Anti-Aging Startup Raises $116 Million With Bezos Backing

Unity Biotechnology, a startup developing anti-aging medicines, has raised $116 million in a Series B funding round led by Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos and Mayo Clinic, among others. The company also announced that the former CEO of KYTHERA Biopharmaceuticals, Keith Leonard, would assume the position of CEO, and the previous CEO and Co-Founder Nathaniel David will be Unity’s President.

The firm said on Thursday that it attracted support for the Series B funding round from traditional biotech investors including Fidelity Management & Research Co., Arch Venture Partners, Partner Funds Management and Venrock. The San Francisco-based startup is also backed by Bezos Expeditions, the investment arm of Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos.

“A win state for us would be if, 25 years from now, people coming of age grow up in a world where it’s considered relatively normal to have an extended average lifespan, and more profoundly, it’s an era where osteoarthritis and age-related eye diseases are only things you read about in books,” President Ned David said in a phone interview.

While David says that the biotech startup is grounded in serious science. Unity focuses on so-called senescent cells in the body that have stopped dividing. Studies have shown that senescent cells are associated with chronic inflammation and accumulate in the same areas where age-related diseases appear, such as aching joints, degenerating eyes and diseased hearts, according to what David said.

The company also points to its very experienced management. David and Chief Executive Officer Keith Leonard previously co-founded Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc., a maker of treatments for double chins and male pattern baldness. They sold the company to Allergan Plc for $2.1 billion in June 2015. David is also a partner at Arch Venture Partners, which invested in this round.