Translating Aging

Jacob Kimball is the Head of Research and co-founder of NewLimit, a company aiming to develop epigenetic reprogramming therapies to treat age-related diseases and extend human healthspan.In this episode, Chris and Jacob have an in-depth discussion about NewLimit’s mission and approach. They explore how NewLimit is leveraging epigenetics and machine learning to search for new ways to reverse cell aging without changing cell identity. NewLimit is systematically testing combinations of biological factors that can reprogram cell age, using both biological experimentation and computational modeling at scale, and Jacob shares insights into the cutting-edge science and technology behind this work: how functional genomics allows NewLimit to run hundreds to thousands of experiments in a single dish, how machine learning is used in their research, and the challenges of translating epigenetic reprogramming from the lab to the clinic. Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of the promise of epigenetic reprogramming to revolutionize how we treat aging and age-related disease. The Finer Details:Epigenetics as a regulator of gene expression in cell differentiation and agingNewLimit’s mission and approach to tackling the challenges in aging research through epigenetic reprogrammingThe potential for age reversal built into our biologyHow NewLimit is using machine learning and biological experimentation in combination to generate new hypotheses and discoveriesThe potential for epigenetic reprogramming to improve the function of the aging immune system The biggest challenges in translating these discoveries to medicines, including delivery, pharmacokinetics, and ensuring safe and durable effectsA vision for how rejuvenation biotech could transform health and society in the coming decades if key breakthroughs are madeQuotes:"Epigenetics is this layer of regulation that tells your cell, ‘Which genes can I use from my genome, at which times?’""Our goal as a company is to increase human health span, and the way I like to frame that more colloquially is we want to increase the number of happy, healthy years each person gets to spend on Earth."“Even with just those sorts of data available, we're already able to build models that perform better than randomly searching through the experimental hypothesis space, and already performed better than our rough heuristics about which interventions might be most impactful.” "We know that you can actually just express these four genes and reprogram even an old cell all the way back to an embryonic-like state, which not only changes the cell's type, the role it's playing, but also its age.""Our approach is trying to discover ways we can reprogram cell age without reprogramming cell type.""The challenge that we run into is that there are so many combinations that very quickly it would become intractable to line up enough test tubes to test them all.”"Transient interventions could have durable phenotypic benefits for a patient. However, that space hasn't been explored very richly. We know very little about just how long some of these interventions last."“I think what I'm strongly hopeful for is that, if such medicines are to exist, that you can actually increase the number of happy, healthy years each one of us gets.”“I think in the next five to 10 years, we're going to see some of the first applications of this technology and the clinics, some of the first proof points, that these interventions actually can benefit patients in a material way.”“What I hope that means for someone like myself is that the number of years in which I can plausibly consider hiking the John Muir Trail increases in a measurable way. And likewise, for those of you with other hobbies, I hope that these sorts of experiences from which we derive a lot of fulfillment increase in their abundance as a result of these medicines being available.” Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInNewLimitNewLimit progress update (YouTube video)

In today’s episode, Chris is joined by Dr. Matthew "Oki" O'Connor, CEO for Scientific Affairs at Cyclarity Therapeutics, a company focused on eliminating arterial plaque, a prevalent issue in old age. Dr. O'Connor shares his insights on the causes and effects of atherosclerosis, the leading cause of death worldwide, and how aging contributes to plaque build-up. The podcast emphasizes the need for a paradigm shift in addressing cardiovascular disease and highlights the importance of new approaches to repair vessels throughout the body and brain.Together, Chris and Dr. O’Connor begin by discussing atherosclerosis, its significant impact on cardiovascular disease, and the need to understand the molecular and biochemical mechanisms underlying aging and diseases related to aging. They also cover the limitations of current clinical treatments for atherosclerosis and the importance of a paradigm shift towards new approaches that can repair vessels throughout the body and brain. Dr. O’Connor then goes on to describe Cyclarity’s unique drug, a cyclodextrin, explaining how it could be a promising solution to the harmful effects of atherosclerosis. The podcast also explores the potential of combination therapy with traditional lipid-lowering drugs to address multiple aspects of atherosclerosis.Join Chris and Dr. O’Connor here today to gain a greater understanding of the remarkable work undertaken by Cyclarity Therapeutics, the impact of aging on cardiovascular health, the need for new approaches to address atherosclerosis, and the unique drug therapy combination that may offer a promising solution, revolutionizing its treatment in the process.The Finer Details:Cyclarity Therapeutics and the work they undertake Atherosclerosis Cardiovascular dysfunctionThe build-up of arterial plaqueThe implications of aging-related targetsThe need for a paradigm shift towards looking at new approaches to repair vessels The limitations of current clinical treatments for atherosclerosisThe limitations in the standard of care for LDL and HDL cholesterolUnderstanding the molecular and biochemical mechanisms underlying aging and the diseases of aging.The need for new treatmentsThe cyclodextrin drug and how it worksThe need for combination therapies that will target multiple aspects of atherosclerosisCyclarity Therapeutics’ trialsQuotes:"Cardiovascular dysfunction, depending on which metastudy you believe, between 30 and 50% of all death on the planet is caused by the build-up of plaque in the arteries.""Atherosclerosis is the thickening of the arteries, which means in the vessel wall, you have a build up of material called plaque, which starts out as a fatty streak in the wall of a blood vessel.""There's no way to avoid the concept or the idea that a basic molecular mechanism, a biochemical mechanism of aging is going to impact many, if not all, cells and tissue systems.""By the time that you're doing vascular surgery on somebody, you've kind of lost the game. You clearly missed an opportunity to prevent a bad thing from happening in the first place.""We really need a paradigm shift to look at new approaches to addressing cardiovascular disease.""I think the average non-specialist just thinks of cholesterol as this, like, weird molecule that's in your body for some reason, but is totally bad.""Those lipid lowering drugs do actually save lives and keep atherosclerosis from getting worse faster. But we are trying to invent a better way to do it, a more elegant way to get rid of only the most toxic forms of cholesterol so that your arteries can repair themselves the way that they're engineered to.""I imagine that our treatment, at least at first, will be paired with the standard of care, which mostly is currently lipid lowering treatments, at least at first.""The things they're going after aren't just going to be treatments for a specific kind of cancer with a particular mutation or a very specific kind of skin disease. It's going to be something that affects many organ systems."“Targeting aging is an effective way to prevent and treat atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.”Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInCyclarity Therapeutics

Dr. Marco Quarta, CEO and Co-founder of Rubedo Life Sciences, joins Chris on today’s episode to discuss his company’s strategy of targeting pathologic cells to develop therapeutics for chronic degenerative conditions. The conversation covers the evolving definition of senescence and the challenges of identifying and classifying pathologic cells, which vary across different tissues and indications. Marco also announces the upcoming Senotherapeutic Summit in November, which will bring together stakeholders from different fields to advance therapeutic research. Marco and Chris also review Rubedo Life Sciences' clinical development approach: targeting the aging process with the goal of helping healthy stem and immune cells to repair. They then go on to discuss the funding and work required for the selection and nomination of a lead candidate for a project, the importance of having access to primary clinical samples to test efficacy, and the subsequent steps of the grant awarding process. The conversation then turns to the value of having multiple programs running simultaneously. Tune in today to learn more about  the ‘sneaky’ process of senescence that accelerates aging, the toxicity of these rare cells and the development of small molecules that can target them, the complexities of developing new therapies, and the value of having a robust pipeline of programs to advance therapeutic R&D.The Finer Details:Defining pathological cells and their role in chronic degenerative conditionsIdentifying, classifying, and targeting senescent cellsThe need for a focused effort in identifying specific targets for therapeuticsThe evolution of the definition of senescence and the existence of multiple types of senescent cellsThe Senotherapeutic Summit in November and its goal of advancing the field of therapeuticsRunning multiple programs simultaneouslyThe upcoming event in Saudi Arabia aimed at accelerating and promoting healthy longevity.Quotes:"These are aberrant cells, dysfunctional cells, and maladaptive cells that are contributing to shift the microenvironment and leading to progression of chronic degenerative conditions, driving chronic inflammation, fibrosis, stem cell depletion, and cancer.""There are no universal pathologic cells across all tissues or indications. So it really depends on your question and finding targets associated with those that you can really go after in a drug discovery pipeline to generate therapeutics." "We are hoping to push forward the conversation about what senescent cells are, how we can classify them, and how we can move forward with targeting these cells.""We are testing back to back multiple indications including for example, chronic age related atopic dermatitis and others.""And it's a very important event that we'll have major stakeholders from high level government officials and scientists and innovators business leaders and really the idea of promoting a healthy longevity and how can we accelerate this."Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInRubedo Life Sciences

In today’s episode, Chris sits down with Kevin Caldwell, CEO, Co-Founder, and President of Ossium Health, a company that aims to improve human health and longevity through bioengineering - specifically using stem cell science to create materials for cell therapies. Together, they discuss Ossium’s approach: processing and banking of bone marrow from organ donors, which can then be cryopreserved and used for various clinical applications such as bone marrow transplants for blood cancer patients and emerging stem cell therapies. Kevin also shares details of his background as a lawyer in the stem cell industry and the potential of stem cell therapies in increasing the availability of bone marrow for treatment options.He then goes on to describe his company's clinical programs and their goal of increasing the percentage of patients who ultimately get bone marrow transplants. In addition, he reviews the company's plans for using stem cell therapies in preventive medicine, their focus on improving long-term health and lowering costs, and the company's clinical trial for treating GVHD. Finally, he says a few words about Ossium’s place in the longevity biotech sector.Listen in today to not only learn about the potential of stem cell therapies and the importance of increasing the availability of bone marrow for treatment options for blood cancer patients, but to also gain valuable insights into the future of healthcare itself.The Finer Details of this Episode:Ossium Health and the work it doesProcessing and banking bone marrow from organ donorsKevin Caldwell’s professional backgroundThe potential of stem cell therapies and the impact of increasing the availability of bone marrowThe clinical applications of cryopreserved bone marrow The technicalities and the importance of cryopreservation of bone marrow.Ossium Health's clinical programs and their focus on treating patients with acute myeloid and acute lymphoid leukemia.The company's plans for using stem cell therapies in preventive medicineTheir focus on improving long-term health and lowering costs.The goals of Ossium HealthOssium’s clinical trial for treating GVHD Working with the FDA Quotes:"Every year in the United States, there are about 20,000 people diagnosed with leukemia who go looking for a bone marrow transplant… 40% of those people… ultimately do not receive a transplant. Many of those people die while looking for a donor.""Other people become so weak during the process of searching for a donor that they're taken off the list.""There are also many emerging applications of the stem cells that are native to the bone marrow, treatments for diseases of inflammation, treatments that enable people to receive organ transplants without immunosuppression.""Ossium has developed a process for processing and banking bone marrow from organ donors, cryopreserving those cells, and then doing further selection and engineering on the cells to prepare them for different clinical applications."“There's a number of steps that we have to take to go from that solid bone to bone marrow for cryopreservation.”"Our goal is to dramatically increase the percentage of patients who ultimately get bone marrow transplants.""Bone marrow transplants are not FDA regulated. They're treated like organ transplants by law.""One of the things about prevention that is most powerful is that if you achieve it, you can both improve long-term health relative to retrospective treatment, and ultimately lower cost. For us, prevention is a North Star.”“If we think about our goal of trying to broadly improve human health, one system that is involved in our response to essentially all disease is the immune system.”"At Ossium, what we're really building is the ability to systematically reconstitute, restart, reset, and renew the human immune system.""For the rest of the recipient's life, they will produce blood and immune cells from the donor's bone marrow.""One of the things that's exciting about that is that the donor cells will be able to recognize and respond to new disease threats."“The set of innovations that is going to allow us to extend our healthspan meaningfully from what we have now toward something that gives us another chapter of healthy life is going to look very different from the set that allowed us to go from the lifespans we had a century ago to today.” Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInOssium Health

This week, we welcomes Peter Fedichev, an entrepreneur and scientist with over 20 years of experience in academic research and biotech business who has co-founded three biotech companies. He’s currently the co-founder & CEO of GERO, a longevity startup on a mission to hack aging. In this episode, Chris and Peter discuss GERO’s goal to accelerate our understanding of aging and create a therapy that will significantly extend a healthy human lifespan. First, they talk about the relationship between physics and biotech, and from there, the conversation moves to the importance of resilience in human and animal aging. Finally, Peter walks us through GERO’s drug discovery approach, how we can ‘hack’ complex dynamic systems and aging using AI, and shares his optimism about the future of aging research.The Finer Details of This Episode: Discussing complex systems and agingUnderstanding slower aging in some animalsResilience and dynamic stabilityThe dynamic frailty indicatorModels of premature aging and slow agingGERO’s drug discovery approach Quotes: “What we can do and what I think is very good to learn how to do in biology is to understand those universal properties that do not depend on fine details of life histories.”“Obviously aging, that is a very slow process—so slow that almost everything averages out and people that are living under different conditions with totally different life histories are still living more or less the same long life.”“It's easier to rejuvenate an animal which doesn't have any resilience because resilience means the ability to get back to the norm after the intervention. If you are resilient, either a bad effect like smoking or a good effect as your future aging drug will be small, and the more resilient you are, the smaller is the effect.”“If you can only increase your lifespan once you're already unstable, the overall effect of such interventions from lifespan will be, unfortunately, incremental and limited.”“It looks like our progress in chronic diseases is very slow. It's very slow because even though genome is cheaper, we have all genetic therapies, all kinds of new therapeutic modalities, everything, but for reasons that we need to understand, it's very hard to do drugs against chronic diseases in humans.”“I think by bringing these ideas from neuroscience like your company is doing, like our company, like all our communities are doing, I think we will find ways to educate them. And who knows, maybe in five years, one of the major pharmas will start doing drugs against aging, using the techniques and the experience that we will help them to create; I think we're very close to this tipping point in the industry.”Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInPeter Fedichev on LinkedInGERO.AI“Unsupervised learning of aging principles from longitudinal data” Avchaciov, K., Antoch, M.P., Andrianova, E.L. et al. Unsupervised learning of aging principles from longitudinal data. Nat Commun 13, 6529 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34051-9

This week, Chris welcomes Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, who’s on a mission to understand, modulate and treat aging and age-related diseases. His research group, The Scheibye-Knudsen Lab, is trying to understand the cellular and organismal consequences of DNA damage & repair with the aim of developing interventions for aging. Morten is also one of the chairs and chief organizers of the highly successful aging research and Drug Discovery conference, ARDD. In this episode, Chris and Morten talk about interventions in the aging process and why it’s important to better understand aging in order to hopefully treat age-related diseases someday. First off, they discuss the contribution of DNA repair pathways to aging, and then Morten explains the diverging consequences of DNA damage, establishing the pivotal role that DNA damage plays in the aging process. From there they delve into how ketones work in the brain, as well as the connection between the ketogenic diet and aging. Finally, Morten shares his experience with clinical trials, the Aging Research & Drug Discovery conference, and some exciting things to look forward to in the aging field.The Finer Details of This Episode: Discussing DNA damage and agingThe importance of intervening in the aging processClinical work and fundingThe connection between a ketogenic diet and agingARDD 2022 ConferenceExciting things in the aging field Quotes: “I think if we're interested in being able to treat diseases and treat chronic diseases, then we really need to understand the root cause of these diseases. And most chronic, non-communicable diseases are age-associated, and aging is the largest risk factor for these diseases. So something happens during aging that makes us susceptible to disease.”“Your brain cannot metabolize fats very well, so it needs an additional food source when sugar is getting very low, and ketones are then a possible food source.”“The ketogenic diet or ketosis had been used even in Roman times.  When someone had an epileptic seizure, people thought they were possessed by demons and then they put them in a cell and allowed the demons to burn themselves out. But in reality, they just left them in the cell until they went into ketosis. That's when the ketones probably broke the seizures.”“I think that we still don't exactly know how good they are in terms of aging. But I think this is a really interesting research topic because it has been very difficult to separate the, for example, reduction in blood glucose effect from the increase in ketone effect. So these exogenous ketones will really be key to dissecting that relationship.”“I think this is probably the most exciting part, I would say, of the aging field right now is the greatly expanding field of clinical trials actually targeting aging.”“I can drive a small clinical trial, but to actually get products in the hands of people and drive change for regular people, we need companies, we need industry. ”Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website bioagelabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInARDD 2022 Website: https://agingpharma.org/ ARDD YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClOnplI2mzpJlwdX3vlOMJA

Optimizing Healthspan through Longevity Medicine (Dr. Andrea Maier – The Center for Healthy Longevity)Dr. Andrea Maier is an internal medicine specialist, geriatrician, and researcher whose work focuses on age-related disease, cellular senescence, and the translation of longevity science into clinical practice. Among her academic appointments are professorships at the Free University, Amsterdam and the Netherlands, the University of Melbourne in Australia, and the National University of Singapore, where she also serves as the co-director of the Center for Healthy Longevity.On today’s episode, Dr. Maier joins host Chris Patil to discuss longevity medicine, her goals for building credibility in this emerging specialty, and how lifestyle changes are key to intervening in the aging process. First, she explains that longevity medicine means optimizing the state of health of an individual before a disease occurs by antagonizing the aging processes to be healthier for longer. This focus on delaying age-related disease differentiates longevity medicine from other specialties in its proactive attempt to prolong the healthspan rather than reacting after a disease has already occurred. Dr. Maier goes on to state her goals for this specialty, including educating laypeople and medical professionals, building a credible foundation and guidelines, and accelerating research in the field. She also suggests some promising areas of research, from diagnostic clocks to the credibility of supplements, as well as discussing lifestyle changes, an intervention already known to be effective against age-related disease. Dr. Maier then discusses her involvement with the first publicly funded outpatient clinic in longevity medicine, which she’ll be opening in Singapore in 2023, and the services it will provide. Finally, Dr. Maier closes the episode with her thoughts on democratizing longevity medicine and the future of the specialty, including her hope that, within ten years, we will see a shift toward preventing and lowering age-related diseases.Episode Highlights:What is longevity medicine? Building credibility in a new specialty The long-term impact of supplements and lifestyle changes Dr. Maier’s new outpatient clinic Democratizing longevity medicineQuotes:“What we would like to achieve is to optimize that function at that moment in time for that individual. And optimizing function means optimizing the cognitive function but also the physical function to prevent that age-related disease.”“Nobody really knows or has really described what the effect is of these supplements over the life course and for whom. I think consumers need to know what the return on investment is of taking these kinds of supplements. On the other side, physicians should know what the possible return of investment is if these kinds of supplements are prescribed to healthy individuals if any.”“We have already interventions in place, we have diagnostics in place. And that’s the reason why I, as an internal medicine specialist, I’m opening the first longevity clinic in a publicly funded hospital because I think it’s time, and I think it’s unethical to not apply this knowledge to the population and just wait until disease occurs.”“Most importantly is that we have to give individuals the choice what they would like to achieve because if we want, as healthcare professionals, too much, and people will not stick to our recipes, nothing will happen. So it has to be a shared decision-making on what to do and what to leave out.”“We should deliver care to everybody who needs our help. And I would say helping means, in my view, to prevent age-related diseases, and thereby reduce the cost to the entire society.”Links:Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedIn

In today’s episode, Chris welcomes Sebastian Brunemeier, a biotech VC and company builder focused on longevity and regenerative medicine. Sebastien is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Healthspan Capital, a longevity VC firm that invests in biotechnology startups developing therapies to slow or reverse aging, and the CEO and Co-Founder of ImmuneAGE Pharma, a new company based on a drug discovery platform for immune rejuvenation.At Healthspan Capital, Sebastian is looking to invest in fellow “true believers” in longevity and regenerative medicine—companies that understand the importance of aging as a focus for biotech and won’t pivot away from longevity as a focus. Sebastian’s newest venture, ImmuneAge Pharma, is focused on rejuvenating the immune system. With over 100 years of combined drug discovery expertise, the company aims to systematically identify small molecules that rejuvenate hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). As Sebastian points out, the goal of longevity and regenerative medicine is not to extend lifespan at any cost, but rather to increase quality-adjusted life years.The Finer Details of This Episode: Healthspan Capital and the importance of aging as a focus for biotechInvesting in fellow believers who won’t pivot away from agingAlzheimer's drug development and the “amyloid mafia”ImmuneAge Pharma and immune aging The importance of restoring immune functionKey misunderstandings of regenerative medicineQuotes: “We noticed that there was a gap in the market for more traditional structured VC, the longevity biotech space, and actually I and my co-founders launched Healthspan because we were looking to invest our own money into a broadly diversified portfolio and a long bio space, and there was no way to do it. So we had to create it ourselves.”“I would argue that if you have a drug that enhances robustness and resilience and extends lifespan, and it works in multiple different animal models and disease, contrived or not, that is a much stronger preclinical signal for efficacy down the road.”“We've already found a couple of interesting molecules that we're doing med chem on to improve their properties that identify the molecular target. And so, we're hopeful that we'll find a whole pipeline of assets that rejuvenate the immune system.”“If we can dramatically improve outcomes for patients who receive chemo, that would be an absolute home run. It's a huge unmet market need. And this is something that I would want for myself and my friends and family to be available.”“We want to gently, slowly replace the existing HSCs in the niche.”“I'm primarily not in this for the money at this point. I am in this to extend healthy lifespan in myself and my loved ones and the world, and showing Big Pharma that there is a new way, another world is possible. We can actually treat disease at the root cause: the fundamental biology of aging.”“We want to compress the time in which we're spending years in poor health at the end of life, which is very expensive for the whole world and the whole system. ”Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInHealthspan Capital Website: https://www.healthspancapital.vc/ Sebastian A. Brunemeier on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastianaguiar/ Longevity Marketcap Newsletter: https://sub.longevitymarketcap.com/ The DeSci movement: https://ethereum.org/en/desci/ 

Joining Chris on the podcast today is Nils Regge, Co-founder and Managing Director of Apollo Health Ventures.  As a social entrepreneur, company creator, and biotech expert, Nils built Apollo Health Ventures in 2016 to help health tech companies develop methods to prevent and reverse the aging process and extend the healthy human life span.  At Apollo, Nils makes use of his dealmaking skills, business knowledge, and prior experience growing startups to help boost the success of biotech and health companies.  As the general public becomes increasingly interested in longevity and medical advancements continue to take place at rapid rates, Apollo is a leader in funding and fueling efforts to ensure  healthier  and longer human lifespans. At the moment,  things are looking up as there is a lot of excitement  in the industry - however, Regge finds it important to temper that enthusiasm with the right kind of skepticism.   In a field in which any new advancement is seemingly revolutionary, it’s crucial to stay grounded. The Finer Details of This Episode: Incentive and organizational structuresFiltering for good ideasApollo’s portfolio of companies Fusing European and American techniques for company buildingThe heightened need for fundingBringing drugs into the clinicQuotes: “If you have something that makes you live 10 years, 20 years, longer, healthier, I think it's the biggest market ever.”“We do company creation, but we also invest in outside companies.”“Because we are in this for the long run, we want to make investors money, we want to show the investors that this is a good place to invest or a good space to invest. And then ultimately, we want to be able to raise more money from other bigger institutional investors.”“You want to create an incentive structure and organizational structure that encourages the right kind of skepticism…you almost want to avoid a certain kind of optimism early on.”“But because of the excitement in the field, and kind of what I think of as the ‘True Believer' phenomenon, I think we are vulnerable to a little bit of hype. And I think that it's a very good idea to bring that down to earth and say, ‘Okay, that's a good idea. Let us figure out the best way to see if it's gonna fail, and do that first.’”“So first of all, it's about getting a drug to the market, that's the most important thing, and making sure it's safe and that it's working.”“There's great science here in Europe, right? So I mean, the universities are great, the people are smart. They're just not as entrepreneurial as they are in the US, per se.”Links: Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInApollo Health Ventures Homepage: https://www.apollo.vc Nils Regge on LinkedIn: nils-regge-62ab7a28 

In this episode of the BioAge podcast, Ann Beliën joins Chris Patil today to share the story behind Rejuvenate Biomed, and her journey into the longevity sector.  She started her career at Johnson & Johnson after receiving her postdoctoral degree, and during her tenure, she worked in scientific, operational, and strategic roles.  Twenty years later, she became the founder and CEO of Rejuvenate Biomed, a Belgian company evaluating combinations of safe and synergistic drugs that target physical decline and promote healthy aging.One of Rejuvenate’s main focus areas is sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass and strength during aging. When muscle decay starts to prevent people from leaving the house and living a quality life, mental health and quality of life decline rapidly.  The company’s first combination therapy to reach clinical trials, currently in a Phase 1b study, will be initially tested as a treatment for this complex disease.  More clinical trials are in the works, with two new combinations entering preclinical trials next year.The Finer Details of This Episode: Longevity sector outside the U.S.Working for Johnson and JohnsonRejuvenate BioMed’s in silico analysis The complexity of sarcopenia as a diseasePhase 2 clinical trialsThe funding environmentQuotes: ““If we want to do something in the longevity space, we need to provide the product in a chronic fashion, and safety is of course very important. So, why not start from something that already has a proven safety record?”“The company is first identifying individual drugs that have interesting properties with respect to aging, and then trying to devise novel combinations of them that can be used to treat age related diseases.”“Aging is not currently an endpoint that can be used as a trial outcome. So to bring drugs to trial, we have to identify appropriate clinical indications.”“People with sarcopenia are not able anymore to go to the store, to leave their house.  And the social impact is huge… they become isolated.”“We want to have functional, happy people that are living their lives to their fullest potential for convenience.”“We want to learn as much as possible also from the technical perspective, which can be an added benefit not only to the company, but also to the community on the comparisons of these different methods of measuring muscle mass.”“I think we've also seen that in the United States, where the biggest science story of all of our lifetimes, the COVID pandemic, revealed the importance of thinking hard about diseases that disproportionately affect older people, and the broader ramifications of that for the rest of the population.”“Your advisors should be representing different aspects, different ways of thinking and different challenges. So our advisory boards are always very interesting, because you get all these different perspectives.”“In the aging field, people always dive deep and figure out the positive side and do the learning and just pull it through. And that's what I really like.”Links:Email questions, comments, and feedback to podcast@bioagelabs.comTranslating Aging on Twitter: @bioagepodcastBIOAGE Labs Website BIOAGELabs.comBIOAGE Labs Twitter @bioagelabsBIOAGE Labs LinkedInRejuvenate Biomed Homepage: rejuvenatebiomed.com