All right. Good day, everybody. This is Doug Schenkel from the Life Science and Diagnostic Tools team here at Cowen. Sorry for the slight delay there, but we are excited to get going, and we're excited to welcome Amyris to the 41st Annual Cowen and Company Healthcare Conference. From the company, we have John Melo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Han Kieftenbeld, the Chief Financial Officer, and David Kast from Investor Relations. Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time. We appreciate you taking the time and joining us today. Thanks, Doug. A real pleasure to be here. So, you know, I'm sure a lot of folks on the line know the company well, but for those who are just starting to get to know Amyris, Amyris is an industrial biotech company that applies its synthetic biology technology platform to engineer, manufacture, and sell high-performance, naturally and sustainably sourced ingredients and products into health and wellness, clean beauty, and flavor and fragrance among other markets. This is a really exciting story. There's a lot to unpack here. You know, we'll see how far we get down my list of questions, but we certainly want to talk about some of the company's very successful initiatives pursuant to strategic partnerships. We want to unpack a bit more on the company's pipeline and portfolio, existing products, and what's to come. And then maybe if we have a little bit of time, do some model cleanup at the end. Before we get into that, John, I just want to throw kind of a high-level question in your direction. As we spent the last couple of years on my group getting smarter about synthetic biology, one of the things we came to appreciate is that there was a time where, you know, synbio was kind of a bad word if you go back 10, 15 years, and, you know, that ended a while ago, and I think, you know, I feel that way, but more importantly, if you kind of follow the money, there's just been a ton of private money flowing into the space, and increasingly, there's a lot of public focus on this area. You know, there was a hangover associated with synbio 1.0 companies, and that did apply to Amyris, but you know, you've clearly moved past that. What have you done to, you know, essentially drive Amyris past that period and really evolve the company into what is amongst the leading next-gen synbio companies today? Great, Doug. Thanks for the question. And, you know, I think hangovers, putting it mildly, if it is a hangover, it really scarred me well because I think I've been in the hangover for a long time, right? I think all 15 of those years I've been here. So good, bad, ugly, and then where we are today. So, yeah, it has been a ride and a difficult one. This is not, you know, pioneering a new technology and seeing it to maturity is a long road. I mean, look, I think it took Genentech 20 years before it actually turned the corner, right? So we're, I'd say, a little bit ahead of that first wave of biotech and pharma, but it is a long haul. It takes a lot of capital, and you hope you make it through. I'm happy to say we're here. So now I can kind of share kind of like how I think about it. And, you know, the first half, I think, was about core technology and trying to figure out, like, where could you use synthetic biology and make a real business out of it? And a lot of us early on targeted, you know, big commodity markets because the TAM was amazing. And it was a real problem to address, right? Sustainable renewable fuels. And I think the end of that game was great ability to make great molecules, but actually very hard to make economics work, especially on the macro outside and the technology's ability to get there. So, you know, we had to figure out kind of our way to how do you make a real business out of this science that's really amazing. That's really what I'd say the core thing through all those 15 years was the science and just continuous investment in getting the science at a level that it's predictable, it's fast, and it's inexpensive to make clean chemistry using synthetic biology. That's, I think, where we are. Look, I think the big learnings, and if I look at like the Gen2 companies, some of these Gen2 companies, I'm sure will come public at some point soon. I think then the reality of how far ahead we really are is really going to come to light because I think people are going to see the revenue of some of these companies and the financials are just very early. Like, they're not almost existing yet. That's okay because I'm sure they'll figure it out because they have good science. It's about actually figuring out the markets. And like, I'll summarize by saying the big thing for us that really got accelerated as a result of COVID is really understanding the business model and really sinking in on what are the right markets, what are the things we should do, what are the things others should do, and then how do we really run hard. I've never seen a more productive period for us. What's going on now with the rate of evolution in the pipeline and then the revenue growth coming from our consumer and our ingredients business; like now, now it's really fun, right? Now it's really about just pressing the accelerator and going. That's a good time to be. But don't forget, during that whole thing, if you include the current transactions, we generated about $1 billion in commercial value from monetizing the technology as we've been building it along the way. First, with licensing fuels to Total, second, with the vitamin E, and then third, now with the big transactions that we're doing, that's giving us a clear view that each molecule is worth $50-$100 million as it reaches maturity. And I think that's an exciting level of clarity that comes back to, I think, your thesis that the future of chemistry is about synthetic biology and it's really worth something. So I hope that helps. It does. Yeah. And it's, I mean, I hate to be corny about it, but I mean, I think it's important to just keep in mind, you know, the whole old adage, right? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And I'm sure you would have liked to, you know, been spared a few of those scars along the way. But, you know, when you think about the science platform you've built and the lessons you've learned along the way to not just run a science project, but to run a commercially oriented organization that has real products generating real revenue, you know, that's important. And it's somewhat unique in, you know, in what is still at the early stage of an industry rollout, I would think. Yeah. No, absolutely. And like, I think about it a lot, like how much of what we spent really needed to be spent. And when you think about the learnings and the effectiveness of our platform, you know, a lot of it was really about learning cycles that we needed to go through. And I think one of the biggest ones was really process development, scale up, and what we do with manufacturing. Think about it. When we built our first plant, I mean, it took a year just to get the fricking plant to settle down, to get the right valves, to get the right seals. But all of those learnings and what are the right controls and what kind of compressors do you need? How does air work in the right tank? I mean, those are all learnings that have made us really, really good at actually manufacturing great, clear, clean molecules using highly engineered organisms. It is not the same as making beers. Like people think, okay, you know, fermentation has been around for a long time, not a big deal. Fermenting highly engineered organisms, that is a big deal. The level of precision, the level of infrastructure, and the learnings. So I think about it as, look, it took us $300-$400 million to figure out manufacturing and scale up. It is currently the industry bottleneck. I think it's going to take everybody in the second generation at least a few years and a lot of money to figure out manufacturing. So it is what it is. And I think you're absolutely right. I think it's resilience that's actually the biggest factor to building a thriving synthetic biology company. John, and I'll try to make this the last time I use the word hangover, but one element of the hangover was the balance sheet. I mean, I remember when I first started looking at Amyris. I'm like, hey, this is really cool. The science is neat. Then I opened the 10K and I was kind of like, what's going on here? You know, and that was kind of a function of what you needed to do, basically build out what you did in the early days. You guys have been really fantastic in really addressing that hangover and cleaning up the balance sheet with some really neat strategic transactions. You know, you've talked about actively working on three of these. You know, the first, which started to bring in cash in Q4, I think actually in December. I think that has, and just, you know, Han and John, clean up anything I mess up here, but I think that first one has $50 million in value. And then you provided some updates earlier this week, that might have been yesterday, where you talked about the value of the other two programs. I think one of them, the bigger one, is valued at over $500 million. And then there's a third one, which if you provided any financial details on that one, I've missed them. Would you mind just, you know, for those of us who didn't hear yesterday, would you mind just talking about the value of those strategic transactions and the importance of them in terms of moving the company forward? And I guess the third part of this question is, you know, is this something that you could do more of moving forward? Yeah, Doug. And great observation. Like, I don't think you were the only one who was more than frightened when you look at our balance sheet, right? We started in 2019, entered into 2020 with just about $300 million of debt. We're sitting here today with less than $150 million of debt, and we have a clear visibility that by middle of this year, we're going to be at less than $100 million in debt. And I think that is just a miracle. And we're doing all that while we're sitting here building cash on the balance sheet and ending 2021 with significantly more cash than we came into 2021 with, right? So, and I think Han and his team have been amazing at that. I can't thank him enough for his leadership and keeping us focused. And kind of like if I think about, you know, one big component of that is really the transactions, but it goes back to when you and I first started talking a lot around middle of the year of 2020, when coming out of that major financing, speaking with our board, speaking with our major shareholder, John Doerr. I mean, I stood back and said, okay, it's time. It's time that we actually really look at ourselves and our asset base and answer the simple question, how do we pivot from using equity and debt to fund the growth to actually self-funding? And when I started looking inside the portfolio and started testing the market, I started realizing the market had shifted in a much faster way than I expected to clean chemistry. And I realized that the molecules we had on our portfolio were the difference makers for our partners. We are the ESG that makes our partners' business work. And when I realized that and what had happened in the marketplace, I started to realize there's a bigger deal here than I ever imagined. And so when we started conversations with some of the banks that were doing some of the active transactions, we realized that in our own partner base, with our own portfolio, we had a big opportunity to self-fund the company. And that really got us into the transactions. We started really doubling down on them in the end of the third quarter of last year, made a lot of progress. And, you know, we're now at a point where, you know, the value is actually significantly greater than $500 million. $500 million is just one of them in total value. The one that is furthest along is the biggest one. Both of them are on track to be completed. Both of the remaining ones, remaining of the three, are on track to be done by the end of March. And as we said on the earnings call, like the biggest one for us is one of those. And we filed for that in late February. So as a result, you know, we expect, we don't expect an issue. We expect to have clearance. And as soon as we have clearance, the transaction's closed. So for me, that is a big deal that we got to that point. And the big gain coming out of the process was actually the partner, the acquirer of this portfolio, realizing that we are the best manufacturers for these products. So basically entering into a 15-year supply deal for the ingredients that we're monetizing. And I think that is a breakthrough, right? And that goes back to like all the scars, right? Yes. It was hard to get manufacturing working, but now that we have it, it is the moat in the industry. It's the bottleneck for everyone. And we figured it out. We are the best producers of clean chemistry from fermentation in the world. And we're seeing that in the transactions. You know, your last point, would we do it again and is there more to do? I think yes. I think now it's a model. Kind of you think about the model, we have three components. The synthetic biology platform, and I call that the golden goose. Platform molecules, kind of what comes out of that platform. I think about that as the cash generator and the vehicle for actually investing in growth. Then the third part of our business is really simple. It's consumer brands and the supply of some of those ingredients when we feel it's right to do that actually drives growth. I mean, think about it. Our consumer brands are now almost tripling every year for guidance that we said would be about, you know, doubling every year. I mean, we have a consumer brand portfolio that's best in class, and that is the driver of growth. Again, golden goose generates amazing molecules. Those molecules are platform molecules, best in class, clean chemistry. That drives cash. How much cash? Look, if you think about the biggest transaction being $500 million, I think over the next two, three years, we could do another two or three of these transactions if we chose to do them. Just based on 18 molecules in the pipeline, amazing platform molecules, including our HMO platform, and then we're adding 8-10 new ones this year to that pipeline. So that's how I think of it. It can be repeated. It's the fuel. The growth comes from the consumer and the ingredients we sell. And the SynBio platform is the golden goose that keeps growing. And, John, I mean, that takes you out of the old cycle of having to go to equity markets or debt markets. I mean, you can, right? You never want to rule that out, but it becomes more opportunistic versus out of necessity. Is that the right way to think about it? Exactly. Yeah, very much so. And I think it's a strategic choice that John said. This is really important because I think we've now also got an audience that understands that this is part and parcel of how we think about existing portfolio as well as the pipeline, right? As a way to fund the company and go forward with our R&D programs. I had one question for you, Han, from the audience, the E audience on my dashboard. And I don't have your balance sheet in front of me, so I apologize if I'm butchering this. But the remaining debt, there's a convertible component to that, correct? And would your expectation be that that may get converted at some point? Yes, that is the expectation. And so first off, the first part of your question, yes, that is correct. So if you look at where we were at the end of the year, John already pulled out a few numbers. So $170 at the end of on 12/31. Of that, approximately half was a convertible, right? Around $80 million. Obviously, as John said, where we sit today here, right on March 4th, we're already at less than $150. And, you know, we still have a $60 million convertible note in there. So, and again, we expect to be below $100 by the time we get to Q3. So, but yes, absolutely, there's a convertible and it's convert to equity. Okay. Thank you for that. John, I want to go back to, well, I want to build off of your referencing the 18 molecules in active development. I think the plan, again, correct me as always if I'm wrong, but I think the plan is to commercialize three to five molecules per year for the next several years. So you got quite a pipeline. In 2020 alone, the company scaled six new molecules that delivered over $1 million in revenue in the first year. So if we kind of take these observations, you know, as we think about five to, I'm sorry, three to five new molecules per year, first, is that a pretty conservative target? Meaning, could you do more than that like we saw last year? And then should we, you know, should we keep thinking about that, you know, over $1 million in revenue for the first year as kind of a way of trying to build a stack of what you can do with the R&D engine over the next few years? Yeah, look, the way to think about it is that $1 million is actually per molecule their first year, right? I mean. Yeah, thank you. I probably could have said that better. Thank you for that. No, no issue. And I think your three to five number is correct. And could we do better? Yes. I think a lot of it is how many we can get through our process development and scale up. That's actually where the bottleneck is because they advance pretty quickly on the science side, right? The engineering side. So it's all about scale up. And we've got a lot of work to do this year in making sure our factory is complete by the end of the year. So, you know, a tight year, a lot to get done, but could we do more than three to five a year? Absolutely. You know, when you look at those 18 and the 8-10 new ones we're adding, I mean, there's a lot of molecules in there that are more than $1 million a year their first year. Because remember, an important part about our model is there isn't a molecule in those 18 that is actually being done for us and has a go-to-market risk. They're all molecules that are contracted with partners that are sitting there waiting for them to reach a certain cost target to be able to issue a PO. If you think about like vanillin as a good example, right? If you think about vanillin, the volume we sold last year is more than double that this year and is again growing at over 50% a year between now and 2024. So that is a great example. You know, Vanillin wasn't a million. It was millions of dollars that moved through our system, right? I think that's a conservative way to think about it: a million a molecule the year they launch. The reality is it's actually more than that. The three to five is a conservative estimate per year. The pipeline is expanding very quickly. And John, that pipeline, I mean, in my opening remarks, I referred to your strength in health and wellness and clean beauty and F&F. Are there presumably targets that are outside those verticals within that pipeline? Look, I think there are two, right? I think there are molecules in the pipeline for vitamins. So call it the nutrition market. And I think nutrition continues to be an expanding part of our portfolio, really through our partnership with DSM and then through our partnership with the third transaction, which we've not really talked much about. That'll be focused in nutrition. And we think that'll be an expanding pipeline of molecules. Because, you know, I talked about the surprise benefit of keeping manufacturing some of these molecules. The other surprise benefit is these partners that we're adding as part of these major transactions have a pipeline of molecules they want us to develop for them. So the relationship of monetizing molecules is the beginning of a long-term relationship for developing and commercializing more molecules for these partners. I think the other part of the pipeline that's not in the 18, but is in the 8 to 10 years is this idea of zero carbon protein, and that goes all the way from, you know, fermentation-based protein to making the current meat production value chain lower carbon intensity or getting to zero carbon, so that's another part of the expanding element of our portfolio, but that's in the 8 to 10 years, not the 18. In the 18, think about vitamins and nutrition as another category that's in there. Okay. I want to, I know we only have a few minutes left, but just to bring it back to kind of the here and now, Biossance and clean beauty. Yeah, that's been a great success for the company. How big do you think Biossance could be over time? Like how are you thinking about the growth outlook for that category, you know, over the next, you know, two to three, three to five years? Look, if you just think about 2021 for a second, just near term, Biossance will do over $100 million in revenue. Now think about it. That was a brand that in 2019 did $17 million, right? I mean, and I love the consumer. The consumer is so focused on clean ingredients and healthy skin. And we've been fortunate to have platform molecules and formulation capability that's delivering exactly that. If you look at two to three years from now, two to three years from now, Biossance will be a $300 million brand in revenue. And if you look out to the three to five year mark, it's a $500 million a year revenue brand, right? And I think that is a rock star. And if you think about the model we have, the model we have is really simple. It takes $40 million or less with Biossance. It was $45 million to be specific to get to a profitable brand that's growing at 100% a year. And when you have a profitable brand growing 100% a year or more, that brand enables you to drive significant valuation in the market because that's what the big folks want. We don't want to spin off our brands, but you always got to think about it that way. What is it that we're building? We're building brands. We're building brands that we expect to be billion-dollar valuation brands. And we're doing it by an investment model that's really, really simple. $45 million or less to get to profitability and within a year of $1 billion in valuation. And the reality, if I look at, if I look at Kieftenbeld, we're going to get there in three years, right? Biossance took four years. I think the more we learn, each brand we do, I think we could spend less and get there faster. That's our brand portfolio. And one of the silver linings from the pandemic, I think, for you guys was you've talked about the direct-to-consumer business. And And that being, I think it was around 40% of revenue pre-pandemic. During the pandemic, that went up to 60%. I mean, that's a good economic opportunity for you if that sticks around, if that's durable. That's exactly right. And think about it as you, the direct-to-consumer business is an 80% plus gross margin business compared to selling through retailers. That's, you know, call it around the 60% gross margin, right? So it is a significant bump in gross margin. And based on what we're seeing, and I think you'll see some use from us over the next few months, we are in active discussions to actually significantly upgrade our capability in this regard. But if you think about it, you know, direct-to-consumer, I believe will be 60%-70% of the mix long term. I don't believe it goes down, but I believe it's omnichannel. I believe stores will be a part of the answer, but I think we can retain. And we're investing a lot in a differential consumer experience. So I'm very optimistic. And I think we are in a super cycle for consumers and consumers focused on their health. And I think skincare is a huge beneficiary of that. All right. Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it there, John and Han, but that was fantastic. As always, great to speak with you. I always learn a lot about Amyris and the SynBio industry. And we appreciate your time. Looking forward to catching up soon. It starts with the science, Doug. Thank you for being a big proponent.