LexaGene Holdings, Inc., CEO Jack Regan (TSX-V: LXG; OTCQB: LXXGF) – RICH TV LIVE – January 12, 2021 – LexaGene Holdings, Inc., (TSX-V: LXG; OTCQB: LXXGF) (the “Company”), a molecular diagnostics company that develops fully automated rapid pathogen detection systems, is pleased to announce that it has started a series of studies required by the FDA for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) testing for its COVID-19 assay in a point-of-care (POC) environment using its fully automated MiQLab™ system.
Hi how’s everybody doing today i’m your host rich here we have a rich tv live with our very special guest the ceo of lexigene holdings jack regan how you doing today jack i’m doing great thank you thank you for joining us very excited to speak to you there’s a lot of big news coming for lexigene holdings and we’re very excited and the big news that’s coming is
That you’ve developed a fully automated molecular diagnostic system for rapid pathogen detection and genetic testing can you tell us a little bit more about your company and your product yeah sure so so we are a molecular diagnosis company we’re located just north of boston and we have developed a very very easy to use system designed to be placed at the point
Of care right now there’s obviously a ton of focus on diagnostics not all diagnostics are created equal and the gold standard diagnostics is pcr and what we have done is we’ve automated pcr and we’re bringing that to the point of care traditionally that pcr is actually done in a reference lab and takes days to get the results back our value prop is bringing
That high quality reference lab test really to the point of care provide a rapid answer to allow for more informative decision making that’s fantastic now the myq lab system has a wide variety of industry applications can you tell us what your four target markets are and the opportunities they offer lexigene yeah sure so lex jim was founded pre-covered and
So prior to covid you know we were focused really on what we consider to be underserved markets the veterinary diagnostics mark in the food safety markets are two markets in desperate need of new testing technologies and those markets are underserved and so it’s a great opportunity for us to get in provide you know high quality tests uh with effectively no
Competition coronavirus came along and all of a sudden blew up the world so to speak and has been the focus of everybody today and so with the emergence of the coronavirus we’ve had to look at our offerings and say listen okay that diagnostic still a primary market for us we’re moving coronavirus up to obviously top on the list other things for us now again
Food safety we’re still very very interested in food safety we’re going to be supporting food safety through our open access application and that is the fourth that that you referred to a lot of people have a tough time grasping what open access means and so if you think about open access you know what is it it’s sort of the ability of the end user to if
You will customize the instrument to have it automate the test that they are interested in so our device as core is a microfluidic machine and this machine is you know programmed if you will to perform the pcr test because we’re microfluidic we actually can automate somebody else’s test and that’s very very unique in the industry and so there’s a lot of need
Out there for routine pcr testing outside of human clinical diagnostics you’ve got pharmaceutical companies you have biotech companies you have academics governments the list goes on and on where people want to do high quality pcr testing we enable that with our machine and we’re very excited to really be the first company to be offering an instrument that
Really empowers the end user to create a fully customized pcr test using their own chemistry if they so choose that said obviously lexigene is developing and validating its own chemistry for more applied markets like coronavirus testing you know veterinary diagnostics etc why is rapid pathogen testing and detection more important right now in 2021 than ever
So obviously testing is paramount you’ve heard it in the news how there’s a huge lack of testing initially and then a wave of new tests came onto the market and there’s so many different tests to choose from importantly not all tests are created equal so just because you’ve received say a coronavirus test does not necessarily mean you should trust the data
You know right now the fda is getting more and more i would say vocal calling out tests which are performing subpar a lot of technologies or companies pushed their technology onto the market uh with if you will inflate claims about their sensitivity their specificity and the fda is now getting caught up saying hey listen you know we’ve actually done some work
On our end and your instrument or your technology isn’t as good as you claim buyer beware you have a higher false negative rate and a higher false positive rate than has been actually advertised and so for testing it’s very very important that you have faith in the data there are too many tests being used today which arguably are promoting the continued spread
Of this pandemic and that needs to stop we need to start using technology which is really considered gold standard to have that sensitivity to have that specificity so that when somebody gets tested you have confidence in the results and right now with the antigen test and some of the ecothermal tests and for that matter even some of the pcr tests they aren’t
Quite meeting the bar and the fda is starting to become much more vocal about calling those technologies out so that the buyers are aware of the risks and can really focus on higher quality diagnostics and that’s exactly where lexington fits in now lexigene has had a very very busy 2020 and things have been moving really fast for you guys can you talk about
Some of the milestones that you hit in 2020 now that we’re in 2021 yeah so you know we are still a young company we are a growing company and you know when a company’s young and growing it goes through transitions prior to i would argue december of this past year we were really strictly an r d company december we had a very very major milestone which was
Selling our first systems we sold two systems in december granted it’s a um an indication of the fact that we are now going to be hitting these markets hard in 2021 and so i want to focus on that milestone because it’s a critical milestone there are so many companies out there which make inflated claims and they never get their technology to the point where
One they can manufacture two that can demonstrate need and three they can actually get buyers who have actually gone out done their research looked at the competition and decided your technology is the right solution for them and it’s been very very gratifying for us for instance one of our press releases was when a contract drug manufacturer contacted
Us asking if they could if we could solve a problem for them and their problem was this slow growing bacteria which ends up you know crashing out their bioreactors costing them hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars if that happens and their current solution isn’t good enough because it’s too slow and they want to turn to genetics to see if we
Can solve the problem they came to our facility checked us out gave us samples had us run those samples and sure enough our technology was a great solution for them and they adopted it it’s a great example of how open access is so powerful because they came to us with the need we very quickly configured the instrument uh to meet their need likewise on vet
Diagnostics one of our early beta testers is adopter of technology and so the fact that we’re now selling it’s a huge huge milestone for the company because it checks a lot of the boxes as far as okay you know does the technology work can the company actually manufacture it can the company go through the transition of an r d company to one that’s supporting
Manufacturing marketing and sales and we’ve done that are we completely through that process no we’re not we’re still a growing company importantly in 2021 we’re really going to be gaining a lot of momentum now when you’re building a new business and you’re going from an r d company to a company that’s selling products that you talked about there’s going to
Be some challenging and exciting moments along the way can you talk about some of the most challenging and exciting moments you’ve had as a company so um challenging and exciting or challenging or exciting so let’s do challenging and exciting okay well well first uh let’s focus on the challenging part you know the coronavirus has been extremely challenging
For everybody including companies you know you know here we are we’re a small company um it’s critical every team member is critical and so we personally i i am concerned that we don’t have an outbreak at the company and so you know we’ve implemented safety measures here at the company we’re encouraging people who can work remotely to work work remotely but
Nonetheless the whole chronovirus pandemic presents a challenge for all companies including ours and so that has been a challenge not unique to us but certainly the fact that sometimes you try to order a part we’re in molecular diagnostics there’s a tremendous demand for some types of components and where previously we get things like in a week now we have to
Wait weeks if not months for something so certainly supply chain has been very very challenging for us we’re managing as best we can nonetheless that’s a constant challenge and also frankly a worry you know here we are fortunately knock on wood we haven’t had any you know outbreaks of the company we test weekly you know we try to you know exercise you know
Good social distancing and safety measures nonetheless moving forward this pandemic is you know expanding and certainly i hold my breath that we don’t have an outbreak at the company unfortunately we haven’t and so that’s on the challenging side on the exciting side you know for me it’s been extremely gratifying you know having the company mature to the point
That it’s reached and getting that critical milestone of starting sales it’s not an achievement that should be glossed over so many companies never make it to the point that we’ve made it to and we’re really just starting to roll and so we’re very excited about 2021 largely because we have plenty of cap of cash in the treasury and you know we have you know a
Deep sales funnel and we’re really looking forward to uh executing those sales in 2021. what should investors keep an eye on for lexi jean in 2021 obviously the years just started everybody’s excited all companies have huge plans and goals that they want to roll out what do we have in store for investors in 2021 so lexigene just started its eua study for
Current virus testing and this is something that really the technology was built for if you go back and look at my background i did my phd in influenza research and so if you will i’m an expert in influenza biology and all along we’re thinking okay av influenza is going to be the next pandemic and you know that was most virologists concerned and here we are
And you know obviously the coronavirus really started very very late you know uh 2019 but it really hit us in 2020 so what can you expect at lex gene in 2021 and so i i’ve really transformed this company pushed the team to go towards human clinical diagnostics earlier than we were expecting i mean it was a market that was obviously topping our mind but
Nonetheless for a young company to be pursuing fta so early is a little bit unique but we do have a unique opportunity to get our technology into the field where it really is designed to shine and i want to highlight one of the same features of our technology which isn’t available with any other technology our technology i mentioned earlier in the interview
Is open access why is this so important if you look at what’s happening today new variants of this virus are being detected you’ve heard about the uk strain which you know 70 percent more contagious we often have now have this south african strain which experts are now very very worried might be a strain that could effectively evade the vaccine in some sense
That it’s not a good match to the vaccine so what happens if all sudden this variant starts circulating we don’t get great containment and next thing you know it’s spreading and even people who have either previously been sick by coronavirus or vaccinated are not immune to that new strain and now they’re getting reinfected and we basically don’t get out of
The cycle of this coronavirus pandemic which would be horrible and so how does lexing fit in as a solution and so and why is open access point of care pcr technology so important it’s important because our technology is going to be the fastest technology to implement new tests at the point of care and that’s critical for helping contain new variants before
They spin out of control the thing about a pandemic is you never want to get to a pandemic you want to stop it as a still a small outbreak and really the only way to do that is to have technology like lexigenes myqlab operate at the point of care where it can very quickly be configured to detect new variants to help really contain the virus now we’re going
To have investors from all over the world watching this video we’ve already had some really good response from investors that think that your company is going to explode with fda approval that there’s huge upside some people are saying crazy upside potential which is really exciting how can an investor get in contact directly with you jack the ceo of lexigene
Holdings if they’re interested in investing or learning more about the company yeah i really pride myself on being accessible when possible i try to directly respond to inquiries um we have a web excuse me an email address it’s ir lexigene.com i do get all those emails now obviously i have a team that helped me respond to some of them but certainly if you have
Any questions at all reach out to us either myself or my team will respond and we’ll try to address your questions as best we can and certainly we’re very excited about 2021 you know it’s going to be a what we believe to be a great year for the company well thank you so much for your time today jack regan the ceo of lexigene holdings a company that i find to
Be very undervalued under-appreciated underexposed and potentially with fda approval around the corner could be a huge catalyst for the company so thank you for your time today jack i wish you all the best of luck in 2021 and beyond thank you so much appreciate it have a nice day everybody and thank you for watching you
Transcribed from video
LexaGene Holdings, Inc., CEO Jack Regan (TSX-V: LXG; OTCQB: LXXGF) By RICH TV LIVE