Apollo Health Ventures pumps another $180M into the burgeoning race to slow aging – Endpoints News

An­ti-ag­ing re­search has professional­gressed fast­ly during the last sev­er­al years, with Google and even Ama­zon bil­lion­aire Jeff Be­zos purchase­ing in. However the subject’s lat­est in­vest­ments will come from Apol­lo Well being Ven­tures, which has raised $180 mil­lion to fund ear­ly en­trants within the bur­geon­ing race to professional­lengthy hu­man life.

Steven Le­unert

Apol­lo closed its sec­ond fund on Wednes­day, about three years af­ter clos­ing its first fund at some­the place north of $20 mil­lion (although that fig­ure might nonetheless go up if in­vestors con­tribute to fol­low-on rounds), CFO Steven Le­unert advised Finish­factors Information.

“The well being­care sec­tor is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a par­a­digm shift from deal with­ing age-re­lat­ed dis­eases lengthy af­ter first symp­toms have de­vel­oped to tar­get­ing the basis caus­es at ear­li­er levels within the dis­ease pathol­o­gy,” Apol­lo co-founder and half­ner Nils Regge mentioned in a state­ment.

The Berlin-based ven­ture agency has al­prepared used a few of the new money to make six in­vest­ments within the longevi­ty subject, and it’s look­ing to develop its port­fo­lio to 10 or 15 com­pa­nies over the following three years, ac­twine­ing to half­ner Mar­i­anne Mertens.

Mar­i­anne Mertens

The fo­cus? Tack­ling the “root caus­es of ag­ing,” Mertens mentioned — which may imply any­factor from neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease to di­a­betes.

“It’s not the ag­ing it­self, however it’s the dis­ease professional­gres­sion that goes together with it,” Le­unert mentioned.

The com­pa­ny’s first fund added 4 com­pa­nies to its port­fo­lio, in­clud­ing Aeov­ian Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, which bagged $37 mil­lion again in 2019 for its mTORC1 in­hibitor, and Ochre Bio, which launched ear­li­er this yr with a unique ap­proach to iden­ti­fy­ing new tar­will get for liv­er dis­ease.

Up to now, the brand new spherical has introduced in two Berlin-based longevi­ty com­pa­nies referred to as Enhance­er Ther­a­peu­tics and Re­cunning Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals; a Swiss-based com­pa­ny work­ing on long-non­cod­ing RNA tar­will get referred to as Haya Ther­a­peu­tics; a qui­et Cam­bridge, MA-based com­pa­ny referred to as Galilei Bio­sciences; and two oth­ers in stealth mode.

“Our candy spot is re­al­ly ear­ly-stage and com­pa­ny cre­ation,” she mentioned. “We attempt to al­methods suppose within the large­ger pic­ture,” con­sid­er­ing how a com­pa­ny’s tech­nol­o­gy may trans­late to oth­er dis­ease ar­eas, or gradual the professional­gres­sion of age-re­lat­ed dis­eases.

The well-doc­u­ment­ed (and a few­instances ridiculed) an­ti-ag­ing subject has gained mo­males­tum in re­cent years, with Be­zos re­port­ed­ly in­vest­ing in a stealthy biotech referred to as Al­tos Labs only a cou­ple months in the past. And again in Ju­ly,  Ab­b­Vie and Google-backed Cal­i­co reached a $1 bil­lion deal to dou­ble down on their half­ner­ship.

“We simply thought the op­por­tu­ni­ty is correct and the time is correct for an ap­proach like this,” Mertens mentioned. “We simply see that there’s tremen­dous, tremen­dous new knowl­edge across the ag­ing path­methods.”