David G Watumull Podcast Transcript
David G Watumull joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
[00:00:12] Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is David G. Watumull. David G. Watumull has more than 30 years of experience as a biotechnology industry executive, analyst, and investment banker. He has been a pioneer in the field of commercializing astaxanthin, a safe and powerful naturally occurring anti-inflammatory for human health.
He is the co-founder of AX3, a consumer longevity company formed to help people be their best selves longer. AX3 targets inflamaging, a core hallmark of aging, at its source with bio pure astaxanthin. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Cardax, a life sciences business focused on advancing pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications of astaxanthin.
Well, good afternoon, David. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:00] David Watumull: Great to be here. Appreciate you including me.
[00:01:03] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. This is awesome. And it’s rare. I think the last time I’ve been to Hawaii doing a podcast, by the way, has been about two years. So thank you for hailing out of the great state of Hawaii.
[00:01:14] David Watumull: Oh, well, it’s great to be here. And great to meet you.
[00:01:17] Brian Thomas: Awesome. Thanks again, David. So, let’s jump right in, David. We want to talk about your career a little bit your careers in the biotech industry. You were an analyst, you’re a serial entrepreneur, executive, now the co-founder of AX3. Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
[00:01:36] David Watumull: Well, I’ll take the second half of that first, because I think it hopefully informs me at least what really got me going was understanding the science. And when we found something here based on my career on Wall Street, that was an exceptionally safe anti-inflammatory I knew that there was something that I had to spend time trying to make sure that we could actually bring this to the world.
It’s been only 20 years since we’ve been working on this.
[00:01:59] Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And really this particular anti-inflammatory, which, again, that’s kind of the segue into the next question here, David and the astaxanthin, I hope I pronounced that correctly.
[00:02:10] David Watumull: Astaxanthin. You got it.
Astaxanthin.
[00:02:13] Brian Thomas: Astaxanthin., it’s touted as nature’s most powerful antioxidant, which neutralizes oxidative stress and fights inflammation and promotes longevity.
What inspired you to create AX3, your transformative longevity supplement?
[00:02:27] David Watumull: Well, we were looking to try to find an audience that would be influenced by the ability to have lower inflammation perhaps extend their longevity as well. But do it without any side effects. And when we saw that this particular compound, astaxanthin, which makes salmon pink and lobster red, but it’s more important that without it, salmon are gray, perhaps that would be obvious, but they’re smaller.
They get more infections. They don’t reproduce as well, and they’re too weak to swim upstream. And that was my “a ha” moment when I said, Something, gosh, biologically really important is happening here. And when I started to look at the literature, I found anti-inflammatory activity, but I also knew it was safe, because human beings have been eating salmon for thousands of years.
And we know it as a superfood. So we had something exceptionally safe that was a powerful anti-inflammatory. And based on what I had learned in my career on Wall Street, I thought that was an amazing opportunity. And that’s why we started AX3 looking at this for that particular audience that’s looking for reduced inflammation improving their inflammatory health aging fearlessly, if you will, is our tagline but doing that with science backed.
Understanding and science back foundation.
[00:03:38] Brian Thomas: Thank you. And certainly, want to learn a little bit more about that. I think that’s totally awesome that you’ve spent some time researching something to make the world a better place and to help people. So that’s awesome. David, we are a technology platform, publication podcast, and that’s what we’re doing right now is recording.
We like to ask people, it doesn’t matter what your background is, but if you’re leveraging any of that new and emerging technology in your business, and if you’re not Have you maybe found a cool tool or app you found useful?
[00:04:06] David Watumull: Well, we have used a new technology called natural product total synthesis, where we make in the lab so that we can control the purity and precision of our product and its cost and it’s environmental cost as well. We can do all of that using something called natural product total synthesis, where we make things that are identical to nature, but with the advantages of the precision and price advantages of drug manufacturing. And so, we think we’re doing the best of all worlds there.
And in this day and age, of course, we use you know, everything from Zoom to Slack to all of the latest technologies to allow us to communicate with the people that that we work with across the world and couldn’t do it without it. Certainly not from Hawaii.
Absolutely.
[00:04:49] Brian Thomas: And in today’s world we are a hybrid work from home environment, as you know, and we’ve got folks that work from around the globe that are with one company that might be based in Hawaii in your case, right? So that’s awesome that you’ve shared some of that with us today. David, last question of the day, our audience wants to know a little bit more about you and what makes you tick.
Can you share something from your career experience? That would be helpful for those listening today, looking to grow their career in either biotech or entrepreneurship.
[00:05:19] David Watumull: Well, for me, it really was about finding something that got me up every day and something very exciting that really where I felt we could make a difference.
I think hopeful, at least that I’ve seen a lot of people want to make a difference. And if you can stick to your knitting around making something that really can change the world, can help a lot of people, everything else hopefully falls into place.
[00:05:40] Brian Thomas: Thank you for sharing that and at the end of the day you’re obviously inspired by what the work you’re doing, but we can hear it in your voice when you’re truly working on something that’s going to make, like I said, the world a better place or helping others live longer and live healthier.
David, it was a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
[00:06:00] David Watumull: I look forward to it as well and Aloha to everybody on who is listening to this. Thank you very much.
[00:06:06] Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
David G Watumull Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
