Silicon Valley tycoons are betting on rejuvenation. Is it possible to make money on it?

In mid-September, the startup Retro Biosciences, supported by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, announced that this year it would begin clinical trials of its first development - a pill to "clean" the brain and fight Alzheimer's disease. Achieving longevity or even immortality is one of mankind's oldest aspirations, which is still relevant today. Silicon Valley techno-investors are pouring billions into researching ways to extend life. What are they betting on?

This phrase was used by the warrior spirit Valeria to encourage Conan in the 1982 classic movie Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. She asked rather ironically - we're all going to die, so don't be afraid to risk your life in battle, warrior. The best will be honored with Valhalla. But very, very many people answer the question literally: "Of course I want to!"

The idea of long life and even immortality has been stirring minds since ancient times. About four millennia ago, the Sumerians told about a Mesopotamian king named Gilgamesh, who went in search of eternal life and even found at the bottom of the sea a plant that restores youth, but a snake stole the plant from him on the way back, writes the History portal.

Of course, enterprising people have always found a way to capitalize on the rulers' desire for immortality.

Two thousand years ago, a Chinese magician named Xu Fu convinced the emperor that there was an elixir beyond the Yellow Sea that gave eternal life. The emperor supplied Xu Fu with ships and 3,000 virgins, which the magician said were needed for the search. When the emperor found that there was little success, Xu Fu said he also needed an army, which the emperor provided. Xu Fu sailed away, and the emperor never saw him again, The New York Times tells one such story.

This is apparently about the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, who was obsessed with the idea of immortality and even took mercury as an elixir. Ironically, it was mercury that may have been the cause of his rather early death at the age of 49, noted in the book The History of China by David Curtis Wright. When the tomb of this emperor was discovered in the 1970s, it was found to contain mercury levels hundreds of times higher than natural levels.

"I call anti-aging medicine the second oldest profession. People have been selling it for a long time," History quotes Xi Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois (USA).

Recent history shows that little has changed since then.

In early September this year, during a meeting in Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed, among other things, immortality or at least how to live to 150 years of age, Reuters reported. Later, at the insistence of Chinese television, the video of the conversation had to be removed from the agency's website because it was allegedly "edited," but Reuters insists that the essence of the conversation was correctly conveyed.

Distracting from personalities, the potential "prize" for life extension is enormous. As calculated by American and British scientists in the article "The Economic Value of Anti-Aging", slowing down aging, which increases life expectancy by 1 year, yields an economic effect estimated at $38 trillion.

Is it even possible to live longer? Historical data would seem to be encouraging. For example, in the United States from 1900 to 2013, life expectancy at birth increased by more than 30 years - from 47 to 79 years, write researchers from the University of Pennsylvania (USA).

However, the rate of increase in life expectancy has slowed in the 21st century, New Scientist notes. This may be due to the fact that the greatest achievements in improving the environment and health care were made back in the 1900s, and humanity is approaching the biological limit of aging, the magazine quotes Olshansky.

Our World in Data, based on UN data, has calculated that from 2024 to 2100, human life expectancy will increase in Europe and the US by only about 10 years - from 79 to 89 years. Other regions show similar dynamics with smaller absolute values, and the global average progress will be just over 8 years - from 73.3 to 81.7 years.

However, there are other opinions. Michael Rose of the University of California, Irvine (USA) believes that human life expectancy is not finite. According to him, with the right investments in anti-aging research, we could see radical life extension again this century, at least in rich countries, writes New Scientist.

"With the right investments," yeah. I'd like to know what the right investments are. The trillion-dollar question, as they say. But the Silicon Valley tech moguls are already placing their bets.

Longevity.Technology, a longevity portal, estimates that total industry funding will reach $8.49 billion in 2024 - more than doubling from $3.82 billion a year earlier. The forecast for 2025 assumes an increase in investments to $9.8 billion.

A decent portion of this investment is provided by super-rich tycoons, including those from Silicon Valley - according to The Wall Street Journal, they have invested at least $5 billion in longevity research over the past 25 years.

The startup Retro Biosciences was founded by renowned longevity enthusiast Joe Betts-Lacroix in 2021. Its official goal is to add 10 years of healthy life to people. There's some tinkering here, though. "They're not necessarily talking about increasing life expectancy in the U.S. by 10 years. Rather, they're trying to create new treatments that will allow people to feel healthy, alert, and energized until their final days," Business Insider explains.

Be that as it may, it's still a worthy goal, and Sam Altman has backed it with a $180 million investment. Betts-Lacroix says their first product, the RTR242 pill, will begin human trials later this year. According to the idea, it should stimulate the process of autophagy - self-purification of cells. With age, this process is disrupted, and the cells accumulate "garbage", which is associated with the onset of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, writes BI.

Altman didn't stop with financial support - in August this year, OpenAI announced that it had worked with Retro Biosciences to develop a special AI, GPT-4b micro, to create new and improved versions of the so-called Yamanaka factors - a set of proteins that Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka showed in 2006 could "rejuvenate" cells. Together with British scientist John Herdon, they won the Nobel Prize for this research in 2012.

Speaking of which, Yamanaka is now chief scientific advisor to Altos Labs, another ambitious startup backed by Silicon Valley billionaires. Altos has raised more than $3 billion from tech tycoons including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, tech investor Yuri Milner, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale (through his investment company 8VC) and Arch Venture founder Robert Nelson, Business Insider writes.

The company's goal is quite ambitious - "to restore cellular health and resilience through rejuvenation to reverse diseases, injuries and disorders that can occur over the course of a lifetime."

NewLimit, a startup founded by Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, has similar goals. He is "deeply passionate about accelerating science and increasing human life expectancy," according to NewLimit's website. In May this year, the startup received $130 million in a B round from a number of high-profile investors, including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund.

The latter appears to be one of the most active enthusiasts in the search for the magic elixir of longevity and is clearly seeking to diversify without putting all his eggs in one basket. Thiel's passion for life extension has led to the creation of nearly a dozen companies, some funded by his venture capital fund and others by a nonprofit he backed. Those companies have raised more than $700 million, the WSJ estimates.

In 2024, late-stage venture capital funding dominated the longevity sector, reaching $2.7 billion or 32% of the total, Longevity.Technology calculated. IPO activity remained "subdued," with companies raising just $367.5 million on the exchange.

It's not hard to see that public companies in this area are still in the small cap or even micro cap realm, and are subject to high volatility.

Such as the early 2024 IPO of Telomir Pharmaceuticals, which raised $7 million at $7 per share. Its main bet is a drug called Telomir-1, which is supposed to protect DNA in chromosomes, regulate metal levels in the body, counteract oxidative stress and inflammation, and thereby prolong life. On Sept. 22, its stock closed at $1.56, meaning it trades about 78% below its IPO price. However, in July, Zacks analysts advised buying them while they were cheap (they've since gotten even cheaper) because if the idea "shoots," the upside potential is great.

BioAge also went public last year, in September. "We use the biology of human aging to develop new treatments for metabolic diseases," the company said on its website. Already in December, it announced it was halting clinical trials of its obesity drug because of side effects, and the stock plummeted. Less than two weeks later, BioAge signed a partnership with Swiss pharma giant Novartis, which pledged to pay $20 million for its human lifespan data sets as well as its biotech research platform. The agreement calls for another payment of up to $530 million depending on the achievement of certain milestones. BioAge's shares have done little to help so far - they both collapsed from $20 to less than $5 in December 2024 and are still trading around that price. Since the beginning of the year, they have lost more than 11% in value.

Another newcomer to the market, Jupiter Neurosciences, went public in December last year. The company offers bio supplements based on resveratrol.

"Resveratrol is a powerful polyphenol found in red wine, grapes and berries, long known for its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and life-extending properties," says the Nugevia bio supplement website. But there are no completed clinical trials to prove it, so the drug remains in biosimilar supplement status. The company was listed at $4, but the stock collapsed below $1 in February, and Jupiter Neurosciences nearly fell off the main Nasdaq listing. They are now trading at $1.32 with a capitalization of less than $50 million.

As you can see, for now, the elixir of eternal life remains as elusive as it was in the days of Gilgamesh. And those who want to invest in its quest do so at their own risk, so think very carefully first. Unless you're a Chinese emperor or a Silicon Valley billionaire, of course.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor