Contrary to what you may think, getting old is not inevitable. And by getting old, I mean the bad parts: weakened muscles, fading memory, aching joints ... or perhaps a disease such as cancer or diabetes makes an unwelcome appearance.
James Peyer, 35, is out to prove that age is, instead, like polio or tuberculosis. Those and other infectious diseases once were the biggest killers, until we developed effective vaccines or treatments.
Why, asked Peyer, co-founder of the New York longevity start-up Cambrian Biopharma, should age be any different? “Of our 100,000-year-plus history as a species, it’s been for only about 75 years that these diseases of ageing have been the primary predators of humankind.” He added: “We are rapidly zeroing in on our biggest predators — diseases of ageing — and figuring out how to beat them back.”
Peyer is not a hairshirt-wearing loon. He is a stem cell biologist who, two years ago, co-founded Cambrian with the London-based German billionaire and psychedelics enthusiast Christian Angermayer.
Angermayer’s Atai Life Sciences is the single biggest investor in Compass Pathways, the London-based developer of psilocybin (magic mushroom) treatments for severe depression. His big bet on ageing, Cambrian, last month raised $100 million (£75 million) to fund a suite of drugs that target core biological processes tied to ageing related diseases.
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Cambrian is founded on an idea that is relatively new to scientific circles that age is a disease that can be targeted and treated.
Since 2000, more than 75 interventions — from medications to gene therapy — have been shown to extend lifespan in mammals, mostly mice. This has spurred a new generation of entrepreneurs, to develop treatments for humans that target the mechanisms that kick in after age 50 — from how cells metabolise nutrients to how our muscle tissue degrades.
The theory is that many age-related diseases share, on some level, a triggering biological mechanism.
The ultimate prize for Peyer and his rivals: an ageing prophylactic we might some day pop like a daily vitamin — a magic pill to keep us young.
Some are not waiting. Many longevity researchers, techies and Silicon Valley billionaires have long taken metformin, an off-patent diabetes pill that has been shown to extend and improve life in mice. A single anonymous donor has agreed to put up half of the$70 million it would cost to run a trial to test its efficacy in humans. Industry sources expect the rest of the funding to be secured soon.
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But getting any treatment approved by regulators is not straightforward, not least because “age” is not an indication recognised by any medical regulator.
It is a high-risk approach. Peyer’s plan: identify 13 age related mechanisms and look for diseases where one of those mechanisms, such as muscle wasting, goes awry. Peyer finds researchers working on that affliction and seeks to form a partnership with them, funding a new company to bring a potential treatment to the market.
Once it is proven safe and efficacious, Cambrian would seek to expand the new drug’s indications beyond the initial disease to ageing itself.
Most candidates will fail, but Peyer is confident that of a breakthrough to stoke a longevity revolution.
His prediction: by 2050, a 70-year-old may look and feel like a 50-year-old. “A 70-year-old in 2050 is going to be dramatically different to a 70-year-old in 2020.”