May 26, 2022 | Issue #4

Good afternoon. Today marks just the fourth issue of our newsletter series. Thanks again for subscribing, and continue reading below to get a feel for what to expect going forward.Also, if you have any questions, concerns, or feedback – we're all for it. Just simply reply to this email and we'll get back to you right away.

Hevolution Foundation Announced With (Rumored) $20 billion In Funding

Last week, during the American Aging Association Annual Conference in San Antonio, Felipe Sierra, former director of NIA’s Division of Aging Biology (DAB), officially introduced the Hevolution Foundation – a Saudi-backed non-profit focused entirely on longevity science.Hevolution (= health + evolution) will "fund research through grants and provide investments in biotech to incentivize healthspan science across disciplines and borders for the benefit of all."We have little details beyond the announcement, but the rumor mill is churning that Hevoultion is (1) backed by Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and (2) funded with an absurd amount ($20 billion!) of capital.Wait... $20 billion!? Is that actually true? We don't know yet. Again, at the moment, nothing is confirmed. What we do know, however, is that this amount of capital would be an absolute game-changer.Here are some rapid reactions...The GoodIt doesn't take long to realize the potential impact $20 billion in funding would have on the industry. To put that number in perspective, Altos Labs, who set the funding record in January 2022, raised $3 billion for its cellular rejuvenation programming efforts in what was considered an industry milestone. Adding to this, roughly only $300 million per year is funded from the National Institute of Health (NIH) towards aging research. Meaning, it would take the NIH 67 years – basically a human lifespan – to catch up to what Hevolution may bring to the table.The BadIf the rumors are true, we can expect that the press will have a field day around the source of funding. As if the longevity space didn't receive get enough noise surrounding billionaires that "want to live forever," imagine what mainstream media will think when they see who's behind this. Furthermore, Hevolution will be ran by Dr. Mehmood Khan, the former Vice Chairman & Chief Scientific Officer of PepsiCo. To Khan's credit, he is also the CEO of Life Biosciences – and has years of experience in the pharma industry with ties to the Mayo Medical School where he served as Director of the Diabetes, Endocrine and Nutritional Trials Unit – but it's another tidbit the press may run circles around.Our TakeWhether it's billionaires or dictators funding longevity efforts, the goal of extending human healthspan and lifespan is something that it seems everyone can get behind. And the fact that the billions are coming from a non-profit, should help defend against some of the polarizing takes we discussed above.According to spannr’s funding database (coming soon), ~$4.1 billion has already been raised in 2022 alone. Hevolution's contribution would 5x that number in a heartbeat.There's obviously much more to unfold here – let alone confirm – but for now, instead of focusing on "who" is doing the funding (a story for another day), we'd rather turn our focus to "what" is being funded. With this much capital to deploy into the industry, where will it all go? How is it possible to even spend that much? And where do you even start?Leading up to 2022, one of the biggest challenges the fields of longevity biotech and geroscience faced was the lack of capital. If rumors of Hevolution's $20 billion turn out to be true, perhaps the next challenge the industry will face will be a lack of talent.

Oviva Therapeutics Raises $11.5 millon To Solve Ovarian Aging

A new biotech company focused on ovarian health, Oviva Therapeutics, has emerged from stealth with $11.5 million in seed funding from Cambrian Biopharma and with access to exclusive rights to patents from Mass. General Hospital.For a brand new company coming out of stealth, $11.5 million in financing from one funder is a large amount. This is especially true for a company that is specifically focusing on women’s health like Oviva is.So, before we get to Oviva and what the team is working on, we should first explain who Cambrian Biopharma is and how they work.The Rise of the Distributed Development Company (DisCo)Cambrian Biopharma represents a new model of a biotech company that, rather than focusing on a singular drug or technology, incubates and funds multiple portfolio companies to better advance scientific breakthroughs. By building out a support team that has expertise in clinical trials, finance, and market analysis, Cambrian allows its portfolio companies to focus on what's most important – research. You can think of this as a “more shots on goal” approach.Cambrian currently has 16 novel therapeutics in development across its pipeline companies (PipeCos).We’ve seen other companies attempt the DisCo model, such as ATAI Life Sciences in the psychedelics space, of which Christian Angermeyer is the founder of as well as the co-founder of Cambrian. Cambrian, though, is focused specifically on aging and longevity.The DisCo has raised more than $160 million so far to support the model, and already had a successful exit with Sensei Therapeutics, which went public via IPO in February of last year.With the commitment of more than $11 million to Oviva at this stage, Cambrian‘s CEO James Peyer must see a lot of potential with the technology.What's The Problem?A woman is born with a fixed number of eggs in her ovaries (approximately 1 million in the form of ovarian follicles, which are small sacs that have the potential to become a mature egg). By the onset of puberty, women are down to about 300,000 follicles, with the continued loss of about 1,000 per month. Unlike most other cells in our body that regenerate, egg cells do not.As a woman’s follicles approach zero (a process known as folliculogenesis) and menopause sets in, a woman’s body begins to age faster, leading to multiple health risks, such as osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.And because of humanity’s healthspan and lifespan increasing due to many of the things we discuss in these letters, women can now expect to spend more of their life after menopause than before it.The FightOviva is focusing on developing a hormone known as Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) to slow down folliculogenesis.AMH is historically used to measure the fertility of a patient, but was being used in experiments to see if AMH could slow the progression of ovarian cancer. Through the research, it was noticed that AMH could potentially be used to extend ovarian lifespan by slowing or even halting folliculogenesis.Oviva is co-founded by Dr. Daisy Robinton, a Harvard-trained molecular biologist who joined Cambrian in 2020 to focus on ovarian aging and its relation to longevity.While there, she came across a study on AMH from two Harvard professors, Patricia Donahoe and David Pépin who are the leading experts in the study of AMH. The concept of Oviva was born shortly after.The FutureOviva's launch makes it part of a small, yet growing, area of longevity research that is focused on ovarian health.Gameto, for example, is focused on solving ovarian aging through cellular reprogramming and has raised $23 million to date. At the same time, institutions such as the Center for Reproductive Longevity and Equality at the Buck Institute have been established to focus specifically on reproductive longevity.As we continue to increase human lifespans, extending reproductive health will be imperative. With the launch of Oviva, we now have a level of friendly competition focused on solving the issue of the fastest aging organ in the female body.

• BioAge Developing a Novel Class of Potent NLRP3 Inhibitors With Distinct Structural and Pharmacologic Properties for Inflammatory and Age-Related Diseases

• Longeveron Inc. Provides Corporate Update and Reports First Quarter 2022 Financial Results

• BioViva's Patent-Pending Gene Therapies Delivered with a CMV Vector Extended Lifespans Over 40% and Improved Multiple Markers of Health

• Celularity Reports First Quarter 2022 Financial Results and Provides Corporate Update

• Extended Longevity Inc. Opens Fundraise through Wefunder

• AgeX Therapeutics Reports First Quarter 2022 Financial Results

• FDA Approves Fujirebio’s CSF Test for AD—Quest Diagnostic Offers Plasma Test

• Buck Scientist Uncovers Clues to Aging in Mitochondria (Buck Institute)

• Urolithin A improves muscle strength, exercise performance, and biomarkers of mitochondrial health in a randomized trial in middle-aged adults (Cell)

• The importance of aging in cancer research (Nature; Aging)

• The relationship between epigenetic age and the hallmarks of ageing in human cells (Nature; Aging)

• Fisetin Supplementation Improves Age-Related Vascular Endothelial Function by Suppressing Cellular Senescence and Mitochondrial Oxidative Stress (FASEB Journal)

• Intermittent methionine restriction reduces IGF-1 levels and produces similar healthspan benefits to continuous methionine restriction (Wiley Online Library)

• He Was a World-Renowned Cancer Researcher. Now He's Collecting Unemployment (Common Sense)

• Anti-aging drugs are being tested as a way to treat covid (MIT Technology Review)

• Scientist claim to bring dead human eye cells back to life (Futurism)

• Researchers Train Ants to Sniff Out Cancer (BioSpace)

• Women in Aging Research (Frontiers in Aging)

• How Old Are You Really? Meet Your ‘Biological Age’ (WSJ)

• How can Nanotechnology be Used to Reverse Skin Aging? (AZoNano)

• What Happens to the Brain as We Age? (Georgia State University)

• Who wants to live for ever? Quite a lot of people (The Economist)

• What’s Your Biological Age? A New ‘Aging Clock’ Has the Answer (Singularity Hub)