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@SteviaFirstCorp www.SteviaFirst.com
Safe Harbor Statement
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This presentation and our commentary and responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements, including
comments concerning product development programs, evaluation of potential opportunities, the level of corporate expenditures, the assessment of our technology by potential
corporate partners, capital market conditions, timing of events, cash consumption and other subjects. Information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from
those set forth in our regulatory filings from time to time.
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We are facing global epidemics of diabetes and obesity.
What We Do Identify “critical unmet needs” that can revolutionize the food &
nutrition industries for the better, starting with stevia
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Reduce sugar overuse by solving stevia supply issues
•Premier global supplier of stevia
•R&D – Enzyme enhancement for increased global supply
•R&D - Next-gen sweeteners that are more “sugar-like”
Prevent diabetes and obesity with GRAS geroprotectors
•R&D – GRAS nutraceutical and functional food ingredients based on energy and nutrient sensing pathways, including ones that affect lifespan and addiction, and that mimic or enhance the effects of exercise and fasting
We intend to make dramatically healthier food and
nutritional products affordable enough for everyone
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Credit Suisse, “Sugar: Consumption at a Crossroads”, September 2013
Key conclusion: “The most likely outcome over the next 5-10 years will be a significant reduction in sugar consumption and a marked increase in the role played by high-intensity natural sweeteners in foods and beverages.”
Twin global epidemics of diabetes and obesity “…30%–40% of healthcare expenditures in the USA go to help address issues that are closely tied to the excess consumption of sugar.”
Sugar: Consumption at a Crossroads Sugar reduction is imminent and an inevitable trend
Morgan Stanley, “The Bitter Aftertaste of Sugar”, March 2015
Market Opportunity Stevia has taken off but multinationals need far more supply
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Natural
Sweeteners
(sugar, honey,)
Stevia
natural
zero calories
Artificial
Sweeteners
(aspartame, saccharin, etc.)
The “holy grail of sweeteners” has been delivering on numerous fronts for multinationals enabling commercial successes like Truvia and VitaminWater Zero
SF is aiming to develop key enabling production technologies to fuel global stevia product launches by multinationals already invested heavily in stevia product lines
Featured on:
Agri-Bio Supply Innovations Mechanized agriculture combined with enzymatic bioprocessing could
more than double global output of Reb A
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Enzyme Bioprocessing
High-purity Reb A at higher yields, lower cost
(RA97 or greater, $90K-$100K per metric ton)
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Traditional Solvent Purification Reb A leaf extract purification - Discards Reb A precursor
Stevioside as a “byproduct” - Loss of Reb A from solvent
crystallization purification process
“Finishing what the leaf started” -Reb A precursor Stevioside (red) is
no longer a byproduct - 2 times or more Reb A per ton
of leaf or acre - 10 times or more Reb D or Reb
M next-gen stevia sweeteners
Bales of stevia leaf Labor-intensive leaf
production is more than 70% of traditional costs
Intellectual Property
Patents and patent applications related to production of steviol and steviol glycosides through microbial fermentation and biosynthesis
Patent application covering stevia enzymatic enhancement methods
Patent application covering novel agricultural production methods using drone technology and LED photoperiod interruption
Product Commercialization Stevia First is poised to become a premier global stevia supplier and
the only producer in North America
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August 2014 definitive agreements with Qualipride provide exclusive terms for Stevia First to take over stevia distribution business with more than 350 tons of stevia exports last year and access through partners to more than 1,000 metric tons of annual high-purity stevia production capacity, more than 100 tons of stevia extract in stock and available immediately
Stevia First has exclusive rights to modern stevia extraction and refining technologies outside China and aims to soon begin construction on first North American stevia production facilities
Seed and cuttings for 10,000
hectares
200
hectares
400
hectares 3,000
hectares
4,000
hectares
300 MT 200 MT
400 hectares
(California)
Proposed Capacity Current Capacity
Seed
Leaf
Extract
Refine (or Enzyme Enhancement)
Sales Supply Capacity: >1,000 metric tons High-purity Reb A
1,000+ MT 1,000 MT 150+ MT
(California)
500 MT 500 MT 500 MT (California)
Qualipride -> Stevia First
SF’s Supply Chain more than a decade of experience controlling
stevia quality and price from “soil-to-sale”
Financial Highlights opportunity to become cash flow positive through new operations
in 2015 even while investing heavily in long-term R&D
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New businesses could each fund entire R&D operations and corporate overhead upon launch and SF reaching desired margins and scale
Market leader Purecircle (LON: PURE) has valuation of more than US$1 billion (March 2015) with fully invested supply chain capable of delivering 2,800 metric tons of high purity stevia as of their 2013 annual report.
Stevia Business Operations Product
Margin Scale (MT)
Initial Operations
Resale & Distribution RA60 >10% 450 5%-20% >1,000
Enzyme Enhancement RA97 >18% 150 35%-60% >1,000
U.S. Expansion
California Extraction RA60 >30% 150 15%-35% 150
California Enzyme Enhancement RA97 >40% 200 50%-75% 200
Breakeven Metrics Planned
Capacity (MT)
Potential
Margins
Leadership building a growth engine
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Anthony Maida, PhD, MBA, Director, Chair of Audit Committee
Senior Vice President, Clinical Research, Northwest Bio
MBA, MA in Toxicology, PhD in Immunology, Family farm management experience
Robert Brooke, CEO & Co-founder
Ex-hedge fund analyst at BCA for over 50 direct healthcare investments
Experienced biotech entrepreneur, Founder of Genesis, nka Lion Biotech, Co-Founder of Intervene Immune
B.S. in Electrical Eng., Georgia Tech; M.S. in Biomedical Eng., UCLA
Avtar Dhillon, MD,
Chairman & Co-founder
Chairman, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Oncosec Medical, and Arch Therapeutics
Capital raises in public markets > $200M over last 10 years
Former venture capitalist and family medicine physician for > 10 years
Jeremiah Mann, PhD, Sr. Agronomist, VP of Ops
Ex-USDA Conservation Agronomist at California’s Natural Resource Conservation Service
PhD in Horticulture and Agronomy, Univ of California Davis
Richard McKilligan, JD, MBA, Controller
Ex-Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius LLP, State Bars in CA and NY, CPA (inactive)
JD from Cornell, MBA from Univ of Chicago, BS in Accounting from Univ of Illinois
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Our R&D Approach Uncommon R&D capabilities through employing “breakthrough
technologies”, and a multidisciplinary team of more than 20 researchers
(including staff and technical consultants)
Novel, Patentable Solutions
Bioinformatics / “AI Scientist” Platform
Translational medicine, “bench-to-bedside”
Horticulture, agronomy, and the plant sciences
Bioprocessing and fermentation
Breakthrough
technologies
(in hands of our multidisciplinary
R&D team)
Emerging Role of Geroprotectors >50 genes proven to extend lifespan of model organisms, may
influence the underlying cause of diabetes and obesity
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Metformin
Products that mimic the proven health benefits of fasting (calorie restriction) and exercise are becoming known, related to metabolism and nutrient sensing pathways
Insulin
Sirtuins AMPK “Exercise-in-a-bottle”
Rapamycin mTOR
“Junk food vaccine”
FOXO3
R&D:“AI Scientist” Platform Proven AI bioinformatics team for diverse R&D needs including
genomics analyses using evolutionary machine learning techniques
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Reanalyze genomics data when traditional statistical methods
have not worked
Accurately characterize complex multigenic relationships
using machine learning algorithms, and more…
The industry status quo: “…we’re still swimming in a sea of ignorance about how all these pathways
and targets are integrated and how we can intervene in them safely.” – Buck Institute researcher, 2014 (Buck partnered with Google’s Calico)
Our approach:
Nutraceutical Development Novel geroprotectors have broad commercial potential as
nutraceuticals, functional food ingredients, or even pharmaceuticals
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Gene therapy start-up collaboration
March 2015
Food & Nutrition Products SF Corp. is developing dramatically healthier food & nutrition
products along with complementary research tools
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- Commercial: Research products, Provider to key research universities, further distributed through international distribution network and open-source communities
- Commercial: Stevia, Becoming a large global supplier - R&D: Next-gen stevia, Proprietary bioprocessing, and building
first vertically-integrated North American facilities - R&D: Geroprotectors, Developing proprietary functional
ingredients for prevention of metabolic disorder
CORE PRODUCTS, and related intellectual property for
production and use
RESEARCH PRODUCTS, in cutting-edge fields, used to enable us
to work with partners and speed progress on high-priority projects
Do
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Trading Snapshot (Ticker: STVF) an ag-biotech company addressing global diabetes and obesity
epidemics with mass market food and nutrition products
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$0.24 share price ~$20M market cap
Trading data as of May 2015
~207K avg. volume (3m)
Recent financing: $1.5M common stock @ $0.30 per share & warrants
Shareholder base: ~8,351 shareholders Shares outstanding: 77,968,917 shares
Average 3M volume: 207,669 shares
Corporate Profile a publicly-traded ag-biotech company
headquartered in Yuba City, California
(OTCQB: STVF)
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Stevia First Corp. 5225 Carlson Road
Yuba City, CA 95993 (530) 231-7800
[email protected] www.steviafirst.com
Fiscal Year End:
March 31st
Auditors: Weinberg & Co.
Los Angeles Office
Securities Counsel: Morrison & Foerster
San Diego Office
Industry Activity & Milestones SF operates in dynamic industries with multinationals poised for change
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Mar ‘13
2Q‘13
Coca-Cola reformulates Sprite in UK with stevia; launches an anti-obesity ad campaign
Company demonstrates production through enzyme enhancement
Business Development (ongoing) Technology partnerships Commercial partnerships
New licensing opportunities
INTRINSIC EXTRINSIC
4Q’13
SF’s initial Tasting Event including enzyme enhanced stevia product
3Q ‘14
2015
Accelerates stevia commercialization through Qualipride relationship
Announcement of Geroprotector Discovery & Testing Results
World Health Organization cuts daily sugar intake guidance to 5% of calories, less than a single 12-oz can of soda, Mexico imposes sugar tax
1Q’14
Announcement of Geroprotector Intellectual Property Filings
Google reported to buy DeepMind, an AI startup for $400M; Google Calico and Craig Venter’s HLI operate with focus on longevity genes
Morgan Stanley issues report on sugar curtailing economic growth; Indian government asks PepsiCo to reformulate
Coke Life and Pepsi True are launched, the start of the stevia cola wars
1Q ‘15
Major Sales Contracts or Strategic Partnerships for Stevia
GRAS Regulatory Approval of Stevia First Products
Geroprotector program announced; BioViva pharma collaboration
Investment Highlights
Poised to become a premier global stevia supplier within the rapidly changing global sweetener market worth over $55 billion
Proven management and board with track record of building value in public markets
Developing novel class of geroprotector compounds for prevention of diabetes and obesity
Multiple patents and patent applications related to core technologies including stevia bioprocessing, and building lucrative bioprocessing and bioinformatics platforms