A Recent Profile of Unity Biotechnology and its Work on Senolytic Therapies

It was only partially in jest that I recently noted Unity Biotechnology as a financial institution with a sideline in rejuvenation research, specifically the targeted destruction of senescent cells. The principals have raised a truly enormous amount of funding in the past year and a half, and recently filed for IPO. They have not yet presented even preliminary human data. Typically the ordering of these matters tends to be at least a little different; there are some raised eyebrows in the community. But if the Unity Biotechnology founders can raise the funds and use them well to advance the state of the art, then more power to them. From their SEC filings we know a little more than we did as to the specific classes of pharmaceutical developed at the company, or at least those they are prepared to talk about today. One is the line of development that started with Bcl-2 inhibitors such as navitoclax, and the other is a more novel approach to senescent cells, one that is as much about suppressing their harmful signaling as it is about destroying the cells. In using pharmacological methods, Unity Biotechnology has an approach to senescent cell clearance that is objectively worse than, say, the programmable gene therapy pioneered by Oisin Biotechnologies. Pharmaceutical approaches are slow and expensive to tinker into better shape when they turn out to be overly tissue specific or have problematic side-effects. Nonetheless, it is entirely possible to build an enormous busin...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs