Longevity has been an underfunded area of biotech research, as the challenge of getting drugs approved and the high risk of failure have deterred most pharma giants and academic grant providers. Now, Saudi Arabia is throwing it a lifeline.
“The problem with the ageing field is that no one does a rigorous clinical trial because no one is willing to invest in natural products,” Auwerx told Swissinfo. “This has led to a lot of semi-science, which gives a bad impression of the ageing field and has made it even more difficult to get funding.”
But his prospects – and those of longevity researchers around the world – have received a boost from an unlikely funding source: Saudi Arabia. In 2018 Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced plans to create the first global foundation dedicated to developing therapies that extend healthy lifespan. Three years later, the Hevolution Foundation was born with a budget of up to $1 billion (CHF800 million) a year, making it the world’s second-largest funder of geroscience, the study of the biological mechanisms of ageing.
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Whenever I see figures like those listed below, it makes me realize how much more could be done to support research in this space. It also makes me realize that there is enormous opportunity at the same time.
" The budget of the US National Institute on Aging (NIA), the world’s largest public funder of ageing research, rose to $4.4 billion in 2024 from $1.6 billion in. However, $2.6 billion of that was spent on Alzheimer’s disease and other neuroscience areas. Basic ageing biology received only $400 million. These figures pale in comparison with the overall $47 billion budget of the US National Institutes of Health, which funds the NIA."
It would be great to see ageing approved as a disease in the USA, though this feels like a pipe dream for the moment. It’s great to see a $1 billion investment into the biology of ageing here in Saudi Arabia. There is some irony in that a place with human rights issues is making an investment that could help people in significant ways.
