31st August 2019 Funding boost for longevity company Juvenescence, which aims to extend human lifespans to 150, has raised $100 million in its latest funding round.
Founded in 2016, Juvenescence is creating a "longevity ecosystem", which consists of world class scientists, drug developers, machine learning experts and a strong team with financial acumen to navigate this emerging new biotech growth sector. This latest announcement from the company includes $10 million from its founders and a further $10 million each from four cornerstone investors that include Grok Ventures, the investment company of Mike Cannon-Brookes, and Michael Spencer's private investment company, IPGL. This brings the total to $165 million that Juvenescence has raised in 18 months and shows the growing level of interest in therapeutics to modify aging. "Juvenescence has now raised more money than any comparable company, which is testament to the depth of our team and the range of opportunities that we have assembled, in partnership with scientist/entrepreneurs and research institutions," said Jim Mellon, Chair of Juvenescence. "We have recruited a group of sophisticated shareholders from around the world to further our common mission of improving human healthy lifespan. As the science of longevity becomes mainstream, we expect significant investor interest and at some point, we anticipate taking Juvenescence public to further accelerate our development."
The funding is being used to advance multiple anti-aging programs, with 12 therapeutic candidates in development. The company believes that within five to seven years, at least four will be on the market. These products will be aimed at slowing cellular aging, reversing neurodegeneration, destroying senescent cells, replacing aging organs, and editing patient genes. "This has been such an exciting six months for Juvenescence," said Dr. Greg Bailey, Chief Executive Officer. "We have been able to add extraordinary people to the Juvenescence team, who will bring our age-modifying therapeutics to market. We have also augmented our team working on using machine learning for drug discovery and for drug development: culminating with closing on this $100 Million Series B financing, which provides us with sufficient working capital to progress many of our programs to their initial inflection points." Currently, the market for anti-aging is estimated at $110 billion worldwide. A recent analysis from Bank of America has forecast that this figure will balloon to around $610 billion by 2025.
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