Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and Peter Thiel can buy anything they want — even eternal youth?
Tech billionaires are plowing billions of their fortunes into a fierce battle to become the ultimate Benjamin Button, pushing the market for life-prolonging drugs into crisis mode. $25 billion work.
OpenAI CEO Altman, 39, and Amazon founder Bezos, 60, have invested millions of dollars in recent years into Longevity Institute Retro Bioscience and Altos Labs, respectively. . Thiel, 57, co-founder of PayPal, has invested more than $1 million into the company. Methuselah Foundationa biomedical charity aiming to turn 90 people into the new 50 by 2030.
But the path to reprogramming cells and manipulating genes is not paved with gold. Anti-aging enthusiasts face challenges including regulatory hurdles, ethical issues and long-term financial concerns as they try to thwart the Grim Reaper.
“We're small, we're fast, we fail fast. Our goal is to profit from our mission,” said David Gobel, co-founder and CEO of Methuselah. he told the Post. “Our mission is not to make money, but to save lives.”
The future of longevity
Goebel, a serial entrepreneur, started Methuselah in 2001 after asking himself one question as he approached the age of 50. “What is the most important thing I can do, make more money or create more health?”
The nonprofit counts Thiel among its early advocates. According to recent records, Vitalik Buterin, the 30-year-old co-founder of Ethereum, The world's youngest cryptocurrency billionaire — Donated more than $13.6 million in 2021.
“We haven’t really solicited donations since probably 2013,” Goebel said. 72. “I hate begging and thought I needed to move forward with the results.”
Methuselah's portfolio includes nine companies. One of them, leucadia therapeuticsdeveloped device It restores the flow of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain and flushes out toxins that can contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease.
another, X-thermafocuses on using sub-zero techniques to preserve organs for more than 72 hours and transport them across the Atlantic Ocean to increase the chances of transplantation.
Methuselah also partnered with NASA on certain competitions. How to grow human tissue The challenge of understanding it in the lab How to feed astronauts On an expanded space mission.
One day, I can imagine, you step into a Star Trek teleport pod and it transforms you.
David Goebel, Co-Founder and CEO of Methuselah
Bone marrow rejuvenation, which replaces malfunctioning bone marrow cells with healthy, young ones, is one of the human advances that Goebel really wants to see in his lifetime.
“If you can rejuvenate bone marrow, you can rejuvenate anything,” he said. “And if you can rejuvenate the blood, the downstream effects will almost certainly be very positive.”
When will these inventions be available?
Goebel said costly and time-consuming regulatory hurdles are a major impediment to bringing innovation to market.
“[A] “A software company can come out with a really great product for $5 million and almost no regulation, and then it sinks or swims in the market,” Goebel said. “For biotech, it's $1 billion and 12 to 15 years. That money has to come from somewhere.”
Testing the safety of new drugs and medical devices has long required laboratory studies, animal studies, and human clinical trials. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviews data to decide whether to approve a drug or device and continues to monitor the safety of the product after it is generally available.
on averageThe FDA takes approximately 12 years to approve new drugs and 3 to 7 years to approve medical devices.
This process is FDA withdraws from animal testing To screen new drugs. Professor Goebel praised the move to “more modern methods” but noted that authorities had not updated regulations to allow the use of non-animal models.
The FDA also has not approved any drugs or treatments specifically designed to treat aging. The agency does not consider aging a disease, but rather a natural process.
So don't expect life-prolonging drugs to appear anytime soon. Goebel believes an even bigger drug could be on the way.
“I don't think there will be a drug for the next 20 years, and who knows what will happen after that,” Goebel said. “One day I imagined that you could get into a Star Trek teleportation pod and just get modified. So I say that would happen in 2060 at the earliest.”
ethical questions
There are several ways private companies are trying to delay death. The Bezos-backed Altos Institute was launched in 2022 with the aim of reversing aging by rejuvenating cells.
Retro Bioscience, on the other hand, was born in that year, focusing on cell reprogramming and plasma-based therapies to add 10 “good” years to your life. Altman reportedly invested $180 million.
The biotech startup boom of the 2020s has led to cutting-edge research and ethical dilemmas.
Dr. Joshua Chodoshdirector of Elderly Medical and Palliative Care Department The professor at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine said the big question facing the longevity field is “who to study and when to intervene.”
“We know that there are certain treatments that may be effective in people who are much older, but potentially harmful in people who are much younger,” Chodosh told the Post. told.
Another challenge is that the way the FDA approves drugs causes researchers to focus on a single disease and a single organ.
“Yet, when you think about healthy lifespan, you realize that it's not just about a single organ,” Chodosh said, referring to the number of years people can expect to live in good health. “It's much more integrated than that, through multiple or even all organs throughout the human body.”
Some researchers speculate that despite medical advances, our greatest gains in life expectancy may be in the rearview mirror. The average life expectancy in the United States will be 77.5 years in 2022 and is expected to increase slightly over the next 30 years, even as the world searches for a silver bullet against aging.
Chodosh said it was important to address environmental conditions such as pollution, poor diet, sedentary lifestyles and insomnia in order to live longer and healthier lives.
“I think a lot of our longevity success is due to environmental improvements.” [and] It improves safety,” Chodosh said. “If you look at the data on life expectancy and mortality, some of that has clearly been affected.” [by] What are some of the disruptions and challenges in our communities that don't necessarily have much to do with individuals or their specific health conditions? ”
