The Moonshot Venture Fellowship at Apollo Ventures

One of the more productive strategies undertaken by advocates and venture firms in the longevity industry is to put effort into the creation of companies, rather than waiting for companies to arise. This is still a small, young industry, without the sizable ecosystem that attends more mature areas of biotechnology, and thus many, many lines of research that might be productively developed into therapies targeting the mechanisms of aging remain stuck in academia. For investors and advocates to change this state of affairs requires building connections in the research community, introducing researchers and entrepreneurs, and helping research teams to make the transition into forming a company for commercial development. Investors are somewhat more efficient in conducting this sort of program, given that they have meaningful funding to hand, and so it is good to see more venture firms, such as Apollo Ventures, undertaking initiatives in company formation. The idea that something might be done about age-related diseases using a repair-based approach targeting the root causes of aging was, for the most part, not taken seriously just a decade ago. What has happened in the last few years to increase acceptance and confidence in the idea? I think the biggest change is the progress in aging science - over the last 10 years, scientific knowledge has evolved very quickly and reached a point where we finally understand what aging means on a molecular level and how we can ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs