Longevity has been an underfunded area of biotech research, as the challenge of getting drugs approved and the high risk of failure have deterred most pharma giants and academic grant providers. Now, Saudi Arabia is throwing it a lifeline.
“The problem with the ageing field is that no one does a rigorous clinical trial because no one is willing to invest in natural products,” Auwerx told Swissinfo. “This has led to a lot of semi-science, which gives a bad impression of the ageing field and has made it even more difficult to get funding.”
But his prospects – and those of longevity researchers around the world – have received a boost from an unlikely funding source: Saudi Arabia. In 2018 Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced plans to create the first global foundation dedicated to developing therapies that extend healthy lifespan. Three years later, the Hevolution Foundation was born with a budget of up to $1 billion (CHF800 million) a year, making it the world’s second-largest funder of geroscience, the study of the biological mechanisms of ageing.
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