The founder of Amazon has reportedly made an investment in a biotech startup focused on “cellular rejuvenation programming to restore cell health and resilience, with the goal of reversing disease to transform medicine,”
With $3 billion in backing on day one, Altos Labs has hit the ground running with what may be the single largest funding round for a biotech company, according to the Financial Times of London.
Altos Labs has an impressive roster of executives that includes experts formerly of GlaxoSmithKline, a health care company in the United Kingdom that primarily develops pharmaceuticals and vaccines; Genentech, a San Francisco-based biotech firm that created the first targeted antibody for cancer; and the National Cancer Institute. The quest to cheat death is as old as life itself, but this is an especially pedigreed bunch to take on the challenge.
Overseen by teams of luminaries in their respective fields, Altos will open two California laboratories in the Bay Area and San Diego, per the press release. It will also have a laboratory in Cambridge, England and collaborate with scientists in Japan. The formal announcement is dotted with Nobel laureates, but it’s still light on details, as these things are wont to be.
The company will join ranks with San Francisco-based Calico Labs, another startup seeking to defy death; it’s similarly funded by another rich tech entrepreneur, according to a September report from MIT Technology Review: Larry Page, one of the co-founders of Google.
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