It will be the beginning of, I guess, an aging franchise, if you will, that each and every one can go out and create.
All right, at the highest level, because one of the reasons I think you did mention, you know, I'm retired, I came back in a sense because this project was something that was incubated for quite some time, and finally, because of some recent scientific studies, it actually became real. But it's a very nuanced story in aging that I have learned over the last two or three months and so on. It's a difficult story to tell, but it's a profound story and is the one that is going to change, to use a buzzword, the paradigm.
You know, it's almost an opportunity that is going to be here, but it's not going to be here forever. And fundamentally, in a sense, right, if you are just going to really use this story because they're going to come with products and just sell the products or explain the products or influence people to take those products, I think it's not enough. You need to duplicate yourself. You really do.
So for all intents and purposes, I'm back to my biotech days. You know, when I first started Pharmanex with the other co-founders, I'm actually looking for you guys to be investors in this story. Except I'm not asking you for money. I'm asking for your blood, sweat, and tears, if you will, to tell the story and be able to duplicate. That's really what I'm going to say today.
So, you already know, right? Nu Skin is an anti-aging company. I'm hoping you do. Sometimes even us within a company, we forget we're an anti-aging company and we go and we flitter everywhere. We go all around. It's almost like in science we have this phenomenon called the Brownian motion. We lose sight of the fact of who we are. I think we finally have settled actually to the fact and focus on the fact we are an anti-aging company.
I know most of you over here are primarily on the side of the nutrition side, the category that we have, but you're on the skin care too. But when you look at it, it's really all about what wellness at the highest level even now, wellness now includes skin health. It's amazing.
I didn't, you know, I always say beauty and balance, but now when folks are beginning to say just me wellness, I say why are you saying that? Why are you leaving the beauty out? They said, well, it's including me. Really? Well, there you go.
Whatever it is, at the end of the day, Nu Skin, we can't get away, I can't change the name of the company, we might be distracting people, but we are the only integrated beauty and wellness company. I was simply not using that beauty and wellness company around, right? And we're driven by innovation because that's the only way I feel that eventually when you introduce one of our products to a customer first time, okay, but if that product sucks, it ain't going to be taken all the time. Sooner or later, you know, the world's going to come out their eyes and say this thing doesn't really work. So that's really what the science has always been.
I came from the biotech world and I came from the pharmaceutical industry world, and there are certain things that really made a significant change or at least bring develop a drug class that makes a difference, and these are some of the ones I've listed. Many of you have heard my story about Rebif.
Rebif was an interesting drug because it now actually is included in a class that's called the biological response modifiers. All right. And it's really Rebif has evolved to become almost a scientific tool now because it affects not just one system.
That was a very important insight for all of us, especially as I transform myself into the world of nutrition and prevention and so on, is to say, great, the pharmaceutical industry has always been dependent on a reductionist approach to treat diseases because disease-oriented, it's a very specific area, right? But when you try to bring wellness to the body, one has to go to a more holistic and there's another one has to be used on really a much more broad spectrum approach. It's never about a single mechanism.
All right, and that's where I feel most of our competitors are, and that's why I keep on hearing these kind of questions coming back to me when many of you will come to Joe, what do you think about the tum? Oh, what do you think about antioxidants and so on? They're great. There's no doubt. But I think the future lies in something way bigger than that. And that's why I'm hoping I'm driving you into that area because we will be the first to enter that. That's our innovation, right? Since 1984, like it or not, that's what we've been doing.
And I'm a fairly simple guy because I hear a lot of things not just on the product side but on the business side as well and so on. But fundamentally when I keep on distilling what people are saying, there's so many words, it always come back to me in 1984 when this company was founded, it was about all of the good, none of the bad, right? And then Pharmanex came in in about 1998, and so, yeah, probably wrong about 1998, we brought even more science to substantiate what that initial thesis, all of the good, none of the bad, that we became science-based, right?
And not just for the nutrition, we were a nutrition company, but we apply the same principles to the skin care products too. That's how this company grew as far as the product is concerned, 6S process and so on and so forth. And then in 2002, and this was probably the first sort of maybe product, device, approach, whatever you like to call it, that brought many of you here in a way.
And that is now you're beginning to see because there's a reality in life, right? Especially we are not a doctor-associated business. We cannot prescribe things, right? We have to use another means to convince people or to demonstrate to folks that our products do have some benefits because we lack that doctor's infrastructure or whatever you like to call it, right, that badge of credibility. We have to use science to demonstrate, and that's why we brought out the biophotonic scanner.
Now you see, now don't take my word for it because it's nothing to do with me. I know I'm not a doctor. To answer one very simple question, how do you know your supplements work? Again, it was a differentiation, right? First time ever, we are able to help all of you, albeit you are all healthcare professionals. They appreciate that. That's great. But to help more than just all of you to be able to demonstrate.
Because you know on the business side, when I look at the skin care products, the reason why they are so easy in a way to demonstrate their effectiveness and so on and so forth, their benefits if you will, is because they already had a scanner, except they don't call it a scanner, they call it the mirror, isn't it? And that's in the world in their skin on the skin care side has always been before and after.
I mean they went so far as to say they do what they call a half face demo, right? So the nutrition side, which actually is a great complement to the skin care side, and in fact that one plus one actually delivers three, but the lack of appreciation of the benefit of those nutritional products or supplements. It's a fact that they can't see, and it's a bit more difficult, and that's what happened.
So the scanner was a great introduction into our portfolio, and then we follow our ageLOC. When you look at ageLOC and some of you I think the brand has been around forever, right? What does it really mean? It only comes down to one thing. Whatever that Rebecca had been talking about, Shelly and so on, it comes down to a simple fact. We're now going after the sources of aging, we're not really very much interested in just merely alleviating the symptoms of aging.
It's a big leap forward, right? I mean, that's why cosmetic, that word has been used to cover things up. We don't do that anymore. Not even as a skin care. We have never been a cosmetic company. We've always been a skin care company. We tend to forget that too.
So that's what we've done with ageLOC is to bridge both of them together and came out with this platform that we just put it under the name ageLOC. Now we got to PRYSM. So PRYSM is interesting. The origin, you're all very familiar with it, right? Started life as an antioxidant scanner.
We could never claim more than that because that's where the science was and that's where all the data that we have and so substantiate a claim, and that's what we do and that's what we believe we must do. We cannot go away from that is that we have always maintained is an antioxidant scanner. You know, and it measures carotenoids. That's what we have always done for the last 20 years since the launch of the first S1.
We have been so effective and so good in embedding and cementing that belief. Now I have to extract all of you from that into the world of PRYSM. And that's where this is the most difficult nuance I'm able and I need all you guys here because you found you're at least at a level that you would listen and there is a learning process here that you have to get on right to explain and be able to reach a point where we can simplify this to a level where everybody can appreciate what we have going forward.
The PRYSM is a sort of now have become a tip of a spear, you know, is piercing the world of aging, the whole world of aging over. And all these things that we have done over the last 40 years or so have led us to this particular point. And what are we talking about? What are we piercing to open up and to unveil and to open up this curtain? It's about this new concept of aging clocks.
This is the greatest discovery in my opinion in the science of aging because it encompasses all the things that we thought were in its independent way the singular root cause of aging. No, it's never been that. The body is way more sophisticated and more complex than that. But because we know we couldn't look at all these mechanisms at the same time, we took the path of least resistance and you just go with one.
It delivers some results, but it never deliver the most powerful and most broad spectrum results. The aging clock does. So what is the aging clock? All right, brief. Oh gosh, you guys spend the whole days learning about aging clocks. Fundamentally, it's a compilation of all the different mechanisms that we know that have some kind of a relationship to the aging process. Good, bad, indifferent, whatever. We have some results from the scientific literature that we can actually look at. In other words, there is a data set.
Okay. More importantly though, we also look at what we call the clinical benefit. What exactly is the most meaningful end game of aging? There would be the clinical benefits, right? It would be your bone loss, your skin getting drier and so on and so forth. Those are the clinical benefits. Those are meaningful. Molecular mechanisms imply meaning, but it doesn't really prove it has an important impact.
So we have to do that correlation and there are many many mechanisms around and many benefits around and so on. And in order to do that, especially in aging because by definition is you've got to watch a person get old. So fortunately, they have been or they continue to be over the last 50, 60 years. Many many research institutes around the world have been studying this. They've been gathering data. They have actually followed a cohort of about 6,000 people all the way from a young age about one or two or thereabouts all the way to when they were 60, 70, huge database.
The challenge was it was impossible until most recently to be able to analyze and what we call do a regression analysis, correlation analysis of all these factors. It's impossible for a human to do that. There are way too many. That's when AI kicked in, right? Frankly, all of us get excited about AI, but we never pay attention. How does AI work? AI doesn't work if it doesn't have data.
All right? It's like ourselves. Why do we go to school? We have a brain. Think we should be instantly clever as soon as you came out from our moms. No, we had to go to school. Why? Oh, mom used to say, oh, you have to be educated. No, you just got to get data to put in your brain and that's how you eventually became clever. But you're a super. There's nothing you can do. Right. Anyway, but that's what AI is really, right?
So now we have it. We have captured all this data together with the help of AI and many bio-statisticians together. They have now come together and collectively they've agreed we're going to call this particular approach the creation of an aging clock. There are quite a few of them around but they all just generally for this particular purpose we just say there and it really takes into account all the things I just said more than what I just listed there.
I'm hoping you're beginning to appreciate now, right, this is what the aging clock does. It's never about a single mechanism. A single mechanism is a very easy tale to tell. That's where my first struggle will come in is this nuance. How are we going to talk? The aging clock visually is not a bad image to portray, right? Well, clock, what does the clock do? It goes fast or it goes slow.
If it goes fast, that means you're aging fast, right? If it goes slow, that means you're slow. Slow what? And here's another challenge. And that is about the difference between chronological aging, big word, multiple consonants associated with, versus biological aging.
That's what we're talking about. This aging clock is looking at biological aging. And really when you talk about biological at the simplest level, what are you talking about? You're talking about the quality of life. It's not how long you live. Remember our slogan, live better or live younger longer. It's not a quality of life. It's not how long you live, it's how well you live.
That was what the ageLOC move started out with with my parents was my first revelation if you will. Why, you know, a couple can age so differently in that sense. Although they both died at the same age around 89, but the way they got there, the journey was very different. That was actually one of the impetus to have this approach called ageLOC being developed. And now we take ageLOC to the next level.
That was about what is happening at the genetic level relating to aging. Okay, we talk about gene expression and even that, and frankly that was a technical term but it was very difficult to explain, but at least they appreciated the fact that, you know, we are looking at the root causes of aging that is epigenetic. Everybody appreciates the genetic, genes are really important, right, and fundamental as far as the body is concerned.
So now with the more recent studies, we're now becoming to understand how it's happening and it's happening because of the aging clock. So what is this aging clock? How is it being regulated? The mechanism that's inside is regulated by epigenetics.
And here is the most difficult thing. That's why I keep on struggling, right, what are epigenetics? Keep on the Greek word epis, but I'm beginning to think these are just sticky notes on your DNA. They're genetic sticky notes and you know sticky notes, right? They're not permanent glue. You can take them off. You can put them on and so on and so forth. And there's always a message on that sticky note, isn't it? Depending on where you want to put.
So what it does is that the DNA, the genes are essentially just DNA snippers. You just, they just move these chemical tags around depending on how you move it. You can either speed up the clock or in a way you can either slow it down.
That took a lot of analysis. Now we can do epigenetics analysis very quickly and that's why there was another development that helped us to understand how to look at the aging clock. There are thousands of them. Again, very difficult to do it. But with the new molecular biology tools, you can start analyzing all these epigenetic changes very quickly too. Another significant improvement, right? We're able to get there and that's what we have.
It's really a collection, right? That's the difficulty, but it's the beauty of the thing. It's the ability for us to see, the scientist that is right now as it stands, right? The ability to see the correlation. It's pattern recognition. We have become, you know, in a word, an FBI profile. How do you catch a serial killer? You profile, right? You don't know what it looks like. You're looking for clues.
For instance, this is a genetic profile with the help of AI to create this aging clock. So, simply put, that's what it is. The middle line is how you age. 70 years old, your body is 70 years old. 50 years old, 50. If your lifestyle changes, and this is another clue that's interesting. In a minute, I will go into that, right? And that is that you don't have a great lifestyle, you're going to age quicker. We all know that intuitively. I think we all realize and accept that and agree with that, isn't it? What we're trying to do is the blue line.
Everybody walks around telling me, you know, what is it? 60 is a new 40 or 50 is a new 30, right? So, they really don't think they're actually saying the same thing. Perhaps the language might be different. It's about actually getting younger, isn't it? Well, I think we have the scientific basis of that and the scientific ability to climb that hill.
This is where this aging clock is so powerful and it seems like there a lot of people are still playing around with 23andMe, ancestry.com to look at genetic mutations, you know, and say that's the way that can help you understand your body. No, I think the genetic, the 23andMe and all those profiling that they do is actually telling you what your death sentence is. [laughter] There's nothing you can do. It's a problem without a solution.
If there are physicians sitting here, you may realize, you know, 30 years ago when HIV was first discovered, the first thing to do is what? We walk. We meaning when I was in the pharmaceutical industry, we all went and look for a diagnostic test. We need to have a quick test that can tell people whether they're HIV positive or negative, right? Well, I think the test was developed at record speed, less than a year we got a test out. Nobody wants to take it. [laughter] Nobody really. It was like, huh? You know why? Because there wasn't no solution. It was a death sentence. Why do I need to know?
It's only you health experts want to know, right? I don't want to know because you're just telling me I'm going to die. There's nothing you can do. Why do I need frankly? That's the human nature in that sense. I don't want to know. I die, I die. I don't want to spend the time that I'm alive thinking about it. So that is how I feel about the genetic test, the DNA, what we call looking at gene defects, nothing you can change, it's a physical defect, it's a SNP, we call them single nucleotide polymorphism, once you have it, you have it, there's nothing you can do unless you can do it with gene therapy, but that's another way of doing it, but that's what we are doing.
So this is our solution. The story I'm telling you about aging clock is about the products, about developing this new class, aging response modulators. And this is another nuance, you know, why do you choose the word modulator rather than actually just call them inhibitors or improvers or whatever, increase? It's not unidirectional aging.
As you can tell from all those mechanisms we have, it's an orchestration. It's a modulation of a big process. Some need to go up and some needs to come down. There's a deliberate selection of this word. It's not accidental.
So comes up with the acronyms which is good and includes all the things generally. I mean nutrition, good nutrition, it's an arm, it's an aging response modulator, right? Exercise, that's an aging response modulator. Why would anybody argue or criticize for coining this term? It seems very natural and intuitive to call it that.
So the ageLOC now going forward that our products will be evaluating and the inclusion of aging response modulators from the ingredient library that we have after we screen them. Right? That's our solution. It's a problem with a solution.
And this is where the competitive advantage comes in. The knowledge of the aging clock will eventually be very broadly understood and so on and people will jump on the bandwagon. Yeah. But what they don't have, and this is perhaps our competitive, and this is why this group is so critical because they all been trained on the value of the biophotonic scanner now and I'm hoping that transition to a wider and deeper understanding of what you're measuring can help to duplicate.
And that is it's not just about antioxidants anymore. Okay? It's not black and white. It's not that I'm dismissing and abandoning that it is measuring antioxidants. It is. It remains that. But it's a translation of what that number means that has become the value of the PRYSM.
Remember I told you about AI, told you about the correlation, the profiling if you will. We have other clues that we have recently obtained that have been associated or we have been able to connect it to the antioxidant clue. Our first transformation was that it measures nutritional wellness. That was a bit more intuitive. Not a great leap forward if you will, right?
We got that, but even that frankly had it taken a lot of effort to be able to get that leap understood because look in reality, you know, people thought, oh yeah, I think antioxidant is fine, you know, we all understand that. Really? We really? It took me 20 years to be able to convey the value and the impact of antioxidants to most people. I know we were before, what is it, ahead of our times and so on, but it took that long to get many of the folks to understand especially the non-healthcare professionals.
I'll give you a reality check. If you walk into an elevator here even, you say this device or whatever, I can measure antioxidants. Tell me how many people would say wow, really? Or would they say what is an antioxidant? Frankly, I mean all you guys, I'm preaching to the choir here so I don't have an issue, right? But a total stranger, and that's about the duplication of related way. It's really, and then you have to go to an explanation.
Oh, antioxidant, it's really important, you know, it neutralizes free radical. Come on now, you have to talk about terrorists. [laughter] I mean, look me in the eye. Tell me.
Now, if you turn it and you say, well, you know, this particular device that we have is really interesting. You know, it can actually measure nutritional health. That's a different conversation for everybody, not just for the particular specific group, specialized group, you know.
And now I'm saying with even more translation, I'm hoping that we can now say, hey, by the way, you know, with this PRYSM, it actually tells you it's an aging score. It tells you how well you're aging. That to me is the whole point.
That's why I'm saying now you're making the invisible visible. Aging is not a totally strange concept to anybody. You can relate to that in whatever form or shape and whatever. You're realizing something. You're talking about what? You're talking about something I can relate, something old. Really? Why do people go for plastic surgery even when they're young? That's a total appreciation. I don't want to stay young by whatever means.
So that's a translation, right? They can be invisible visible. We're the only ones who can do that. And that's because of that ability that we have to translate. Nobody else can.
And that translation was aided and abetted by a Stanford study. Now I got your attention a little bit. Stanford, huh? Oh, play with Stanford is such a pain in the butt. Those guys are really difficult. It took us more than a year to complete this particular study, right? But it was worthwhile because what it showed us, I've summarized and distilled everything into a single slide. There are lots more other data coming out from it and so on. But just for this particular conversation and discussion is the fact that on average, when you have a high PRYSM score,
Your body is about four years younger than your actual age. Nobody has been able to see that. You can test for it, but you have to wait two weeks and you have to wait for the results, and it's $500 per test to get your data back and so on. Here with the PRISM, in 15 seconds I'm able to tell you, hey, maybe you should start worrying a little bit about your lifestyle because all the things we measure... but I mean, after all, I already mentioned that these changes are all related to epigenetic changes, the aging clock if you will, and they're all environmentally impacted or influenced, affected. For me, I'm excited because I guess I have the data and knowledge to see the impact and the importance of this particular finding. Within 15 seconds I'm able to help you understand how you're aging. I'm not saying you're going to get a disease. I'm telling you how well... I mean, you know, this for everybody. I mean, there has to be some acceptance. Wow. Really? I'm going to do something. You know it now. It's not when it's too late.
