Introduction
The longevity and anti-aging (LAA) industry is picking up steam – with funding, research, and company establishment rapidly increasing. In this article, we analyze the LAA industry data from Longevity List [1] to give you cutting-edge insights into the industry and where it might be heading. Longevity is defined as a long duration of life [2], and the biggest obstacle to it, are age-related diseases [3]. As aging research has gained traction, the desire for longer lifespans has become increasingly prevalent, which seems quite natural. Who wouldn’t want more healthy years to enjoy all the pleasures of life? The numbers in this article are from 10.19.2021.
Figure 1: Timeline graph of some of the longevity companies that have been founded as of the date of this article.
Establishment of Longevity Companies
We have carefully examined the current state of a small subset of the various longevity companies. Although the LAA industry is only now getting some recognition, the movement started decades ago. Longevity companies have existed at least since 1990, when Lineage Cell Therapeutics came onto the scene. Till date, this company has received $108.8 million in funding.
From the “Companies” dataset of Longevity List, we gathered a list of LAA companies and the year in which they were founded. We can see in Figure 2 that although these companies started popping up in the 90s, it was in the 2010s that growth became rampant. The greatest number of longevity companies created in a single year was in 2018, where 25 longevity companies were established. The numbers in 2020 and 2021 were likely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused social unrest, worldwide.
Figure 2: Number of longevity companies established between 1990 and 2021.
Let us examine one of the most important reasons why the longevity industry came into existence.
Fighting Aging
Fighting aging is about slowing down, reversing, or stopping the aging process altogether. This process is targeted differently by each LAA firm. Some focus on certain theories of aging, like the genetic theory of aging, the immunological theory, and the endocrine theory. The word cloud below shows the different words used in the descriptions of the longevity companies in our dataset. The bigger the word, the more LAA companies are focusing on it. From the word cloud in Figure 3, we can see that a lot of the companies are working on developing drugs that will fight aging. For instance, a good number of them are working on using modern methods like Artificial Intelligence (AI), some are working on the importance of mitochondria, and others are working on cell/tissue regeneration.
Figure 3: Word cloud of significant concepts in the LAA movement.
In Figure 4, LAA companies have been grouped into categories of how they are tackling age-related diseases.
The cells are basic units in living beings. They are involved in a vast amount of operations in the human body, including our aging process. From Figure 4, we can see that the 4 categories: altered intercellular communication, cell loss, mitochondrial dysfunction, and cellular senescence, are the categories most of the LAA companies are betting on. It is no coincidence that these 4 categories are all related to the cell. A few examples of public companies in each category:
- Altered intercellular communication: Biophytis, Celularity, and Longeveron LLC
- Cell loss: Humacyte inc., Lineage Cell Therapeutics Inc. and Frequency Therapeutics.
Mitochondrial dysfunction: CohBar Inc., GenSight Biologics, and StealthBio Therapeutics Incs. - Cellular senescence: Unity Biotechnology Inc. and HCW Biologics.
Figure 4: The longevity industry based on the number of companies in each category.
Figure 4 shows the various ways the longevity companies are fighting aging. Similar to
Figure 3, where the most dominant word was “drug,” figure 4 shows that most LAA organizations are focusing on drugs to solve aging; more specifically, most are trying to develop “small-molecule drugs”. Small molecule drugs can easily enter human cells because of their low molecular weight, and after entering the cells, they can alter many parts of the organism [4].
Funding
From the “Completed Investment Rounds” dataset, we gathered the amount invested in a subset of the anti-aging industry, per year, from 2014 and onwards. One of the companies was excluded from the analysis, as it didn’t specify the investment currency. Figure 5 shows a big increase in the amounts invested in the last few years. More surprisingly, in 2021, during a global pandemic, there was more investment than in any of the previous years.
Figure 5: Amount invested in the anti-aging industry per year.
Table 1: Total funding ($M), per year.
Going back to the “Companies” dataset from Longevity List, we know the dollar amount invested in 94 out of the 131 companies. Table 2 summarizes those numbers. In this case, the mean is not very representative of the average investment, as it is highly skewed by Calico’s (Alphabet’s subsidiary) 2.5 billion dollar investment. As of the date of writing this article, most investments were in the ballpark of 10.55 million dollars. More so, the funding of Calico is more than the funding received by all the other LAA companies combined.
Table 2: Descriptive statistics of the investments in LAA companies.
Figure 6 depicts a scatter plot of the total funding received by each LAA company to date, and when they were established.
Figure 6: Total funding received by LAA companies to date.
Figure 7 shows that most LAA companies are currently in the seed stage of funding. And, there are also quite a few public companies.
Figure 7: The funding stages of the LAA companies.
Drugs and Clinical Trials
Out of the 131 companies analyzed, we found that at least 116 aim to develop new drugs. And of those, 45 are already doing clinical trials. Figure 8 shows the number of drugs in each clinical trial phase8.
Figure 8: Number of drugs in each clinical trial phase
Conclusion
The LAA industry is developing quickly. Investment and the number of companies keeps increasing. It should be noted though, that the number of companies analyzed represents just a fragment of the total number of LAA firms. Many clinical trials are underway, and many LAA companies are going public. These are all positive signs for the longevity industry, which hopefully, will deliver new drugs and treatments to dramatically improve our lives. If you are interested in speeding up the progress of the LAA industry, Longevity List has a list of job openings in the industry. There are already hundreds of job openings for you to explore.