New CEO of Indonesia-based Nusantics eyes profitability by 2025

Nusantics, an Indonesian biotech startup focusing on microbiome diagnostics to treat diseases, has appointed co-founder Revata Utama as its new CEO, replacing Sharlini Eriza Putri.

Utama had previously served as Nusantics’ CTO and was appointed in July 2023. After his appointment, the company entered stealth mode to tackle its challenges, Utama shared with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE in a statement.

Announcing his change in position on LinkedIn, he also recounted his journey of steering the firm from “the edge of bankruptcy” to achieving a 9X improvement in EBITDA and a 5X reduction in net loss. The development came amidst the company facing woes around financial instability, after seeing momentous growth during the Covid-19 pandemic for its polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing.

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“Slowly, but surely, we tackled all the obstacles, from launching two new products in human health, PathoScan hrHPV and PathoScan hrHPV Lite, to expanding CeKolam by Nusantics and our ShrimProtect kits offering in animal health,” the newly-minted CEO wrote. Meanwhile, other co-founders of the company, including Putri and former COO Vincent Kurniawan, have departed.

In a statement to MARKETING-INTERACTIVE on Monday, Utama said that the company is expecting to turn EBITDA positive by this year. “We actually had months when our EBITDA was positive in 2024, but it was still up and down. Our EBITDA margin is only -0.5% by November 2024,” he added.

Founded in 2019, Nusantics applies the PCR technique to study skin and respiratory diseases, before expanding its products to animal diagnostics and skincare. The company has received backing from East Ventures and Illumina Accelerator.

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