A $3bn bet on finding the fountain of youth

STARTUPS COME and startups go. But few startups start with $3bn in the bank. Yet that is the fortunate position in which Altos Labs finds itself. Though preparations for the launch of what must surely be a candidate for the title of “Best financed startup in history” have been rumoured for months, the firm formally announced itself, and its, on January 19th. And, even at $3bn, its proposed product might be thought cheap at the price.

The idea that became Altos was dreamed up by Dr Klausner, a former head of America’s National Cancer Institute, and Dr Milner, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with fingers in many technological pies, in a series of covid-escaping walks in Los Altos, a hilly, well-heeled suburb on the edge of Silicon Valley. They then recruited Mr Bishop, formerly boss of GRAIL, a cancer-detection company, to be the business brains.

In contrast to the Yamanaka factors, which have a clear discovery date, the idea of an ISR pathway has emerged gradually. One of biology’s most important concepts is homeostasis, the maintenance of a constant internal environment in the face of external pressure to change. The ISR does this at a cellular level.

The last piece of the scientific jigsaw—almost inevitable these days—is artificial intelligence . This is the purview of Thore Graepel, until now one of the leading lights in Google DeepMind. Modelling what is going on inside cells, which are composed of millions of molecules of thousands of varieties, is the sort of problem that would be unapproachable without AI.

Three billion dollars is a big financial cushion, though. It gives leeway for changes of direction and recovery from mistakes. It will also, as Bob Nelsen, whose firm, ARCH Venture Partners, is on board to the tune of a sum north of $250m, its biggest ever investment, observes, allow Altos to build its own development arm, and not have to rely, as lesser startups often do, on selling its intellectual property to an existing pharmaceutical company.

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