On The Horizon
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On The Horizon
Jupiter Neurosciences (JUNS): Jotrol’s Bioavailability Breakthrough and the Key Parkinson’s Phase 2A Readout
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In this episode, Christer Rosen, Founder and CEO of Jupiter Neurosciences (Nasdaq: JUNS), and President & COO Alison Silva join Water Tower Research’s Tim Gerdeman and Healthcare Analyst Robert Sassoon to discuss Jotrol, the company’s proprietary micellar formulation of resveratrol engineered to overcome long‑standing bioavailability and tolerability limitations. Jotrol has demonstrated a ninefold increase in resveratrol bioavailability, enabling therapeutic exposure without the high‑dose GI side effects that have historically constrained the molecule’s therapeutic potential.
The team highlights progress on the active Phase 2A Parkinson’s trial enrolling at Georgetown University, designed to evaluate safety, PK, and neuroinflammatory biomarkers, with data expected in early 2027. Management also outlines Jupiter’s dual‑engine strategy spanning clinical development, a consumer longevity brand, and new licensing initiatives including ALA‑002.
Welcome to the WTR on the horizon podcast. I'm your host, Tim Gerdeman, Vice Chair and Co-Founder, and Chief Marketing Officer of Water Tower Research. In today's podcast episode, I'm being joined by Krista Rosen, founder, chairman, and CEO of Jupiter Neurosciences, NASDAQ Ticker Symbol, J-U-N S. Also joining is Robert Sassoon, WTR's healthcare analyst. Jupiter Neurosciences is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company advancing a therapeutic pipeline targeting central nervous system or CNS disorders and neuroinflammation. So let me first start out by welcoming Christer and Robert to today's podcast. Good morning, gentlemen.
SPEAKER_03Good morning, Tim, and uh thanks for having us here. Um, I'm excited to uh be able to answer some questions out.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. So, Christer, can you begin by telling us your professional background, uh, what brought you to establish Jupiter Neurosciences, and then perhaps provide a 30,000-foot overview of the company's business model to kick things off before Robert asks a few questions?
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah, um uh original, I'm Swedish originally, if you think I have a little accent. Um computer scientist, um, uh went to the University of Lund um in the late 60s, early 70s, and that tells you my age approximately. Um, definitely um entrepreneur and started a computer consulting company in Sweden, uh, started um hospitality events, you know, nightclubs. I own hotels and restaurants, paid 82% in tax in Sweden, 81 and 82, my wife and I, and we decided to move to Florida. Um, so there um we opened a restaurant um and and there as well, but and I bought the Jeep Wrangler, couldn't hear the sounds, I invented a soundbar that is now standard equipment in all Jeep Wranglers since 1989. So I'm I'm I'm looking for when if if if I have a personal problem somewhere, or my mother had uh problems with osteoporosis, and that's how I then um developed a um an effervescent execution of uh Fosamax, and um that is that that company actually I um moved to Switzerland and was sold in um about 2021 to Abiogen. Um I left the company in 2015, moved to Florida, and that's how Dupter Neurosciences was created because professors at the University of Miami um had worked on resveratrol um as a drug for a rare disease, and and they called me up and said that um Chris, you have been working on uh um formulations and so on in the business, although I've never been a pharma guy originally, but um I'm looking for solutions. They said if we can make resveratrol highly bivavailable, which means that you get enough in the bloodstream to make a difference, like it's presented in all these scientific papers, and then we really have something. If you can't do it, forget about it. So that's how really the company was started.
SPEAKER_01Great. Well, thank you for that uh overview, and always fascinating to meet a serial entrepreneur across so many different industry sectors that you played in. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Robert.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thanks, Tim, and uh Krista. Good to have you on this uh podcast. Uh let's start with the science. Can you walk us through your therapeutics platform, Jotrol, and uh the pipeline you're building on it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's um no one it's kind of interesting. Here you have um uh resveratrol that is probably the most research molecule in the world, or one of them at least, about 25,000 scientific papers. It makes absolutely wonders in mice. Um, you know, cardiovascular, CNS, you know, diabetes, whatever. Resveratrol fixes that. Um, there's a company called Sertrus that was created in in Boston years ago, and um, I think they went public in 2009, I don't know, 2006 or something. Uh, and then GSK bought them in 2009 for 720 million. And Sertus have started by saying that resveratrol is a wonder drug, but they have created three uh NCEs that were supposed to mimic whatever Resveratrol was doing. Uh, GSK bought them and later found out that these three NCEs didn't hold up in the promise and shut the whole thing down, which actually gave Resveratrol um a kind of a like a mixed reputation or not so good reputation, which we suffered from when we started. It was very hard to get investors and so on. Um, but um we found a small company in Germany that had a very unique patented micellar delivery system. Micellar is nothing new, but they had really cracked the code how to make you know certain type of products work. And so we worked with them and then developed Jotrol together with them, and then we got a um grant from NIA to do a phase one on eventually for targeting Alzheimer's disease. And um uh in that study we could see that we increased, which is widely published the study, that we increased the bioavailability compared with regular resveratrol by nine times. What does this mean? Well, there are a few studies done in humans, Alzheimer's patients and Friedrich Santaxia patients, that shows that if you can get to 250 nanograms per milliliter resveratrol in the bloodstream, you start to affect all the inflammation markers, mitochondria markers, and you have a therapeutic effect. However, whenever you go over two grams of regular resveratrol, you start to get severe GI side effects. And to reach the levels that I mentioned in humans, you need to eat like five grams of the regular resveratrol. So we saw that with 500 milligrams of resveratrol in the Jotrol formulation, we had like 700 nanograms per milliliter of resveratrol in the bloodstream in our phase one study. So, therefore, we're very comfortable that we can reach the therapeutic level needed. And then, of course, um the clinical trial, the phase two trial that we now are doing in uh Wynne Parkinson's patients, that's going to be proving, you know, what what um what to actually how good we are.
SPEAKER_02So uh as you mentioned, resveratrol has been uh uh studied for a long time, uh I think well over a decade, uh, and so far there hasn't been an approved drug. So, what does the formulation change that gives you belief and confidence that it's a it's gonna be a viable drug and more importantly, an approvable CNS therapeutic?
SPEAKER_03First of all, what was very good, which we expected, of course, is that safety profile is so good. When you can avoid, you can get the amount of resveratrol that you need in the bloodstream without having those severe GI side effects. And the GI side effect is really the only side effect. I dare to say we have one of the safest drugs in the world on the safety side. The trick is really that that with the regular resveratrol, what happens when you when you do ingest it? It goes into the portal vein directly into the liver and metabolizes 99.6%. So you have hardly anything left that goes into the bloodstream. And the metabolites doesn't really do much of a job. With our mice, with the jotrol preparation, absorption actually goes in your through the intestines into your lymph system before it reaches the liver. And that's really so in a way you can say we avoid the first first pass effect, get enough into the bloodstream to really go to the therapeutic side. And so it's um sounds simple and and um um, but we're the only one that's been able to do it. Yeah, we have 2036 as well. So it's right.
SPEAKER_02Let's take that further. And you know, the uh it's the platform's only active clinical program currently is the phase 2A that you mentioned. It's a phase two a study in Parkinson's disease. So can you tell us uh uh about the program's design and goals, update us on the progress the study is making, and what are the upcoming milestones we can expect in to um hear about in the coming months?
SPEAKER_03I think I turned that over to our chief operating officer and present, Alison Silva, that is really spearheading this program. Um, and she has a long pharmaceutical background uh and and so on, and um really knows her stuff. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm happy to take this question. Um, so as you mentioned, we just um uh announced the activation and enrollment of our phase 2A reset program, and this is a multi-center um randomized double-blind placebo-controlled um trial that's evaluating the primary endpoints of safety and tolerability, um, as well as looking at um the pharmacokinetics of the droctrop uh product. Some other exploratory and secondary endpoints, which we're really excited about, are the biomarkers of energy metabolism, um, neuroinflammatory markers like TREM2 and LRP3, different intraleukins, and then we'll be looking at the CSF profile of these patients at baseline and endpoint and looking to see the changes after 12 weeks on drug. So it is a daily oral dosing. It's nice that these patients can be, you know, can receive drug to take home and take just a couple capsules a day. Um, so it's a low patient burden. All of the patients will have a stage of Parkinson's that's been pre-identified and that is well known to the clinicians. They'll be randomized one-to-one-to-one, so a third will receive placebo, a third will be titrated up to 200 milligrams, and then the last group will go up to 400 milligrams. So, as Chris mentioned, we know that those are therapeutic doses from prior PK work, so we're pretty confident that we'll get a healthy data set when we read out. There are three sites that are participating in the trial. The principal investigator is Fernando Pagan at Georgetown. So we have Georgetown University as well as two other Med Star Health sites. Um this trial was just made active on clinicaltrials.gov, so the entire protocol design is up there. And we hope to be dosing our first patient any day now with readouts on the trial by early next year. So the first quarter of 2027, we really hope to be able to be updating our investor based on the endpoints associated with the trial.
SPEAKER_02So, I mean, just take taking that a little further, what specifically would you need to see from this readout to call it a success?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we are we we're very um you know uh confident with the safety and tolerability aspect. We again um have you know tested that in a in a smaller phase one. Um so that is our primary endpoint, but still we have to, you know, that would be a success for us is to get through the initial safety and tolerability work in a patient population. This is the first time that our drug product has been administered to patients and not normal healthy volunteers. Um, we're really interested to look at the pharmacokinetics and see what that CMAX looks like. Um, that would prove out our hypothesis regarding the ninefold bioavailability. So I think that would be um you know transformative. And then really the the exploratory endpoints, we we think we'll have a lot of biomarker data that would just be kind of the icing on the cake here. If we could show that we had um you know reduction in some inflammatory markers as well as some symptom readouts. We are assessing a panel of patient reported clinical outcome measures that are well known in the space that are used for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's programs as validated endpoints with the FDA. Those are very exploratory and would be high level, but we did include them in the trial just so we could um you know get used to working with those clinical outcome measures and um and potentially read out on symptom or disease um impact. So you know it's a it it there's a wide spectrum of things that we can expect in this trial, ranging everywhere from safety to um, you know, reduced falls or uh quicker um get up and go tests, better mobility in the patients, um, all of that. But that's um you know to be determined once we get into this.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you, Alison, for all that uh information. It's uh we'll certainly look forward to uh the time when you do actually have that readout. Yeah. So Brista, you've built this um platform as a dual engine model with the therapeutics program on one side, and you have a direct-to-consumer longevity business and wellness brand um on the other side, instead of a line of premium nutritional supplements for which reservoir is a key ingredient. Both running on Joshua, what's the case for keeping those two models under one roof at this stage? And rather than running uh a focused clinical stage company and licensing the consumer rights to someone else?
SPEAKER_03Um it's a good question, but um you know this whole thought of the longevity side came um about a about a year ago, and um uh we saw the whole this whole longevity and aging sector was is just exploding. And that is everyone knows that that that's that's a big future. Um to remember that jar troll was created by Jupyter Neurosciences, and therefore, and so all the existing shareholders, investors that we have, they invested the money to do to generate a jotroll. And it would be, I mean, yes, there are some spin-off ways you can do use of those shareholders still is part of a new thing. But we we said let's keep it under under Jupyter Neuroscience control, especially um until we see, for example, the results of the Parkinson's trial. Um, it might be of interest of there are some big pharma now that is also getting into longevity that already is in Parkinson's. Maybe our value proposition will be even higher if we have some good Parkinson's results, if they want to in-license um, you know, our product and so on. So we said let's not just rush into it um and uh see what we do, test the water, which we have done, especially in the first quarter of this year, um, which in as always the setup is quite expensive, and we allocated a lot of our salaries into that and so on. Uh, but um uh now this quarter we started to see the sales coming in, and um, we have a lot of um um collaborators now that we're working on to setting up and so on. So it's uh it's interesting.
SPEAKER_02Okay. You're talking about uh sales. Uh so Nugivia product revenue was about 19,000 uh in the first quarter of this year. That's uh but that was against roughly around 470,000 uh of SGNA allocated to that uh segment. So can you uh describe the pathway for us to generate towards generating the positive cash flow that from that business that you're targeting for 2027?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean I think we beat those sales numbers the last two weeks, uh um where we are now. So uh but we remember that when you were this was the where where do we put our salaries in the bucket? And and and I worked a lot on on a Nijevi in the first quarter and so on. Yeah, so we allocated more of my salaries into it and so on, and and Allison as well. Well, the second quarter, we have hardly worked at all with uh on the Nijevia side. So uh we wanted to kind of reflect how we did things and so on. So um I think that we we need to we don't I mean even at the uh we have a very good margin on the product. So I think even when we are reaching like $500,000 trailing, you know, sales in an annual year, we can break even and then once you go up from there, but it's all it's a very interesting market, and we love it. Um we have a lot of subs, you know, subscribers that we get. We they keep they stay with us and so on. So um I think that we can build build on it, but it's not our core focus, I have to admit that, you know.
SPEAKER_02But on the other hand, your own deck describes the strategy as keeping a high biotech exit uh on the Parkinson's program while the consumer line generates uh cash by 2027. But you recently signed a term sheet to in-license ALA 002, an early stage MDMA asset from Farmala, which is a different molecule, a different modality outside of the uh Jutrol platform, and a third call on you know the same limited capital uh which your company currently has. What's the strategic thinking about that transaction behind that transaction, and how does adding a new clinical program square with a strategy built on focusing on the pipeline and exiting it?
SPEAKER_03No, exit. I mean, when you look look back and listen to if you think back to what Alison stated, if we show, and we already have you know big pharma companies uh following us and the Parkinson's and they want to see the Parkinson's phase two threat. What that leads to, we really don't know. We are kind of agnostic right now. We just said, let's see that we do this right, and then the data will tell the world how valuable it is. We believe that we have a strong opportunity to be the first disease-modifying product in Parkinson's disease. And if we can show that with the data, for example, on grip strength and and uh you know the six-minute walk test and so on, that is part of the program. We believe that there's someone out there that's gonna want to um have that product and pay dearly for it, and then then we can outlic that. While we then which will then finance the whole uh formala ALA 002 you know development, which we're actually very excited about. And Allison knows that business really, really well, and um, and um we think that that's that can be a big winner for us.
SPEAKER_02So uh to close um my questions, uh between the Parkinson's readout, the consumer ramp that you uh you're expecting, and now LA002, you need capital to deliver on all of that. So walk us through the financing strategy from here and specifically what should investors expect on the capital side over the next four quarters and a year from now, and what's the uh what's the one milestone you you most want to be judged on?
SPEAKER_03Um, I mean, if we take your last question first, the Parkinson's you know, readout, it will be in in my estimation and the and our my belief is that that's gonna be a huge win for us. And that however that turns out is gonna be easily financing our operations for as long as we want to operate. Um, so it so therefore we are our strategy is to see that yes, I mean we have an S3, we have uh still an ELOC, and we can we will raise some money as we need, but we don't need very much more uh money, you know, cash to be able to uh go through the whole Parkinson side, start up the IND, work and so on on the ALA 002, assuming that we will acquire that um uh asset, you know, quite shortly, actually. So um, yes, I mean think about it this way. We are uh I'm the largest shareholder by far. And and uh second and third shareholders are all co-founders. We've been able to to and we have done um no financing with warrants. So we we are concerned as well about you know too heavy dilution. You know, we want to see that that uh which benefits all shareholders. You know, we obviously have to see that we are finance, but we don't gonna go out and just raise you know $100 million because you know we get all kinds of crazy offers, but uh you know, then then especially when we have that the huge upside of a Parkinson's readout and then with a with a low market, very low market value today.
SPEAKER_02Well, thanks uh for all of those uh answers and all those questions, you and uh Krista and uh and Alison, and helping to walk us through the Jupyter Neurosciences and help us get a better understanding of the company's business strategy and where you want to go. So, best of luck to you, and uh I'll just pass it back to Tim.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Robert, for those great questions. And Krista and Allison, thanks so much for joining us today to discuss uh Jupiter Neurosciences, an exciting story. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you for listening, and do not forget to subscribe as well as visiting www.watertowerresearch.com to stay up to speed on the WTR on the horizon written research reports podcasts, fireside chats, industry-specific symposiums, and conference schedules. We will see you next time for another edition of WTR on the horizon podcast. Finally, a special thanks to the producer and editor of the podcast, Krista Fitzpatrick.