Introduction: Aging Is Becoming an Industry
In Extra Edition Part 1, we introduced the concept of “anti-aging drugs” by looking at major mechanisms such as mTOR, metformin, senolytics, NAD⁺, and cellular reprogramming. We focused on how these interventions target the biology of aging rather than the vague idea of “rejuvenation.”
In this Part 2, we move one step closer to real-world applications by asking:
- What are longevity-focused biotech and pharmaceutical companies actually trying to do?
- Which “hallmarks of aging” does each company target?
- From a scientific and clinical perspective—not an investment pitch—what are the key points to pay attention to?
We will look at a few representative players:
- Unity Biotechnology
- BioAge Labs
- Cambrian Bio
- Altos Labs (and other reprogramming-focused companies)
The goal is that, after reading this article, you will be able to see a company name in the news and quickly understand what kind of aging mechanism it is aiming at, and how that might connect back to cancer and other age-related diseases.
1. What Do Longevity Biotech Companies Have in Common?
1-1. A Shared Goal: Extending Healthspan, Not Just Lifespan
Despite large differences in technology and business models, many longevity-focused companies share a core objective:
- To extend the period of life spent in good health (“healthspan”) rather than simply adding years of survival.
In other words, they are not trying to:
- Prolong years of severe disability or advanced dementia.
Instead, they aim to:
- Maximize the number of years in which people can live independently, remain active, and stay connected with society.
It is therefore natural that their target indications often include:
- Frailty
- Sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss)
- Fibrotic diseases
- Cardiometabolic disorders
- Decline in vision and cognitive function
1-2. Targeting Aging Indirectly Through Age-Related Diseases
As discussed in Part 1, aging itself is not a recognized disease. In practice, companies typically follow this logic:
- ① Identify a mechanistic target related to a hallmark of aging (e.g., senescent cells, chronic inflammation, metabolic dysregulation, epigenetic alterations).
- ② Demonstrate that modulating this target improves the onset, progression, or treatment response of specific age-related diseases.
- ③ Seek regulatory approval for those diseases (e.g., diabetes, heart failure, osteoarthritis, macular degeneration), not for “aging” per se.
So the story is usually not “We slow aging, therefore we help disease X,” but rather:
- “We treat disease X effectively; mechanistically, we are acting on core pathways of aging.”
This distinction is important when reading press releases and interpreting how these companies position themselves.
2. Unity Biotechnology: A Pioneer in Senolytics
2-1. Background and Concept
Unity Biotechnology emerged as one of the first high-profile companies focused on senolytics—drugs that selectively eliminate senescent cells. At its inception, Unity attracted substantial attention and investment with the idea that:
- “By clearing senescent cells with drugs, we may be able to slow aging and restore tissue function.”
In practice, however, Unity’s development strategy has focused on specific indications where senescent cells are thought to play a prominent role, such as:
- Ophthalmologic diseases
- Fibrotic conditions
2-2. Pipeline and Indications: DME and nAMD
One of Unity’s main areas of focus has been:
- Diabetic macular edema (DME)
- Neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD)
These are retinal diseases in which inflammation, edema, and aberrant blood vessel growth impair vision.
Unity’s senolytic agents are designed to:
- Selectively eliminate senescent vascular and supporting cells in the retina
- Thereby reduce inflammation and abnormal vessel formation, and ultimately improve visual function
2-3. Mixed Outcomes: Lessons from Successes and Setbacks
Unity has reported:
- Acceptable safety profiles in early trials
- Signals of visual improvement in certain patient subgroups
At the same time, some larger trials have not met their primary endpoints, leading to significant volatility in the company’s valuation and serving as a reminder that:
- The conceptual appeal of targeting senescent cells does not automatically translate into clear clinical benefit.
From a scientific perspective, Unity’s journey highlights the difficulty of:
- Connecting a broad aging mechanism (cellular senescence) to robust, measurable improvements in specific diseases in real patients.
3. BioAge Labs: Reverse-Engineering Drug Targets from Human Longevity Data
3-1. Learning from People Who Age Well
BioAge Labs takes an especially distinctive approach. Rather than starting from animal models, they begin with:
- Large human cohorts, including long-term longitudinal studies and groups of long-lived individuals.
From these datasets, BioAge analyzes:
- Blood-based biomarkers, multi-omics data, and genetic information
- Comparisons between people who age healthily and those who develop age-related diseases earlier
By doing so, they aim to identify:
- Druggable targets and pathways whose activity correlates with better healthspan and survival in humans.
3-2. From Targets to Diseases: Focus on Muscle, Metabolism, and Inflammation
BioAge’s pipeline includes programs targeting:
- Muscle weakness and sarcopenia
- Metabolic dysfunction
- Chronic inflammation
For example, if a particular circulating factor is consistently higher in healthy long-lived individuals, BioAge might ask:
- Can we mimic or enhance this factor pharmacologically to improve muscle strength and reduce frailty in older adults?
The central philosophy is to:
- Anchor target selection in human data from the very beginning,
rather than relying solely on animal models and hoping that findings will translate.
3-3. Indirect Links to Cancer
Currently, BioAge’s main indications are not cancer but rather muscle, metabolic, and inflammatory conditions. Nonetheless:
- Modulating chronic inflammation and metabolic health over the long term may indirectly influence cancer risk and treatment tolerance.
This illustrates how “aging biotech” and oncology are connected, even when cancer is not the primary target.
4. Cambrian Bio: A Distributed Development Model for Aging
4-1. The “Distributed Development Company” Concept
Cambrian Bio describes itself as a “Distributed Development Company.” In practical terms, this means:
- Cambrian houses multiple semi-independent pipeline companies under one umbrella.
- Each pipeline company focuses on a particular aging-related pathway or disease area.
In effect, Cambrian functions as a kind of:
- “Holding company for aging-focused drug development,”
sharing core infrastructure and financing while diversifying scientific and clinical risk across multiple programs.
4-2. Targeting Drivers of Aging, but with Realistic Indications
Cambrian’s programs target:
- Chronic inflammation
- Cardiovascular and metabolic pathways
- Fibrotic processes
These are all considered important drivers or mediators of aging. However, the planned indications are pragmatic and disease-focused, such as:
- Specific cardiovascular conditions
- Metabolic disorders
- Fibrotic diseases
Once again, the pattern is:
- Mechanistically, the company targets aging biology.
- Regulatorily, it develops drugs for concrete age-related diseases.
4-3. A Portfolio Approach to Aging
Looking across Cambrian’s portfolio, one can see that it collectively addresses many of the main “output channels” of aging:
- Cardiovascular events
- Metabolic syndromes
- Fibrosis and organ failure
- Chronic inflammation and immune dysfunction
This reflects a realistic view that:
- There will likely be no single magic pill that “treats aging,”
- But a combination of interventions targeting different aspects of aging biology could substantially improve healthspan.
5. Altos Labs and the Reprogramming Group: Aiming for Cellular Rejuvenation
5-1. Altos Labs: Large-Scale Investment in Cellular Resilience
Altos Labs is one of the most talked-about newcomers in aging research. With large-scale funding and high-profile scientists, Altos has declared a mission to:
- Restore cellular health and resilience across the lifespan, thereby reversing or preventing age-related diseases.
While detailed programs remain relatively confidential, Altos is believed to focus on:
- Epigenetic rejuvenation
- Partial cellular reprogramming
- Stress resilience and repair pathways
5-2. Life Biosciences, Retro Bio, NewLimit, and Others
Altos is part of a broader ecosystem of companies exploring reprogramming and epigenetic rejuvenation, including:
- Life Biosciences – working on partial reprogramming approaches, especially in the nervous system and visual system.
- Retro Biosciences – exploring combinations of stem cell therapies, plasma exchange, and reprogramming.
- NewLimit – focusing on epigenetic reprogramming of aged cells as a route to rejuvenation.
Many of these programs are still in preclinical or very early clinical stages, with:
- Cancer risk
- Long-term safety
- Control of dosage, timing, and tissue specificity
being central challenges.
5-3. A High-Risk, High-Reward Frontier
The reprogramming space arguably concentrates both:
- The greatest long-term potential to modify aging at its roots
- The highest risk, including serious safety concerns and complexity
From a cancer perspective, the stakes are particularly high:
- Pushing cells toward a more plastic, “youthful” state may also push them closer to malignant transformation if not carefully controlled.
Thus, advances in this area will require not only breakthroughs in biology, but also sophisticated control systems and very cautious clinical trial designs.
6. How Are Big Pharma Players Engaging with Aging?
6-1. Strategic Partnerships Rather Than Purely In-House Programs
Many large pharmaceutical companies are not building end-to-end aging platforms entirely on their own. Instead, they often engage via:
- Strategic partnerships
- Licensing deals
- Acquisitions of promising biotech programs
Particularly active areas include:
- Cardiometabolic drugs (e.g., GLP-1 agonists, SGLT2 inhibitors)
- Inflammation and immune modulation
- Fibrosis
These are natural entry points where aging biology and established therapeutic areas intersect.
6-2. Implications for Oncology
In oncology, aging biology is increasingly relevant to:
- Immune aging, which affects response to immunotherapy
- Therapy-induced aging (e.g., accelerated cardiovascular and frailty changes after chemotherapy or radiation)
We can expect more collaborations in which:
- Aging-focused biotech tools and biomarkers are applied to large oncology cohorts,
- With the aim of understanding who responds best to which treatments and how to mitigate long-term side effects.
7. Practical Tips for Reading Longevity Biotech News
7-1. Ask: Which Hallmark of Aging Is Being Targeted?
When you see a new headline about “longevity biotech,” a helpful first question is:
- Which hallmark of aging is this company actually targeting?
For example:
- Cellular senescence → senolytics/senomorphics (Unity and peers)
- Chronic inflammation & metabolism → mTOR, AMPK, GLP-1 (big pharma cardiometabolic pipelines)
- Epigenetic changes → reprogramming and epigenetic rejuvenation (Altos, Life, NewLimit)
- Tissue repair and resilience → MSCs and regenerative medicine companies
This simple mapping helps clarify what each company is really doing biologically.
7-2. Also Look at Indications and Endpoints
Two additional questions are important:
- What is the actual indication? (e.g., DME, heart failure, sarcopenia)
- What endpoints are being measured? (e.g., hard clinical outcomes vs. biomarkers)
This allows you to gauge:
- How close the program is to affecting real-world patient care, including in oncology.
Improvements in aging biomarkers are interesting, but:
- Convincing changes in clinical endpoints such as functional status, hospitalization, or survival will ultimately be decisive.
8. Summary: Placing Companies on the Map of Aging Biology
8-1. Positioning Four Representative Players
We can summarize the companies discussed in this article as follows:
- Unity Biotechnology – A pioneer in senolytics, aiming to clear senescent cells in specific tissues (e.g., the retina) to treat diseases such as DME and nAMD.
- BioAge Labs – A data-driven company starting from human longevity cohorts to identify targets that influence muscle, metabolism, and inflammation.
- Cambrian Bio – A distributed development company with multiple pipeline entities tackling cardiovascular, metabolic, and fibrotic diseases that emerge from aging biology.
- Altos Labs (plus Life, Retro, NewLimit) – Focusing on epigenetic and reprogramming approaches to cellular rejuvenation, representing a high-risk, high-reward frontier.
8-2. Connection Back to the Aging-and-Cancer Theme
The activities of these longevity biotechs are deeply intertwined with the broader theme of aging and cancer:
- Interventions that reduce chronic inflammation and metabolic stress could, in principle, shift long-term cancer risk.
- Senolytics and metabolic modulators may become tools to manage therapy-induced aging and cancer survivorship.
- Reprogramming technologies sit at the delicate interface between regeneration and oncogenesis, demanding insights from both aging research and cancer biology.
In Extra Edition Part 3, we will build on this discussion to explore how aging-targeted drugs could influence:
- Cancer prevention
- Cancer treatment strategies
- Long-term survivorship and quality of life
We will try to translate abstract ideas into concrete scenarios for clinicians, researchers, and patients.
My Thoughts
Looking across the landscape of longevity biotech, it becomes clear that the question “Can we change aging with drugs?” quickly branches into a much more nuanced set of questions. Are we targeting senescent cells, metabolic stress, epigenetic drift, or repair capacity? Each strategy carries its own scientific promise, clinical challenges, and safety concerns.
From an investment standpoint, setbacks such as Unity’s trial disappointments may be framed as evidence that “longevity biotech is risky.” From a scientific standpoint, however, they are milestones in a process of learning which hallmarks of aging can be moved, in which tissues, and with what clinical consequences. For those interested in the intersection of aging and cancer, paying attention not only to success stories but also to well-documented failures can provide crucial guidance for designing the next generation of interventions.
In the next Extra Edition (Part 3), we will use this company-level perspective as a springboard to discuss how aging-targeted interventions might shape cancer prevention, treatment, and survivorship in practical terms.
This article has been edited by the Morningglorysciences team.
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