April 28th, 2022 | Issue #2

Good afternoon. Today marks just the second issue of our newsletter series. Step by step, slowly but surely, the roadmap continues. Thanks again for subscribing and continue reading below to get more of a feel for what to expect going forward.Also, give us a shout by simply hitting reply in your inbox – we'd love to learn more about how you found us.

The $7.6 Trillion Quest for Longer Life

Despite all of its promise, the longevity sector continues to fly under the radar of mainstream media. That's why, whenever a well-known publication

does

happen to cover longevity, your team at spannr gets pretty amped up.

That was the case when Bloomberg's Digital Original dubbed "The $7.6 Trillion Quest for Longer Life," was published earlier this month.

You can watch it here

.

As we've seen many times over in other emerging industries – such as cannabis, psychedelics, or crypto – there's both a positive and negative effect when it comes to this type of media coverage.

On one hand, largely due to the size of their audiences, the "talking heads on TV" have the power to instantly bolster industry awareness amongst thousands of listeners and readers. This welcomes legitimacy to the industry, can spark new conversations, and could eventually even turn the heads of government regulators.

The downside to these events, however, is that the message can sometimes be a bit misleading or misconstrued. For example, it can be too broad or narrow, politicized, or overtly full of hype – a slippery slope for investors and promoters alike.

Now, to be frank, we think Bloomberg did an excellent job at keeping things middle-grounded. It's a great introduction to the space and we do suggest checking it out. But there are some things we'd like to highlight first...

Longevity's Branding Problems:

• Only For The Rich? No, despite the Jeff Bezos' and Peter Thiel's of the world funding the industry with billions of dollars, we won't go as far out to say that they're only doing it for selfish reasonings. Furthermore, too much focus on the billionaires undermines the leg work of all the researchers, labs, and the several private or "stealth" companies that have led us to this point.

• One Pill To Save Us All? Not quite. While that sounds appetizing for big pharma, the longevity industry doesn't exactly fit in with the current healthcare model as it spans far beyond just patented drug development. Bloomberg actually did an awesome job debunking this common misperception. Innovation in the space will happen on the fringes of biotech and new preventative medical practices. It will happen within a "multi-pronged" and collaborative effort to curb age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's, Cancer, M.S., Heart Disease, and so forth. Needless to say, life-spanning scientific breakthroughs won't come as a pill anytime soon.

• Hard To Understand? After watching Bloomberg's video, you might be left with more questions than you have answers to. If so, we wanted to let you know that you're not alone. One of the biggest problems the industry faces is that the material can get confusing rather quickly, especially if you're new to the field.

What companies are leading the space and what are they focusing on? How do you start learning more? And what are the realistic steps you can take today to embrace the Longevity mindset?

These are the same unanswered questions that led us to build spannr.

While it's just the beginning (on paper, we're just a newsletter for now), we are dedicated to helping fill these gaps.

Quantified Self: Levels Raises $38 Million to Solve Metabolic Health Crisis

We can't help but be excited for the future of aging science as longevity-focused Biotech companies continue to raise billions of dollars in funding.

But for all of this capital, research, and brain-power entering the field, solutions for reversing aging, or even extending lifespan, are years away.

R&D... animal trials... human trials...

Although the research is promising, your average person doesn't want to sit on their hands and wait... they want to get involved today.

Enter digital health companies that are putting the power in the consumers' hands by measuring and reporting how specific

biomarkers

can lead to better healthspan, and potentially lifespan.

This week, Levels, a software company that gives real-time feedback on how food affects a person's health,

announced

the raise of $38 million in Series A funding at a $300 million valuation.

A Tiny Lab on Your Arm

Each and every person has different needs when it comes to their health, but until the last few years, we didn't have the technology available to continuously track how small changes to our eating, sleeping, or exercise habits impact our day-to-day health. The keyword being... "continuously."

Fitness, sleep, and stress trackers were a step in the right direction, but all of them were external trackers. When these devices first started to roll out, none of them, for example, gave people insight into how food impacted their internal health in real-time.

That's why interest is building among longevity enthusiasts around internal biomarker tracking. Companies like Levels have responded by introducing continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), which Dr. Casey Means, a co-founder of Levels calls a "tiny lab on our arms."

How's it Work?

A CGM is a small monitoring device that sticks to the back of your arm to measure glucose values at all times. The sensor then takes in data about how your day-to-day activities influence your glucose levels and provides you with the information needed to make health and lifestyle changes.

Who Else is Investing in CGMs?

This Series A funding for Levels highlights what spannr believes to be one of the hottest areas of longevity for 2022. We've already seen hundreds of millions of dollars flow into the space, as well as a few strategic M&A moves.

• Nutrisense, which according to insiders has raised around $6 million to date

• January AI, which has raised $29.8 million in funding to date

• Signos, which has raised $17 million in funding over three rounds

• Supersapiens, which has raised $13.5 million in funding, but is not currently available in the US

• Ultrahuman, which has raised more than $25 million and earlier this month acquired LazyCo, the creator of the Aina ring

Although right now there isn't a ton of differentiation between companies beyond professional support, we would expect these competitors to begin offering support for other biomarkers such as A1C, lipid panels, and more.

We also expect to see M&A soon as traditional hardware providers in the health space want to expand their offerings. We saw this recently with Eight Sleep acquiring

Span.Health

.

Although none of these companies are able to directly stop or reverse aging, they are putting the power into the hands of the consumers to begin to better understand their health and push for longevity-related changes.

• Unlearn.AI, a startup developing a ‘digital twin’ service for clinical trials, raises $50 million (TechCrunch)

• Tessera Therapeutics Announces Over $300 million Series C Financing to Advance its GENE WRITING Platform (Business Wire)

• MitoRx Therapeutics lands funding to target mitochondrial dysfunction and age-related disease (PR Newswire)

• BioAge Announces First Cohort Dosed in Phase 1b Clinical Trial of the Apelin Receptor Agonist BGE-105, Under Development for Muscle Aging Indications

• L-Nutra Reports Initial Data Showing Improvements in Metabolic Risk Factors in Patients with Prostate Cancer

• Quanterix Granted Breakthrough Device Designation from U.S. FDA for NfL Test for Multiple Sclerosis

• UNITY Biotechnology Completes Enrollment in BEHOLD, the Phase 2 Study of Senolytic Candidate UBX1325 in Diabetic Macular Edema

• Dante Labs announces ventures into biosimulation and drug discovery, demonstrating the predictive value of the Dante Platform

• MAIA Biotechnology, Inc. Announces FDA Orphan Drug Designation for THIO for the Treatment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

• Stop the Clocks: Brisk Walking May Slow Biological Aging Process (Neuroscience News)

• Healthy Aging: Comparative Analysis of Local Perception and Diet in Two Health Districts of Côte d’Ivoire and Japan (Frontiers in Aging)

• Mental speed is high until age 60 as revealed by analysis of over a million participants (Nature; Human Behaviour)

• Low-Dose Lithium May Slow Kidney Aging, UToledo Study Finds (UToledo News)

• New Study Suggests Marijuana Usage Accelerates Epigenetic Aging (Dalgarno Institute)

• Metformin disrupts Danio rerio metabolism at environmentally relevant concentrations: A generational study (bioRXiv)

• Multidimensional single-cell analysis of human peripheral blood reveals characteristic features of the immune system landscape in aging and frailty (Nature; Aging)

• A combination of three simple treatments may reduce invasive cancer risk by 61% among adults aged 70+ (EurekAlert)

• Cannabidiol induces autophagy and improves neuronal health associated with SIRT1 mediated longevity (Springer)