In Silicon Valley, some quests for the fountain of youth have most definitely won the backing of tech’s leading names.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, personally invested $180 million to launch Retro Biosciences, which is working on ways to rejuvenate aging cells. CoinBase’s Brian Armstrong co-founded NewLimit, which has raised over $200 million for a similar pursuit from investors that include Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. And Jeff Bezos reportedly helped bankroll a startup focused on life extension therapies, Altos Labs, which has amassed $3 billion in funding.
Then there are longevity startups like Mitrix Bio, a Pleasanton, Calif.–based company that’s working with only $4 million in funding, none of it coming from the tech billionaires who lately have become enthralled by the idea of treating death like a correctable software glitch.
And while the higher-profile companies still have years ahead of expensive clinical trials to try to get possible Food and Drug Administration approval, Mitrix is testing its proposed anti-aging treatment today on customers willing to pay $50,000 for a small share of equity in the company.
“This is patient-funded medicine,” said Tom Benson, founder and CEO of Mitrix.
Those patient-investors include people like John Cramer, a renowned experimental physicist and the author of three science fiction novels. At the age of 91, Cramer has decided he simply can’t wait any longer for treatments that he hopes will improve the quality—and quantity—of his remaining years. His hearing isn’t great, and he has already had cataract surgery and a knee replacement. A cardiologist monitors his irregular heartbeat.
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