Why are the world’s billionaires pouring money into longevity and age-reversal tech?
Three reasons:
1. You still can’t take it with you.
2. Extended health is the greatest gift you can offer anyone.
3. It’s a MASSIVE business opportunity.
In success, age-reversal (or more appropriately healthspan-extension) would likely be the biggest business on the planet. After all, how much of your net worth would you give for an extra 30 years of healthy lifespan?
To emphasize the opportunity, a study last year at the London Business School, Oxford, and Harvard suggested that extending just one healthy year of life is worth $38 trillion to the global economy and extending healthy life by 10 years could net greater than $300 trillion.
Ultimately, aging is a disease—a disease that many of the top scientists believe can be slowed, stopped, and perhaps even reversed.
In today’s blog, we’ll look at 3 companies betting big on the longevity market and the promise of extending human healthspan: Altos Labs (backed by Yuri Milner & Jeff Bezos), NewLimit (backed by Brian Armstrong & Blake Byers, PhD), and Retro Bio (backed by Sam Altman).
Let’s dive in…
NOTE: Want to get first-hand experience learning from the leaders of Altos Labs, NewLimit & Retro Bio? Consider joining me on my upcoming Longevity Platinum Trip.
Altos Labs: The Future of Cellular Rejuvenation
In a move that sent shockwaves through the scientific community, Altos Labs launched in 2022 with an astonishing $3 billion in funding, backed by visionary billionaires Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner.
The company's innovative approach is structured around two key entities: the Altos Institutes of Science, dedicated to exploring deep scientific questions and integrating findings into a collaborative research effort, and the Altos Institutes of Medicine, focused on translating knowledge about cell health and programming into transformative medicines.
Armed with this substantial funding, Altos Labs has set its sights on an ambitious mission: to restore cell health and resilience through cellular rejuvenation programming, with the ultimate goal of reversing disease, injury, and age-related disabilities.
To achieve this monumental task, the company has assembled a star-studded lineup of the world's most brilliant minds in science and research.
Among the luminaries at Altos Labs are four Nobel laureates: Frances Arnold, PhD (2018 Chemistry), David Baltimore, PhD (1975 Medicine), Jennifer Doudna, PhD (2020 Chemistry), and Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD (2012 Medicine).
The company has also recruited longevity expert Dr. Steve Horvath, renowned for his groundbreaking work on epigenetic clocks, and Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, PhD, who built upon Yamanaka's findings in 2016 by demonstrating the possibility of "partial" cellular reprogramming.
Altos Labs' initial focus is to empower its scientists and researchers to unravel the mysteries of rejuvenation. This includes investigating how to tailor reprogramming to rejuvenate animals without fatal consequences and exploring the potential of ordinary drugs as an alternative to genetic engineering.
As Altos Labs CEO & Founder Hal Barron, MD, eloquently states:
"We now have pre-clinical data suggesting that the cellular dysfunction associated with ageing and disease can be reversible. This knowledge means that it may, one day, be possible to transform patients' lives by reversing disease, injury and the disabilities that can occur throughout life."
Dr. Barron will be joining us on the upcoming Longevity Platinum Trip, offering a unique opportunity to gain insights into the groundbreaking work being conducted at Altos Labs.
NewLimit: Reversing Cellular Aging
NewLimit, co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and venture capitalist Blake Byers, PhD, is taking a bold approach to tackle aging at the cellular level. (Blake will also be joining us on the Platinum Longevity Trip.)
But how exactly will they achieve this ambitious goal?
NewLimit's unique approach lies in the development of epigenetic reprogramming medicines.
As the company explains, "The core of our approach is rooted in epigenetic control of gene expression. All of our cells experience functional decline as we age, yet we appear to be able to reverse this functional decline through induced pluripotent cell reprogramming and then re-differentiation to the original cell type."
In other words, NewLimit aims to reprogram cellular "age" without altering cell type, a more nuanced task than full pluripotent reprogramming.
The company is initially focusing on T cells and hepatocytes, with specific indications in mind as they work towards more general-purpose medicines to treat broader aspects of aging.
NewLimit acknowledges that its goals are ambitious and that it's taking on a massive Moonshot.
But as Brian Armstrong puts it:
"Think of how many dollars are spent trying to figure out treatments for major diseases, most of which are in some way correlated to aging … It would be a huge success if you could wipe out even one of those disease categories, so think about how exciting it is to go after something even more fundamental."
Retro Bio's Mission: Extending Human Healthspan by 10 Years
With $180 million in investment secured from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Retro Bio emerged from stealth mode in 2022 with a mission to add 10 years to healthy human lifespan by targeting the cellular drivers of aging.
The San Francisco-based company has adopted a unique approach to achieving this ambitious goal, leveraging automation and computational biology to boost productivity.
Retro Bio currently has five discovery programs aimed at reversing cellular aging, with two programs, autophagy and in vivo reprogramming, conducted directly in the body.
The other three programs, including T cell and hematopoietic stem cell reprogramming and microglia therapeutics, involve reprogramming cells in the lab and returning rejuvenated cells to the body through a process the company calls "micro replacement."
In a significant development, Retro Bio recently announced an $85 million partnership with Multiply Labs to enhance the production of its cell therapies targeting age-related diseases.
By leveraging Multiply Labs' automation technology and robotic systems, Retro Bio aims to streamline and scale its therapeutic manufacturing processes.
Retro Bio CEO Joe Betts-LaCroix, who will also be joining us on the Platinum Longevity Trip, said of the partnership:
"The accelerating rate of change in cell therapies motivated us to look for a manufacturing platform with flexibility at its core … The modular structure of the Multiply Labs robots will help enable Retro to bring its unique cell therapies to patients.”
Why This Matters
Altos Labs, NewLimit, and Retro Bio are perhaps the three most popular, well-funded companies tackling age-reversal and anti-aging.
There may be many more ventures out there that are still in stealth mode or early development.
And that shouldn’t be surprising. After all, what matters to all of us more than our health?
Health is the new wealth!
Billionaires around the world are accelerating the longevity field, working to bring cutting-edge tech to all of humanity.
When they do, will you be ready?