Ketamine Wafers, Cannabis Medicine & The Future of Biotech –Dr. Janakan Krishnarajah Unplugged

How far would you go to reshape medicine?

Dr. Janakan Krishnarajah has led over 100 clinical trials, transitioning from bedside physician to a biotech disruptor. On this episode, he reveals that turning point—and the early challenge that redefined his path.

Next: he developed Wafermine, the world’s first sublingual ketamine wafer for acute pain—a bold alternative in the opioid era. How did he convince skeptics this wasn’t anesthesia or recreational use, but revolutionary pain management? We dig into the story behind the innovation and the FDA and EMA approvals that made Phase 3 trials possible

And then came Xativa, a freeze-dried medicinal cannabis wafer. We explore how iX Biopharma pushed this disruptive therapy into mainstream medicine—despite regulatory headwinds and stigma.

This isn't all success: Dr. Krishnarajah opens up about a major setback when dreaming big went wrong—and the lessons that changed his leadership style. You’ll hear why he lives by “pursue life with your whole heart, without regrets,” and how that mantra shapes innovation and company culture at iX Biopharma.

From the explosive growth of the global medicinal cannabis market to the rise of longevity medicine, this conversation spans the past, present, and future of healthcare. What does sublingual NAD for longevity really hold? Is it breakthrough or overhyped? Only one way to find out.

Want the full story behind modern medicine’s boldest bets? Tune in now.

Learn more about Dr. Janakan Krishnarajah and iX Biopharma:

• Official site: ixbiopharma.com
• Product pipeline & platform WaferiX: HERE

We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.

Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast

Transcript

Dr. Spencer Baron: 0:00

What do you get when a doctor who's led over 100 clinical trials steps away from the bedside to create drugs that no one thought possible, like the world's first sublingual ketamine wafer for pain relief or or a freeze dried cannabis wafer? Well, visionary, risky and is sublingual NAD the future of longevity, or just hype. Today on the cracking backs podcast, we sit down with Dr janakin Krishna Raja to uncover bold ideas that are disrupting medicine and why the next decade of healthcare may look nothing like you'd expect.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 0:40

I welcome,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 0:44

Dr janekin Krishna Raja, boy, that was a that was a tongue full, right there. Thank you. It's you are a physician turned biotech leader. I think that is the coolest thing. We met you at one of the a 4m conferences, and I was immediately fascinated by not only your character, but your intelligence. And we looked into your background, and as a Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Officer of IX biopharma, you've overseen some groundbreaking developments that we want to talk about regarding, not so much the drug delivery, but all the healthcare aspects that are really becoming forefront right now, and I think you'll have a lot to offer. And you are broadcasting all the way from Singapore, which is extremely cool.

Dr. Janakan Krisnarajah: 1:31

So welcome to the show. Thanks for having me both. It's great to be here.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:35

Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. So you've been on the front and center of more than 100 clinical trials, which is fascinating, because for those who don't understand that, the medical equivalent, equivalent to that would be like a like 100 high stake, you know, maybe military missions or something like that. But what, what originally pulled you away from treating patients at the bedside and into the world of drug development, and was there a defining, you know, challenge or project early on that really shaped your journey, right?

Unknown: 2:08

Great question. I've never had it put that way in terms of that analogy, so I don't quite think of it as grueling as what you mentioned. But oh no, look, it's an exciting field. Exciting field, nonetheless. How did I get involved? Well, as you mentioned, you know, physician by training and and then I went into sub specialize, into internal medicine and clinical pharmacology, and the latter being the study of drugs and how it interacts with the body, how they interact with each other. And part of that also, I found an interest in, an intellectual interest in, how do we actually, you know, develop drugs, and how do we trial them to ensure that not only are they safe, but they work? And so with that, with that interest, I got involved in a in very early stages of a clinical trials facility that was being set up in in Australia, which is where I trained in practice clinical medicine. And and so we set that up. And, you know, we were essentially running early phase clinical drug trials and, and that is the first time, in particular, focusing on what we call first in human trials. So the first time a new drug that's a new chemical entity, makes that big jump from, you know, being tested in animals and being shown to be safe and potentially effective to going into humans, it's a big jump, right? Because there's a huge translational gap you don't exactly know, so you've got to take great precautions. And you know, the first person that gets dosed is the first person anywhere in the world. And that's the kind of work we were doing for pharma and biotech companies, most of whom actually were from the United States, where, you know, obviously, there's plenty of innovation and great, great companies. And so that's, that's how we got, I got involved in with that interest. I was the investigator, so, you know, the medical investigator for a number of those studies, as you mentioned. So that's, that's how I was doing that whilst practicing clinical medicine. And, you know, it's obviously very similar, but that had its own challenges.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 4:12

Oh, that's fantastic. So in your work, you you turn this unconventional idea into reality, for example, like developing wafer mind. You know that that being the world's, you know, first sublingual ketamine wafer for pain relief. I'm actually quite surprised at how many patients have tried ketamine to help with their mental, emotional conditions. And you know, it's being one of the world's first sublingual wafer for pain relief. You know, that's pretty, pretty bold move because, and by the way, so many of our listeners may be associating ketamine with more than anesthesia or even more than a nightclub use. But. This. This is, you know, more than an everyday medicine. So what inspired you to to to move on that subject as we progress through some of the other things you've done?

Unknown: 5:09

Yeah, absolutely. Well, actually, it was, it was the product that interested me to then sort of make that move from being a clinician, seeing patients and running clinical trials, but on the investigator side, not on the not on the drug development side. The short story is, I came across IX biopharma as an investigator running their clinical studies, and got to understand the technology of sublingual delivery, which is the basis of which the product you mentioned, wane, which is something called ketamine, was was founded around and I saw the great, you know, that's the technology work. Because, you know, we saw the data. We saw that, wow, that this can, can deliver various drugs very effectively across the membrane, underneath the tub. And there's a whole, you know, there's a whole reason why we would even look at that as a route of administration, which we, if you want to get into we can talk about later. But essentially, you know, when I was approached to come and join the company, it was again taking that new challenge to go, okay, instead of running a clinical study, then handing it back to the company, who then go on and further develop it. This was quite an exciting challenge to go, Okay, now I can actually take a program and run it through and try and see that through towards the end, and see that then get, you know, in the hands of patients or clinicians, and then patients, ultimately, which is, which is, you know, very satisfying. And one of the products that was just being started to be looked at was, was ketamine with within using the wafer technology, and so I had experience with ketamine. We were it's an interesting story where I was actually the first year I started practicing in the hospitals. It was back in 2002 and I'm not sure if you recall or this was, I suspect it made headlines over in your neck of the woods, but there was this horrific terrorist bombing in Bali in 2002 if you remember that, and, and, yeah, and, you know, I it was at it Was it was so Bali is about a three hour, just over a three hour flight from Western Australia. Perth, the capital of Western Australia. So it's actually Perth is where I train, is the most isolated capital city in the world. So three hour flight is actually really close. Just to put it into context, it takes four it's like going sort of east coast, west coast in the United States to get to any, no major city, it's a four hour flight within the country to get to the next capital city three, four hours. So So Bali was a very common holiday destination for people where I lived, and needless to say, I'd been to that same club, but a year before, where the where the bombing went off. But needless to say, was horrific event, significant. You know, scores of people were burned, and they needed to airlift all these people to to get treatment. And in Indonesia, which is where Bali is, you know, there was limited capabilities to do that. So the vast and there were a lot of foreigners, right? Because this was in a tourist part of the town of the island, and and they airlifted scores of these patients to to Australia to be treated. And I was in this one of the major hospitals in Western Australia. And you know, we needed to treat these patients. And ketamine had been used very effectively to treat and manage patients with birds for their dressing changes. So procedural pain. Can you imagine second degree burn you're wrapped up, you've got to do dressing changes daily, maybe twice daily, how painful that is just to try and remove that bandaging every time. It's probably worse than the initial insult, right? And and so they give ketamine, dissociative anesthetic and dissociative analgesic to help do that. But what happened was, you know, the hospital wasn't equipped. You know, this is about a 600 bed hospital wasn't equipped, though, to deal with all of these patients and have these patient controlled analgesic pumps, these IV pumps to administer ketamine. So the patient, okay, I'm going to administer the ketamine just before they tell, you know, tell the patient, just press this, press this, and then do the procedure, the dressing change. And so, you know, we had a and head of pain medicine who just joined, who's a professor, who's actually an advisor in our company, Professor Stefan Shug, and he was very experienced in ketamine. And he said, Look, we don't have enough pumps. Let's mix it in some orange juice, because it's quite bitter, and we'll give it to them in their mouth orally, under the tongue. And that was sort of how sublingual ketamine, at least in that part, you know. And they've got great experience now, probably some of the best, I would say, probably, probably the leaders in the world, because. It's now been 20 plus years of using this approach. And so these patients were getting ketamine mixed in orange juice, administered orally under the tunnel, and then dressing changes were being done, and it was quite remarkable. And then went on to the hospital. Tried to compound that in the in the pharmacy department, but it was a great opportunity of a combination of the sublingual delivery technology from IX biopharma, which was homegrown, Australian, actually technology, even though we're a Singapore listed company, and combine that with with actually ketamine to deliver. And so that was how that was born. And I was very excited by that. And so, you know, that was part of the reason why I joined the company to help develop that, that product,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 10:47

brilliant and and thank you for sharing that story. We Yeah, all love stories, right?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 10:52

Terry, hey, perfect. Can I ask a question? Doc, I want to ask a street question, because I've always wanted to talk to somebody who who understands ketamine from your point of view, and because my son had broke his arm, these ketamine to put them under, to set the arm, and so I think it's a fantastic drug. However, especially since the last couple of years, that distrust for like Big Pharma is, I think, overtaken the use of pharma, right? And we're starting to hear ketamine now as a party drug, especially, you know, slip it under your tongue and feel high and feel great. And we're starting to see people associate ketamine with PTSD, with a form of LSD, and just tripping out and having this fun and having ketamine parties. How does somebody from the scientific side and the research side combat that? When, when you hear that, I mean, I'm sure it makes you sad. I'm sure you can go, Well, everybody's gonna misuse everything. But what's your from a scientific side way of combating that?

Unknown: 11:53

Yeah, I look absolutely. I mean, it's, it's special, k, right, is sort of one of the nicknames for it, and in Australia and in other places, special cases, cereal, breakfast cereal, in some, in some, in some parts of the world, it's not so look but to be honest, to be frank, it's actually that's been something that's been existing for a long time. So when we started to look at this, you know, about 10, you know, eight to 10 years ago that were, these were the challenges we're having. I think now it's, it's much more acceptable in medic by physicians, by medical practice, by government, you know, those in government, in governance, by the regulators, than it was, you know, back, back, say, 80s, 90s. It still obviously has that abuse potential. People do abuse it, but usually in significantly higher doses than what we are using for analgesia. In this instance, we're using what we call sub anesthetic dose, very low dose ketamine, but it's still very effective analgesic. So, you know, I think, I think people are much more educated about it. There's obviously been this renaissance of psychedelic drugs in recent years. And you know, it's an undulating course, but, you know, these were all developed back in the 60s, 70s. And you know, in history's history, they sort of were shelved, but have come back to to I guess, mainstream medicine, ketamine is probably the cleanest, if you would like, or the one that's most accepted, because it's got this 50 year history of continual use and and it is a lot of data in the literature of you know, physicians using ketamine off label to treat a variety of indications, including psychiatric indications. You mentioned PTSD, depression, as we know. And then a few years ago, in 2019 Janssen, under J and J Johnson, and Johnson took one form of ketamine, which we call esketamine, and got there and put it in an intranasal delivery and went through the approval process, and that's approved, as you may be aware, as provided for for depression, and I think that helped legitimize, as well ketamine, and so to understand the benefits of it, and and so, yeah, I think we're in a we're in a bit much better place in terms of understanding what ketamine can do, and also the safety aspects and the limited abuse potential, the consequences, if you think about it, we've just come through and still going through an incredible opioid epidemic. And I'm sure you're very well aware of the impact that's had on you know, it was a point in time where lifespan was decreasing, and it was attributable to in the generation, and partly attributable to for opioid, you know, the epidemic and deaths from opioids, 60,000 a year plus. It was crazy. And so having a non opioid analgesic which doesn't cause respiratory depression, you know, in the in sub anesthetic doses, was something that people said, hey, look this. Is really interesting. So, yeah, it's not without some challenges, but certainly, I think we're in a much better place to understand and how to use it than we were some years

Dr. Terry Weyman: 15:07

ago. So for the listening audience, is you're saying ketamine is not addictive. Oh, my

Dr. Spencer Baron: 15:13

God, I was going to ask that as exactly what I

Unknown: 15:15

was gonna ask. Look, I think the you know, it's what's been shown is that the abuse potential is limited, and the consequences of any abuses, I guess, compared to opioids, is minimal, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have some abuse potential in the susceptible individuals. So I think you know you have to, we have, you have to judiciously select your patients and monitor them. But you know, we've been, even though the product is still under undergoing clinical studies and trials, we've been through an exemption in in Australia, been supplying this to hospitals for the last 10 years, and over a million doses have been supplied to over 100 hospitals. Now we're pain specialists, and now, more recently, psychiatrists are prescribing this to the patients, not only in the hospital setting, but they're taking this product home, and they're having it at home, and there haven't been any reports of diversion or abuse over those years. And so, you know, I think if managed correctly in the right way, it's certainly less harmful than getting a prescription for potentially an opioid that you know happens every single minute of every single

Dr. Terry Weyman: 16:24

day. Thanks for Thanks for answering that. I really appreciate that. And Spencer, you can go about your Special K breakfast, and you're

Dr. Spencer Baron: 16:35

all good. Let me you actually mentioned something about transitioning doctors to use this type of ketamine. Did you say the company pays the doctor to to prescribe, or did?

Unknown: 16:54

Oh, sorry, no, no. So it's just that there is an avenue in the therapeutics good regulations in Australia where a doctor can prescribe, it's like off label prescribing, essentially, but where a hospital can order a unapproved medicine, provided that it's, there's no like approved product, and it's made under, you know, highest pharmaceutical grade, what we call cGMP. So you know, we have that license, the equivalent of the FDA in Australia, licensed manufacturing facility. Manufacturing facility there. And so everything is made to that highest quality, and it's made at the request of the prescribing physician. So now they do it off their own behest. We can't advertise, we can't market, we can't even talk to them about it. It's really up to them to knock on the door and say, Hey, we heard about this. And through word of mouth from doctor to doctor, you know, the last few years, you know, now there's over 100 hospitals who are ordering the product to treat their patients because, you know, there, there are limited alternatives in some of the in some of the cases.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 17:52

You know, this is interesting, because it both Dr Terry and I specialize in sports, sports injuries. And, you know, I'm at a time now, after all this, these years of practicing, that a lot of old, or excuse me, retired football players are coming in to get care. And I used to treat them when they were at their prime. Now they're miserable. In fact, just yesterday, I was treating somebody 13 surgeries, and he's in, he's in his early or maybe late 30s or early 40s, one of the 213 surgeries. Love the guy, and I used to treat him when he I mean big as a house anyway. Point is,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 18:39

by the way, doctor, he's only five four, so everybody's big, yeah, oh, he met me.

Unknown: 18:47

Yeah, that's just the physical presence.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 18:56

But this guy, like many others, are still doing oxycodone, right? Oh, wow. And I they're not, they're not addicted. I go, Yeah, but you know, it can't be that good. Would I mean, I'm not that. I am big on medication, but I mean, even transitioning to ketamine would be a step up up for them, wouldn't you think, I mean to get them off with it?

Unknown: 19:24

Yeah, I mean, it's one of the alternatives. And, you know, it's, it's opioid sparing. If you take it with opioids, you can use less opioids. It could be part of a combination. It could be part of a replacement, substitution. And again, it just, it's, you know, it's just choosing. It's just part of the armamentarium. It certainly has its place, but you know, it again, you don't want to create something new with something else. It's certainly much safer, but you've got to gain judicious use of medicines. I completely agree with you right choose the right patient. It can do amazing things we've seen. You know? Experience where patients have been, you know, they've got terrible chronic neuropathic pain. I'm sure you've come across a lot of patients with this in your brain, yes, and what do you do with some of these patients? Because, you know, you can give them the approved medications and one in you know, the numbers needed to treat for some of these multi billion dollar drugs. Mind you, one in five, one in five, one in six, one in seven. You need to treat seven just to get one response. And they come with, you know, host of side effects, and some people just can't tolerate them. And then you go through the ladder and and they just come out the other end. And, you know, they sometimes they're worse off, and the last thing they wanted to do is go and see somebody else again. And in some of these patients taking a low dose of ketamine because of the way ketamine works through blocking, you know, the NMDA receptor, which really is sort of how the nerves communicate with each other and how the nervous system takes sensory inputs from the outside world. It actually can, it can sort of mitigate that chronification of pain. So if you, particularly, if you, if you can treat them early enough, you can maybe prevent some of that, you know, what we call wind up phenomenon, that chronification occurring. So, yeah, it can be life changing, just for some patients. So we've seen some amazing results,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 21:18

as much as Dr Terry and I are, you know, very, you know, we've been practicing a non drugless approach for so many years, but it's always interesting to hear about the other side and alternatives, because we don't typically get pharmaceutical education, but hearing what you have to say as alternatives to some of the things that some of our patients are Doing that is much more critical. I actually practicing this year has been 40 years, and I've had two classmates die from oxycodone during that time, yeah, and I'd never, I never realized it until that and one was this beautiful girl, and she would ask me all she she would come in and get treated, and she got caught up, and this was maybe 15, no, 1520, years ago. And she would tell me, how are you able to write a prescription? It got to that point, and I go, No, why? And she mentioned oxycodone. But back then, nobody really knew what it could do. So anyway, those are the the the nightmares that I still harbor thinking man. I could have I knew more. I could have helped, you know. But anyway, so, moving on to other bold ideas, something that's much, even much more progressive, and that is the the ix biopharma created this sativa that freeze dried cannabis wafer that, you know, for medicinal use. Now it's so interesting, because even still, in Florida, the state of Florida, has not passed, you know, any kind of laws to, you know, be using it for recreationally, although, what California, right?

Dr. Terry Weyman: 23:07

California, of course, California, of course. Come on. So, come on over. Surfers, free love, all that stuff.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 23:19

So, so my question is, you know, you know, pushing a product like that into mainstream and all, so I'm sure, I mean, even back then, it would have raised some eyebrows, even now. But man, what a happier alternative to, you know, having, like a cannabis wafer than, you know, smoking a joint or weed or something like that. Tell me about, what some of the pushback or skepticism you had, you know, working on a product like that,

Unknown: 23:47

yeah, fairly limited. I mean, it's we really taken it a pharmaceutical approach and and the product is available under prescription in Australia, so it's a, you know, some of the states, of course, you know, medicine, medicinal cannabis, only the recreational ones you mentioned. So, so it's similarly, you know, it's only under a doctor's prescription. So the idea was that, again, you know, these are the technology is very good at improving the absorption of molecules, or in this case, you know, drugs that are poorly absorbed when you swallow them, because in some cases, they just get broken down by the harsh environment of the stomach. Or even if they do get absorbed from the gut, the liver then has does its detoxification, and by the time it gets into the bloodstream, you have not much left. In the case of cannabinoids like CBD, which is what's the active in sativa, or even THC, which is the active in another paralyuco, hypera, you know, you're looking at sort of 6% absorbed, or potentially even less of what you take, right? So there are a number of these drugs which are poorly orally bioavailable. Call it and and in some cases you need to inject them, like so even ketamine, you know, it's around 10% if you, if you swallow it. So, and there are, there are a whole heap of other other drugs that are very poorly absorbed. And so the whole take, the idea of the technology was, let's apply that to try to prove the absorption profile. Let's make it less variable, more consistent dosing, more predictable dosing. And so it's been actually really well received by the prescribers, by the physicians who are prescribed, who already, you know, they've decided that they are willing to look at cannabis and cannabinoids as a as a viable treatment option for their patients. And then they say, Well, this is like a pharmaceutical formulation, in the sense that we know exactly what the dose is. It's, you have to guess, it's not inhalation. We're getting variable dosing. It's fixed dose. It's, you know, it's made to the highest pharmaceutical grade, and, you know, faster onset of action. Because what's happening with sublingual absorption is that underneath the tongue there's a thin membrane, and under the thin membrane there's a whole rich network of blood vessels. And so the aim is, if you can get whatever it is you're trying to get through, underneath the tongue, through the membrane, into those little blood vessels. They drain directly into the neck veins and go straight into the heart and then get pumped around the body, it bypasses the gut and it bypasses the liver, something called first pass metabolism. So when you swallow something, the first pass effect is that through the stomach and the liver, it takes out, in these cases, 94% of the drug before it even gets into the blood circulation. So if you can bypass that through sublingual that's why, if you can, if you have a technology that can do that, and it took many, many, many years, because it's not as easy just putting something on top, but it took many, many years to develop a technology that can do that effectively for a wide range of different compounds.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 26:55

I am absolutely fascinated you. You read my mind. That's exactly the question I was gonna and you answered it beautifully. The effects of sublingual versus digestion, you know, regular swallowing and digestion or injection or whatever. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that

Dr. Terry Weyman: 27:12

that was, Hey, Doc, from a scientific point of view, when you talk about sublingual, how does a wafer differ from a sublingual tincture drop versus a sublingual gummy.

Unknown: 27:24

Yeah, okay, well, I haven't heard of the sublingual gummy, but I guess you can put anything, yeah,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 27:33

sorry, you can chew it up and then, yeah, okay, absolutely, and then

Unknown: 27:38

just let it sit let it sit there. Yeah. So absolutely, like so, so you know sublingual just means sub under lingual tongue. So if you put anything under your tongue, it's called sublingual. The issue is you need to do two things. You need to be able to disintegrate the dosage form, whether it's a gummy, a film, a tablet, or, in this case, a what we call a wafer. And that's to be honest, that's not, you know, there are a lot of different technologies that can do that, but you have to disintegrate it pretty, pretty quickly. The second thing, and the harder thing to do, is you have to actually release the active molecule, whatever it is, in this case, CBD, or whether it be ketamine, whether it be NAD or glutathione, or some of the other products we have, you need to be able to have that molecule released from the actual matrix that's, you know, that's a part of the formulation that that you're using that's much more trickier. And so what we did with is we came up with a paint, you know, it's patented technology, a special formulation of sugars and starches combined with a proprietary freeze drying process. So we lyophilize it, we freeze dry the product, and you end up with this wafer that's highly porous. It's what we call amorphous, which means non crystalline and non Ionic. And those three features are critical. So why we got the paint and why we got you know, the technology stands out is those three features allow the molecule, sorry, the wafer to disintegrate rapidly, but also release the molecule from the actual wafer, the housing, the scaffolding matrix, so that it can get absorbed effectively across the membrane. Because, remember, you've got a very short, small window of opportunity before the patient or the consumer goes and swallows. And once they do that, you might as well just have swallowed it in the first place. So what differentiates, you know, the wafer technology, wafer X, and our related technology, wafer logics, which is now, you know, we've gone into more complex molecules, like biologics, even GLP one drugs, which is actually a really interesting new product that we're developing, but that that all you know that differentiates the effectiveness of sublingual delivery. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to move the needle from oral ingestion towards sublingual and to be completely open. You know, you're not going to get 100% sublingual. Angle, because some of it's going to get swallowed. So for the example of drops of tinctures, the issue in a liquid form, for most people is that they end up swallowing a lot of it before it actually gets absorbed across the membrane. And that's the case for a lot of technologies or some of the other products that are put under the tongue. They look like they're disintegrated and dissolved, but they're still at a molecular level. You've still got whatever the matrix was of that formulation, encapsulating the active drug, and it just doesn't get through the membrane. It gets swallowed, and then whatever happens, happens.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 30:35

So you're finding like the tincture is people aren't really dropping them under the trunk and leaving it there. They're just putting their mouth thinking,

Unknown: 30:42

no, they will. I think a lot of people do put it under the tongue, but then it's about, okay, how can that actually get how quickly can that get absorbed? You know, we would put in things into the matrix that would help with the adhesion to the mucus layer as well, to improve the contact time and improve the flux across the membrane. So there are things that you know you want to try, and again, shift the needle in your favor, whatever you can do to get that improved. So ketamine, we can improve it by, you know, threefold overall. And you can take another drug, like, say, buprenorphine, which is an opioid drug, and improve that by, you know, three or fourfold. In some cases, we've improved it five fold so, or even more so that's, you know, you just want to do what you can to improve that absorption profile and predictability. And it's, it's certainly not as simple as just putting it over your

Dr. Terry Weyman: 31:34

tongue Perfect. Thank you for that. Because that that answers a lot of the different questions. I want to switch gears a little bit. You know, Dr Spencer and I are both, I mean, as doctors were not only doctor, we're also healers, but we're also business people and and sometimes, when we have big bold ideas like you have and sitting big bold targets, sometimes those dreams can just come with big stumbles. And how do you, can you talk about some of the times some of the time, some of your big dreams just stumbled, and how you got through it?

Unknown: 32:04

Yeah, well, you know, whenever you're in drug development, if you don't have a stumble, you probably haven't been around for too long. We've done too much, right? So, oh, it's littered. Where do I start? I mean, there, because you've got so many variables. It's a difficult it's a difficult business in the sense that you've got a lot of technical risk, you've got regulatory risks, you've got then commercial risks, if you can get to that point. So it's a challenging but very rewarding field, if you can get something that's going to actually, you know, have significant benefit for patients and consumers. You know, we've been, you know, we've had, we've had setbacks with, even initially, with the the ketamine product, for example, where one point in time, you know, we were getting results from clinical trials, we couldn't really understand what was what was happening. Apparently, why wasn't it being absorbed? We started then, as well as we thought it had been in the past, what had changed? Started to run additional form, you know, additional clinical studies. And these are not cheap, right, as you can imagine, to do this. And it took a long, long time. As soon after I actually got started the business, and we were trying to figure this out, ran some more studies, getting unusual results. And, you know, it kind of came back at the end of it to some data that was misinterpreted earlier, that really led us down a wild goose chase when actually the product hadn't really changed. And, you know, so you you go through this, and you come back, you know, but we came back to the right place, and, you know, continue to move on and develop the product we, you know, we've had some challenges where we've, you know, we've looked at partnering programs so that, you know, we can develop it together. These are very expensive, you know, as I said, undertakings. And so for a company of our size, we've we've often looked to try and partner and in situations where our partners come undone, you know, from a financial perspective, and install the program completely to the point where we've had to actually, you know, go back and pick it up again, you know, and restart that. And so, you know, there are challenges everywhere you look. But that's part of, part of, parcel of of what we're trying to do, and we're trying to do something that no one's done before. So it's always going to be challenging.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 34:30

You know, doing nobody's done before. I mean, I think Dr Spencer, I love that. That push your your mantra, you only have one life, pursue it with the whole heart and live with no regrets. Reminds me of even Walt Disney. He says, We won't come to work. We will come and play. And because he goes, when people are happy and play, pursuing happiness, they get more stuff done. How does that mantra and the philosophy show up in the way you lead your people? Yeah.

Unknown: 34:58

I mean, we you. You know, I think what we are doing, you know, we've always got to keep in front of mind what is the outcome. It's very easy to get lost in the day to day and the tasks, right? Because that's ultimately what gets us to that endpoint. But I think just refocusing on what is the outcome. And so, you know, one of the things that we have done in the past is trying to, you know, we try to do more of and I guess we probably can do even more of it, but it's just to try and close that loop. And actually, you know, if there are examples of patients who have actually taken it's taken the product, and, you know, especially in the context where, even whilst we're developing it, if it can be, if it can be supplied under off label or, you know, a special access scheme, and we can get that feedback from those patients, we can see the impact on the patients and on the patient's lives, or the consumers lives, in the case of nutraceutical wellness products, and feeding that back that that just really highlights exactly what the mission that we're on. I think it's easy sometimes to get lost in, as I mentioned, you know, the tasks and the day to day and but, you know, keep bringing it back to making that because all of us have had either a personal experience within ourselves or a family member or a very close friend who, you know, has had some benefit from something that somebody else developed many years ago, went through those challenges. So, you know, I think that's really important for us, just to keep bringing that back to, why are we doing this? And, you know, I think that helps keep everyone motivated and push through when it gets a little bit more challenging,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 36:31

you often have, I mean, after speaking on, you know, obstacles to overcome, and you know, the industry that you're in has changed over the years, and maybe even now, with, you know, with, you know, new government and so on, it's probably changing even more. So, you know, good or bad, that's not the point. It's just change and dealing with that change. So, you know, in that healthcare and, you know, biotech industry, you know, when compared to when you first started to now, you know, I want to know what, what's ahead. And you had mentioned something about the GLP one, which is, for those listeners who don't know what that is, that's, that's the ozempic and moderno. That's the the weight loss medication that, even that, in the last couple in the last year, has exploded, taken on, it's exploded. But even take now, taking on, you know, micro dosing versus, you know, you know, macro dosing. You know, so. And actually, if I could throw one more example in there, you know, the just the cannabis market and how, you know, in 2018 it was projected to do like this, $13.8 billion or it was doing that, and then projected to be 66 billion by 2025 but to remark on some, one of the biggest challenges there is, you know, getting it in a store, in a, you know, prescription, or, you know, for medicinal use or what have you, became more costly to some of the consumers. So it actually it hurt the market, because people were turning back to their, you know, street drug pushers getting it cheaper to smoke or what have you. So that was unexpected. What kind of things do you find in this industry you're in today, and especially with the GLP one, you see any big changes coming up? Yeah.

Unknown: 38:37

I mean, it's ever evolving. I think you're I mean, look, it's hard to go by what's happening with the GLP one story. It's pretty remarkable in its own right. And I think it's really taken the industry by storm in the sense that, you know, there are really a couple, there's only two companies in the world that actually market these products, and everyone else wants to try and find something that can do something similar or better, and so there's a huge race. And, you know, I think you know, to try and do that. Our approach is different. We are really looking at trying to optimize the delivery. That's what we do. We're not looking to develop a new chemical. We're trying to say, Okay, well, you've got something that's really good, but, you know, can we actually deliver it better? So it's slightly different approach, but yeah, the GLP one story is, is remarkable in its own right. It obviously, it started off, you know, as a treatment, and it still is significant treatment for type two diabetes. And then more recently, it became, obviously, very popularized for its ability to lose, for people to lose weight with it, and that's probably what's really spurred at significant growth. And, you know, it's gone mainstream, right? You hear it everywhere, yeah, in popular culture as well, references, but, but it's not stopping there. You know? Data that's come out more recently about its ability to improve long term cardiac outcomes, renal, kidney outcomes. And there's data now emerging, and we'll see that's, you know, where I think it's expected in the next 12 months, six to 12 months, where there's some large, late stage clinical studies looking at its ability to perhaps improve cognitive function in patients with Alzheimer's disease, for example. So it's like, you know, what can this thing not do? I mean, it's a bit baffling when you when you've been in an industry where you're really looking at very targeted approaches to different conditions, and then you've got this analog, a variant of a natural, you know, peptide hormone that's in the body that can have all of these benefits. So, yeah, it's really exciting to see where this goes and how far you know this, this kind of approach, therapeutic approach, can can help, but we've also got to be fairly pragmatic and understand that, you know, there's no, well, I don't believe there's a magic bullet for everything. And I think, you know, you've, we've got to, we've got to, you know, I think it's great that it's got all these benefits, but we've got to just keep, keep an eye on exactly how are we going about it, and not, not get too carried away with, you know, one particular approach, because I think the secret good health and long life, if that's what you're chasing, is not a singular one.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 41:34

You know, here's just an opinion. Doesn't necessarily, it's a it's a rhetorical question, but, and it doesn't necessarily need a answer, but you, as you were talking about that, I was realizing that, you know, like big food, the big food companies, with all their highly processed foods, are are being economically injured by this. The better food choices that people are making, and then they're out there trying to figure out how to make food that attracts the ones that are denying it. You know that, and that's a whole nother story. The point being is, I think that audience might want to be curious, is it the drug that's providing all these health benefits, or is it the drug that's allowing you to make better food choices? You know, because they I read an article piece, and I think it was Wall Street Journal that that at they had the one of the food company marketing agents had had been paid to go around and watch the people go shopping that were on the GOP ones. And they found that they had no interest in going in, into the aisles. They went around the perimeter of the grocery store, as you know, is the better, more fresh foods. And at the end, they went up and asked the the person that they were following, I mean, this was all obviously above board and communicated. Why didn't you go into the aisle with the Oreos and the and the, you know, all the snacks and think they go, we just don't have an interest in that anymore. I mean, food, the produce tastes like food. The tomato tastes like a tomato, and it's, it's tantalizing enough that I don't need to go into the center of the grocery store. So my point is, for those you know, you just might want to question, it's not the drug doing the drug is helping you, but the food choices are the miracle, you know, because they always say food is medicine. So anyway, just a thought. I mean, if you want to comment on that,

Unknown: 43:50

yeah, I mean, look, I think I haven't heard of that we mentioned, that's really fascinating, that that sort of study look, I think it's, I think it's both. I think if you because you know, a lot of these studies. I mean, all of these studies are controlled studies. So patients have you know, their placebo control, they're managed and matched for dietary intake and habits as best as you can through a randomization process. So you know, and if you increase the numbers of the study, you randomization usually happens. So people with certain habits end up getting split equally across the groups, and generally speaking, for the most part, particularly if you can reproduce the results over multiple studies, then you know you're pretty confident that the result is the result, and it's not by chance. So I think it's definitely clear that irrespective of people's habits, dietary and lifestyle, because you know that the drug does have the improvement, but as you would also know, just being part of a clinical study will change your behavior as well. So that placebo effect is is multifold, right? Because you're actually changing. A I guess it's a psychological change, impact, different approach, but the fact that you're even enrolled in that you even put yourself up for that is a selection bias of sorts. And then, you know, once you're involved in it, and you think you might be on active drug, for example, then you'll behave perhaps in a slightly different way. So there's always that effect. But you know, whenever these studies are looked at, they're compared to the effect of placebo. So we see weight reduction, improvements in glucose control in the placebo arm. What you have to demonstrate is that you're significantly better, statistically significantly better, than even whatever improvements they had. So we use that as the so instead of the baseline being zero, we say, No, the baseline is now whatever the placebo response was, and you now have to, you have to beat that in a statistically significant manner. And so these are quite, you know, these are obviously how trials are designed, and they're robust. But I think if you take the patient off the study and then they continue on, or they were never in the study, and they were just take getting prescribed the drug. And absolutely I agree that, you know, I the way I look at it is, particularly those with obesity who have struggled. They've tried all the different things that you know, that have come by, and whether they can tolerate it or not, maybe they've come off it or, you know, they've reverted. I think this just gives you a real big helping hand to lose the weight and then make the changes that you need to make, because we know if you come off the drug within a year, you're going to put back the weight, if you're looking at from an obesity perspective, and not only just that, but we know that if you lose weight rapidly, you lose a lot of lean muscle mass. I'm sure you're very familiar with that. So if you lose 30% lean muscle mass, and then you come off the drug, and 12 Months Later you've put back all your weight, the risk is you haven't put back the 30% of lean muscle mass. So actually, in my view, if that's the situation, you find yourself, and you're worse off potentially then if you didn't go on. And so it takes a lot of discipline. But you know, for those who are motivated and they just needed that headset, you know that helping hand just start to see things come down to help read that positive reinforcement cycle that now then they can make those healthy choices in terms of diet and, you know, lifestyle and behavior and exercise and everything else that we know is the only long term way to do it, because otherwise, you're going to be stuck on this drug for the rest of your life. And I don't think that's how we

Dr. Terry Weyman: 47:27

designed to be brilliant. You know, you're also part of something that Spencer and I are very near and dear to our hearts, and that's the word longevity, and that's, uh, and that's like a new well, it's a buzzword to just gaining momentum, and you're kind of part of this exclusive longevity docs community, right? So what if you had to look into a crystal ball we look at largely from the inside out, you know, working on the neurology and the fashion all that, what's your crystal ball looking at with this fast growing term longevity medicine, where you see that going,

Unknown: 48:05

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely, it's definitely gathering momentum. I think there's a lot of publicity, a lot of resources now being channeled, which is great. You know, I think when you come down to the foundational principles of longevity and health span and living a quality life for longer comes back down largely to all the boring things that we know we should be doing, right? And so I think you know that as a fundamental foundation, of course, that's where we need to start. And I think that's that's important. But of course, there are these really interesting technological advances and pushes and that are having some initial some really interesting initial results. It's still very early, so it's very hard to know exactly where we will end up. But there are certainly significant advances, if you're looking at even in the therapeutic space, which obviously, you know, more familiar with repurposing existing medications that have now found that, at least in animal models, that you could get longevity benefits. And you know, obviously people have been using these products, and now they're transitioning to looking at trying to trial these. And so the data is still quite, quite nascent, and we will, we will get, we will start to see some readouts coming out in the next 12 months and beyond. It's going to be really interesting to see, obviously, the approaches around stem cells, gene therapy. I mean, these are more complicated approaches that have potentially far reaching benefits and consequences, but again, very early, I think it's fair to say, the evolution of these technologies. So yeah, I mean, I think everyone's going to keep pushing the boundaries. At the moment, it's still quite on the fringe of conventional practice. And. If you're looking at some of these more, you know, these more, newer technologies, but, but, yeah, I think it's going to gather really not so there's certainly a lot of high profile, you know, billionaires who are out there, and the biohacking community is really pushing things forward. And to be honest, they're creating, they're really bringing a lot of insights that would otherwise take a lot longer in the scientific group to run clinical studies to do. I mean, you can get some insights from some of the things these guys are doing that perhaps we wouldn't get past an ethics committee at this point in time. So it's interesting to see exactly where it all goes.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 50:36

So to use a term that Dr Spencer love, what when you're doing looking at this research, what jazzes you about some of the research that you're seeing that's coming out, that makes you even get out of bed and get excited about some of this research from that we just mentioned, the biotech industry. And what do you see the your IX biopharma? What role do you see playing in that? But what kind of what some of the research you just kind of glossed over? What's some of this research that you is jazz and you

Unknown: 51:09

Yeah, I mean, look, there's a lot of interesting stuff happening, you know, looking at modulating some of the nutrient sensing pathways in the body and how we can manipulate that. So all drugs, obviously, there's a lot of buzz around drugs like rapamycin, drugs for diabetes, like which is, excuse me, an immunosuppressant, or drugs like drugs that we know has been used for diabetes, like Metformin, other drugs that are used for like erectile dysfunction, like Viagra sildenafin, You know, and its benefits in in cardiovascular health, but potentially cognition and even cellular health, longevity, melatonin even, and then what we've what we're looking at, which is more on the sort of, I guess, nutraceutical side, at IX and entity health, which is, which is the health span company that's a subsidiary that's really developing and commercializing these products is like NAD and glutathione. These are molecules that I'm particularly excited about because they're, they're molecules that your body produces. NAD is, you know, it's kind of gained a lot of interest in the last few years, and people are infusing it into their veins, and they're taking it in different forms how they can but it's a fascinating, fascinating molecule, likewise, as glutathione. These are made by, you know, pretty much every cell in your body, and they have far reaching effects to maintain cellular health and homeostasis, that balance. But what ends up happening is that, you know, as we age, the levels of these critical molecules decline for a whole range of factors. You know that we can have time to go into today, but you know, if you look at NAD, by the time we're in our 50s, we've probably got half the level of NAD that we had when we were in our 20s. And if we just just talk about NAD to start with, what is it? What is it? Well, you know, it's a it's a molecule nicotinamide, any dinucleotide that's, you know, involved in 500 plus chemical reactions, redox reactions, the transfers of electrons between one molecule and the other, transferring energy from one to the other. If you remember, you know, high school chemistry, which I remember very little of, but you know, that's that's a central, critical molecule. But now, more recently, we've realized that that's how I remember it. In second year biochemistry med school didn't pay much attention. It was involved in energy metabolism. So it's powers your mitochondria, the powerhouses of your cell, to help convert food into energy, and you need NAD for it. So now, if you're running at half power of NAD, what does that say to the efficiency of your engine? Obviously, it's going to be effective, right? We know more recently, and this is where it's getting even more steam or momentum that they power certain proteins and enzymes, some of them called sirtuins. Sirtuins are like also known as the longevity genes. There are seven of them in the human body and NAD particularly for longevity. Probably, you know, one, cert, one, cert three, cert six, are really important. So maintaining cellular health, regulating genome stability, cellular DNA repair and mitochondrial health, and these are so critical in it. And you know what they need to they're powered by NAD. So if you don't have optimal levels of NAD available, then these sirtuin proteins don't work as effectively the guardians of our genomes, the guardians of our cellular health. We also know that the enzymes and the proteins that really are busily working. Working around, working around the clock to fix our breaks in our DNA, damage to our DNA, called parps, poly ADP, ribose polymerases. These are powered by NAD and you know, it's thought that maybe 10,000 or even 100,000 hits to our DNA every each cell, every single day. So you have all of these PARP enzymes running around trying to fix all of these breaks in the DNA powered by NAD. So you know, something as simple and as as you know, as critical as that, without looking to chemical drugs necessarily, can we actually just increase the amount of NAD in our body, and there are ways to do that naturally, without even looking at any other outside of outside of your lifestyle, your diet. You can improve your diet somewhat. You can exercise that boosts NAD. You can restrict your calorie intake. Caloric restriction boost its human function. Boosts NAD. You can sleep better. That improves NAD levels. There's obviously dietary sources. NAD is a bike is a derivative of vitamin B, b3 so you can take foods that are rich in sources there. But for most of us, doing all of those things can be challenging, and so in those situations, looking to try and supplement NAD, makes a lot of sense. And so obviously, we've looked at doing that. But you know, if you just swallow NAD, it's so unstable, it'll get broken down, you're not going to see much of it get into the bloodstream at all and get to the cells, importantly. And so hence, we looked at using our wafer technologies to deliver NAD, which is which has been hugely successful. But, you know, that's just an example the glutathione. I love this molecule. I mean, I always knew it as an antioxidant, and not much more for many, many years. But, you know, in the last number of years, I look deeper and deeper into it, we've developed a sublingual glutathione product. It's a fascinating molecule. It's the master of antioxidants. So what does that mean? I mean, we throw around this world word antioxidant, but I don't think anyone's ever explained. What is it? What is it? Why is it a problem? And the reality is, just with everything is there's nothing's a problem unless it's out of balance, right? So, oxidation is good, reduction is good. Too much of either is bad. And so if you have too much of oxidation, think of it like a nail, piece of iron exposed to water, moisture, oxygen. What happens? It rusts. It's an oxidation oxidative process. So too much oxidation in the body causes essentially a slow rusting process at the cellular level, and that's called oxidative stress. And that happens because we're exposed to environmental toxins, pollution, maybe self inflicted cigarette smoke, even alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs, poor food. You touched on that. I mean, that's probably a big thing, right? Processed food, we're creating all of this oxidative stress through creating free radicals and damage these these molecules that end up going around, stealing an electrons from other molecules, so from proteins, from DNA. That's what a free radical is. It's an unstable molecule that's lost electrons, and it goes up and goes, I'll take those things, and then those proteins and DNA in your body are now unstable, and then they try to steal it from the next dog guy, and it keeps going down and sets off these chain reactions. And so that's when oxidative stress gets becomes a problem. It leads to chronic inflammation, and chronic inflammation leads to chronic disease. And so something like glutathione, which is a smart master antioxidant that because that level gets depleted and depleted over time, because of the all of these insults that it's just trying to try to keep everything going. And so, you know, we look at ways to try and boost that again, simple things like we spoke about, look at dietary sources of glutathione, or cysteine, which is one of the amino acids that makes up glutathione, exercise, good, sleep, all of those habits, relaxation, distressing. If you can, will help boost your antioxidant levels. Help boost your glutathione levels. But again, if you can't do that on your own, then supplementing makes sense. But again, if you swallow glutathione, less than 1% is going to get absorbed. It's a peptide. So what does your body do when it detects protein? It goes, hmm, just had some meat, or whatever you're going to wear, some legumes. I'm going to break that up into amino acids. I can use it as building blocks for my protein. Does the same thing. So, you know, again, taking a sublingual approach is some a way that we've done to try and avoid that so you can actually boost your glutathione levels. But you know, it's all these are fascinating approaches. I think, something as simple as focusing on these two molecules, as well as the other lifestyle interventions, I think can go a long way to improving cellular health. And if you improve cellular health, of course, you improve your

Dr. Spencer Baron: 59:53

overall health. I love what a great explanation all the way around nutritionally things that people can do. Right away. And, you know, I mean, listen, I'm always very skeptical, or I'm, you know, I need to feel a difference. And when you have me try that sublievable glutathione and the NAD, and, I mean, it dissolved automatically. It tasted great. And I am while I'm talking to you and your other the other gentleman that was with you, I actually felt myself start speaking a little more fluidly, like I didn't have to think about what I was saying. I don't know if that, but I felt a difference. I even told you that, and you know it's

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:00:37

I need to take this stuff so I can start speaking differently. Yell at me for my punctuation. So there's got to be something in there,

Unknown: 1:00:46

punctuation and grammar, but it certainly can help you mental focus and clarity. I think we've seen that well,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:00:51

that will at least help a little bit. So I can hopefully focus on my punctuation and grammar, because it's terrible.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:00:58

You'll probably start speaking French. Oh, look at that bonus. Let me ask you where Dr janigan, we're at the end of the show, but we have a really fun part that I challenge you to be able to answer. I have five rapid fire questions for you. They'll require one or 10 word answers, and then we could wrap up the show. But we got to ask of you, if you're ready. Are you ready?

Unknown: 1:01:25

Yeah, well, you know, pass fail, but anyway, be nice.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:01:31

All right, rapid fire Question number one, what is one morning habit that you you swear by? You know, some people, it's, you know, exercise. First thing some it's a cold plunge or a green smoothie or 10 Minute Meditation. What's yours?

Unknown: 1:01:47

Well, I was, I was taught this, and I practice it for the most part, and that's to make you bed every day. First thing in the morning, make you

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:01:59

bed. You know, not to underestimate, but that that is I heard a general, very decorated military.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:02:08

Did you hear that he wrote a book called make your bed. Make your bed. Yeah.

Unknown: 1:02:13

So I was always told, complete what you finish. It builds the willpower, the muscle of willpower and the little things that you do, start a task, finish it. I've started so many and not finished it. But, you know, willpower is like a muscle, and if you just do the little tasks, it can build over time. And so, you know, that's a simple habit that starts the day off in the right way.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:02:38

Hey, Doc, by any chance, are you married? Yes. So I get this whenever I make the bed, my wife comes back rips the part because I didn't make it right, and she has to remake it

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:02:54

here in the military there,

Unknown: 1:02:58

huh? You know? I mean, that's what, oh,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:03:00

I read the book, I started making it better. Listen to his lecture at Texas, and I started making bands. You didn't make it right? I'm like,

Unknown: 1:03:09

I guess there's two thoughts to it right, do it and then do it right? Maybe we just start with the first one.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:03:17

That's awesome. Question number two, what is your maybe secret hobby, or fantasy side gig or side hobby that that maybe not many people know about, like for me, you know, nobody knows that I'm a photographer. Not many people know that photography is my passion. But how about yourself?

Unknown: 1:03:37

Oh, wow. I don't think I have many secrets. I'm not sure I have many talents. What do I do? That's a side hobby that no one knows about. You know, I Okay. This is I've just started. After 30 years, started to not sure if this is probably so suitable, but after 30 years of starting to tinker on the piano again, which I gave up about 30 years ago, so I used to play to some extent, to make some sort of, you know, try and coordinated sound. But it's, yeah, it's been, it's been actually really relaxing. It's been a nice way to de stress from and, you know, to the annoyance of my family, I'm just picking up a song or two at a time. So I play them over and over again, but at the moment, that's something that I'm picking up again, if that counts. I don't think many people know about that.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:04:29

That is fantastic. And that really emphasizes that we have two sides of the brain, one you feed every day at work, very objective, very linear, very and then there should be the art form that we provide, you know, a satisfaction to and that is music or creating music or learning that that that that's perfect. All right. Question number three, now you. Pretty much answered this. But, you know, there's some people out there that still think that sublingual NAD for longevity is an overhyped intervention, or could it be a game changer? Yeah.

Unknown: 1:05:15

I mean, look, I think it's, it's about, let's start with NAD first, right? Just very quickly. So I think, you know, there's, it's very encouraging, if you look at, if you understand how it works, that this is a really good approach to take to try and, you know, boost levels to optimal. And we've seen so many examples of people who've been taking it, this is the thing. It's okay. It's not, you know, it's not a 2000 patient clinical study yet, but who've seen so many improvements in their day to day life, whether that just be improved sleep patterns, they just said, Hey, you know what? I just sleep so much better. I've got much more energy, more mental clarity of focus. We're really starting to see a lot of that. We've got. We've got people who've been taking that, who started taking it, who've got Parkinson's disease, who are now showing improvements in motor function on top of their anti Parkinsonian medication. In fact, there's some studies coming out in precursors we should hear about in the next six to 12 months, which you know, going to be really interesting. These are random. These are really high quality. This is a really high quality study looking at NAD precursor, in this case, for Parkinson's. So let's see how that pans out. But you know, we've seen people who've muscle recovery from from from post workout, marathon runners. I've seen, we've got a person here in Singapore who is, his father's a doctor. His son is a 15 year old athlete who, you know, is trying to, you know, compete at a very highly, high level. At the age of 15, 1500 meters couldn't break four minutes. 26 started taking our sublingual NAD product. And then, you know, hit, I think was four, 410, four, 410, 412, personal best, the best he's ever done. I mean, there are lots of cases. So I think there's a lot of benefits in terms of what I've mentioned, does it help longevity? The jury's completely out. I mean, we've seen data in animals, but it's not translated yet into humans. We'll see in time. And then can we do, you know, from the sublingual point of view, yeah, well, we've definitely shown in clinical studies you can improve levels by up to 70, 76% after, you know, six weeks intracellular NAD levels by taking it. So we know it's done doing some, you know, it's doing the right thing. And more recently, we're about to publish. We haven't published yet, but we've done some work in animal models where we've shown that NAD that, you know, delivered sublingually, is getting in and increasing NAD levels in the red blood cells within minutes. So it's getting across the membrane, getting into the bloodstream, getting to the cell, getting in the cell. And now we've got more supported data that NAD itself, the molecule, which sometimes has been disputed, can actually get directly into the cell. And so, yeah, it's a fascinating field. We certainly, you know, I personally believe in it. Let's see, let's see how it goes. But certainly people are getting benefit from it at the moment. So you know, moment, so we're encouraged by that.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:08:05

Love it so much. For a rapid fire question, yeah, sorry about that, but still, I didn't want to interrupt here that I love I love hearing that stuff. That's great, especially some of the data that's out there. Question number four, we've got two more, and that's the Tell me about a favorite place you've ever visited that makes you truly

Unknown: 1:08:24

happy. Oh, wow. Aside from Florida, Florida was great. We really enjoyed, really enjoyed time in Florida, place that makes happy. There are so many, I think that, yeah, I think the place that probably comes to mind, and it's probably probably a recency effect, but I went recently to my ancestral homeland, which is the island of Sri Lanka. And I last was there in 1983 and I went there about a year and a half ago. So I can't say it's a place I've gone to continuously to make me happy, but going back there and seeing where I guess generations of my family had lived to the land exactly where they had lived was something that I had I've never reconnected, and something I want to actually take the kids to, but it brought me a sense of solace and peace and that I haven't felt anywhere else, despite traveling to wonderful places.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:09:39

You know? Dr, Terry, you know what's funny, he doesn't live that far from Bali, but people talk about, people here talk about, oh, I want to go to vacation to Bali. That would be the greatest thing. That didn't even cross his mind.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:09:53

I've been to Bali, it, but Sheila, could? I can see that, yeah, I can

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:09:56

imagine, very good. Fifth and last. Question, if you could give your 20 year old self one piece of advice, what would that be?

Unknown: 1:10:11

Yeah, I think really trust, trust in, you know, be still, and trust in the inner voice and follow that. Follow what makes you, what brings you joy and brings others around you joy. And I think it'll help, you know, make those decisions. I don't live in regret, but there are certainly things that I would have done differently, and I think if I just had more faith in following that inner what really made me makes me tick, you know, and not thinking that that's a selfish pursuit. Because ultimately, if you can, you know, enrich that, enrich your own life, you can reach, enrich the lives of others around you. So that's what I would, I would reinforce to my 20 year old son, Oh,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:10:57

Dr janakin Krishna Raja, what a great

Unknown: 1:11:01

hold off the top

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:11:02

program today. Did that? Did that flow? Did I say that I've been practicing for months now? Really this, I appreciate your authenticity, your down to earth, nature as a scientist, as a researcher, and extremely informative show from a side of health that we that Dr cherry and I remain inquisitive about. So thank you. Thank you again for being on the show.

Unknown: 1:11:29

Thanks for having me pleasure. Look forward to seeing you in briskly.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:11:35

Thank you for listening to today's episode of The cracking backs podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at cracking backs podcast. Catch new episodes every Monday. See you next time you.