From Loss to Breakthrough: How Two Researchers Are Redefining Cancer Survival

Two brilliant scientists have uncovered a deadly secret hiding within cancer treatment - and they're risking everything to solve it.

Dr. Lingbing Zhang and Dr. Suzanne Kennedy are tackling cachexia, a devastating wasting syndrome that affects 80% of advanced cancer patients and causes 30% of cancer deaths. Despite these staggering statistics, there's not a single FDA-approved treatment specifically for cachexia.

Their journey began from different starting points - Kennedy after losing a childhood friend to leukemia at a young age, and Zhang through his fascination with immunology at Stanford.

What unites them is their revolutionary understanding that cachexia isn't simply weight loss that can be reversed with nutrition - it's an immune disorder causing progressive self-destruction.

"You cannot eat enough calories to beat cachexia," explains Kennedy. "The body is in an irreversible progressive program of self-destruction." This fundamental misunderstanding has stalled effective treatments for decades, particularly for aggressive cancers like pancreatic cancer, where nearly all patients already have cachexia at diagnosis.

Both scientists made profound career sacrifices to pursue this mission. Zhang left Stanford after 20 years, while Kennedy abandoned high-paying biotech positions. Together they founded Akexis, developing the first drug targeting the immune dysfunction driving cachexia - potentially revolutionizing cancer treatment by allowing anti-tumor therapies to work more effectively.

With support from renowned oncologists and promising early results, they're racing toward clinical trials for pancreatic, colorectal, and lung cancer patients. As Zhang powerfully notes, "One day is normal for us, but for a lot of people suffering from late-stage cancer with cachexia, this is their last day."

Their courage to challenge conventional wisdom could transform survival rates for millions. Learn more about their groundbreaking work at akexis.com.

About the Guest

At Akexis, their vision is to lead the fight against cancer cachexia by developing groundbreaking therapies that not only address the underlying causes of this debilitating condition but also transform the standard of care for late-stage cancer patients. They envision a future where advanced cancer is no longer defined by limited treatment options or devastating side effects, but by hope, resilience, and survivability. Through their dedication to innovation, we aim to bring lasting relief to millions, empowering patients to survive and endure anti-tumor treatments, achieve better clinical outcomes, and ultimately, making advanced cancer survivable and curable.

‍‍Transcript

Carol Park: 0:02

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Courage Unmasked podcast. As you know, we are just hearing people's stories. We've heard amazing stories about just the courage of vulnerability, and today we have two very special guests, and it's a little bit different than some of our other episodes have been in that we have two scientists who are researchers, who have spent their careers studying cancer, and they have developed a drug specifically for stage four cancer patients to help increase survival rates. I mean just amazing, amazing research. Two amazing people, lingbing Zhang and Suzanne Kennedy, and so I'm going to let them speak more to the drug, their research, how they came to this point in doing this, and so thank you to you both for being here on the podcast this morning.

Suzanne Kennedy: 1:02

Thank you Carol.

Lingbing Zhang: 1:04

Thank you for inviting us to be on your podcast.

Carol Park: 1:08

Yes, I'm so honored that y'all are here, so tell us a little bit about how you came to be scientists, researchers and studying cancer.

Suzanne Kennedy: 1:20

Yeah, so I'll start and yes, thank you so much, carol. It's an honor to be on your podcast today. So for me, my journey as a scientist and a cancer scientist started very young. I always had an affinity for science, but it was around I was 12 years old and I lost a friend a neighborhood friend to leukemia and I just could not understand how this could happen. I could not understand how her own body could have deceived her and I watched the family turmoil going on and I watched the family split apart over that and it just really it hit me in a deep way that it was now going to be what I was going to study for the rest of my life and I knew that I had to understand this, what was happening, and I wanted to understand cancer and leukemia. So I really gravitated to everything science and I knew that I wanted to get a PhD.

Suzanne Kennedy: 2:19

I went to the Virginia Commonwealth University for a PhD in microbiology and immunology and while I was there, of course, I went right to the lab studying leukemia the same leukemia that my friend died from and so, working in that lab trying to understand this disease and academics, I did a couple more postdocs in different areas of protein biochemistry and cancer drugs. And then I made a pivot into the biotech world and so in the academic space this is usually something that gets frowned upon, but I knew that I wanted to be more, have more of a team. I needed to be part of a team. So I went into biotech. I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast, worked at some of the biggest biotechs out there QIAGEN and VITRAGEN developing my business skills product marketing, global marketing, business development and then R&D and I was running R&D for a smaller company at the time. I became an expert in the human microbiome, which is an area that we hear a lot about, and this human microbiome and your gut and how your gut is really controlling a lot of the processes in our body. So I made another pivot. I left California and my high paying job.

Suzanne Kennedy: 3:42

I went to Houston, texas, and went back to the academic world at Baylor College of Medicine, pursue my own questions and my own research around pancreatic cancer and the gut microbiome, and so I worked on a grant. I got a grant to look at this process. I wanted to see if there were ways that we could measure pancreatic cancer and detect pancreatic cancer sooner through the stool, through the microbiome. And it was while I was at Baylor that I attended a talk by an MD Anderson oncologist on pancreatic cancer, and he was talking about cachexia. Now cachexia is, for people who have never heard that word before, it's wasting disease. It's a wasting syndrome. Everyone has seen it. If someone you love has cancer, you've seen them lose weight and lose weight and lose weight until they cannot tolerate anything, not even water. That process of wasting, that immune disorder, that's what we're talking about. And the oncologist at MD Anderson, he said this is what we need to fix, this is what we need to solve for pancreatic cancer patients to be able to survive. And so that was for me a new change, a new idea.

Suzanne Kennedy: 5:05

So after Baylor College of Medicine, I went back into pharma. I worked for a biotech company developing antisense DNA drugs. I started a program for a new target that I thought would target cachexia and pancreatic cancer, and then, after that, I went to a startup developing nutritional foods for people with pancreatic cancer. So, still in the mindset of could you eat enough calories to get ahead of wasting was the way I was thinking about it. And so, at this startup, glycosbio out of Houston had a novel technology that if your pancreas didn't work, you could still get your calories. So I went there and was designing nutrition for pancreatic cancer patients.

Suzanne Kennedy: 5:50

But the fact is that I have learned through all of the research that you cannot eat enough calories to beat cachexia, because cachexia is not anorexia, cachexia is the body is destroying itself. The body is in a irreversible progressive program, self-destruction, and you cannot eat calories to get out of that. And so really that has changed my thinking tremendously, and really that's what brought what brings me here today to take all the cancer research that I've learned and to focus on this particular problem. And so that is how I met Dr Lingbing Zhang, and so, before we go on, I will pass it over to my partner and his incredible career. We'll talk a little about his journey, thank you.

Lingbing Zhang: 6:42

Thank you for. Thank you, suzanne, amazing appearance. So yeah, I can tell a little about my journey to study cancer. Actually, I also make a change during my career. Like Suzanne, in the beginning I'm not studying cancer.

Lingbing Zhang: 6:58

I majored in molecular biology. I studied the genes, sunflower genes, the function. But someday I came across a book. It's a book of immunology. I read the book. I found the immune system is really amazing. So we have so many different components in our immune system. They work together in order to maintain our health. I found it very interesting. I read many books I can find at the time.

Lingbing Zhang: 7:26

I really get intrigued by the immunology, so I make a decision in my entrance exam for a PLD program in China. I spent several months. I teach myself immunology. I have no background in immunology but I'm very good at learning. I can find all the materials, the books I can find. It took me just several months. I took the examination. I passed the exam. Actually, I was the number one student, the candidate, in the whole medical school of the university and then I got accepted. It was an amazing start actually.

Lingbing Zhang: 8:19

I began my research on cancer immunology at the lab in China. Actually, the mentor, dr Zhu isa, renowned professor in immunology in China. I'm very lucky to start my journey in his lab so I studied the role of macrophage in cancer development. I think it's a very good research project and it goes very smooth. And I got my PhD degree within three years, a short time. And then I got lucky again so I got an offer from Stanford School of Medicine. So I got an offer from Stanford School of Medicine and then I moved with my whole family, my wife and my son, who was 18 years old at that time.

Lingbing Zhang: 9:11

We moved to Stanford and I continued my cat research and the lab of Dr Jeffrey Norton, who is an internationally known surgical oncologist, also pioneer in the research of catecholoxia. Dr Norton began to publish papers about catecholoxia in the 80s and 90s very early, much earlier than the mainstream. Actually, right now we have a lot of scientists, researchers, studying catecholoxia, but at that time there were very few people. Dr norton is one of them. Because dr norton is a surgical oncologist, we can study the most the highly clinically relevant question about the cataract in his lab. So that's including the project on catechol caccia.

Lingbing Zhang: 10:03

That's my first time to know catecholoxia and begin my research on catecholoxia, and we made some very important discovery, like we found, the root cause of catecholoxia is the immune problem, is the immune disorder. Basically, catecholoxia is an immune-driven syndrome, not like most people think in the field. A lot of people at the time we began to study on catecholoxia. Most people in the field think catecholoxia is muscle weighting. But as you said, catecholoxia is not only a weighting issue, it's not only a muscle problem. You give nutrition, you give the food. You cannot reverse that right.

Lingbing Zhang: 10:52

So we believe catechis in essence is an immune problem. So if we believe that to treat catechis we have to modulate, treat the immune system, but in the field we found no company do that. Most people still focus on muscle weighting. That's the reason. That's the moment I think I need to do something. Then I leave Stafford, start my company to develop treatment for cataclysmic cachexia by modulating the immune system. That's the beginning of my journey. Also, right now I'm proud to say we are developing the most promising treatment for cardiac cachexia With Suzanne. I think we will make the change for the million patients who need the treatment. Yeah, maybe I stop here so we can continue the conversation.

Carol Park: 11:42

Well, I think it's just amazing how the two of you that were on your own separate journeys, you know, driven by different passions, that your paths merged and here the two of you are today developing this drug to help this, really cachexia, which, Suzanne, I can appreciate. I am a licensed professional counselor but I'm also a registered dietitian and so certainly in my studies of dietitian, worked on some of the oncology units and we would have said, cachexia, we have to get them more calories. You know that that's the answer, but with the continued research that y'all have done and the understanding that it's an immune system problem and calories aren't going to fix it, that you need medication, a drug that's going to help to reverse this, so that people can have the chance to survive, so that the treatments can work and they can live, Because sometimes, as we know, it's not the cancer that becomes the thing that becomes terminal, Sometimes it's that the body can't survive the treatments or that the body goes into other conditions and it can't survive to be able to get more treatment. So I know that your drug that you've been developing and, Suzanne, I just have to say what a bittersweet story.

Carol Park: 13:12

You know the sweet of you doing the research and and meeting up with Ling Bing and y'all continuing this, but the bitter of your friend at 12 years old dying from leukemia Like what a bittersweet. And again, the fallout for the family of the death of a child is just so profound. So again, I think y'all have done a good job to describe cachexia and that it's more than muscle wasting. It's not a matter of getting more calories into the patient. It's an immune disorder. That you've been. Is there anything else that, as listeners, we might need to understand about cachexia that y'all haven't already touched on?

Suzanne Kennedy: 14:37

Yeah, there are a couple of additional information I mean I think people would be interested to know. One is that 80% of all cancer patients are going to have cachexia when they get to stage four 80%. There's nothing when you're in this stage. There's nothing that the physician has to offer you, and this is one of the things that motivates us. 30% of cancer patients will die from cachexia and not their cancer and research that was published from Data Pharma Cancer Center last year.

Suzanne Kennedy: 15:18

Nearly all pancreatic cancer patients have had capixia for a year when they're diagnosed. So here are people that are already in this irreversible progressive wasting syndrome at the start of their treatment, and what this means to us is that this condition needs to be treated at the beginning. So once you're diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, once your patient has experienced 5% or more weight loss and they have cancer, that is when they need to address cachexia and start working on the reversal. It's been left to the end, to hospice. When a person's in hospice now, you're trying to give them high protein nutrition drinks. That's not the time, that's not going to alleviate pain, it's not going to extend life, but yet that is where cachexia treatment has always remained.

Suzanne Kennedy: 16:14

So what we're here to say is that if we can treat patients in the beginning, when it's an early stage of cachexia, we can reverse this process. We can give people the time that they need, the strength that they need to make it through the treatment, make it through to the end, and maybe we have excellent treatments for pancreatic cancer right now, but we don't have the treatment for cachexia. If you have cachexia, no anti-tumor treatment can work because the body's trying to destroy itself. So we can really truly revolutionize cancer research by solving this problem. And now we can look at the efficacy of the drugs. The anti-tumor drugs that are out there could be working even far better than they do once we solve this problem. And so that's why we're so focused on solving cachexia as an immune disorder, because it opens the door for survival.

Carol Park: 17:13

This makes so much sense to me. So I just have to ask a side question, if you will of I know y'all have focused more pancreatic cancer. We know that that typically is a terminal diagnosis and I know we've talked in. This is the hope of y'all's research is that it doesn't have to be terminal and that it's not all just about the pancreatic cancer. It's about this other syndrome going on, this cachexia that is wasting the body so that you can't treat the cancer. Does this also happen with other cancers, not just pancreatic? I mean, cachexia is not just about pancreatic cancer, is that right?

Suzanne Kennedy: 18:00

Absolutely so. The GI cancers have the highest rates of catexia, the fastest killing cancers ovarian liver, esophageal, colorectal all of these patients will be at high risk for catexia Cancers like breast cancer, prostate cancer. You don't see cateaxia as often unless the person is in stage four. Once the person is got a very high tumor burden and they're in stage four now, the risk goes way up. So that's why 80 of all patients will have cataxia when they get to an advanced stage. But these certain cancers that are GI-related are accelerating. They're accelerated cachexia and I think, Dr Zhang, do you have something to add to that?

Lingbing Zhang: 18:51

Yeah, I think Suzanne has done a very good job to explain cachexia. I think cachexia the body weight loss actually is only the manifestation of the big problem, the immune disorder. I think that's why I think Sudam made a good point. When you begin the treatment early, I also suggest the patient pay attention to your body weight Because if you have began to have catechisia, that suggests that you have immune disorder underlying. The immune disorder not only causes cachexia, it also causes other damage to your body, to your organ damage. It also causes your. Basically, when you have an immune disorder you are about to lose response to cancer treatment. So this is a very big issue. By reworking cachexia we are not only to improve the quality of life but also maintain patient response to the anti-tumor treatment. Then they can maintain long-term remission.

Lingbing Zhang: 19:48

The reason why we start from pancreatic cancer from the beginning is the pancreatic cancer patient has a high occurrence of catechol cacacea. Actually, that's the reason why we cannot improve the survival of the paracancer for decades. We have a decade effort to study paracetamol cancer but still the five-year survival rate is still very low compared to other cancers. So cataract cancer happened not only in paracetamol cancer. Actually, pancreatic cancer can happen in almost all types of cancer. Just some cancers it happened with higher occurrence, some kind of a low occurrence. But most lethal cancers like pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, colon, regative cancer, happen to have the high risk of cachexia.

Lingbing Zhang: 20:39

I think that's the reason we believe catechic cachexia is a big issue for the care-related cancer. If we can reverse cachexia we will change how we treat lacy cancer. Many patients can survive and get the treatment for the tumor to pursue the long-term remission or even the cure. So I think that's why we believe we are working on something huge. That huge can really change the care. So I know that the talent is huge, but we know the impact will be huge.

Carol Park: 21:12

You know, I have to give a little side story here because it's a little close to home, to be quite honest. A little close to home, to be quite honest. My son, right before his 31st birthday, was actually diagnosed with stage 3C colon cancer and he actually, I'm listening to y'all and thinking, oh, he was in the hospital because of significant and he was not a, he was a small man to start with. He's alive, he's doing well let me just preface this but he was put in the hospital because of so much weight loss and his body was just wasting away and they put in the chart, they put it as failure to thrive.

Carol Park: 21:57

But I'm listening to y'all thinking, I think this is what he had, as somehow he did, his body worked enough to pull him out of that. He did get the treatment that he needed. But I'm listening to y'all and thinking, oh my gosh, I think it was this, and you know, the drug that y'all are maybe could have prevented some of it because he was suffering. It was really hard to watch as a mom, as you can imagine, and so I'm listening to this and just thinking, oh, so much hope. And again, maybe because of his younger age, his body was able to reverse and he was able to come out of it. But I can just imagine that so many people as I listen to y'all don't and so the hope and all of this is just amazing. So wow, so okay, I know too.

Carol Park: 22:54

Sorry, a little segue there but, I'm listening to you just thinking, whoa, this is so powerful. And I hear and I know that both of you are so incredibly passionate about this and that you care about human life so much, and you've literally spent your lives studying this and coming to this place where you're developing this, this drug. So you know, let me go back to Lingbing. Like Lingbing, after, like, your 20 years at Stanford, I mean, this is like the pinnacle of a career. Right, You're 20 years at Stanford, but you made a decision to leave there because of your passion, decision to leave there because of your passion. What gave you the courage and we're talking about the courage of vulnerability, the vulnerability, the uncertainty, the risk, the emotions to step out of a very stable we know the direction of this career to pursue really a startup company and develop this drug and everything that goes with that, not just the research, but getting funding, putting it out there, continuing to validate that. It's like. How did you? What gave you the courage to take the leap?

Lingbing Zhang: 24:16

Yes, thank you for the question, but first I want to say I'm sorry to hear about your son. Yes, thank you for the question, but first I want to say I'm sorry to hear about your son. I think I'm also happy to know he got out of the cachexia and recovered. I think the good news we know cachexia is very lethal, it's a deadly syndrome, but the good news is it's reversible, like your son, we believe, because I think I want to say to patients who are suffering from cachexia right now, I will tell you cachexia, although it is severe, but it is reversible If we treat the. You know there are some patients they can recover from cachexia by treating their tumor. Usually, if their tumor is bound to the treatment, they will recover from cachexia. For patients who cannot recover from cachexia automatically, the treatment they will recover from cachexia. For patients who cannot recover cachexia automatically without treatment, because we have a lot of patients at this stage their tumor began to lose response to treatment For that group of patients we still have an approach method to help them to reverse cachexia. I think I hope patients can. Even we have mentioned a lot of the deadly syndrome, how deadly cachexia is, but we hope patients can keep the hope right Because the treatment we have developed the treatment for you.

Lingbing Zhang: 25:32

And then I will go to answer your question how I started my? Because I studied cancer for a long time, cancer for a long time, so most time I my major focus. I studied cancer cachexia for more than 10 years for cancer more than 20 years. The major finding in my career is that the immune disorder driven cachexia. But at that time I found people, companies that developed treatment for cachexia by the blotting muscle weighting. I follow the field. I see I don't believe that can work but I follow. And then in about 2015 or 2016, there are two companies. They develop cachexia. They have program. They failed in clinical trial. At that time I know it basically confirmed my condition because based on my research, I believe catechol cacase can only be reversed by treating the immune disorder. By treating the muscle, by treating the appetite. You cannot really reverse catechol cacase. Maybe you can have some effect on the symptoms, you can help a patient gain some body weight, but the real problem in the immediate soldier is still there. So that's my belief.

Lingbing Zhang: 26:49

So I think I know it takes a lot of courage to start a company. For me, as a scientist background. It's a totally different life. To start a company, you need to raise money, you need to talk with investors. You need actually I'm not sure the audience know the process to develop a drug.

Lingbing Zhang: 27:11

To develop a drug, it takes a lot of work. You need to develop the compound drug Also. You need to run a thought study. You need to have the CMC, the manufacturer, the regulatory, the patents. There are lots of aspects of knowledge I don't have actually, but I have to do that. The reason is simple.

Lingbing Zhang: 27:33

At that time, I believe, if I don't do that, nobody maybe I shouldn't say this this seems too ego, I guess but if I don't do that, I think we cannot develop, we will never develop treatment for catecholamide. It takes a big courage to make the change in my life, but the real reason behind that is simple, just like this. So I still today, today I have more confidence than before. I know we have the program. Right now it's ready for clinical trial. We have the various potent animal data. We also finished, recently finished, a proof of concept trial and the C-data cyanide. So the data is very strong, just consistent with our observation in animal studies.

Lingbing Zhang: 28:22

But at that time, that's eight years ago, I don't have so strong data, so it takes courage, but I just think I have to do that. I think you know, I know millions of patients are suffering from this. If I have a solution, I think I have obligation to do that. So I'm happy. Actually, today I make the decision. At that time I'm confident than any time before. I think we will really make the breakthrough for cataclysmic cachexia. Especially with Suzanne joining me as the co-founder right now I can feel more confident than before. So I think At that time it's vulnerable, it takes courage, but today I'm proud I made the decision.

Carol Park: 29:08

Yes, you really aligned with your value and your passion. And I think when we do, it's like we have integrity. And I mean that not of like oh, I tell the truth. I mean our insides match our out, like we have this passion and this vision and we pursue it and that just gives us that sense of wholeness. And, like you said, I would have regrets if I didn't have the courage to make that leap, because I know this is going to make a difference in so many people's lives here.

Carol Park: 29:44

And moving forward and y'all both have mentioned that it's like okay, you're scientists, you're researchers. This is kind of how your lives, your careers have gone and now you have this drug and now you have to also be business people, which is probably also vulnerable. Right, Like okay, now we have to have a business so that when this medication gets all the approvals it gets, you know, then we can put it out on the market. And that takes a business, it takes a plan, it takes funding and money to continue to do this, and that's vulnerable too. So tell us a little bit about your company, your business that you founded, and kind of what's the process?

Suzanne Kennedy: 30:37

Okay, well, I'll, I'll start with this one. So, yes, so a Texas is what we've called our company, because we want people to be without the kexia or in a Texas. And so our company right now well, our focus right now is fundraising. We have, as Lingbing has told you, that he did a tremendous amount of work, with some pre-seed funding, to get this drug manufactured, to generate all of the safety data, to move ahead. So that's where we're really focusing right now as a company is on our fundraising, and my background in business that I gathered and then working in two startups, really gave me some of the know-how to help us get started and help us start working with looking for investors. And then we brought in a team. We've brought in experts to help us. We recognize there are things that we don't have expertise in but that we need, and so we're finding just the most incredible human beings coming to us, around us, supporting us, different advisors that all see this mission as important and are trying to help bring this medication to people.

Suzanne Kennedy: 31:57

So for Apexia, for our company, we're starting off with Apexia. We want to help. We're focused on the pancreatic, colorectal and lung cancer patients. Our lead investigator, our principal investigator, is Dr Andrew Hendefar from Cedars-Sinai, los Angeles. He's a huge champion for this program and for us. He ran a proof of concept clinical trial on a version of the drug to help us have even more data to show on the clinical level that we will be successful. We also have Dr Philip Bonomi from Rush University, one of the most renowned cancer scientists in lung cancer, as part of our team working closely with us. So we have some amazing people supporting this mission and supporting Akexis. Yeah, and I think did I answer that question? Yes, you answered it.

Carol Park: 32:52

Yes, and I just think I was thinking y'all are the dynamic duo, but I hear that you're just bringing even more people experts in their fields, like I can really see this just moving forward, as y'all just have so much passion around this. Obviously there are setbacks that can happen in, you know, startups and developments of drugs and all what keeps you going, what keeps y'all going with this going with this.

Lingbing Zhang: 33:27

Well, I think, as Soudar introduced the CACACCIS, I would like to say you know, compared with you know, after Soudan joined me, we formed the CACACCIS, the company. I think we have the, as Soudar said, we have a group of amazing people. I suggest the audience have interest can visit our website, kexiecom, A-K-E-X-I-Ecom. We have the best experts in the field, kind of Kexie, who are supporting us. We have the programming ready for clinical trial. We finished all the preclinic work. We have the strongest data. We have the approved concept of clinical trial. I think we are moving forward From now. We are moving forward very quickly.

Lingbing Zhang: 34:22

Before we formed CACAXIA, I feel like I'm working alone in the past several years. The process to make a real innovation is a lonely, challenging process. Right, it's even more challenging if you're trying to find a solution for a problem. Nobody has a solution, no successful experience. You cannot follow all the programs before us on how to connect the field. That's the challenge. Healed, you can imagine the challenge. So I think, with CACaxia already formed, we are moving forward quickly.

Lingbing Zhang: 34:54

But, as you said, we still have some challenges. I think the major challenge right now, I guess, is that cacaxia, although doctors know it's very important. It's very common but still there are not a lot of people know that it's better for inventors. Sometimes we need educating inventors to let them know the significant unmet medical need, the huge unmet medical need. But because no program, no drug approved in US Patients audience may know, although cacagasy is the big issue in late-stage care, there are no one FDA-approved drug, Basically no drug right now. Doctor know the issue, Patients suffer from that, from the syndrome, but we have no solutions. That's the situation right now. I think the good thing is that we have the top experts like Dr Bonomi, Dr Henifang. We have the strong data. We have the programs ready. We are slowly convincing some investors supporting us. I think it's getting better but still challenging there, like any biotech company. Right, you need For myself and Suzanne.

Lingbing Zhang: 36:07

Another challenge is we need to keep learning, Because the knowledge we have before we always need to learn new knowledge. We are scientists in background For the building, the product. We need to keep learning, we learning. We also get help from the people and they'll say, and Sudha has said, we have a group of people right now share the passion, share the mission on our side. So I think we will try our hard to move forward as quick as possible.

Lingbing Zhang: 36:39

So I think because we know patients are waiting for the drug. Basically, patients are really waiting for the drug. I think we know just in the US there are more than 1600 people die to cancer each day, every day. So one day is normal for us, but for a lot of people suffering from late-date cancer with cachexia, this is their last day. So I think we have no reason to not try our best. I think that I think that is the purpose of my life. I like to ask the question why we came to the world. Right, we have the purpose, the purpose for myself. I think, for Suzanne, that we are going to make a difference for patients.

Carol Park: 37:29

You know I just that gives me goosebumps, brings me to tears, because I agree with y'all. I think it's your purpose. I'm so grateful for the two of you being the amazing humans that you are really pursuing your purpose, your passion. Again, the website is Akexia. Correct me if I'm wrong. Akexis, Akexis. Okay, so Suzanne, tell them. Akexiscom Say it again.

Carol Park: 38:04

So thank y'all so much for your time, for your passion, for your drive to help find this cure so that people can survive and live the lives that they're supposed to live their purpose, their passions. And I know that, as you said here you're looking to, you still need investment money, because it takes money to do all the things that you're doing. So, again, thank y'all so much for your time. It has been my honor to have y'all as guests this morning.

Lingbing Zhang: 38:43

Thank you, thank you very much, thank you. Thank you, carol, thank you, thank you very much.

Speaker 4: 38:46

Thank you.

Suzanne Kennedy: 38:46

Thank you, carol, thank you.