat human beings and reset our healthcare system.
Basically, it means moving or transitioning from the sick care system that we have today to the healthcare system. And I think that cells, in my opinion, are the most amazing and potent agents in order to regenerate our body for the simple reason that our body is built from cells. So, let's treat it with healthy cells to create regeneration and not hospitalization, and not the extremely invasive treatments that we are using today. We are holding a very dedicated and smart system, our body, treat it with respect and with right agent. And since then I've become a great believer in cells and the ability to create different products out of them.
Clint Betts
So you recently did something like the cell-based coffee production where you reduce water usage by 98%. Give us a sense for that accomplishment. That's really interesting.
Yaky Yanay
Yeah, so proving... We are based in Israel, headquartered here, very technological company, about 130 employees and we have more than one patent for every employee so like 140 patents in the company, very strong technology platform. And the way that we operate is by creating a collaborative network of companies that all of them rely on our platform but operate as a standalone unit.
We always going to use the same platform, the three-dimensional expansion platform that can expand cells in a very effective way and we're actually seeking for places that there is a need, that we see that there is a need for mass-scale production. And by identifying the need we are always going to operate in the same manner. We identify the need, we are finding a collaborative partner that know how to go to market and we going to open an activity that's going to be solely focused in this one industry. This is a strategy that we started to implement a few years ago and we were able to do it quite effectively, creating companies for different applications.
One of the most interesting industries that we operate today is around our subsidiary, which we call CoffeeSci. I actually got a call from one of the largest coffee companies in the world a few years ago, about 18 months ago, and they told me, "Hey Yaky, we are following your technology, and we're seeing your IP, and we're seeing that you are actually experts in cell expansion. Can you do cultivated coffee?"
And I literally started to laugh on the Zoom. I told them, "Well, why the hell do you need cultivated coffee? What's wrong with the nice green plant?" And they said, "Yeah, in 20 years, we're going to lose half of the global production of coffee." Because of the changing climate, we already see the phenomena, and that's going to come big time. I love coffee, and I said, "Okay, we're not going to let it happen." We also did a POC, a proof of concept, to see if we could use the same method, that is, growing placenta cells for therapeutics or using animal cells. We also have a company in cultivated meat that we partner with a few of the largest companies in the world.
We said, "Can we grow the same thing on the plant?" So, taking a biopsy from a coffee plant once and using then our machine, this bio-act [inaudible 00:07:00] system can grow cells very effectively in order to create coffee on a high scale, but not correlated to weather, rain, or whatnot. And we did it. I mean, we were able to show that we can grow scale en mass, and we built this beautiful company, CoffeeSci, that will operate around coffee as well as cocoa because whatever I told you about coffee, the same thing about cocoa.
We are not fully aware of it, but you can see it in the prices. Coffee prices have gone about five times higher in the last five years. So, the prices are going through the roof because climate change creates less production. It means that we are going to pay more, and it means that humanity probably needs to find new ways to produce what we used to take from the land, but today it's a little bit more difficult with the number of people that we have and the massive changing climate that we currently witness. So that's my life. Quite interesting.
Clint Betts
We talked a little bit about this before we started, but what has it been like to be based in Israel during all of this?
Yaky Yanay
I was born in Israel and lived there for the five years that I lived abroad. I like the land; I breathe better when I'm here in Israel. So this is like my homeland for me, and I'm going to do everything for this country. Obviously, we're not in an easy situation in the last year [inaudible 00:08:45], but all the Israelis are actually revealing their best because, on one hand, we're facing severe conditions on our borders.
Israel is a nation of creation, of innovation, of providing wealth, health and prosperity to this world. We see that is our mission. Unfortunately not always the case with our neighbors, but from one hand we are facing this severe situation on our borders, but Israelis today are at their best.
So I speak a lot with my friends, CEOs and it means that we just need to be more stronger, resilient, smart and devoted to our mission. And I can tell you that not me and none of my friends missed a deadline or didn't deliver a project or asked for anything because we are here to do it. We're here to deliver and we going to do it.
Things will get better and Israel will prosper. So again, this is... I mean it's a unique nation and unique human beings that live here and I'm very optimistic of how the coming few months are going to look like. Especially I believe that once this war will end it's going to be quite amazing, the prosperity is going to kick back, but as you can see, yeah, I like this country.
Clint Betts
What does a typical day look like for you?
Yaky Yanay
A typical day, as much a typical day can look like for a CEO, but I wake up very early in the morning, like 5:00 AM, I'm already up and I'm a big believer in routines, so I build my routines. There are days that I'm here in Israel, there are days that I'm traveling, which are a little bit different for the way that it looks like.
So, I'm a scheduled human being. So I'm planning my week. Usually, I know what it looks like. I'm coming early in the morning. I do the morning prayers that give me starting the morning in a good position and doing my sports, which give me a lot of energy to my body.
And I'm going to the office relatively early. I like to have this quiet hour before I start. And I build my routine. So every week I have the management team that people know that all of us coming and doing what need to do. I'm meeting my staff on a regular basis Sunday and Monday.
So before the US markets are waking up, for me it's like Monday afternoon, I'm actually done with the internal meetings and then I'm going for the external meetings. I'm starting early. I do work relatively until late. Coming back to the family, three lovely daughters and not all of them living... Well, some of them left the house, but this is what it looks like.
Clint Betts
I love that. Tell me about cultivated meat.
Yaky Yanay
Cultivated meat is something that we have seen in the last decade. I think that we understand, as human beings, that we need to be a little bit more kind to the motherland, to Earth. We cannot abuse it the way that we abuse it today. Of course, animals and whatnot and people are seeking food solutions. So, can we grow or get the same product by manufacturing it differently? That's the main concept. I have been in the bioactive field for two decades. So, for me, when I see a cow or a chicken, I see them as a bioreactor, like our bioreactors, but this is like a God-made bioreactor, whatnot. So, they are actually growing cells.
This is the one method that nature created to grow cells in a very effective way. However, we can grow the same systems, or we can grow under the same concept by using not a bioreactor that we call cow but a real bioreactor built from stainless steel to treat and control the environment. What we are doing is we're taking a biopsy from an animal, any animal that we are actually, and we can proliferate these cells, grow the cells, and expand the cells using our system. The key thing, and this is one of the main advantages that we have, is the ability to have full control of the production.
So you need to control many, many, many parameters in order to get the cells to proliferate in a perfect way. And that's the deep science into it, to understand what we need. I can tell you that since I'm in this business, I have a strong appreciation for the human body and for anybody. It's an amazing control system. I've been trying to mimic it for 20 years and getting very close. We are getting an excellent outcome, but that's something that will allow us to create things very effectively and significantly reduce the different pollutions. Livestock is very polluted on this planet.
Of course, we would like to reduce animal cruelty, and that will allow us to consume proteins that are made in a different way. It's not going to take the entire market, but I think it's going to be an important segment that will increase more and more in the coming years, and this is what we did in Pluri, creating the technology and the core thing that will allow us to do it in a very, very effective way. Collaborating with the biggest companies in the world to bring these products to market.
Clint Betts
It's quite incredible, actually, the science and everything that goes behind that. And you're also doing some stuff with medical applications, is that right? You've kind of gotten into the medical field?
Yaky Yanay
This is where we started. This is our [inaudible 00:15:03] and where we started, and the concept was around using placenta cells after full delivery, healthy delivery, donated placentas that we get this donated placenta, and we are able to extract young, healthy cells and to expand them in our systems. This is where we start. The logic behind it is that once we introduce these young protein cells into the patient's body, the cells start to interact with the patient's body, and based on the signals that they receive from the body, they're responding by secreting a lot of therapeutic proteins that lead to healing and regeneration.
We're treating quite a severe disorder from severe ischemic legs. Patients obese patients because of obesity, amputation, or diabetes are at high risk for a leg amputation. We're able to show that if we inject these placenta cells, they allow the patient's own body to create new blood vessels to renew the blood supply into the leg. We're treating patients with massive muscle trauma, like after a hip fracture. We have a very, very interesting collaboration with the US Department of Defense and NIH; one cell type that we're developing is a countermeasurement against a high level of nuclear radiation. It's quite extraordinary data, and the placenta is a remarkable organ.
I've been looking at this organ for almost two decades, and I cannot be but extremely impressed by the amazing [inaudible 00:16:40] that the engineer did over there, combining a product which is coming from pregnancy. So, it's a good ethical source. So, all religions are perfectly okay with the placenta, young protein cells that we can use to create human regeneration, not doing a chronic treatment as we are doing today. Basically, we should allow our own bodies to find or build the regeneration power we have once we are young and in good health. So, this is the essence of Pluri.
Everything that we are doing is about using cells to provide a better well-being to humanity from health to food security and eventually sustainability. And I believe these tiny creatures can do really miracles. They are something that we just need to know how to use them smartly.
Clint Betts
What other areas can you take this into? You have the medical field, you have meat, you have coffee, are there other areas that you're looking at where you want to bring this technology?
Yaky Yanay
The simple answer is to ask you: what is on this planet built from cells? And once you start to think about it, you understand that a lot. But we need to be focused and do it one by one. Obviously, therapeutics and pharmaceuticals are a big wave coming. Regeneration, healing. And you are based in Utah. I think it's the most... I don't know if you are even aware of it, but for me, it was one of the most surprising things that they actually...
Recently, the state of Utah, they came with a bill that saying we're going to approve using placenta cells like allogeneic. It means that are not autonomous, not related to the patients, that come from external source. We were allowed to use allogeneic placenta cells for therapeutics even without FDA approval because people want it and people need it and the state of Utah was the first one in the US to approve it.
And we see more and more things like that happen because people want to have access to cells. One of the main things that Pluri can provide is really high quality. All of our development was done under the FDA, so it's the highest quality. We're meeting all the right standards, but this is something that we see. It's coming big time. Food security is a big segment. We see it all over the world.
Mainly after COVID, many countries saying, "We need to be self-sustained. We cannot be depend only on imports. So we like to have our production in place." So food security and sustainability, things like I told you about, coffee and cacao. It's because of change of climate today we get a lot of attentions around aging and longevity and well-being in general.
I just gave a talk a few months a few weeks ago about why I believe that placenta cells can mean quite a remarkable organ or quite a remarkable agent that will allow us... I don't like to use the anti-aging phrase; I like to say we should age gracefully. So I don't mind aging as long as it's in a graceful way, and I believe that this is going to be the main topic that you're going to see Pluri all over using the big investments that we made into this company and the broad knowledge that we have. So, the future looks quite exciting, especially with what we can do with cells.
Clint Betts
Have you seen or do you know who Bryan Johnson is? This guy says his whole goal is not to die, and he says he has the blood work of a 30-year-old, and he's 50. I'm obviously generalizing all of this. What do you think of that? This whole don't die movement.
Yaky Yanay
So, I came to this industry because of seeing my graph of aging and longevity. This is the coalescence of everything that I do, and actually, I think that most of the things that we see today in the globe are related to aging and what we see in the traffic and what we see on our pension funds and food security. It's all because of the fact that this world is aging. We don't understand it, or we don't sense it on a daily basis.
But we are in a generation, and we are fortunate to be in such a generation that it's going to be the first time ever that homo sapiens and society are going to look different because it's always been a triangle. Many young people, fewer elderly, and a very small portion of old people because people used to die at 65 or 45. Today is the first time that the opposite will happen. We're not going to have many young people because people don't make kids as they used to do in the past; Israel is a good example that we're still making quite a lot of kids.
So I urge you all to continue to do it, but we are going to see a lot of aging population, and we need to change the way that we look at it. I don't think that we need to live forever. So I'm more interested in quality of life. But it's quite an interesting topic, and it's kind of anecdote, but it always makes me laugh when people say, "Okay, how long can we live?" Is it 120 because this is what Moses lived? Guys, they say, "Okay, we should look at 200 years as our limit."
I always invite people to look at Chapter A in Genesis and to see that the first man, Adam, lived for 930 years. So, maybe this is our biological potential. I don't know, but it's going to move up for sure.
Clint Betts
Yeah, yeah, definitely seems to be trending that way, no question. You mentioned there's been some investments in this company. How have you financed the company? How have you thought about raising money and all of that?
Yaky Yanay
So Pluri is a public company. We are created under the symbol PLUR, traded on the NASDAQ with dual listing and Tel Aviv stock exchange, biotech, and self-development; it's an expensive and risky field. We did substantial fundraising for the company through private and institutional investors. However, we are fortunate enough to also get some substantial support from different agencies, starting with the Israel Innovation Authority, which gives us quite a lot of funding. Europe, Horizon 2020 will give us about $30 million in funding.
And the US government, we have strong collaboration with the NIH and the Department of Defense, which are funding these radiation projects that we have. So I believe that today more and more governments will push towards development of new way to treat human beings. We need to shift from the way that we are treating us today. It's not smart and I'm one of the one that's saying we should be treated not when we are sick.
We should be treated when we are in good health. That's the way to do it. And in my vision, every human being from age 40, 45, we should get once year treat with this nice amazing placenta cells to keep us young, potent and age gracefully. It's doable. I truly believe in it. It's coming slowly, slowly, but it's coming.
Clint Betts
What do you read? What reading recommendations would you have for us?
Yaky Yanay
I read a lot. At any point in time, I read almost two books in parallel. So it depends. There are some very good readings that help me as a CEO of a company. Maybe the most interesting book that I read that I'm using and implementing in my day-to-day work is Measure What Matters. This is by John Doerr. It's an amazing book, and since then, I've been implementing the OKR system in Pluri, and I'm very consistent about it. And I think that that's so simple, so right, but you need someone just to frame it in the right way.
And that's, in my opinion, one of the most amazing books that I read. I do, and I do like to read also coming from the Jewish philosophy and books in Hebrew; this is something that I do like to read about how they're actually implemented in our day-to-day. Now I'm reading an interesting book by Bob Iger, who used to be the CEO of Disney. It's a nice book. He's a smart guy. So I do find it... It's nice to see that your pains are; you're not one in your pains. Some of them have actually been through the same thing. It's kind of a comforting thing for me, and I understand how smart people have actually been through this process.
But I also like to read different literature. Depends if I'm traveling, so it's a lighter book. I'm now reading an interesting book. Then, we're going to translate it into English, The Weakness Seeker. So it's about a guy that used to be in the Israeli military. He was a genius, a computer genius, knows how to find the weaknesses in different systems, and he works around it. It's kind of more easy light flight books that I use during traveling, but I love reading.
Clint Betts
Finally, we end every interview with the same question and that is at CEO.com we believe the chances one gives is just as important as the chances one takes. When you hear that, who gave you a chance to get you to where you are today?
Yaky Yanay
So for me it's easy. 20 plus years ago, I'm actually a CPA by training, just fell in love with biotechnology. But I'm coming from financial background and I was an accountant at the Ernst & Young, manager of 40 groups and it's nice and I got a call from a nice gentleman that, his name is Zami Adelman. He was the CEO of a public company and I was fresh in the office. I was like three years old.
We met, and he told me, "I want you to be my CFO." When you are young, one of the main things that you have is that you're not scared and you're not worried. "Of course, whatever. Of course, I can be a CO of a public company. What's the question?" That was a non-traditional pathway to getting to a senior level of management of a public company relatively quickly, and Zami believed in me as being a very young man. But he thought that I had the capacity that required me to take it there.
And we worked together for many years. We actually, he is now the chairman of Pluri when I'm the CEO. So we moved to Pluri and I moved starting as a CFO, a COO and I took the CEO position a few years ago and that's something that I have appreciation until today. I do remember how it started and generally I'm guy of long-term relationships, so it's always something. So, I do work with people that I love. I like to work for years.
This is what's happening in my management team. People are over 10 years easily and I was saying I met my wife on the seventh grade, so when it's a good thing, I stick to it. So I think it's important that we're going to build a community around us that will allow us to be in our best because they know us.
Clint Betts
That's incredible. Hey, thank you so much for joining us. What you're working on is unbelievable. Congratulations on the breakthroughs that you've already experienced. I think what you're working on is world transforming. So thank you so much for what you do and I'm sure we'll be in touch and please stay safe out there.
Yaky Yanay
Thank you very much. Really thank you very much for your time.
Edited for readability.