Hello Venomyx investors and supporters!

I hope you staying safe and healthy during our extended pandemic. It is my pleasure to provide some Venomyx updates and key changes for the second quarter of this year. In May our lab was shut down and we began to operate virtually with our research being performed at our collaborating lab at UCSD. I am happy to announce that as of today, July 1st, we have been accepted into a new incubator space at the Center for Novel Therapeutics! It is a wonderful lab and contains everything that we need for success going forward.

In the team department, our COO Deepankar continues to operate part-time so that we can prioritize research expenditures over salaries. We are however currently interviewing candidates for a Scientist I position to increase our research and obtain the data necessary to secure follow-on investment. We will be making a decision on that new team member in the next 2 weeks- exciting!

We were also very excited to apply for a grant with the Wellcome Trust as part of their new Snakebite fund but, alas, were not selected to submit a full application. This was quite the disappointment for us and very little feedback was provided on their decision-making process. Setbacks such as this are a part of the startup journey and we must simply forge ahead! We have since submitted a Phase I NIH SBIR grant with our UCSD collaborators and should receive a decision on that in the next 1-2 months.

We are now focused on development of our antibody candidates on the remaining target toxins necessary for a U.S. antivenom (minimum viable product). We're also doing preliminary research for other bacterial toxin targets to diversify our portfolio of therapeutics. The events of this year have complicated what is already a very challenging undertaking but we remain determined to stay positive and productive. I hope the same is true for each of you and look forward to updating you more as we progress.

Kind regards,

Dan Dempsey