Hello, everyone, and thank you all for joining us during the Lytham Partners Fall 2024 Investor Conference. My name is Ben Shamsian, Vice President at Lytham Partners. During our this fireside chat webcast, we welcome ChromaDex, ticker symbol CDXC on the NASDAQ. Joining us today from the company is Rob Fried, ChromaDex's Chief Executive Officer. Also joining us today is Sean McGowan, Senior Research Analyst with Roth Capital Partners, whom I've asked to moderate today's fireside chat. Sean covers a wide array of consumer companies at Roth, including ChromaDex. Before I turn it over to Sean, I want to remind everyone that management is available for one-on-one meetings throughout the conference. If you have not already signed up and would like to schedule a one-on-one meeting, please email me at shamsian@lythampartners.com. With that said, Sean, the floor is yours. Thank you, Ben. Thanks for the opportunity to talk to Rob and at ChromaDex, always a pleasure to get an update and to provide the information for investors as well. So Rob, thanks for joining. I guess as a first question, I've got to ask you, Rob, if they had all been taking Tru Niagen for six months, would the defensive line of the Jets done a better job last night against the 49ers? There was no rush. We expected a lot of pass rushing, and it wasn't there. So- Perhaps. We're working on it. Yeah. I mean, the good news is Rodgers made it through the whole game. There was good pass protection on the offense. As long as he's standing up, we should be good. Yeah. So anyway, we'll see how the season goes. Let's start with, you know, maybe some of the pharma initiatives you had. I think you said some weeks ago that the application for the IND related to ataxia would be filed, if I remember correctly, sometime in September. Is that still the timeframe you're expecting? And, what can you tell us on that? We expect to submit the pre-IND, which is a request for a meeting with the FDA, which they would then have sixty days to schedule that meeting, where we would go through the protocol. What we're doing is working out with detail what the study would look like. We expect to have it submitted around September 20th. Okay, so far it's on schedule and as expected? We had hoped to get it in by the end of August, but now we're looking at September. Okay. Great, looking forward to hearing more on that. Do you think from a matter of process, would the application for that pre-IND have any bearing on, you know, future applications? Does it, you know, kind of smooth things over? Do you get known, you know, for the process? Does it make it easier or quicker for future applications, should there be any, or is there really no connection? We internally are developing those muscles as we inch toward the pharma space. We have assembled an excellent team internally and externally of helping us to develop these protocols. We've done many studies in the past, but doing a study with an IND, with an eye towards commercialization and drug application, is a bit different than most of the studies that we've done in the past. Mmh. It will be helpful in the sense that we're getting better at it. Okay, but from an administrative standpoint, you know, with the FDA, does just being more familiar with them at this stage make things, you know, a lot kind of smoother in the future or not really? I don't expect that. Mmh. I think the quality of the works would speak for itself. Okay, thanks. Now switching gears for a second, so have the treatments of Niagen Plus, you know, these infusions, has that begun yet? They have begun. We've been giving them as part of a marketing, a pre-marketing thing for several months now. So there are literally hundreds of people who have received the injections or the IV over the last few months. But it's now available in certain selected clinics around the United States, we think around 90 locations as of today. Mmh. That will be increasing gradually, starting really now. Are they kind of spread all over, or are they concentrated? They're concentrated in the major cities. Mm-hmm. They're in New York, L.A., some in Chicago. I think you said around ninety now, and how do you expect that number to trend, you know, over the next, you know, 3, 6, 9, 10, you know, 10 months? We expect to be in several hundred within the next six months. Mm. Okay. But, you know, we... Our partner is Wells Pharmacy. They're the ones that actually ship the material to the clinics and sell it directly to the clinics. Mm-hmm. We supply the pharmaceutical-grade material to Wells. So it's an estimate. We don't really know. Many of these clinics are contacting us directly, and if you go on our website, we do try to maintain an up-to-date list of clinics where it is available. It's niagenplus.com. Mm-hmm ... where we do update it. It's not exactly precise because, again, it's Wells that has the direct relationship. They're estimates for us. Mm-hmm. But we expect it within, for this to begin growing fairly quickly. What was behind the choice of Wells? That's your compounding pharmacy, and you expect them to be, you know, your main partner, and then what was behind the choice of them? There are a handful of compound pharmacies that are in the NAD space, including Wells. We've met with all of them. They have all expressed varying levels of interest. We assessed all of them, we negotiated with several of them, and we thought Wells was the best suited, the most eager. They have licenses to distribute in every state in the country. Some of them have limited licenses, some of them, because NAD has some serious problems, particularly in the state of California, some of those compound pharmacies have had trouble of late. Hmm. We wanted to steer clear of anything like that. Wells delivers a good service. It's a reasonable deal. We've liked working with them, but it is a non-exclusive deal as of now. Okay. And remind us of like, what's the process of letting the consumer know and letting clinics know about the availability. Like, what's the outreach from a marketing standpoint, both to the clinics and to the consumer on the availability and the benefits and, you know, the whole package of Niagen Plus? Wells has a very interesting network of actually several thousand clinics and physicians that administer various products. Their main product are these GLP-1 products. Hmm. But now they're aggressively getting into the Niagen space. So they already have a really nice network, but we've been marketing to that network as well, directly through healthcare practitioners, sending out emails, going to conferences, doing webinars. We're assisting them with the marketing efforts. Okay. Is there any incremental expense to, you know, to ChromaDex as a result of any additional marketing on this? Do we have to hire people specifically for this? There's a slight expense, but it's not a meaningful expense. Mm-hmm. I mean, part of what you do, right? Correct. So, I you know, I guess the inference then is we wouldn't expect to see a dramatic ramp-up in ChromaDex's you know, marketing expenses as a percentage of revenue, you know, as a result of this particular contract. Correct. That's helpful. You know, when we often see a big uptake in consumer spending on things like, you know, gyms and weight loss programs after New Year's Day, that's kind of well known. Would you expect something like this with Niagen Plus? You know, would you expect to kind of get a rush after the holiday of people saying, "Okay, it's finally time for me to get more serious about this"? And, is there any plans around that, if there are expectations? It's a new product for us, so we think it's gonna we're gonna see gradual increases in revenue, whether it's a holiday or not, and so it's hard to say that there's seasonality. I do think that the IV drip in general does seem to see a big lift in January. Mm-hmm. People do, you know, Dry January - Right ... kind of get serious, and I would imagine that given, you know, the success of the GLP-1s, and the increased acceptance of it, and just the recognition that there don't seem to be widespread, you know, negative side effects, on the contrary, that, you know, we could probably expect to see more of that, you know, GLP-1 acceptance in 2025. Have you... You've dropped some hints before about kind of like seeing a connection between, you know, Niagen and GLP-1s, and the mutual beneficial aspects of both. Can you talk a little bit about that? We believe that most people that want to be thinner also want to be younger. Okay. So in that sense, we think that Niagen IV or Niagen shots are complementary- Mmh ... to these GLP-1 products. But additionally, one of the few side effects that we see with GLP-1 is this fatigue, lethargy, low energy. So in that sense, they're complementary products, because as you know Niagen stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis, the increase of ATP output from mitochondria. It increases actual cellular energy. It's my understanding, too, that one of the sort of side effects of GLP-1 use is a decrease in muscle mass, so you know, doctors and pharmacists will advise patients using it to increase, you know, like, their actual weightlifting and, you know, the exercises that they would do, not just for cardio, but for building mass up. And in fact, I think from an insurance standpoint, you kind of have to demonstrate that you're doing this as part of a broader, consistently applied exercise program. You know, not just like, "I'm a fat slob, and I want to not be a fat slob, so give me a shot. Mmh. So, you know, is there any... Now, I bring this up because lifting weights is inherently a muscle... You know, kind of the way it works is you do some damage, and I would imagine that that's another reason to increase your intake of Niagen, you know, as a way to repairing those muscles. So is there an angle there that you intend to kind of talk to consumers about? Wells believes that those, both of those angles are excellent. They believe that their consumer base will respond to the energy, and that they will also respond to the fact that a lot of the muscle loss, a lot of the weight loss is muscle loss. Mm-hmm. So taking Niagen is complementary. Good. I can just see some co-use and co-marketing opportunities, you know, coming out of this. Switching back to the ataxia program, share with us some thoughts about why this is the first one, you know, that you're going after? Is there something about the research that you've done that's put you further along? And you talk about some other opportunities, Parkinson's being, you know, the most obvious, that perhaps have a bigger, you know, end market. But you know, why start with this? Is it just more about where you are in the research? Yeah, it's a combination of factors, the largest one being where we are in the research. Mm-hmm. But also, in some ways, it's easiest for us. The cost of the study is gonna be dramatically lower than the study of some of other things. This is... You know, there aren't many ataxia patients, so the study will be a smaller study. The number of participants will probably be less than 100. Got it. Assume the FDA agrees. Right. and then, the likelihood is that we probably... We're hopeful that we won't have to do two studies. We're hopeful that it's just one study leads- Right ... to drug approval, and then we have the expertise in-house, you know, both on our SAB and with our internal scientists and some of the relationships that we've formed. So we know a lot about it, the mechanisms of action, and these studies that have been done already are consistent with those mechanisms of action. So we believe there's a high probability of success. Okay, that's helpful. And maybe you talked on the last call about what the timing might look like for some efficient progress on the Parkinson's stuff, so, you know, certainly looking forward to hearing more about that. And from taking a step back from an investor standpoint, you know, and I don't wanna set expectations too high or too low, but when do you think that we'll actually start to see some, you know, kind of meaningful, needle-moving impact to reported revenue on this? And kind of along those lines, you know, is this something you intend to, over time, let investors know what the revenue impact is of some of these new ventures, to give us an idea of, you know, how that's going? We expect to see revenue as early as the third quarter for the IV initiative. Mmh. Then we expect it to grow from there. In terms of ataxia, obviously there's, you know, that's gonna take some time because assuming we do the study, the study is successful, and we get drug approval, so you're talking probably years before ataxia. There is a voucher program that if you do get FDA approval for a drug, an orphan disease, as of now, there is this program where you can. They give you a voucher that is marketable, a marketable voucher, which enables you to get to the head of the line for future FDA approvals. Mmh. The market value of those vouchers presently are around $100 million. Wow! So that is a meaningful asset if it comes together. That would, you know, be within probably a couple of years as well. And then Parkinson's. Now, Parkinson's is a unique case because the likelihood is that we will apply for drug approval in the EU, where the study is being conducted, assuming that the study comes in positive. Obviously, that's an unknown. It's a completely blinded, controlled study. We don't know the results at all. And we may hold off on pursuing FDA approval for Parkinson's, which would have probably a fairly dramatic impact on sales of Tru Niagen as a consumer product in the US. Mmh. We would hope that would be. Well, obviously, it, it'll be about a year before we see the results, and if they're positive, it might be a few months after that before they get published. Mmh. So it probably would not have a meaningful sales impact in 2025. Right. Okay. Great, well, we're nearing the end of the second quarter, and it's gonna be a bit longer after that until we get the results. But certainly looking forward to seeing what you have to say at that time about it, and I'll be on the lookout for where I can find Niagen Plus at a clinic near me once you give it a shot. Right. Well, thank you both very much. I really appreciate you making yourself available for this opportunity. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. And Ben. Sean, Rob, thank you very much for your time today. I certainly found this very informative, and I believe our audience did as well. Before we wrap it up, quick reminder to anyone who has not already signed up for a one-on-one, please send me an email at shamsian@lythampartners.com, and we all hope you have a good rest of the conference. Thanks, everyone.