How do you know what is the best type of cannabis for your body chemistry? By analyzing DNA, EndoCanna Health can determine the type cannabis that will work best for every individual. CEO Len May joins Dan Humiston to explain why it's important to select the correct type of cannabis. He also discusses their expansion plans, including expanding their genome sequencing from 675,000 genes to sequencing the entire genome. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston EndoCanna Health - https://www.endocannahealth.com/ Len May - https://podconx.com/guests/len-may Recorded on Squadcast
How do you know what is the best type of cannabis for your body chemistry?
By analyzing DNA, EndoCanna Health can determine the type cannabis that will work best for every individual. CEO Len May joins Dan Humiston to explain why it's important to select the correct type of cannabis. He also discusses their expansion plans, including expanding their genome sequencing from 675,000 genes to sequencing the entire genome.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
EndoCanna Health - https://www.endocannahealth.com/
Len May - https://podconx.com/guests/len-may
Dan Humisto: [00:00:00]
Today. And I'm Jay bulls. We are joined by Len may from endo Canna health, Len, welcome back to the show.
Len May: Thanks
brother.
Appreciate
Dan Humisto: Well, it's been a couple years since you were last on, and I'm really glad that you could free up some time to, to give us an update for our listeners who missed you. Last time. Endo health is really at the forefront of medical DNA technology by analyzing DNA, your patent pending technology. You're able to determine what type of cannabis is right for everyone's unique.
Body chemistry. Let me say that one more time, because this is really needs to be driven home by analyzing DNA. You're able to determine what type of cannabis is right for everyone's unique body chemistry. I mean, this is the future happening today. I, and I can't wait to learn more about the tech. I also wanna learn about your business model.
So I say we just jump right into , and maybe start off by telling us some of the reasons why so many people are now selecting cannabis based off [00:01:00] of their DNA.
Len May: cannabis is a complex plant as over 400 different components to it and we're complex individuals. And so to be able to take all those components and merge those with the components that we have in our bodies, it's complic. And cannabis is complicated and we have all these names of different colds of strains and the ratios, cannabinoids and terpenes.
How do we determine what's right for us? Well, the first thing that we do is we determine what may not be efficacious or may create an adverse event. So the idea is that you look at your genetic predispositions that may be triggering those adverse events. So people that are predisposed to stress reactivity are people that are predisposed to mood and depressive states are people that have some sleep challenges or maybe dosing metabolic function. You know, we were told for years and years, Low and slow, which I agree with, but then we had this whole [00:02:00] thing, milligram per kilogram of weight. Well, I mean, it doesn't really work that way. If somebody's a poor metabolism, my business partner is a poor metabolizer. He's physically a larger man. Me he's taller.
He weighs more. If he and I consume the same amount of THC. Through our first pass through our liver. Well, he'll take the next day off work to recover and I'll be like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm a normal metabolizer. Here is a poor metabolizer. And the third component of that is, is also drug to drug interactions.
Like what kind of prescription medication you're taking? Uh, we have a lot of people are coming to us. Saying, Hey, I'm on my antidepressant and I wanna get off by taking cannabis. I'm consuming my CBD or whatever it is with my, SSRI, my antidepressant. Well, there's an interaction between the two. So you have to be able to adjust for the interactions between supplements and medications.
So really it is truly. A personalized experience on phyto cannas and terpenes and matching those with specific products that are based on your genetic [00:03:00] predispositions, using certificates of analysis
from different manufacturers, and then being able to guide you geofence to that product, and then measure the efficacy through biometric feedback.
And I know it's a lot of stuff and I'm trying to get into a short period of time, but it really is. Bookending
the
experience.
Dan Humisto: you brought up a really interesting point because as you get older, I mean, I don't know anybody my age that isn't taking some medication and you wanna make sure that that interaction is, safe as possible , and it's as effective as possible.
So , before we jumped on, you were talking about how within our own DNA there's switches that can be turned on and off based on lifestyle. And so we have deficiencies in certain areas that.
Cannabis could turn on
Len May: yeah. I mean, I'll give you a, a really simple example. And you, you said it correctly, when we, and we had this conversation prior, uh, to saying you're born, your DNA is your DNA. That's it. You, these are the cards you're dealt. True in a sense, however, [00:04:00] you DNA. And as I explain it, like think of it as a bunch of, on off switches and some of them are turn on, at birth.
So like, uh, skin color, eye, color, hair color, but some of them you have encoding for that. Your lifestyle will help to determine turn on and off some of those things. Could be the nutrients that you put into your body nutrition, um, your mental state, your phyto cannabinoid intake. And by the way, if you have a gene, like there's a gene called FA fatty acid amylase, it produces an enzyme that breaks down an Anite, which is our endogenous endo cannabinoid.
Okay. Well, if you are. Not producing enough of your own
indulgence. Anite your own neurochemical, which is, uh, you can subsidize with THC, THC will bind into your CB one
receptor and release an Anite. But if you have a predisposition to, stress, reactivity, PTSD, et cetera, well, a little bit too much THC actually will do the opposite.
And. A stressful event [00:05:00] for somebody and if they have a stressful event and now they also have PTSD, well, they can come back and say, oh, I had , this stressful anxiety experience a year ago. Now you're bringing that to the surface and all these things and people, I talk to say cannabis is not really for me because it gives me anxiety and stress.
Well, what type of cannabis are you consuming? Well, I don't know. But it's not all the same. We're complex. The plan is complex. So maybe having a, A formulation that has a little bit more of a balance CBD or THC agonist, antagonist, and a different terpene profile lineal, which has been shown in studies to help reduce the anxiety or stress that's associated with high THC.
And Betalin that helps to reduce inflammation. Like this is where you get to the personal formulation standpoint. We have to do a better job as an industry to start making more and more of those products. So everybody across the entire. Country and the world can get access to every single type of formulation there is. [00:06:00] We're getting there, but at the very least, you, you have to know your GPS before you drive to see if there's a broken down vehicle. If there's an accident, , if there is a pothole, if you don't know that. You know, you're kind of walking
the walls blind. So knowing this, you can avoid those experiences and we can learn that other people like you have taken this specific protocol have been shown that this protocol is efficacious based on biometric feedback.
And we can do better as an industry, not only for people, but also for cultivators, for extractors, we can help them create better, product. , to help match, , what
they're cultivating, what they're growing, what they're
extracting,
et
cetera.
Dan Humisto: it makes a lot of sense, as opposed to just like, let's just get the highest THC thing that we can get out there. , this is really the, the future of, of, of cannabis and, you know, to get started. It seems really simple. You can either submit your DNA results that you've already taken from like 23 and me or ancestry.com, or you can [00:07:00] get an endo can kit and do it yourself.
Now, Once you guys receive the DNA information, you create a report. That's essentially a roadmap to each person's best cannabis experience. I guess the easiest way to say what information is included in that report.
Len May: Yeah. So the way that it works, you swab you register because HIPAA and she are compliance. So the information is anonymized and you ship it over to our lab. Once you get your results, you log into my DNA, that live, which is our portal. And you get your results. We're looking at about 675,000 single nucle, high polymorphism or genes that are directly or indirectly related to your endocannabinoid system.
And what we do is we look at symptomatic conditions that people consume cannabis for and where your genetics play role. So like anxiety, cognitive function, mood, and behavior. Pain and nausea and sleep. And then from there we look at what is the ratio of cannabinoids and terpenes [00:08:00] that better aligns with that symptomatic condition to mitigate. Possible expression or to induce expression of that, and then matching that with specific products. That's basically how it works. So it's a, bookending the experience. And then also, like I said, measuring the efficacy of that protocol
using a biometric device, like maybe the one that we have, which is called the endo link device, or we also can integrate with a Fitbit, et cetera.
And what that. It shows us and you as a customer, it's a collaborative effort. How's it working for you? Great. Now you can talk through telemed with a, a healthcare professional and we can really empower each other to be better in terms of our health and wellness with truly
precision
medicine.
Dan Humisto: That's crazy. You have, you will have so much data. Like if, if, if, if, say for instance, I, I, it works great for me. You say, Hey, you're similar to Dan, , your machine learning, figures that out. They're similar to Dan, this worked great for Dan and then you suggest it to somebody [00:09:00] else. Gosh, how much data you're in the data business.
That's a, that is so
Len May: at the end of the day, you're absolutely right. So our, our overall goal as a business is to have the world's largest observational. Now it's not Len May's personal information that I care about. It's having a thousand people that are around my age with my genetic predisposition, et cetera, that took the protocol.
And it's de-identified so there's numbers associated with, but if we can have a thousand people. 2000 a hundred thousand. It helps the entire industry. It helps the individuals that are consuming. It helps the, the cultivators. It helps the manufacturers. Now we can really, really get, better precision, uh, you know, therapeutics for
individuals.
Dan Humisto: , let's talk about the business model before we wrap things up. Can you walk us through some of your revenue channels?
Len May: Yeah. So we have three. I guess three and a half revenue channels. Number one is selling the test. So it retails for 199,
uh, which is the endo DNA [00:10:00] test uploads. The, as you mentioned, Dan 23, me ancestry, any other DNA test you can upload and get your results. Instantaneously without swabbing that's 49 95 retail.
And then we also have eight patent pending formulations that we developed over the years based on that feedback. And we license those formulations to manufacturers around the world that can actually create products using those formulations. So they pay us a royalty for that. And then the, other half of that is that we also get an affiliate fee from different product manufacturers that provide us a certificate analysis so we can match.
Their products and really guide people taking the order, like an order taker, guide them to the dispensary where they can get that specific product. in addition to that, there is some revenue on the biometric device, uh, or endo link device for, for feedback. And then we also have a SAS model.
We're global company, uh, we're operating currently in all of north America. So in the us, obviously, [00:11:00] Canada, In Mexico, we're actually approved as a
diagnostic device, in Brazil. We're operating. under a SAS partner. So, uh, white label, just Intel inside power by endo. it's an interesting model, depending what country it is.
a doctor prescribes cannabis uses our test to find out what works for them. Then there is a prescription electronic that goes to us and we fulfill those formulations directly. To the individual patients. we are in the UK. Uh, we're waiting for approval in Germany and Germany is interesting cuz insurance covers the U cannabis and in, uh, Australia and Thailand,
Dan Humisto: I mean, that just seems like the opportunity is endless, especially when, you can geo fence the, the person that's, it's looking for their medicine and you can say within your area, Here's where you can get, get the product that you need. And that's just gonna encourage more dispensaries and companies to send you their, their testing results.
, . Talk to me about the next 12 months. the, what's on the plate [00:12:00] right now for the next 12 months.
Len May: So the next 12 months is, uh, twofold. Number one. It's uh, whole genome sequencing, which we're super, super excited about. So just to geek out numbers right now, 675,000, let's say records or, or genes, we're going to 64 million that we can do the entire genome, uh, looking at your nutrient predispositions, vitamins, scan, anything and everything.
that's huge. And what that's gonna lead us to is our next test, which is our neuro DNA test, which is our mental health test. And that focus. On, treatment resistant depression first, then binding affinity to different pathways like serotonin Gabi, dopamine, which will then lead us to, uh, psychotropics, which psychotropic or psychedelic is more aligned with you.
And how do you avoid a possible adverse event from that psychedelic? Uh, so we're looking at, L S D we're looking ATSY, we're looking at IBO gain. We're looking at MDMA and we're looking at Keta. [00:13:00] For instance. So those are on the path and then creating our SAS model in a way where
we can give the company, empower them with their own, my DNA live. And, it'll make it easier for translation. Some of the challenges technically we ran into is like translating everything to Portuguese. So now we know how to do this. Technically we'll turn the switch on and our partners can do the translation and everything. It will be the same kind of portal, but in any language
that we.
Dan Humisto: That is so cool. I mean, every time you open your mouth, it's something you had something new. I wish we had more time. Are you gonna need to raise capital , to tackle some of these?
I mean, there's.
Len May: That's it, man. That's the last, I mean, we, we are at the end of the day, a health technology company, we've done an exceptional job building our technology as a CEO. I'm super proud of, of us what we haven't done a great job. It's marketing and we just didn't have a lot of focus on that. So right now we're raising our series B Meredith has taken a lead that our lead invest [00:14:00] in our series B, but we still have. Uh, you know, a chunk to fill. So once that is completed, all the things I talked about, not only can we execute on those, but we can actually let the world know a lot more that we exist besides, you
know, having these amazing interactions with the, with you on podcasts. I love that, but it would be, it would be great for everybody else in the world to know that this is where the precision medicine, comes from your DNA and your expression of
your DNA.
Dan Humisto: not like you said, it's the potential is, goes beyond cannabis. just so many opportunities here. And you're, as I said, at the beginning of the show, you're at the forefront of this. I, I'm confident that you're gonna have no problem filling up the rest of the series B and we're, I I'll have all your information in the show notes.
So if anybody wants to learn more about endo health or about investing, or you want to get started and get an endo DNA kit, just click the link. And also, I don't wanna leave without saying this. All everyone needs to check out lens podcast. Everything is personal. [00:15:00] Yeah.
Everyone needs to check that out. Len. I wish we had more time cuz , we could do three shows on what you're doing, but I don't and I don't know how you keep up with everything that you're doing, but good for you. Keep it going. This is really cool. Thanks for being on the show today.
Len May: Appreciate that. Thank.