Bioverge

About ten years ago, futurist Sonia Arrison in her book “100 Plus” explored the coming age of longevity and the broad impacts it would have. Now, as a venture investor, she’s backing companies that are positively impacting longevity through her 100 Plus Capital. In this episode, Neil talks to Arrison about the area of longevity, her investment approach, and how the field has evolved.

Greg Simon, former president of the Biden Cancer Initiative and former executive director of the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force, discusses his long career in healthcare that has cut across the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. His work has extended from FasterCures, which has sought to build a patient-centric system to accelerate the development of therapies to the healthcare investment platform Poliwogg, which sought to democratize healthcare investing. Neil speaks to Greg about what he’s learned from his work, the themes that unified his career, and his own cancer diagnosis has changed his perspective

In November, voters approved a new $5.5 billion bond measure that extends the life of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The measure passed with far less fanfare than the original proposition that established the institute in the midst of a national controversy over embryonic stem cell research. With the passage of the new measure, the institute is expanding its work in emerging areas of regenerative medicine including cell and gene therapies and increasing its focus on translational research and clinical development. We spoke to Jonathan Thomas, chairman of the Independent Citizens’ Oversight Committee, which oversees the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, about the progress CIRM has made to date, what the new funding will enable, and how the institute hopes to help shape the future of regenerative medicine.