 | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| |
| Industry | Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical |
| Predecessor | Forge, Inc. |
| Founded | 2011 in California, United States of America |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | , |
Number of employees | 70 (2018) |
| Website | unitybiotechnology |
Unity Biotechnology is a publicly traded American biotechnology company that develops drugs that target senescent cells. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Unity BioTechnologies, a company backed by Jeff Bezos and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, [6] was co-founded in March 2009 by Nathaniel David, Jan Van Deursen, Judith Campisi, and Daohong Zhou. [7]
The company was founded under the name Forge, Inc., but changed its name to Unity BioTechnologies in January 2015. [8]
Anirvan Ghosh joined Unity in 2020 as the company’s CEO. That same year, Nathaniel stepped down as president but remained a member of the board. [9]
On May 3, 2018, the company went public on the Nasdaq exchange, raising $85 million at a market capitalization of $700 million. [10] [11] Unity Biotechnology shares dropped 60% on August 17, 2020, after the company reported disappointing results from a clinical trial involving its then lead drug candidate, UBX0101, in patients with moderate-to-severe painful osteoarthritis. [12]
The company's products in development include UBX1325, which targets Bcl-xL, a mechanism to eliminate senescent cells in age-related eye diseases (in Phase 2 clinical trials for diabetic macular edema as of October 2023). [13] In July 2022, the company reported positive results from its Phase 1 study. [14] In April 2023, the company then reported results from its Phase 2 study demonstrating that a single injection of UBX1325 resulted in a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in vision through 48 weeks. [15] They also include UBX 1967, a preclinical product targeting ophthalmologic diseases. [16] [11] [17] Both products are senolytic medicines.
Life extension is the concept of extending the human lifespan, either modestly through improvements in medicine or dramatically by increasing the maximum lifespan beyond its generally-settled limit of 125 years. Several researchers in the area, along with "life extensionists", "immortalists", or "longevists", postulate that future breakthroughs in tissue rejuvenation, stem cells, regenerative medicine, molecular repair, gene therapy, pharmaceuticals, and organ replacement will eventually enable humans to have indefinite lifespans through complete rejuvenation to a healthy youthful condition (agerasia). The ethical ramifications, if life extension becomes a possibility, are debated by bioethicists.
Biogen Inc. is an American multinational biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States specializing in the discovery, development, and delivery of therapies for the treatment of neurological diseases to patients worldwide. Biogen operates in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Eternal youth is the concept of human physical immortality free of ageing. The youth referred to is usually meant to be in contrast to the depredations of aging, rather than a specific age of the human lifespan. Eternal youth is common in mythology, and is a popular theme in fiction.
David Andrew Sinclair is an Australian-American biologist and academic known for his research on aging and epigenetics. Sinclair is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and is the co-director of its Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research. He is the president of the non-profit Academy for Health & Lifespan Research and an officer of the Order of Australia (AO).
The Methuselah Foundation is an American-based global non-profit organization based in Springfield, Virginia, with a declared mission to "make 90 the new 50 by 2030" by supporting tissue engineering and regenerative medicine therapies. The organization was originally incorporated by David Gobel in 2001 as the Performance Prize Society, a name inspired by the British governments Longitude Act, which offered monetary rewards for anyone who could devise a portable, practical solution for determining a ship's longitude.
David Gobel is an American philanthropist, entrepreneur, inventor, and futurist. He is co-founder and CEO of the Methuselah Foundation, CEO of the Methuselah Fund, and one of the first to publicly advance the idea of longevity escape velocity, even before this term was formulated.
Nathaniel David is an American scientist and entrepreneur who co-founded a series of technology companies in the biotechnology and sustainable energy sectors, including Syrrx, Achaogen, Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, Sapphire Energy and Unity Biotechnology. These companies have collectively raised more than $1.5 billion in financing.
Biomarkers of aging are biomarkers that could predict functional capacity at some later age better than chronological age. Stated another way, biomarkers of aging would give the true "biological age", which may be different from the chronological age.
Genetics of aging is generally concerned with life extension associated with genetic alterations, rather than with accelerated aging diseases leading to reduction in lifespan.
Calico Life Sciences LLC is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. with a focus on biotechnology. Calico's goal is to increase the understanding of the biology that controls human aging, attempting to devise interventions that may enable people to lead longer and healthier lives.
Lineage Cell Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel cell therapies for unmet medical needs. Lineage’s programs are based on its robust proprietary cell-based therapy platform and associated in-house development and manufacturing capabilities. With this platform Lineage develops and manufactures specialized, terminally differentiated human cells from its pluripotent and progenitor cell starting materials. These differentiated cells are developed to either replace or support cells that are dysfunctional or absent due to degenerative disease or traumatic injury or administered as a means of helping the body mount an effective immune response to cancer.
Seagen Inc. is an American biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing innovative, empowered monoclonal antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancer. The company, headquartered in Bothell, Washington, is the industry leader in antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs, a technology designed to harness the targeting ability of monoclonal antibodies to deliver cell-killing agents directly to cancer cells. Antibody-drug conjugates are intended to spare non-targeted cells and thus reduce many of the toxic effects of traditional chemotherapy, while potentially enhancing antitumor activity.
Navitoclax is an experimental orally active anti-cancer drug, which is a Bcl-2 inhibitor similar in action to obatoclax.
A senolytic is among a class of small molecules under basic research to determine if they can selectively induce death of senescent cells and improve health in humans. A goal of this research is to discover or develop agents to delay, prevent, alleviate, or reverse age-related diseases. A related concept is "senostatic", which means to suppress senescence.
Senotherapy is an early-stage basic research field for development of possible therapeutic agents and strategies to specifically target cellular senescence, an altered cell state associated with ageing and age-related diseases. The name derives from intent of the proposed anti-aging drug to halt "senescence". As of 2019, much of the research remains preliminary and there are no drugs approved for this purpose.
Laura Deming is a venture capitalist whose work focuses on life extension, and using biological research to reduce or reverse the effects of aging.
BioViva is an American biotechnology company, based in Bainbridge Island, Washington, researching treatments to interfere in the ageing process in humans.
Insilico Medicine is a biotechnology company based in Pak Shek Kok, Hong Kong in Hong Kong Science Park near the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and in New York, at The Cure by Deerfield. The company combines genomics, big data analysis, and deep learning for in silico drug discovery.
Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. is an American biotechnology company based in Brisbane, California. It applies cell and gene therapy to combat haemophilia and other genetic diseases.
This timeline lists notable events in the history of research into senescence or biological aging, including the research and development of life extension methods, brain aging delay methods and rejuvenation.
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