Will we one day be able to live to be 100, or even 120, in excellent health? Scientists working on extending lifespan have in any case made important discoveries in recent years. Number of them led to the creation of biotech which promise to “kill death” or, more seriously, to “increase healthy life expectancy”, by delaying or combating aging and the diseases that accompany it. Laboratory experiments, on animals, and the first trials on humans have produced encouraging results.
“Even if aging is not a disease – there are no clinical trials testing treatments against this natural process – researchers are still testing treatments against diseases associated with aging or against progeria, this rare genetic disease whose symptoms suggest accelerated aging”, indicates Carlos López-Otín, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Oviedo, in Spain, and author of a notable study on markers of aging, published in the journal cell, in January 2023. “The most advanced initiative in this regard is that based on the use of metformin, a widely used antidiabetic drug that strengthens natural mechanisms to combat aging, and whose future results are particularly awaited by the scientific community” , adds this specialist.
These recent advances have, unsurprisingly, increased the interest of the financial world and many billionaires. Since 2013, some 800 longevity biotechs have attracted 38.86 billion euros in funding, according to analyzes from the specialized site Longevity.Technology, which lists the fundraising of these companies, 60% of which are in the United States, 25% in Europe and 10% in China. The years 2021 and 2022 were particularly fruitful, since 7.94 and 7.15 billion were invested in the field, compared to around 3 billion on average previously. The year 2023, on the other hand, will have been marked by a clear decline, with 1.5 billion euros collected “only”. A poor performance mirroring the global economy, slowed down by geopolitical conflicts (wars in Ukraine and the Middle East), galloping inflation and rising interest rates. The “health” component of the American S&P 500 stock index also displays its biggest underperformance since 1999. Despite this probably temporary setback, the sector remains booming, and can count on several private behemoths.
Multi-billionaires Calico and Altos Labs lead the way
One of the most emblematic giants is the California Life Company (Calico), a subsidiary of Google/Alphabet founded in 2013 and to which we owe the famous slogan “Kill death”. Discreet about its work, the biotech wants to verify some of the current research hypotheses concerning the fight against aging, probably by using Google’s computing power to analyze the gigantic masses of data collected. Calico has notably established a partnership with the AbbVie laboratory, with which it announced that it wanted to invest at least 2.5 billion dollars in the research and development of anti-aging therapies. “The other strongest initiative in terms of economic investment and scientific support is that associated with Altos Labs [Californie]”, specifies Carlos López-Otín. Supported by the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, it has attracted excellent scientists who work in particular on the reprogramming of cells in order to rejuvenate them. Its leaders ensured during the creation of the biotech, in 2022to have raised nearly 3 billion dollars.
“If these two giants are in the lead, around ten companies have still raised several hundred million dollars,” notes Michael Ringel, specialist in longevity biotech at the Boston Consulting Group. Among them, Insilico Medicine (Hong Kong, China), which focuses on artificial intelligence and deep learning, in order to accelerate research on molecules that can eliminate cancers or diseases of the central nervous system and which has announced that it has raised $410 million since 2014. Human Longevity (California), for its part, has raised $360 million with which it wants to build the largest database of human genotypes and phenotypes in the world before subjecting it, again, to artificial intelligence tools. Unity Biotechnology (California) is developing therapies aimed at eliminating senescent cells to slow down aging. It would have raised some 310 million dollars. Next come Juvenescence (Ireland) and Life Biosciences (Massachusetts), with respectively 230 and 210 million dollars. “Other companies are also working on anti-aging therapies and, even if they don’t explicitly announce it, I think they should be included in this ranking,” adds Michael Ringel, whose Celularity ($780 million) Denali Therapeutics (570 million), Biosplice Therapeutics (560 million), Nimbus Therapeutics (430 million), C4 Therapeutics (280 million) and the Novartis branch Gyroscope Therapeutics (210 million).” The list of biotech companies which have collected several tens of millions of euros would be far too long.
Investors are just as numerous: public and private investment funds, pharmaceutical giants, banks, not forgetting billionaires passionate about biotech and afraid of death, including Jeff Bezos, Russian investor Yuri Milner (who also invested in Altos Labs), the co-founder of PayPal Peter Thiel (Unity Biotechnology), the founders of Google Sergey Brin and Larry Page, or even Sam Altman, general manager of OpenAI – the developer of ChatGPT –, who bet 180 million on Retro Biosciences. Some “enthusiasts” even get together at posh and private events, such as Longevity Investor Conference, which takes place every year in September, in Gstaad, Switzerland. This mini-Davos of longevity, which aims to “bridge the gap between the scientific world and that of investment”, brings together around a hundred hand-picked guests, including researchers, for nearly three days. , start-ups and public and private investors.
“It would take 100 billion dollars” more
Although these sums may appear extravagant, for players in the sector, they remain very insufficient in view of the benefits that these future technologies could bring. “Many scientists believe that current resources are insufficient to truly advance science,” says oncologist Evelyne Bischof, professor at Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, China, and co-founder of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society. Because, to develop an effective drug, you ideally need 20 billion dollars, and, to be sure of discovering it – because many clinical trials fail – you would need more like 100.” The game is nevertheless worth the effort, since extending healthy lifespan could, in addition to benefiting everyone’s well-being, respond to the aging of the population in developed countries. “On a global scale, each additional year of life in good health could save billions, and even 38,000 billion, according to a study published in Nature“, continues Evelyne Bischof. Why does such a project not concentrate the majority of the world’s capital? “To understand the situation, you can follow my free course”Investing in longevity“, on the site Longevity-degree.teachable.com, suggests Alex Zhavoronkov, researcher and CEO of Insilico Medicine. To summarize, I explain that the longevity industry has not yet achieved the success hoped for.”
Dr. David A. Sinclair, one of the world’s most renowned geneticists, agrees. In his book Why we age and why it is not inevitable (Quanto), he recalls that, in 2018, the American Congress had allocated “only 4 billion dollars to the National Institute on Aging”, an entity of the National Institutes of Health, which, moreover, devotes itself almost exclusively to the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and not to other aspects of aging. A paltry sum, when compared to the United States’ defense budget, set at $842 billion for 2024. “Saudi Arabia announced that it would invest more than $1 billion per year in its foundation Hevolution, which will make it the most important public initiative to date”, further illustrates Carlos López-Otín.
Too many unscrupulous companies tarnish the image of the sector
Beyond a lack of investment, another difficulty in the sector lies in its ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. Because, if the most important biotech companies rely on cutting-edge research based on rigorous scientific evidence, others take advantage of the growth of the sector and offer solutions that are not very serious or do not have the potential to have a significant impact. on the healthy life expectancy of human beings. Every biotech researcher remembers biotech CEO Elizabeth Parrish BioViva – also invited to the Longevity Investor Conference in 2023. She had announced, in 2017, having become the first human being to “officially become 20 years younger”, after having injected herself with her own “gene therapy” aimed at lengthening the size of telomeres, short segments of DNA located at the ends of chromosomes which shorten with the time. His experiment was roundly criticized by many scientists. “It has proven absolutely nothing, except that it increased the risk of developing cancer, because the absence of telomerase and the resulting excessive shortening of telomeres serve precisely as a barrier to cell proliferation. cancers”, says Eric Gilson, professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Nice, where he directs the Institute for Research on Cancer and Aging, and coordinator for Inserm of the AgeMed and InterAging research consortia.
In 2021, players in the sector – including many scientists – came together within theLongevity Biotechnology Association (LBA)in order to provide a unified voice while establishing a set of standards to be respected. On June 26, several of its members published a letter in the journal Nature Biotechnology in which they worried about the potential proliferation of unscrupulous companies that could take advantage of the naivety of investors or patients to sell false solutions. The letter sets out commitments that a “real” longevity biotech should meet, such as committing to preventing and/or reversing age-related diseases, extending healthy lifespans through new interventions, or to conduct clinical trials demonstrating the effectiveness, safety and benefits provided by these treatments. A first step, undoubtedly, to attract more investors?
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