As well as launching Mimio, which unlocks the cellular benefits of fasting without skipping meals, Mimio Health announces $1.75m seed round.

Mimio Health, a biomimetic human health company, announced today the commercial launch of its flagship product, Mimio. Mimio is a biomimetic – based on human biological processes, it is designed to unlock the cellular health and longevity benefits of long-term fasting, without the actual fasting. By upregulating and enhancing these cellular processes, Mimio aims to trigger a host of longevity benefits including improved metabolic health, hunger control, increased energy and performance, enhanced mood and cognition, balanced inflammatory responses and support for healthy aging.

In addition to their new formulation, Mimio Health also announced a $1.75 million seed round led by Better Ventures, with participation by SOSV, Thia Ventures, What If Ventures, R42, and Gaingels. Mimio Health said it will use the additional funding to continue expanding its product lines, perform additional clinical research and continue their discovery efforts to identify novel biomimetic formulations.

Longevity.Technology: Fasting and caloric restriction has been shown across numerous studies to modulate various biological pathways, making them intriguing strategies for promoting longevity and improving healthspan. These dietary interventions trigger cellular stress responses, such as autophagy and hormesis, which enhance cellular resilience and repair mechanisms. By promoting metabolic flexibility and reducing oxidative stress, fasting and caloric restriction may mitigate age-related decline in organ function, and they have also been associated with changes in gene expression and cellular signaling, such as activation of sirtuins and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), known to influence aging processes.

Using fasting as a roadmap, Mimio Health’s biomimetic research has studied and decoded the changes that happen in the body to activate this innate longevity bio-program.

“Biomimetics seek inspiration from nature, where millions of years of evolution have resulted in highly efficient and effective solutions to various problems. Focused on harnessing each individual’s own biology, we have closely studied the complex interplay of molecules along key pathways in the body and their compounding cellular benefits that are naturally activated during fasting,” said Mimio Health founder and CEO, Dr Chris Rhodes.

“While fasting has extraordinary scientific backing to provide health and longevity benefits, it can be a difficult long-term lifestyle, and many people who do fast are not unlocking the full benefits. With Mimio, we have been able to elevate the same beneficial bioactive metabolites that are produced during a prolonged fast without needing to skip a meal.”

By mimicking our bodies’ natural processes, Mimio’s biomimetic is designed to upregulate and enhance multiple cellular systems, such as autophagy, metabolic efficiency, and cellular repair and protection, that are typically activated during fasting. Based on years of clinical research at UC Davis studying the underlying biology of fasting, Mimio’s team discovered a proprietary blend of four bioactives (spermidine, nicotinamide , palmitoylethanolamide (PEA), and oleoylethanolamide (OEA)) that were uniquely elevated in the body during a 36-hour fast. Mimio says these fasting metabolites work synergistically to activate the cell’s built-in health pathways and unlock both the body’s innate regenerative abilities and compounding cellular benefits without needing to skip a meal [1].

Longevity.Technology sat down with Mimio Health founder and CEO, Dr Chris Rhodes to find out more about Mimio’s formulation and method of action. One of the things we wanted to know was why the team had used 1-methylnicotinamide (1-MNA) in its studies, rather than NMN or NR – and it is a decision based on the result of the fasting metabolomic dataset during the clinical discovery study.

“We identified that 1-MNA was elevated in circulation during a 36-hour fast and after in vitro functional screening, found that 1-MNA (as well as spermidine, PEA, and OEA) was able to outperform ketone bodies (BHB) in achieving anti-inflammatory cellular effects at anywhere between 100-10,000x lower concentrations,” explains Rhodes. “Furthermore, we identified that 1-MNA, spermidine, PEA, and OEA together had a greater effect in combination across our in vitro functional assays and behaved synergistically to extend lifespan in C elegans by 96%. The entire Mimio formulation, including the 1-MNA, was selected based on the data we generated from our clinical discovery study showing that these fasting metabolites could collectively activate similar cellular and lifespan-extending effects of fasting and the results speak for themselves.”

Rhodes adds that the researchers have confirmation from the pilot study that supplementation with nicotinamide goes on to increase the circulating levels of 1-MNA. 

Ingredients that work better together is a winning combination for formulations. After the Mimio researchers identified that 1-MNA, PEA, OEA and spermidine were all upregulated during a 36-hour fast, and could induce similar anti-inflammatory effects as fasting at significantly lower concentrations than ketone bodies, they tested each individual molecule across their in vitro functional assays and C elegans lifespan analyses alongside a combination of all four metabolites.

“In all cases, the combination of the four metabolites was able to outperform any of the individual molecules alone, and in the case of the lifespan extension study, was able to extend the lifespan in C elegans by 96% vs. the most effective individual metabolite (PEA) which resulted in a 36% lifespan extension,” says Rhodes, adding that the fasting metabolites seem to operate by stimulating complementary pathways.

“When these complementary pathways are activated simultaneously, they more accurately recreate the holistic “bio-program” of fasting and allow for much greater efficacy than stimulating one pathway at a time,” he explains. “This is the core principle behind our biomimetic approach – not only did these molecules evolve within the human body to perform a specific function, but they all also evolved to work together within this larger “bio-program” of fasting to support each others’ activities and holistically modify cellular function for survival, protection, and repair. “

So, how bioavailable is Mimio? The company performed a pilot dosing and PK study with the Mimio ingredients, discovering that when the metabolites are taken at the doses in the final Mimio product, they are absorbed and appear in circulation after around 45 minutes to 1 hour, staying elevated in circulation for around 4 hours afterward before being completely taken up by the cells.

However, the major hurdle of bioavailability comes from PEA, which is known to be less bioavailable depending on the form of used. The smaller the crystal size, the more bioavailable the PEA, with ultra-micronized PEA being around 6-8 times more bioavailable than untreated PEA; Mimio is one of the few US products to contain ultra-micronized PEA.

Some of the ingredients in Mimio have been shown to increase mitophagy, inhibit ROS accumulation and improve mitochondrial function, and while the company has not performed direct mitochondrial testing itself, it has carried out in vitro assessments of intracellular ROS under H2O2 stress inducement during the discovery study.

“We found that the Mimio formulation was able to significantly decrease ROS accumulation vs the positive control as well as significantly decrease ROS accumulation beyond what was achieved with any of the individual metabolites alone,” says Rhodes. “In our clinical dosing and PK study, we also found that supplementation with Mimio was able to increase the total antioxidant capacity of the plasma as well as decrease intracellular ROS accumulation.”

Mimio Health’s mission to study, decode and activate human biology isn’t finished yet, and Rhodes says there much more to come from the company.

“The potential of our biomimetic research to uncover safe and effective bioactive molecules with direct impacts on human health is unparalleled and I can’t wait for what’s on the horizon.”

Photos courtesy of Mimio Health

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36811567/