Longevity.Technology founder and CEO Phil Newman highlights his recent interview for Forbes.
Longevity.Technology has generated thousands of articles on the exciting longevity sector: so it was an interesting change of pace to be in the news myself!
Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, an expert in AI for healthcare and longevity biotechnology and Founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine interviewed me recently for Forbes, and while it is rather flattering to be asked, the fact that Forbes wanted to run such an article is a testament to the growth of longevity as a sector.
Indeed, as Alex says: “there is definitely more activity in longevity biotechnology than 20 years ago,” and it was good to spotlight to a wider audience just why I believe the next few years will continue to build on this growth and see a significant growth in longevity science and investment.
Here are a few of the article’s highlights, and you can read the full version HERE.
In the article we discussed the four domains to longevity; these all contribute to improving the quality of life – our healthspan – as we extend our lifespan. As we age chronologically, research is working to minimise the amount we age biologically. These domains are:
- Prevention – preventing the damage that causes aging
- Diagnostics – identifying aging damage, hopefully as early as possible
- Treatment – therapy for damage that has occurred
- Renewal – reversal of damage that has occurred.
Longevity.Technology’s market intelligence unit is currently engaged in analysis of 500 longevity-specific companies that are categorised across these four domains; the datasets our team is building identify both the technology readiness and investment traction these companies are making. This data will give us a unique advantage when it comes to identifying significant longevity companies – more information on this coming soon!
Longevity company formations
As I tell Alex in the article, we are seeing investment activity really pick up. $4.1 billion has already been invested into longevity businesses so far this year – a figure which beats the whole of 2021.
Despite the current blip in the financial market, we’ve seen no slowdown in investors’ interest in longevity; clinical pathways take many years which coupled with their strong IP, gives longevity biotechs the ability to ride-out this current downturn.
Much longevity investment growth is driven by the big ticket diseases of aging like Alzheimer’s, CVD and atherosclerosis, and the trajectory for the various therapeutics we see making their way through clinical pipelines is positive.
Longevity venture capital investment ($M)
Although aging is not recognised as a disease by the FDA, I’m confident that within the next seven years we shall see public health bodies like the FDA or the NHS in the UK approving longevity therapeutics.
When it comes to longevity R&D, there are several very exciting areas that are either booming or set for explosive growth.
Cellular rejuvenation – targeting aged cells could be a gold mine in the field of longevity as it has the potential to tackle a wide variety of age-related diseases at the same time.
Tissue engineering – not only building new tissues and new organs, but giving the body to the ability to heal itself.
Mitochondrial rejuvenation – boosting energy and improving the physiological aging process.
Pet longevity – faster research, insights into human aging and keeping man’s best friend around longer.
Longevity supplements – acting on key aging pathways or longevity determinants to improve healthspan at any age.
Senolytics – targeting and eliminating these zombie cells is thought to have potential for longevity benefits in humans, and there is an increasing body of preclinical evidence showing the promise of targeting senescence for preventing age-related disease.
Diagnostics – accurately assessing how fast an individual is aging and determining a personalised response.
And what next for Longevity.Technology?
Well, we are currently fundraising for our own seed round, so we are keeping busy! Our unique longevity-focused brokerage operation has is seeing growth in deal flow and we continue to develop commercial and scientific datasets to increase our analytical advantage and build intellectual capital.
And, of course, the Longevity.Technology is central to what we do – thank-you to our readers for their continued support, which has helped us become a leading media destination.
