Dyadic International Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Commercial Shift Gains Traction as Revenue Jumps 182%
Summary
Dyadic International is shedding its label as a pure-play technology developer and is now executing a commercial strategy across life sciences, food, and nutrition markets. First-quarter revenue surged 182% year-over-year to $1.1 million, fueled by research and development grants and early product sales. Management highlighted multiple commercial launches, including recombinant bovine chymosin and the entry of recombinant transferrin into the cultivated meat supply chain via initial purchase orders. The company is leveraging strategic distribution partnerships with IBT Bioservices and Intralink to scale reach without heavy internal capital expenditure.
Financially, Dyadic maintained strict cost discipline, reducing internal R&D expenses while expanding its cash runway into the second quarter of 2027. The biopharmaceutical arm remains a secondary focus, supported by non-dilutive grants from the Gates Foundation and CEPI to validate the C1 platform for monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Management signaled that near-term revenue growth will be steady rather than explosive, tied to the gradual regulatory approvals and scaling of pilot projects in cultivated meat and non-animal dairy. The overarching narrative is a deliberate pivot toward recurring product revenues and capital-efficient commercialization.
Key Takeaways
- Revenue surged 182% year-over-year to $1.1 million in Q1 2026, driven by a $220,000 increase in research and development revenue from grant-funded programs and partnership activity.
- Internal R&D expenses declined modestly to $476,000, reflecting a strategic reduction in active internal initiatives to prioritize commercial execution.
- Dyadic is transitioning from a platform technology company to a product commercialization model, with multiple products now entering commercial channels and generating early revenue.
- The commercial launch of recombinant bovine chymosin by Enzymes validates Dyadic’s production capabilities and provides a clear pathway to milestone and profit-sharing payments.
- Initial purchase orders for recombinant bovine transferrin were secured within the cultivated meat segment, signaling early market adoption and a potential recurring revenue stream.
- A new OEM distribution agreement with IBT Bioservices has been activated, with first shipments of DNase I and transferrin underway to expand global market reach without heavy internal headcount growth.
- The business development footprint expanded into Europe through a partnership with Intralink, following successful initial customer engagement and sampling in Japan.
- Cash runway extends into Q2 2027, supported by $6.6 million in cash and equivalents, while management maintains operating expenses at or below 2025 levels.
- Biopharmaceutical programs are advancing through non-dilutive funding, including a $3 million Gates Foundation grant for monoclonal antibodies and a CEPI grant for vaccine antigen development.
- Management cautioned that near-term revenue growth will be steady rather than exponential, as scaled adoption in cultivated meat and non-animal dairy depends on regulatory approvals and production scaling.
Full Transcript
Operator: Good evening, and welcome to Dyadic International’s Q1 2026 conference call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following management’s prepared remarks, there will be a brief question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, May 13, 2026. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Ping Rawson, Dyadic’s Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Ping Rawson, Chief Financial Officer, Dyadic International: Thank you, operator. Good evening, welcome everyone to Dyadic’s first quarter 2026 conference call. I hope you have had the opportunity to review Dyadic’s press releases announcing financial results for the quarter ended March 31st, 2026. You may access our release and Form 10-Q under the Investors section of the company’s website at dyadic.com. On today’s call, our President and Chief Operating Officer, Joseph P. Hazelton, will review our Q1 2026 business and corporate highlights and provide commentary on the strategic direction of the business. Our CEO, Mark A. Emalfarb, will provide an update on our biopharmaceutical programs. I will follow with a review of our financial results in more detail. After which, we will hold a brief Q&A session.
At this time, I would like to inform you that certain commentary made in this conference call may be considered forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause Dyadic’s actual results, performance, scientific or otherwise, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Dyadic expressly disclaims any duty to provide updates to its forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise. Participants are directed to the risk factors set forth in Dyadic’s reports filed with the SEC. It is now my pleasure to pass the call to our President and CEO, Joe Hazleton. Joe.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Thanks, Ping, and thank you everyone for joining us today. As we recently held our full year 2025 earnings call, today we want to build on the updates we provided in March by focusing on the continued operational and commercial progress we’re making across the business and why we believe Dyadic is increasingly well-positioned for the future. Over the last several years, we have worked to transform Dyadic from a platform technology company into a commercially focused biotechnology company capable of generating recurring revenues from products, partnerships, licensing opportunities, and strategic collaborations. While we’re still in the early stages of that transition, we believe the progress made during 2025 and into 2026 demonstrates that the business today is materially different than it was even one year ago. Importantly, products enabled by our microbial production platforms are now entering commercial channels.
We have products launched, products being shipped, products being sampled by customers, and products beginning to generate revenues through direct sales, OEM distribution, milestone payments, profit sharing arrangements, and strategic partnerships. For investors, the key point is that Dyadic is building multiple potential paths to revenue creation rather than relying on a single product or market opportunity. A strong example is Proliant Health and Biological’s commercial launch of AlbuFree DX, recombinant human albumin produced using Dyadic’s platform technology. Dyadic is eligible to receive a share of the profits from product sales. We believe the significance of this launch extends beyond the economics themselves. It demonstrates that the established industry participants are willing to commercialize products produced using our technology platform and bring them into commercial channels. Similarly, Enzymes has now commercialized recombinant non-animal bovine chymosin after successfully achieving developmental milestones.
This is another important validation point for our technology and commercialization models. As additional partners bring products to markets, we believe awareness and interest in our platforms will continue to increase. Since these launches and partnership announcements, we’ve seen growing inbound interest from potential partners, distributors, and customers evaluating our technology for additional proteins and enzymes across life sciences, food and nutrition, and industrial applications. Our strategy is centered around leveraging our proprietary C1 and Dapibus microbial production platforms to produce animal-free proteins and enzymes for large and growing global markets where scalability, manufacturing economics, supply chain reliability, and sustainability matter. We believe our technology is particularly well-suited for these markets because of the many products we target require stable manufacturing, competitive economics, and consistent quality. Traditional production systems can be expensive, difficult to scale, or dependent on animal-derived inputs.
Our platforms are designed to address those challenges while enabling partners and customers to move toward more sustainable and animal-free solutions. In life science, we are focused on recombinant proteins and enzyme used in cell culture media, diagnostics, molecular biology, and bioprocessing applications. These are attractive markets because many products are consumables that generate recurring demand once qualified into customer workflows. For example, recombinant transferrin is used in serum-free and animal-free cell culture media and supports cell growth and viability. Demand for transferrin can scale alongside growth in cultivated meat, biologics manufacturing, and advanced cell culture applications. During the quarter, we continued to expand customer engagement around recombinant bovine transferrin and received initial purchase orders within the cultivated meat segment. While still early, we believe this is an important indicator of market adoption.
These markets typically develop through a progression of evaluation, sampling, qualification, initial purchasing, and ultimately repeat ordering as customer production scales. We’re also we also continue advancing recombinant growth factors and additional cell culture components designed to support broader transition towards animal-free media systems. Another important milestone was our OEM distribution agreement with IBT Bioservices. Through this relationship, IBT will commercialize Dyadic recombinant products, including DNase I and transferrin, through its established global distribution channels. We believe this is strategically important because it expands market reach while allowing Dyadic to remain capital efficient. DNase I represents another example of how we intend to commercialize products across multiple channels. Together with FermBox Bio, we commercially launched recombinant animal origin-free DNase I earlier this year, and DNase I is broadly used in molecular biology, diagnostics, and bioprocessing workflows.
In food and nutrition, we remain focused on large global markets where animal-free proteins may provide functional, sustainability, and supply chain advantages. Our agreement with Brigg Bio for development of recombinant bovine alpha-lactalbumin is an example of this strategy. Alpha-lactalbumin is a key whey protein with applications in infant nutrition, medical nutrition, and functional food products. We’re also continuing development activities for recombinant human lactoferrin, another high-value functional protein with applications across nutrition and wellness markets. Importantly, we’re prioritizing opportunities where our platforms can address markets that are both large and recurring. We believe this creates the potential for long-term value creation as customers increasingly seek scalable, animal-free, and cost-effective production alternatives. In bioindustrial markets, our partnership with FermBox Bio continues to advance manufacturing scale-up and commercialization activities across multiple products. FermBox provides an efficient pathway to manufacturing capacity and commercial scale without requiring Dyadic to build significant internal infrastructure.
Their N3zyme product, produced using our Dapibus technology, previously fulfilled its first large-scale commercial order and continues expanded sampling activity into additional geographic markets, including Asia Pacific. Channels where possible, expanding direct product opportunities selectively, and maintaining careful expense management while we continue building the business. We also recognize that investors remain focused on financial performance and stock price, and we understand that Dyadic is still viewed by many as a company in transition. However, we believe the operational progress made over the last year meaningfully differentiates the business today from where it has been historically. Importantly, this evolution also represents a return to Dyadic’s roots. Prior to focusing on biotechnology platform development, Dyadic successfully developed, manufactured, and commercialized industrial enzymes globally.
Today, we’re leveraging the technologies and intellectual property developed over the past decades to build a product-driven business focus on recombinant proteins and enzymes across life sciences, food and nutrition, and industrial markets. We now have products commercially launched, product shipments underway, initial purchase orders, established distribution relationships, manufacturing partners, and multiple opportunities to build recurring product revenues through direct sales, licensing milestones, and strategic collaborations. While we recognize that investors ultimately want to see sustained revenue growth and broader commercial adoption, we believe the underlying foundation of the business continues to strengthen. We now have multiple products commercialized or entering commercial channels, a growing partner network, increasing manufacturing capabilities, expanding geographic reach, and a broader set of opportunities to generate future revenues.
We believe where Dyadic is heading today is significantly stronger than where the company has been historically, and we remain focused on executing that transition responsibly, efficiently, and methodically. With that, I’m going to turn the call over to Mark to discuss our biopharmaceutical programs and broader strategic implications for our technology platform. Mark?
Mark A. Emalfarb, Chief Executive Officer, Dyadic International: Thank you, Joe. While Dyadic’s primary commercial focus remains on non-pharmaceutical markets, our biopharmaceutical activities continue to play an important strategic role by validating the capabilities of the C1 platform, generating non-dilutive funding, and creating potential future licensing and partnership opportunities. Our approach in biopharma remains disciplined, capital efficient, and partner driven. Rather than independently funding large clinical development programs, we are collaborating with government agencies, global health organizations, academic institutions, and industry partners. The Gates Foundation and CEPI, in collaboration with Fondazione Biotechnologie Siena, we continue advancing programs involving monoclonal antibodies and recombinant vaccine antigens while generating additional data supporting the scalability, flexibility, and manufacturing advantages of the C1 platform.
Our Gates Foundation-supported collaboration, funded under an approximately $3 million grant program, continues advancing low-cost monoclonal antibodies targeting RSV and malaria. With ongoing studies demonstrating compare advancing activities under the CEPI-supported collaboration through Fondazione Biotecnopolo di Siena, where Dyadic is eligible to receive up to approximately $2.4 million to support recombinant vaccine development, scale-up, supporting future manufacturing capabilities, and speed to market. Importantly, these programs continue generating data supporting the ability of the C1 platform to rapidly develop and scale complex recombinant proteins, including monoclonal antibodies and vaccine antigens. Beyond these programs, we remain engaged across a broader portfolio of government-supported and partner-funded initiatives involving respiratory viruses, malaria, MERS, rabies, and as evidenced by recent events, additional emerging infectious disease applications.
Importantly, these collaborations continue expanding the body of data supporting the versatility of the C1 platform across multiple protein classes and therapeutic targets, while also positioning Dyadic for potential future licensing opportunities, milestone payments, royalties, technology access agreements, strategic partnerships through product launches, initial customer orders, commercial shipments, manufacturing partnerships, distribution relationships, and expanding business development activities involving recombinant animal-free proteins and enzymes. We believe these commercial activities not only create potential revenue opportunities, but help validate the scalability and broader applicability of our underlying production platforms. Taken together, we believe Dyadic is continuing to build a diversified opportunity set that combines nearer-term commercial product opportunities with longer-term strategic platform value. With that, I’ll turn the call back over to Ping to review the financial results for the quarter.
Ping Rawson, Chief Financial Officer, Dyadic International: Thank you, Mark. I will now go over our key financial results for the first quarter of 2026 in more detail. You can find additional information in our earnings press release and Form 10-Q, which we filed earlier today. Total revenue for the 3 months ended March 31st, 2026 was approximately $1.1 million, representing an increase of 182% compared to approximately $394,000 for the first quarter of 2025. The increase was driven by higher research and development revenue of $220,000 including the Perline agreement. $192,000 compared to approximately $298,000 for the first quarter of 2025. The increase was primarily related to higher activity levels associated with our research and development and grants-funded programs, particularly under the CEPI and the Gates Foundation initiatives.
Internal research and development expenses decreased modestly to approximately 4% year-over-year to approximately $476,000, primarily reflecting a slight reduction in the number of active internal research and commercial initiatives during the quarter. G&A expenses increased by $159,000, or 10% year-over-year, to approximately $1.8 million. The increase was primarily driven by higher legal and accounting expenses of $221,000, and rebranding and business development activities, partially offset by lower share-based compensation expenses of $110,000, and a reduced insurance cost. Loss from operations improved by approximately 5% year-over-year to approximately $1.9 million, compared to approximately $2 million in the prior year period.
The improvement was mainly driven by the significant increase in revenue and the lower research and development expenses, partially offset by higher costs associated with revenue-generating activities and increased G&A expenses. Net loss for the quarter was approximately $1.95 million or $0.05 per share, comparing to approximately $2.03 million or $0.07 per share for the same period a year ago. We ended the first quarter of 2026 with approximately $6.6 million in cash equivalent, restricted cash, and investment grade securities. Looking ahead through the remainder of 2026, we expect to see growth in product revenues across our life sciences and food and nutrition business, supported by recent product launches, expanding commercial activities, and growing customer engagement.
We remain focused on building recurring revenue opportunities while maintaining disciplined cash management and keeping operating expenses generally in line with 2025 levels. As we discussed on our year-end call in March, we continue to believe our existing cash resources will provide cash runway into Q2 2027. We will also continue to evaluate strategic partnerships and capital markets opportunities to further strengthen our balance sheet and support long-term growth. With that, I will now ask the operator to begin our Q&A session. Each caller will be allowed 1 question and 1 follow-up question to provide all callers with an opportunity to participate. If time permits, the operator will allow additional questions from those who have already spoken. I will ask the operator to begin our Q&A session, after which Joe Hazleton will provide closing remarks. Operator?
Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. 1 moment please while we poll for questions. The 1st question comes from the line of Matthew Hewitt with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please proceed.
Matthew Hewitt, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: Do you anticipate a nice steady growth in that, or is it gonna be fits and starts, at least here out of the gate?
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: It’s a great question, Matt. Thanks for asking. I anticipate it’s going to be steady, but I don’t think it’ll be, you know, like hockey stick level growth. What we’re seeing is the initial pilot scales are starting to grow, which obviously, you know, we’re talking, you know, small kilogram orders, right? As we move into actual commercial production, we see cultivated meat approved by regulatory bodies. That’s when you’ll see the volume start to significantly increase because obviously the amounts needed will start to grow. Each individual product needs to be approved, you know, similar to, you know, how things work in the biopharmaceutical side. If you’re doing a, you know, a steak, that steak gets approved for a specific animal cell line.
Obviously they could do, you know, a different animal cell line, and another product gets approved. As these grow, I think it’ll be sustained growth, but I don’t think it’ll be, you know, significant. I think the bigger market is also that it’s not just cultured meat. Bovine transferrin is also used in serum-free cell culture applications and diagnostics, as well as other bioprocessing and biomanufacturing workflows. We’ll start to see an increase in our research use in that category as well. It’s not just cultivated meat, but we’re also looking like IBT will be launching this product as well. We’ll start to see revenues coming from other places.
Matthew Hewitt, Analyst, Craig-Hallum Capital Group: Got it. Super helpful. Maybe a follow-up question for Mark, and I think you may have hinted at this a little bit in your prepared remarks, but during COVID, there was a lot of commentary about how C1 could help accelerate and expand the opportunity for COVID vaccines. You think that C1 could help with potential vaccines for that virus as well. Thank you.
Mark A. Emalfarb, Chief Executive Officer, Dyadic International: Yeah. Matt, thanks. It’s a good question. I don’t think we could help. I know we could help. We’ve developed the technology that’s even better than it was during COVID. You know, during COVID, we were faster, quicker, and cheaper than, let’s say, Sanofi and Novavax’s insect cell technologies by many times. In the CEPI program, this is what’s important because when we look at why we’re funding through third party, CEPI, Engage, etc., is we’re continuing to advance the technology. As good as it was, it’s a lot faster and it’s a lot better today in terms of the ability to get there faster, to produce more with higher quality complex proteins.
To be honest, in the CEPI program, which we’re running with Rino Rappuoli with the Fondazione Biotecnopolo di Siena, we’ve demonstrated and purification through the initial stage of purification of high yield, high quality proteins that match binding and neutralization for antibodies and of course, obviously neutralization for the vaccines. I think it’s important in the monoclonal antibody, not just by vaccines, that really, I think elephant in the room was monoclonal antibodies. During COVID, there was a 1% deadly disease. If this thing’s 35%-40%, 30% faster and larger volumes, much more affordably without having to remove viruses. This funding is really critical not only for Dyadic, but quite frankly, for humanity.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: I think the only thing I’d add to that, Matt, is Mark pointed out, we are in a different place. We also have first-in-human data. Between COVID and today, we completed a phase I study that demonstrated the C1 protein was safe and effective for use in a human application. We also have non-human primate studies completed with some monoclonal antibodies. When you look at, you know, de-risking the platform for human therapeutics, I think, you know, in a pandemic situation, we’re in a much stronger point. Again, obviously, no one hopes for a pandemic situation, but, you know, should things start to turn, we’re in a much better position for funding opportunities and obviously those types of things as we move forward. We’re obviously gonna continue to focus in that area.
Mark A. Emalfarb, Chief Executive Officer, Dyadic International: No, good point.
Operator: Please proceed.
John D. Vandermosten, Analyst, Axial Research: Thank you. I’d like to dig into the relationship with Intralink. Joe, I recall, maybe I don’t remember correctly, but I thought you were heading to Asia to talk to some prospects that they identified. Can you tell us how that’s been going with them, and if you’ve made any movement with any of the people that they connected you with?
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Absolutely, John, and great question. Yes, we’ve actually expanded our agreement that was in the press release as well to include Europe now. Essentially, they expand our business development footprint very cost efficiently. They’re out there being able to target and at least generate the initial customer development. And obviously then, you know, Mark and I have to come in at some point as we continue to progress those. We’ve had what I think is significant success, at least initially in Japan, with getting customer engagement. We’re in the process of identifying product opportunities. We’ve shipped samples to some of the customers. I really think they give us the added horsepower that obviously that I don’t have or, you know, that Mark doesn’t have available as we’re doing, you know, a hundred other different things.
They give us the capability to keep these customers moving towards, you know, revenue agreements that we don’t have internally today, but much more cost effectively. They’re well-entrenched. They actually were headquartered and based in Japan, so they’re well-entrenched in Asia-Pacific. They do have a very strong team in the E.U. as well. Now that that’s kicking off, I anticipate we’ll start to see, you know, increased sampling activity and hopefully increased, you know, product purchases as we move forward. They really help me from a distribution standpoint. Also finding out which distributors are ready for these products, which ones we can target to move products faster, and obviously which ones are focused in the same areas that we are, like cell culture media and molecular biology workflows.
It definitely helps us focus our efforts in the right places and supports our activities, our business development activities in those areas.
John D. Vandermosten, Analyst, Axial Research: Okay. And another line item in the in the press release was about the IBT arrangement. I wanted to see what the next steps were. What are the next steps after the support channel receives the inventory?
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: After the support channel, well, essentially, I guess I might as well let you know, the product actually shipped this week. We’re shipping our first products, which are DNase I and transferrin. We will have other products that they will be, you know, putting into the channels as well. We’ll be looking at things like recombinant alpha lactalbumin, human alpha lactalbumin for cell culture applications, human transferrin as well. There’ll be multiple products, but we started with DNase I and bovine transferrin because those are ready to go. Those products have shipped. They now will then start to distribute that throughout their global distribution network, their sales teams then in turn go out to the individual customers, so academic institutions, hospitals, in some cases, research organizations. Right now we’re selling, you know, research use products.
Those are the types of organizations that their teams will be focused on. Again, it basically takes our products, gives us a sales source and gets them into the market.
John D. Vandermosten, Analyst, Axial Research: Okay. Thanks, Joe.
Operator: Mm-hmm. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The next question will come again from the line of John D. Vandermosten with Ax. Please proceed.
John D. Vandermosten, Analyst, Axial Research: Great. Thanks for the follow-up. Ping, the next question was for you. Now that we’re coming up on mid-year, what’s your best guess on cash burn?
Ping Rawson, Chief Financial Officer, Dyadic International: Hi, John. Good question. I think that’s the question everybody interesting. As you see from the press release at the end of March, we have $6.6 million cash, the actually equivalent, the restricted cash, and investment-grade securities. As I mentioned earlier, we expect it to have the same level of cash burn as previous years, which we are less than, you know, $5.7 million last year. We expect the same level, if not less than that, which means we’ll have enough cash runway into next year this time, at least.
Operator: No. There are no further questions and Oh, well, actually, sorry. We do have a question from Louis Garcia with who is a private investor. Please proceed.
Louis Garcia, Private Investor: How you doing, guys?
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Good, Louis. How are you?
Louis Garcia, Private Investor: Okay. Just a couple of questions here.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Yeah, we don’t have anything that’s publicly reportable with Codexis from the past. If you remember, we sold that business to DuPont for $75 million.
Louis Garcia, Private Investor: Okay.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Anything going there is going there. You know, there have been discussions in the past and the recent months of where we might have some benefits for each other.
Louis Garcia, Private Investor: Okay. How about, have we already received some royalties from FermBox and things that we’ve done, or is that still sort of like in the pipeline?
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: It’s in the pipeline. We expect we will see them in 2026. Obviously our focus is on growing the products right now, but we do expect to see the initial revenues, at least from the bioindustrial products.
Tony Bowers, Business Development Partner, Intralink: Using our products and doing research and all, is there any time, sort of timeframe where you think we might be able to start finally getting something going on their end? Their stock has also been doing very well and just seeing if we can sort of get jump in on that bandwagon with them if they were to throw something our way.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: It’s a great point and honestly, it’s also an example of one of the reasons why we shifted towards, you know, non-pharmaceuticals. While the partnership itself has been tremendous. They’ve invested a lot of time and effort into bringing a poultry vaccine, you know, to market. They still have a little bit a ways to go. My anticipation is they will be in clinical trials this year, which, you know, could put, you know, approval in the next, you know, 12-24 months. It also depends on, you know, how quick and how stacked up the regulatory authorities are in the EU and in the U.S., depending on where they’re gonna launch first.
We will have some, you know, milestones associated with some of the regulatory approval process. I do think, you know, that there should be some news flow coming out, you know, potentially in 2026, but definitely in 2027 around Febrile.
Mark A. Emalfarb, Chief Executive Officer, Dyadic International: Just to add some color, I mean, that’s been very successful from the technology side, our side, in terms of the yield and the performance. You know, as Joe said, we’re going to expect some milestones and potential hopefully an expansion, maybe potentially of their license as well to go into different vaccines that aren’t included in what they have now.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Again, they’re kind of right in the timeframe. I mean, it takes five to seven years to bring a new product to market in that space. You know, we signed the deal, I think, in 2018 and, you know, here we are 7 years later, and they’re getting ready to move into clinical phases. Again, it’s right on time, but just slow, slower than we’d like, which is why we’re moving towards the non-pharmaceutical products.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Glenn Primack with Lusa Investment Group. Please proceed.
Glenn Primack, Investor, Lusa Investment Group: Good afternoon. I’m guessing like you, boy, you guys have don’t have a lot of spare time for playing golf or anything. It’s, it’s quite amazing how much you’ve accomplished. I have to imagine, you know, Mark’s probably his phone’s off the hook with the, you know, hantavirus. Joe, with everything I’ve been reading in these trade journals on like, shortages away, and these food companies can’t get protein. You know, your distributors have to be, you know, you know, maybe kind of excited to get your solution out there. With that said, Ping, what do you think? Are you guys gonna need to add some bodies headcount-wise come 27 as you continue to ramp?
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Glenn, it’s a great question. I mean, obviously, we’re gonna do anything we do in that nature is gonna be, you know, judiciously and basically driven by product sales. As things start to scale, we will need additional support operationally just for product shipments, product manufacturing. You know, that does take, you know, a significant amount of time to, you know, get products labeled correctly, make sure they get out the door. You know, not something we’re gonna do immediately, but it is on the radar as these products start to scale, but it’s gonna be revenue dependent. As things start to move, we will look at, you know, which parts of the company we need to support further and pull that up.
Obviously, our main focus right now is on, you know, getting more product into the market so the revenues start to drive, and then we’ll look to improve our, you know, our capability internally. It’s a great question. Mark, you want to-
Mark A. Emalfarb, Chief Executive Officer, Dyadic International: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think as Joe pointed out, we just hired IDT to go after the European market because they’ve done a great job in Japan. You know, we’ve now have experience with their sales team, at least in the Japanese, and their oversight and the general manager. We now believe that going after the European market on these cell culture media, DNase I, RNA enzymes, cultured meat, cell and gene therapy, all the things that we’re launching and have launched and are launching, like transferrin and albumin with Proliant, we need more people, and we’re doing it judiciously. Joe said in this case, it’s IDT, but we’ve hired them as our sales force, so we don’t have to go hire people. They have the contacts that we don’t have.
This would be a faster way to get to the market.
Glenn Primack, Investor, Lusa Investment Group: Got it. The margins are still really, really, really, really good.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Yes.
Glenn Primack, Investor, Lusa Investment Group: I hope you guys get some rest this weekend, just a little bit.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Tony Bowers with Intralink. Please proceed.
Tony Bowers, Business Development Partner, Intralink: Hey, Joe. Yeah, nice progress. I wonder if you could just reflect on the nutritional market, what the potential is for cultured meat, demand for your ingredients versus, you know, the non-animal dairy. I think cultured meat seems it’s been struggling to take off. The non-animal dairy side, I think there’s got to be a huge conceptual demand. With agricultural inputs going up, that can only help.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Tony, it’s a great question, and obviously you always have great insight into the market, and you’re exactly right. The demand is I would say it’s more acute in cultured meat because they realize in order to compete in the market, they have to drastically reduce their production costs. Similarly, it’s a similar problem in the non-animal dairy space, but it’s a little different in that you’re competing with, you know, milk derived different ways. I think that’s also why we have an advantage. I think cultured meat, like I said, the demand is more acute because they are in pilot phase and they are seeking regulatory approval.
You know, if they get the regulatory approval, they have to be able to bring the cost of the final product down if they’re gonna be able to compete beyond high-end uses and restaurants. I think that will have to, you know, remain to be seen. On the non-animal dairy side, that is gonna continue to pick up, but it is all about scale. You know, obviously, I think you saw what happened with Perfect Day. You know, there’s a little There’s a scarcity of protein in that or non-animal protein in that segment, and I do believe we can help to fill that gap. It is about being able to scale the production streams up to the levels necessary to compete in the market. That’s what we’re focused on right now.
You’re 100% right. There’s a lot of demand there in both segments. I do think the nearer term opportunity for us, at least in terms of direct revenues, is just gonna be cultured meat for a little while, as we start to ramp and scale in non-animal dairy. Overall, non-animal dairy will dwarf cultured meat as a market for the foreseeable future. I mean, that’s just the way it is.
Tony Bowers, Business Development Partner, Intralink: Which geographies do you think will have the least regulatory problem on the meat side?
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Honestly, I think the U.S. will probably have the least regulatory one. At least from our standpoint. We obviously, we have a GRAS market. Again, at least now it is a little more regulatory friendly than the EU. I definitely, you know, that obviously could change tomorrow. I think with the demand for protein and the demand for more specialized and cleaner nutrition, I don’t see, you know, significant regulatory changes in the short term. Mark?
Mark A. Emalfarb, Chief Executive Officer, Dyadic International: Yeah. I think that if you recall, BASF has their own GRAS approvals in the EU and the U.S. on the Patcor technology platform. Fuels and chemicals are potentially back in vogue and people paying attention. We can’t rely on oil. So I think that our positioning and with our technology depth of this is ideally suited to turn biomass into sugar. We’ve already reentered that space with FermBox Bio, and they and us are trying to expand that as the situation in the Gulf continues to fester.
Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Dyadic’s President and COO, Joseph P. Hazelton, for closing remarks.
Joseph P. Hazelton, President and Chief Operating Officer, Dyadic International: Thank you. As we close, I wanna emphasize what we believe is most important. Dyadic today is no longer simply developing technology platforms. We are increasingly commercializing products, supporting customers, expanding partnerships, and building recurring revenue opportunities across multiple markets. We’re seeing growing interest in our technologies, increasing commercial activity across our partner network, and encouraging early signs of market adoption as products move from development into commercial channels. While we still have important execution work ahead, we believe the progress achieved over the past year has significantly strengthened the business and positioned us for continued operational commercial advancement. Our focus is now straightforward, continuing scaling product sales, expand strategic partnerships and distribution channels, support customer adoption, and maintain the disciplined operating approach that allowed us to extend our runway while continuing to build the business responsibly.
We remain confident about the opportunities ahead and appreciate the continued support of our shareholders, partners, and employees as we continue executing our strategy. Thank you, and we look forward to updating you on our continued progress.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.