It's always great when you get to talk to executives from publicly traded companies, right? You kind of get some insights on what's going on with the stock, not just today, but also, what's the company looking to achieve here in the future as well. As I mentioned, we've got Greg here today with us, who is the President and CEO of Artelo Biosciences. Ticker on the NASDAQ is ARTL, All Access starts right now. Greg, how's it going?
Oh, it's going great this morning. How are you doing, Sinead?
I'm doing well. I, you know, before we start, I see the 3, like, bottles that you have behind you. I really hope that you drink water out of them because I have the same thing at my kitchen, but I don't, so it's just for show.
It's just for show.
I love it. Well, hey, welcome to the show. I'm looking forward to the conversation. For the folks that might not be familiar with your company, just give me a quick brief overview of what is it that your company does.
Yeah, thanks, Sinead, and thanks for the opportunity here. By the way, I will be making some forward-looking statements, and all of our public disclosures are on our website at artelobio.com. We're a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused in on lipid signaling modulation with three assets in development. One is in the clinic, two are preclinical, one's about ready to go into the clinic, and we're going after billion-dollar market opportunities, many of which do not even have an FDA approval to treat that condition.
Yeah. You know, when it comes to biosciences and companies that are in the biopharmaceutical side, what are some of the challenges that you personally face, right? I can kind of assume based on things that I read and talked to other executives, but what are some challenges that y'all face, and more importantly, how is your company best equipped to handle those challenges?
Well, you know, we're at the forefront of science here, and I would say that the biggest challenge that we face here, particularly at Artelo, we have brand new science. We're actually the tip of the spear. The program that we're most excited about, in the near term is, a Fatty Acid Binding Protein 5 inhibitor, and there is no program that has gone into the clinic with this science. So, the biggest challenge that we have is learning about the science and having the right talent on the team that can advance that science and get it into the clinic. Fortunately, we have been able to build that team.
Now, what the modification of the lipid signaling pathways, right, how is that effective in the ailments that you treat?
Well, so let me just give you a, when we talk about fatty acids, I just want to make sure all the hearers are understanding. So, you can think of omega-3, that fish oil, everybody kind of knows what that is. And in the body, the architecture of cells, the energy that cells use, and the communication within cells is all done with these fatty acids. But imagine if you owned the economy and you owned all the electrical grid and you had all the telecommunications, you'd pretty much own the economy. So, fatty acids are really, really important in our body's communications. And the transporter or carrier of those fatty acids are a protein called fatty acid binding proteins.
The body has 10 of them, and we're specifically looking at FABP5 or number 5 out of the 10, and this has a lot of biological implications when inhibiting it. So, in things like cancer or pain and inflammation, these proteins are upregulated and bringing it back to normal seems to have some real potential in therapeutics development.
Well, so in that, though, how are you able to, or I guess in that process and other things you're working on, how are you able to not have the cannabinoids not be present in the therapies as well?
So, this protein regulates your self-made cannabinoids. Your body makes its own endocannabinoids or targeted fatty acids or lipids that cause the signaling inside the body. So, your body makes that own production, so we don't have to exogenously or from outside the body bring in a cannabinoid. We're actually regulating what's made inside the body and the fats, but it's also the fats that or lipids that come from the food that we eat. You know, if someone eats fruits, nuts, animal protein, fish, they're going to get these fatty acids that are regulated by the protein.
Now, I know you were just a finalist for Johnson & Johnson's Innovation Challenge, so congrats on that. But before I touch base on that, I wanted to go to news that came out earlier this year, how you announced a new peer review preclinical research. I know you mentioned that a little bit briefly. That's the ART26.12, right, and that's the effectiveness of it. Is there more insights that you have on that with any data?
Well, we actually put some news out even this morning that this fatty acid binding proteins do a lot of functions within the body. In the area of pain and inflammation, which is the low-hanging fruit, and that's what we're filing our IND so that we can eventually, later this year start treating patients. This regulates the transport of your self-made cannabinoids that go into the cell and get taken to a lipase called Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase and get destroyed. And so, you can increase your own body's levels of your self-made cannabinoids. You don't have to get cannabinoids outside the body.
Yeah.
The paper that came out this morning, the peer-reviewed paper that came out this morning, talks about this role of Fatty Acid Binding Protein 7 that's upregulated in many cancers like breast cancer, kidney cancer, brain cancer, and sometimes 20 times that of normal. And so bringing that back to normal levels seems to have some potential in various cancers.
Yeah. Well, I mean, you've got Johnson & Johnson that also sees potential in what you're doing. I mean, look, how many times have we heard that, hey, it's the team that's running the ideas and the execution that really kind of makes things happen? Tell me why you believe that, you know, you were selected, and what, what does that mean in terms of the team that you have doing what y'all are doing?
Well, they were looking for something in atopic dermatitis, and we don't have any research, that you can think of, eczema. We don't have any particular research in eczema or atopic dermatitis, but we do have some data, some very good data in psoriasis. And I challenged the team. I said, "Think about a drug that's used in psoriasis that's not used in atopic dermatitis." And with that basis, Johnson & Johnson also recognized, like I said earlier, we're the tip end of the spear. We're really innovative science, and they wanted to get a hold of what we're working on and get that introduction.
Have you noticed? Let's talk about the sector maybe a little bit, right? Taking a step back and we'll zoom back in. Have you noticed any tide change in the biotech space in terms of investments with maybe money moving back in the markets? Because it's, it's kind of volatile sometimes, right? I know I just went to a cannabis conference in Florida, and I know that's always kind of an up-and-down thing, even though you have election year with results coming up later this year. What's your, what's your thought process? Any tide change in biotech investments?
There is a tide change, and it has happened at the beginning of this year. Unfortunately, it's started at the very top, and it's trickling down to companies like ours. But I think what's really exciting about companies like ours is that when that tide change does come down, there can be real exponential opportunity. And I've seen significant multiples when the attention is brought back to the early-stage biotech companies like Artelo.
You know, companies that are in the biospace or anything in general, in any space, having good cash flow, making sure that your balance sheet looks good is always kind of important. Now, I know there's some things that you're able to speak on, some things you're not. You're publicly traded, so I want to let the viewers know that ahead of time. How were you able to, I guess is a better question, to reduce that net loss for 2023, right? By, I think, approximately $0.8 million compared to 2022. How were you able to successfully do that and make sure that you're healthy in the financial aspect of it?
We've been very, very thoughtful about our expenses, and we have not increased our staff over the near-term past.
Yeah.
We've been only spending on things that are going to drive us towards that finish line of the card flips. But that's the exciting thing about Artelo is that by the investments that we've made by next year, we could have 3-5 clinical-stage data announcements because we've really honed in on that. And some of the exploratory research, which is very important for long-term drug development, we've had to push a pause on so that we can focus on really getting to these near-term milestones.
Now, we've talked about so many different things with the past, the present, and, you know, kind of the future as well. Any topics, any insights that you were hoping you'd get a chance to talk to our viewers about that I didn't bring up? The floor's kind of all yours here.
Well, thank you very much. I think we've got really what's really exciting about Artelo is that typically in small biotechs, people will place one bet, you know, put their stack of chips out, and then they'll get to spin the roulette wheel or let the horse run, and they get one chance at getting a return on that investment. At Artelo, it's a little bit different. We're asking really for one place of chips, and then there's three big milestones coming in the next 18 months, across our portfolio. And I would say the deck is stacked in our favor rather than against our favor. Our lead drug has been in 250 people. We know the profile. It's very safe. It appears to be very safe, and only the FDA can actually say that it's safe.
But it appears to, from the data that we have, very safe, and it needs to perform in the area of cancer anorexia, which there's no FDA-approved drug to treat. The second drug has shown tremendous safety profile in its preclinical animal studies, both in dogs and rats, and we're looking forward to that in humans. And then our last drug, which we really didn't get to talk about, our cocrystal, has shown tremendous opportunity in the treatment of anxiety. And 30 years ago, I was part of the launch of Xanax, and we really haven't changed the treatment of anxiety in the, in, in the U.S. in 30 years. And I'm excited about what this drug in our portfolio can eventually do as well.
Yeah. Well, I mean, if you listen to folks on Twitter apparently doing 10 pushups helps you with anxiety, so what do I know? But, I mean, I can give you, you know, another 30 seconds here. Do you want to talk about that drug or any future that people can look forward to?
Absolutely. So, we did a stress-induced rat model of anxiety and depression, and our drug in 9 different tests, 3 on anxiety, 2 on depression, 2 on sociability. Not sure why those balloons have gone off.
They're excited just as much as you and I are.
It's amazing. 2 on sociability, meaning interaction, and then 2 on cognition. You've heard, "Please don't operate heavy machinery while, you know, taking this drug." And in all 9 tests, our drug performed extremely well at one-third the amount of cannabidiol, therapeutic cannabidiol, that it was in the comparator arm. So, we're really excited about what this can eventually mean, potentially, for people with anxiety.
Well, hey, I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much again for the conversation. Like you said, you've got three things in the pipeline. Looking forward to hearing successful stories about all of them next time we talk.
Sinead, thank you very much for your preparation. Thanks for the interview. I enjoyed speaking with you.
Absolutely. You take care.
All right. Thank you.
Of course, you know, this is why we bring executives on, so you can get insights. I really am looking forward to the anxiety aspect of it. That's one of the three things that they're working on. So, as always, you've heard insights from the executives themselves, and do your own due diligence to see if this is worth something that's, you know, your hard-earned money. I like the story itself. I like what I'm hearing. I look forward to seeing how things progress with all three different things in the pipeline. But that was Greg Gorgas, who's the President and CEO of Artelo Biosciences. Ticker on the NASDAQ is ARTL. Thank you for watching All Access.