Innovative Solutions and Better Products for Women with Saundra Pelletier of Evofem

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper captains counting beans Contador quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos el gordo, the taco standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean watch the sunset la Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana esti be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon hashtag SD TechOS with your host, Neil Bloom.

Come on.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Bloom, and I am thrilled to have you here on the Talkers and Tech Podcast. We interview builders of technologies, of companies, of communities, and we do it weekly. So thanks for tuning in. Every Tuesday, a new interview and on Fridays we talk about what's new in the San Diego tech ecosystem from a news perspective. So make sure you join us there as well too. We also have a tech newsletter that comes out every other week@freshbrewedtech.com you can subscribe to listen to it without further ado. Enjoy this episode. I'm in person, which feels so good with Sandra Pelit here. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. CEO of evafn Biosciences.

Thank you for having me. And I'm thrilled you're here in person. It's great.

It is absolutely wonderful to see you. I've been such a fan for a long time.

Thank you.

And so to get to spend some time with you is great. Do you want to give us a quick overview of what U of M Biosciences is?

Yeah, I would love to. So our company is focused on innovation and women's healthcare, and that might sound like a nice word on a website, but we are really executing on that. So since 1960, the category of birth control has been dominated by hormones. Our company has brought to market the first and the only birth control product that has no hormones that women use on demand, only when they need it, only when they have sex. And it is so exciting because there's 23 million women in the US that are beyond hormones. They've had side effects. They have suffered. They're worried what taking a synthetic hormone might do to them. And so Fexi is the product P H E X X I. So we brought to market the first innovation in decades in the category. And then the other thing we're doing is looking at other unmet needs. So forthcoming, we will expand the label of this product and prevent women from getting chlamydia and gonorrhea. So innovation isn't just a word on our website. It's actually how we live, why we exist, because we think women deserve to have better products and better solutions.

This is huge. I mean, to have innovation still in this space where you'd think we've found all the innovation that is of birth control, it's pretty great to see that, in effect, so many people.

It's true. You know what's so fascinating that you said that. I mean, when we first started pitching investors for money, people said to me, are you joking? There's so many choices out there. Why are you doing this? And I said, well, let me shock you. Half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned. If there was a silver bullet, if all of these solutions were actually a silver bullet, this wouldn't be the case. And the real reason is that all people have done is come out with lower doses of more hormones. No one's really innovated, and so that's why our product is so unique and different. But you're right, there's a huge amount of products. But I always say that just because something's been done one way, it doesn't make it right. And so we're doing it in a different way. And I think it is right. So it's great and exciting.

Absolutely. And being done right here in San Diego, which we love. You've been a champion of women's health, like, I believe your whole career. What got you down this path? Like, how did you get started and figure out this is this was your purpose?

Well, I really do believe sometimes what you choose chooses you. And I started out in the northernmost city in the US in the border of the furthest place in Maine you can travel to, right on the border of Canada, a place called Caribou, Maine. And I think a lot of small towns in America have this where you don't see beyond the county line girls think that the choices are limited. They think marriage and motherhood is really the only option they have. But My mother had 12 brothers and sisters, and my mother had outdoor plumbing. And so when I was young, she started quite early. And she would say things like, you don't need to cook and clean. That will never get you out of here. And the day you graduate, I would like you to leave and never come back. And if you want me to visit you, send me a plane ticket. Of course, we'd never been on a plane. And so she said, you need to go out and you can always come back. You can always come home again, but go as far away as you can go and see if it suits you. And, you know, when you're little, you think, huh, you know, you're not really sure. Is my mother trying to get rid of me? So. But she and all of her friends decided that I was the horse that they were gonna bet on. And they all did everything they could to make sure that I had the life that they wish that they had. And so that's how I got out of there, so to speak. But I really do I have to tell you that I must have this invisible sign that everywhere I seemed to go, I always found myself in situations where I spoke for the invisible or the people who weren't heard. And those people all happened to. And whether it was women who were vulnerable because of domestic violence, whether it was just inequities that exist. And so in college, it was the same thing. But when I left school, I actually was supposed to be. I went. I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. I really, truthfully, I wish that I could do CBS Sunday Morning. I love that show anyway. But Jane Paul is so lovely. Yes, so lovely. But I got a job at the pharma company that launched the first birth control pill. Yeah. A company called G.D. searle. And they had launched. And so the funny part was, is they said to me, you're going to get to call on OB GYNs and support women and women's health. And they sold me this great pitch, and I bought it hook, line, and sinker thought that I would just do it for a few years while I was interviewing, and here I am. But I would tell you that growing up in pharma, and I really mean that, I was a sales rep carrying a bag. I was a sales manager. I was in managed care. I launched a US Sales force. I was in US Marketing, international marketing. I did so many jobs, you can't believe it. All with the mindset, though, that I really wanted to move up the corporate ladder so that I could get to a decision making place because I really believed that I would make better decisions than some of the decisions I saw being made. But my whole career, you're right, has been pervasively in women's health from puberty through menopause, and mostly trying to understand the mindset of women when they don't want to get pregnant, when they do want to get pregnant, when they want to space their pregnancies. And so I have done a lot of market research, qualitative and quantitative, on what women want. That's why men really like to pick my brain. They're like, please tell us what women want. Please be our dating coach. Which you know. But I would tell you that I really am passionate because what I know to be true is that when women feel as good as they should every life they touch benefits. And there's no reason for women to feel bad every day taking something that they don't even need. Women don't have sex every day. And so in the end, I'm such a champion for making sure that women know that a company really cares about them. Yes, we care about our shareholders, but we equally care about women as well.

For sure. But you aren't just doing it. You aren't just helping women professionally. You've done, you've been a mentor, you've been coach, you've played every role within the community as well. Why is that so important to you alongside just professionally moving up the corporate ladder and building products that help women too?

Yeah, I will say that when I was an executive coach, it was so important to me because consciously and subconsciously, women are raised to be pleasers and mediators and martyrs. And it is definitely suggested that there's nobility in putting ourselves second. Our husband should come first. Our kids should come first. I used to have seminars, and honest to goodness, when this was a mistake on my part, I titled one of it, putting yourself first is the least selfish thing you can do for others. Women would come and they would say, I asked my mother to babysit my kids. And my mother would say, what is wrong with you? Your kids come first. You shouldn't be going to a seminar like that. And it was just really fascinating, right, because sometimes women don't even make it on their own to do list. They just don't. And so. But I would tell you that over time, that breeds unhappiness. There's just no question. And a lot of women, one of the main reasons I would tell you, this is funny that you asked me this, and I don't know that I've told this story in forever. At one point in my professional career, I was doing this focus group with menopausal women, a huge subset of menopausal women. And I was educating them on heart disease as the number one killer of women. And I was talking to them about one size doesn't fit all, and we were gonna measure their estradiol levels and do all these things. And they were all listening to me or a thought. And then when it got to Q and A, this one woman stood up and she said, I just wanna know, when is it gonna be my turn? When am I gonna get to be first? When am I gonna get what I want? When is it gonna be okay that I'm first? And all of these women were in their 50s, and they had waited all of this time to figure out when they could start looking at their own desires. And a lot of them thought, well, their opportunity had passed. So when I decided to be an executive coach, I really wanted to try to identify and help women when they were younger in their career to say, look, you don't have to choose if you don't want to. You don't have to either be a mother or an executive. Why do you have to give up one to be the other? Who said that? And so, and I really tried to convince boards that's the way it should be, and women that's the way it should be to really help them move up. Because there's a lot of data that women do deliver higher shareholder return. Women can retain, recruit, and retain better talent, that they use their emotional intelligence in ways that men can't and don't. And I'm not saying men are worse leaders. I'm saying women are also great leaders. But the shocking part was that a lot of women didn't believe it. And it wasn't so much that men didn't believe it. There were a lot of men that would say to me, we didn't hold these women back. They wanted to leave and go home and be mothered. We didn't do it. Why are you mad at us? Right? But that was the fascinating part, is that at first, I did have a lot of blame toward the patriarchy, right? They are keeping women down, these oppressors. But really, in the end, it wasn't necessarily that. It was that women didn't ask for what they wanted, they didn't use. They didn't stand up for what they needed like they didn't have credit with success. When they did a good job, they didn't tout it, they gave it away to someone else. And they thought that was benevolent but it was really stifling their career growth. Right. They were creating their own ceiling. Right. And so that is when I really started talking to women to say you can ask for what you want and not be deemed nasty bitch on wheels. I don't know if that's allowed to be said here. Sorry about that if it isn't. But. So that was the one thing. And the more you encourage women to just be clear and say what they wanted or what they expected in a non confrontational way, it was amazing how something that simple changed their career trajectory. So I care about that because I just. Even the most confident women that I meet, and I love meeting confident women and some of them, you know, it's fake it till they make it on the inside. Who cares? Right. And. But there's a lot of women that a little bit of encouragement changes their entire demeanor. So it's really a good thing.

That's pretty great. And I can tell just from being around the office like it's all fused into the culture here. Which we're going to talk about in a second as well too. When did you know you knew you wanted to work up the corporate ladder? Did you know it was going to always be in biotech? And did that. Is that what brought you to San Diego? Just being a pharma biotech kind of community?

Yeah. So my company was actually sold. So I was working at Searle and now remember. I guess I'd like to blame Caribou, Maine. I was very naive. I was naive in a lot of things. It was sort of like Ellie Mae goes to the city. When I got to Chicago, I had never been in a department store. I'm not joking. I actually spent two full days there the first time I went. I couldn't get over it. I mean I went there and I stayed there for like 12 hours. It was the most amazing thing ever. And that is honestly true. And so. But I got to San Diego because the company was sold and many people were no longer offered jobs. But I was actually offered an opportunity with the new company, but not in Women's Health. They wanted me to transition into a different therapeutic area because I. My division had generated a lot of profit. And I said to them, why would you want me to do that? My whole career has been in Women's Health. I don't even care about that other division. It doesn't even matter to me. And they said, bless your heart, we want you to do it because you're a good businesswoman. We don't care what you want. Honest to goodness. And I can remember thinking, like, oh, like inside it was like. It was really a fascinating moment that I still remember. Right? Yes, yes. And I thought, wow. And I honest to goodness said I resigned. And everybody that knew me thought I'd had a full mental breakdown. I mean, they were like, what, you resign? And I just thought, I'm not doing this. No, I'm not doing it. I'm not relocating. I'm not going.

And so then, freeing feeling, or was it scary or.

It was so. No, so scary. It was like walking down the street nude in the middle of rush hour traffic, you know? And then I was thinking, like, oh, my God, what have I done? You know what I mean? Like, what have I done? And then what else I was thinking on the whole ride home is, I'm gonna have to move back to Caribou. Like, what am I gonna do? And even as a joke, I would tell you that about a hundred times in my life I've called my mother and said, I think I have to come back home. And she would always say, all right, you can get a job at McDonald's, it'll be fine. And then I'd be like, okay, I better not do that. I mean, I don't really. So it was always nice to know I had a place to go back to. Whenever I think truthfully, that was always good. That was the lever that made me not wanna go. But anyway, that's how I got to San Diego, is that I came here because there was a bunch of women's healthcare companies that were trying to sell assets. I knew a lot of people and I knew a lot of different bankers, and there was this sort of movement happening in San Diego. Now, you ready? I had never been to San Diego ever in my life. Thank you much. It was winter in Chicago. So at that point, I had migrated from Maine to Chicago, went to Boston, went back to Chicago when I came to San Diego. And I had been to la, I'd been to San Francisco both many times, but never San Diego. When I arrived here, I mean, I know this sounds corny and I'm sure people have said this. I said to myself, these are my people.

Yeah.

I am never leaving here again. And I said, like, how come I have not been here? I would have been here sooner. And I thought, like, this is it. I'm never leaving. I'm never Leaving here and I never have. I love it here so much because it's. You can be anything, anyone, anytime. I just feel like the pretension, it doesn't exist in the way it does in other places. And that people are, you do you and I'll do me. And you can be a billionaire and wear your pajamas to Starbucks, or you can live in a tent. And it's just. I don't know, I really like it. But there's a lot of access to cool and interesting things that I love too. Things that are mind, body, spirit, meditation and yoga and. Yeah, but San Diego is hard to leave for sure.

And no one really does, but it's almost good that you take your time, everyone does, to get here, to like bring your own unique experiences and then go do the thing you want to do because certain things have been freed off. So when did Eva fam. Really kind of come to be? When was the.

2015. Okay, 2015, actually, when I. In 2009. Quick side story. So 2009, I started a nonprofit called Women Care Global. And that whole premise and the footprint of that organization was a sustainable nonprofit. And it was around contraceptive supply. Donations do not work. So it was really to prove that a hybrid model could be made, executed, and be sustainable. And so you get initial funding, but then you figure out how to go into urban and rural settings. The Robinhood approach, you charge a little more in places that can afford it, less in places that can't. And so during that work, the one thing when you've been in women's health is you recognize there are not a lot of unicorns and a lot of people just repurpose old drugs. It's fine. But I heard about this product, and it was called Amphora at the time. And it was a multipurpose prevention technology that you could continue to invest in for all of these different unmet needs. And I had heard a whole bunch of different stories about this product, right, that they were going to coat condoms with it, that no one really knew what was going to happen. And the fascinating thing was that out of the blue, I had an outreach from somebody who was on the board who said, we really need some help. We have a bunch of different divisions underneath the organization. We have a women's healthcare division, and we'd really like to talk to you. And so when I first met the organization, they had wanted me to leave my nonprofit and go and help them sort of reorganize. And at that time I said, this nonprofit isn't really a job. It's part of who I am. I can't abandon them. But I'll make a deal with you. I will help you. I will help you raise money, I'll help you organize, I'll help you look at all of it. And what in return is you would give me rights for Africa, Asia and Latin America at a transfer cost that's at cost in perpetuity. They said, okay, we're never going there anyway. Right? We don't care about going to Africa. We don't care about that, really. And I thought, all right, this is fantastic. So that's how I first got introduced to the assets. But at that time there was, look, everybody I meet when they come in new and even me, everybody, you have new and different ideas. I was younger then and a little more of a smarty pants a lot than I am now. I've been humbled. But I wanted to do a lot of different things. And so bottom line is that the investors asked me to create a new entity and break away. And we had to do an additional confirmatory phase 3 clinical study. A lot of changes. So that's when we became evofem Biosciences and moved to a new location. And I will tell you, it has been a rocky road ever since. You really have to have a backbone to biotech, particularly public company. But yeah, it's in, especially in a pandemic, it's been a little crazy and.

A consumer face, which not a lot of biotech really take on that part. Right. So take us through the path to knowing that was the like, that's where you needed to be the kind of a face of the product and maybe take us through a little bit of the iterations of what the product eventually kind of came because I'm sure like you said, there was a few different use cases for it.

It's true. So I'll do the product really quick first, if that's okay.

Yeah.

So the product was developed by Rush University in Chicago. And what they recognized is that this product, this MPT multi purpose prevention technology was really a vaginal PH modulator. So what does that really mean? So a normal vaginal pH is 3.5 to 4.5. That's it. That's what the majority of women, their vaginal PH is. If you want to go to dinner, you can say, hi, I bet I know what your vaginal PH is. Probably shouldn't do that, but good dinner talk. Yes, good dinner talk. But when semen enters the vagina, PH goes up to seven or eight and you get pregnant. It's the same exact thing that happens when chlamydia and gonorrhea pathogens enter. Your ph rises and you get infected. So fexi it. Actually, the three ingredients are lactic acid, citric acid and potassium bitartrate. So essentially food grade. You find these things in the food, but combined together it actually is acid buffering. So it just helps the vagina maintain natural ph, making it inhospitable to semen and pathogens like chlamydia and gonorrhea. Now the product comes in a pre filled applicator. So a prescription is a box of 12 pre filled applicators and each applicator has 5ml and you put it in right before sex or within an hour, anytime within an hour, or literally immediately before. And any woman that's used a tampon or used any kind of vaginal applicator, it's very simple, very easy to use. And the reason I'm showing you, and I know that most of your listeners are just hearing me, but I'm showing Neil so he can see that it's very viscous and bioadhesive. Women won't use something that leaks out. But the other thing that women really love about this product is that it's very lubricating and so there's no odor, there's no taste. But a lot of women have vaginal dryness or they have pain with intercourse. And by the way, even young women, not just perimenopausal women, so they love the lubricating properties. I actually have a lot of young women that say I was using lubricant already and why wouldn't I just use this? It's like a no brainer. I just gave up my lubricant and I'm using this instead of taking the pill. So it's been really great. But the one thing that we have found is that for the first time, we have really opened up the Pandora's box about side effects that really occur. That the side effects aren't just one day a month, that the side effects aren't nominal, that they are pervasive, that it's headaches and it's weight gain and it's bleeding and it's acne. But the COVID side effects are the thing that surprised me. Most young girls would write letters and send me emails and call and say when I went away to school, my mom put me on the pill so I wouldn't get pregnant. Well then all of a sudden I started crying for no reason and I was really emotional. So she thought I was depressed. So I got put on an antidepressant. Another girl said, well, I started having all kinds of anxiety and I seemed really hyper and flighty. And so they put me on an anti anxiety product. And then all of these young women said, and after a while, when somebody actually looked and took more time and was more thoughtful, it was their birth control that was making them feel that way. So here they are on two and three medications, none of which they really need because it was hormones that were doing this to their system. And so that's the stuff that has been fascinating. And in this self care movement, which is not just in San Diego, by the way, all over the country they say, look, I do yoga. I don't have hormones in my milk, I don't have it in my meat, I don't have hormones in my makeup. If chickens can be hormone free, why can't women? And the biggest thing is I don't have sex every day. Would you take a pill every day that you don't even need? If it made you feel bad, why would you do that? Right, for sure. So that has been the very interesting part. And so fexi is. It really is empowering because women can have sex on demand. Men have had condoms forever, right? You can go out with a condom, protect yourself from getting someone pregnant, protect yourself from getting an sti. So now women will have that same empowerment opportunity. And look, it's just about choice. Well, I read articles, look, I think women deserve choice. We say to doctors, if a woman comes in and she loves her hormone, awesome. We're not trying to tell you to take that woman off of her hormone if she loves it. That's not what we're here for. We're trying to tell you that there's 23 million women that won't use hormones. We're trying to tell you that women are breastfeeding. They don't want to have hormones in their breast milk. If they have a high bmi, they shouldn't be on hormones. If they're smoking, if they're diabetic, if they've had cancer, 800,000 women get it every year. They probably shouldn't be using a hormone ever again. We're trying to tell you that there's a huge subset of your patients that deserve and want fexi. And now we have a solution for you. And so that's really what it's about. But yeah, it really has been great. So getting to the DTC part, I would say that I meet some companies and they say to Us, well, we're not gonna do any consumer facing. We're just going to the physician. This is prescription, it's fda, it has clinical rigor. We're just going to the physician and I say, okay, you know what, cool, good luck with that. No, I don't say that part. I just say, okay, but why I.

Say this is a different product though, that the doctor is not selling you on choice usually in that regard, 100%.

And by the way, and women, what I think has happened in this moment, and I really do think that time's up, I think that all of those things, me too, has created a mindset also. And I really think this, that the patriarchy women don't have to do what they're told. And just because a doctor says so when it comes to contraception, I mean, it's different if you have, you know, cancer. Right. But for contraception, we have found that women really are kind of leaning into knowing their bodies and how they work and knowing how they feel and how they should feel. And so DTC is so important for us in your point. Right. And this is such a consumer facing product. Now the challenge for us has been that it costs a lot of money. It's not cheap, it just isn't. Is it worth it? Yes, it is so worth it. And look, the one challenging part before we got to launching this drug is that at one point, Neil, when you had met me, if you had met me 2020, we had a shareholder base that was all healthcare investors. Our entire shareholder base was made up of long term healthcare holders who knew exactly how product launches went. They've been through the rodeo a thousand times. They understand fda, they know you should detail doctors first. They know you have to cost a lot of money. They know that you're not profitable for a few years because you know you have to build your base of users. Well, in that year 2020, two of our largest holders had to liquidate both of their funds, both of them. And that was about 80% of our company. And when they liquidated, those shares went to anybody who would take them. Those people didn't choose evofem, they just were taking shares from a company that they didn't even really know about. They didn't know they should get into women's health or contraception. And some of them. So that was very tough. So we went from long term healthcare holders to a huge retail base. Huge. And a lot of those retail investors, you know, they didn't seek that out. So that was a tough shift for us. So that's what started making bringing in capital challenging. I mean, it really did. It started our stock price, it was hard to recover. It was very difficult to see that one after the other. And by the way, it wasn't our fault these funds had to go date, right? But it impacted us significantly.

And Covid's happening, right?

And then Covid's happening and then we're getting approval and then we launched the drug.

And other biotechs are getting overshadowed, right, because there's just certain things that are a little more important in healthcare.

100%. And then we got ready to close an amazing financing with incredible terms. And the night before we were going to close, literally the night before, the head of the fund, who I wasn't even really interfacing with, right, called me at home and I thought he was calling to congratulate me and he was calling to say, I am so sorry, but we cannot fund seven other deals. It's not just you because of COVID we have to hold onto the capital for the funds we've already committed to. And can you imagine, this was the night before and I can remember sitting there like, oh, my goodness. Right? So then we had to find capital that we could find based on terms that we could get. I mean, at the end of the day, right, you've got to do what you've got to do to keep the company going forward. So the funding part has been very challenging because we went from this literally like a beautiful Tiffany box with a nice bow, and then it went all down to a total, like night and day difference. Right. So.

But retail investors relate a bit more to D2C because they are seeing products that are in front of their face.

Yes.

So where does that kind of come from in that regard?

Well, I would tell you good and bad. We do have a lot of them that say things like, why don't you get Kim Kardashian and why don't you sell this in hot dog carts in New York City on every street corner? So safe say, well, we have to have a prescription because we're FDA approved. And Kim Kardashian wants $15 million to read a 60 second ad on a cue card. We really need somebody who's going to lean into this brand authentically. So I would say this, we really took more time than you would imagine identifying Annie Murphy. So if you've seen Schitt's Creek and maybe some of your listeners have. Yeah. So she was Alexis Rose in Schitt's Creek. And what was so cool is that she had a lot of really challenging experiences with hormones herself, and she actually thought something was wrong with her. She kept going to doctor after doctor trying to figure out what was wrong with her and why could no one tell her. And finally she realized it was her birth control. And she is. She is as cool and authentic and smart and awesome as you hope. You know, when you meet, sometimes you're a little disappointed with her. It gets better. She's really that. So it was a really cool thing. But the funny part is, the first time I met her, we were doing a zoom call, and I got on early and she was on early, and it was just she and I. So we just started talking, just talking. And then she said, yeah. And she said, so when is the CEO going to get on? I said, well, she's on. And she goes, it's a she. I said, it's me. And she's like, no way. I thought some mansplainer was gonna get on here and tell me about my vagina. I can't believe this. And it was so funny. And she was like, oh, it was like, so great. And so. And she and I really connected because I said to her, I'm not pushing a drug. This is a movement. We are changing everything. We are shattering the hormone glass ceiling, and this is a real thing. So it was really good because she. She liked that. So she's been great. But yes, those ads, that was a big investment. But to your point, though, retail investors, you're right, it made perfect sense to them because they're like, that's how you get your target audience, right? That's how you speak to your people. So it was good. But I would say that because we're prescription and FDA approved, there's so many rules and guidelines that you have to follow so you don't get your product pulled from the market. That's the other part that's hard to explain to people because they say, why don't you say this and why don't you say that? And we say, well, we can't. And if we do, we will get fined. And if we get in trouble too many times, they'll make us stop marketing our drug. Which is very different for over the counter products. So that's also been tough to try to educate our investors that we're not being conservative in this way. I mean, we're being way more provocative than a lot of companies, by the way.

Sure.

Her commercial said, welcome to my vagina.

Yeah. Pretty great commercial, though.

Yeah. Thank you.

We'll link to it in the show notes for sure.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, so. But yes, that's the challenge is that when people aren't used to investing in healthcare, they. By the way, I would love to be more crazy and more edgy if I could, but I've pushed the envelope pretty far for what I can do with an FDA approved product. But we continue. But we're going to continue to push messages as strong and hard as we can, for sure.

Well, I don't know how much you can say about future what's happening, but we know that this product is more magical even than already what's out there, Right. It's got so many other properties and so many other pieces. Can you speak to what the future is for Fexi?

So we've just finished the phase three enrollment for the prevention of chlamydia and gonorrhea. And in the fourth quarter of this year we will announce top line data on that. And the one staggering thing is 4 million cases of chlamydia every year and it's growing. And the CDC has said for the sixth year in a row, it's growing. Gonorrhea is the second most diagnosed and prescribed with 1.6 million cases. And it's antibiotic resistant. So when you look at all of them, people are like, what about herpes? What about those? Honestly, if you really look at it, chlamydia is so significant, then followed by gonorrhea. So we will eventually be able to knock on wood. Once we get approval, hopefully then we will expand the label and women will be able to prevent. By the way, there's no products indicated to prevent chlamydia or gonorrhea. So we're so excited about that. And then we also have entered into a proof of concept study with a group called Orion Biosciences. They have a compound that they want to combine with Vexi to look at HIV prevention. So down the road their goal is to say, okay, look, you won't get pregnant, you won't get these two STIs and you won't get HIV. And so we're very excited. In fact, we had a very serious meeting with them today. And so we're moving that project forward as well. So unmet need is really the battle cry here to really try to keep innovating. And this product has. So to your point, right, it has so many applications that we want to maximize.

It's the same product. You don't have to go build product lines, right? Like that's the beauty as well.

It is the Beauty.

Very cool. Well, you built an incredible company, obviously. Take us to a bit about how you decided to build the company the way you did, culture wise, the space, what's important to you about the people you work with.

Yeah, culture is everything to me. The greatest human need is the need to feel significant but authentically. To feel significant authentically. And why I say that so specifically is that when I was growing up in pharma, I really did this. I had two journals. One was everything I hated and one was everything I loved. And I literally labeled them love and hate. And I know hate's a strong word and I used it and it was appropriate. There are some terrible things that I witnessed growing up in pharma, as you can imagine. And I thought, I am never, ever going to do that. But I don't want to forget because sometimes you climb the corporate ladder and you get so tired when you get to the top, you're just like, thank God I'm here. I'm just gonna sit here and rest for a while. And I was like, I never wanna do that because I saw other people do that. And I thought, you can't ever rest like that. So this culture here is truthfully a result of everything I loved. Nothing I hated, everything I loved. And what I mean by that is I like flat organizations. I think hierarchy sucks. I think that whole mindset of I have to hate, I walked through nine miles of snow. And now you do too. You think, you know what, these people are smarter and younger and more innovative. And so the woman at the front desk should, I want people to understand, why are we doing this? Why does it matter what impact? What are your contributions doing? And so I am a very transparent leader and I would tell you that this place is not for everyone because. And I say that because transparency, that means you're really given the real deal. And sometimes it scares people. It freaks them out. This is a startup environment and startup environments are unpredictable. And you have to believe and you have to swing for the fences and you have to dive fully in. There's no dipping your toe in the water. Sometimes you don't even get a bathing suit. You're skinny dipping, fully jumping off the diving board here. And you have to like that. You have to like it. It has to excite you. It can scare you, but it can't scare you to the point of paralysis. So this culture is, I say, look, please leave your egos in the parking lot when you get here, roll up the window, don't take them back out, because here it's like, I want to agree to disagree. We want to have robust discussion. We can argue if we need to. Inside these walls, though, that's what we do. We get it all out, right? And I say, this is a family, right? And I always joke, like, you know, this is sort of like the Mafia. It's like, don't go against the family. But we all talk very openly and truthfully, and we put the elephant on the table. And there's no layers and levels in the organization. And people, I think, feel heard, I think they feel informed, and I think they feel cared about. And the little things, like, everybody's birthday is remembered. I mean, they were born, they matter, they're here. Like, they're spending as much time with us as they are anywhere else, right? And so we remember the births of their babies are celebrated. They buy houses, we celebrate, they get married, we celebrate. Because I really care a lot that they know that we want the whole human here. But the other thing that I always have said when I interviewed HR directors, mama mia, that was an interesting time. I wish I could have taped that. Could have been like on the office. I mean, it was just like, wow. I had one lady come in with a cheerleading megaphone. And I said, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, that was an angle. That was an angle. So what I say about HR is that I said, look, I don't want anybody to ever have to lie. If people need to go to their kids play or they need to go to a soccer game, I want them to say, I'm leaving today at 1, I'm going to my kids play. I'm coming in at 11 because I'm going to my. Whatever it is. Like, give me a break here, right? We want these people to live their life and they don't have to make up stories, they don't have to lie and they don't have to ask. They should just tell you, can I leave? That's craziness. And I said, and I also want us to really lean into women that if they need to have certain hours, that if you throw a bone to a woman and you say, look, it's okay, you can leave here every single day at 3 o' clock and go pick up your kids. They'll work half the night to get their job done because they're so grateful that somebody knows that they're gonna contribute, right? We try to meet people where they are, literally meet them where they are in their life. And as long as now, by the way not everybody does that. We've made a few mistakes, of course, but we haven't made that many.

Well, everyone's working for a higher power in a sense. Right. For their mission driven, impact driven. And like today is just a series of those events towards the big thing, make effective change.

It's true.

Yeah. And it comes across publicly from the branding internally, obviously, authentically. So that's pretty cool to have built something so authentic.

Thank you.

Obviously, you journaled it and made it into fruition. You're building here in San Diego, which we all love and we'll be here forever, which means you're surrounded by a lot of taco options.

Oh, yeah.

Do you have a favorite? There's no wrong answer here.

All right. Hagos Tacos is not only my favorite, listen, it's at the top of the list. I love, love, love Hagos Tacos. Okay.

Yeah, it's a good one. I don't think it's actually been mentioned before.

Really?

It'll be the new one to our taco database.

Oh, I love that. You have to put it in your taco database.

Yeah, we'll have to go and get tacos there too.

Yeah. And it's all decorated with Wes Anderson everywhere in the taco shop. And it's really good. You're going to like it.

Oh, I actually now need to go. I just watched his latest. Yeah, the. The French. Forgot what it's called.

Oh, I haven't seen it.

Oh, so good. Highly recommend it.

I love Wes Anderson.

Love.

Yeah, it's really good. Tacos are also good.

Yeah, for sure. I love tacos and Wes Anderson together. I can't even picture what that's like now.

I know.

Thank you for the new recommendation. Thanks for your time for, for being able to just sit down and share your story. Thank you and honestly for inspiring so many people.

Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. No, thank you for doing this. I like it. It's light, it's cool, it's easy, and you're very easy to talk to. I actually appreciate being able to tell the story to your listeners. So thanks for having me.

Thanks, Sandra. Appreciate it.

Thanks. Fexi is a non hormonal birth control used before sex to prevent pregnancy. Don't use fexi if you have problems with your urinary tract or a history of repeated UTIs. Common side effects are vaginal burning, itching, infection, discharge UTIs, genital area discomfort, bacterial vaginosis, or pain while urinating. Fexi does not protect against STIs.

Thanks for tuning in to the Tacos and Tech podcast. You can find all of our episodes on freshbroodtech.com as well as on Twitter at Tacos and Tech Pod. Also follow Fresh Brewed Tech on all of our social platforms and make sure to share and give a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or Google Play. Thanks again.

Startups get the party Startups get the party started. Startups get the party Startups get the party started. You want decking, tacos, tacos in tech, you know we got it.

Hey.

Startups get the party Startups get the party started. Startups get the party Startups get the party started. Startups get the party Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech, you know we got it.