Sustainable Era

In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, imagined by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1922, time seems to run backwards. Benjamin is born old and, as the calendar moves forward, his body grows younger. It is fiction, of course. Yet the image of a biological clock capable of turning back, at least in part, seems to have moved beyond the realm of literature and cinema.

On June 9, 2026, in the United States, the first participant in a clinical trial received ER-100, an experimental therapy targeting two disorders of the optic nerve: open-angle glaucoma and non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy.[1] Four months later, Life Biosciences reported encouraging findings on treatment tolerability in the first three patients, two of whom showed preliminary signs of improvement in their visual fields.[2] It is not a cure for ageing, but it brings one of the most radical ideas in this field of research into human clinical testing for the first time: partial epigenetic reprogramming.

Behind this complex expression lies a relatively simple idea. Essentially, our cells largely retain the same DNA sequence, but the way they use its information changes. As the years pass, the mechanisms governing gene activity can become less precise, altering which genes are switched on, which are silenced and to what extent. In 2006, Japanese biologist Shinya Yamanaka demonstrated that four specific factors could return adult mouse cells to a state resembling that of embryonic cells. The discovery led to his sharing the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with John Gurdon.

For ageing research, however, there is a problem: if reprogramming is taken too far, a cell can lose its identity. In animal experiments, prolonged expression of reprogramming factors has also caused tumours to form, while questions remain about other possible changes to DNA and cellular function.[3] The challenge, therefore, is to stop the process before that point, seeking to restore certain youthful characteristics without erasing cellular identity or promoting tumour formation. In other words, to turn back some of the hands without resetting the clock.

In the laboratory, reprogramming has already been shown to turn back certain epigenetic clocks. In an experiment involving human cells, epigenetic age began to decline in the early stages of reprogramming, before the cells had completely lost their identity.[4] It is a striking result, but one that must be interpreted correctly: it does not mean that a human being has grown younger. It means that changes appeared in cells which specific mathematical models interpreted as signs of a younger biological age.

There is still a long way to go from these laboratory findings to a treatment that works in humans. This is precisely the challenge that some of the most ambitious biotech companies are seeking to address. Life Biosciences developed ER-100 using three reprogramming factors—OCT4, SOX2 and KLF4—with the aim of shifting cells' epigenetic profiles towards younger configurations without changing their DNA sequence.[5] Altos Labs has placed cellular rejuvenation at the heart of its research. NewLimit is developing epigenetic reprogramming therapies and has achieved preclinical results in liver cells, restoring some characteristics typical of younger cells. The company expects to bring its first ageing-reprogramming drug into human trials in 2027. Retro Biosciences, meanwhile, is pursuing several approaches at once—from autophagy and tissue reprogramming to AI-driven protein design—and has already advanced one of its programmes into its first clinical trial.

We do not yet know which of these strategies will work. But growing interest among researchers and investors shows how much the perspective has shifted: ageing is no longer studied solely to understand its mechanisms, but also to discover whether, and how, we can intervene in them.

Adding Life to Years

In 1982, the World Health Organization chose a four-word slogan for World Health Day: Add Life to Years. More than forty years later, those words express one of the central ideas of longevity with remarkable precision: not simply living longer, but living longer in good health.

Imagine two people who both reach the age of ninety. The first spends the final fifteen years living with several chronic illnesses and a progressive loss of independence. The second retains mobility, cognitive abilities and autonomy for much longer. Both have lived ninety years. But they have not lived the same ninety years.

That is the difference between lifespan, the length of life, and healthspan, the years lived in good health. In numerical terms, the gap is enormous. According to the McKinsey Health Institute, age-related conditions account for approximately one-third of the global burden of disease: around 633 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) each year, a measure of healthy years of life lost to premature death, illness or disability.[6]

As people grow older, dementia and neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and other chronic conditions increasingly threaten independence and quality of life. In 2000, the average person spent about 8.7 years in poor health. By 2025, that figure had risen to 10.2 years and, if the trajectory does not change, McKinsey estimates that it could reach 11.4 years by 2050. Meanwhile, the world is ageing: by 2050, roughly one person in six will be over 65, compared with approximately one in ten today.[7]

This is the paradox of longevity: we are adding years to life faster than we are adding health to those years. Geroscience has emerged from this observation. Rather than considering age-related diseases separately, it studies the biological mechanisms of ageing that progressively make the body more vulnerable.

In 2013, Carlos López-Otín and a group of researchers published a paper that would become a landmark in ageing research, identifying nine fundamental biological hallmarks of the process. Ten years later, an updated map expanded the list to twelve.[8] There is no need to memorise them all: they include genomic instability, epigenetic alterations, senescent cells, chronic inflammation and disruptions to the mechanisms that regulate metabolism. What matters is the picture that emerges. Ageing increasingly appears to be a network of interconnected biological processes: not twelve switches to turn off one by one, but a system.[9]

Today, we have a sufficiently detailed map of ageing to begin asking where we might intervene. But intervening is not enough: we also need to understand whether anything is truly changing. And here a fundamental difficulty emerges. Ageing unfolds over decades. We therefore need tools capable of detecting signs of biological change much earlier.

The Hidden Portrait

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde imagines a man whose face retains its youth while a portrait, hidden from view, inexorably records the passage of time. Science is searching for something that, allowing for all the obvious differences, resembles that portrait: a biological image capable of revealing what our date of birth cannot tell us.

Officially, we have only one age. Biologically, however, chronological age tells only part of the story. Two sixty-year-olds may share the same age on paper yet show very different signs of biological ageing. Even within the same individual, time does not seem to leave the same imprint everywhere: organs and bodily systems can display different ageing profiles.

A study published in Nature Medicine in September 2026 developed 38 different biological clocks, differentiated by sex and covering fifteen bodily systems and multiple layers of biological information. These AI-based models analyse molecular data and medical images to estimate how far an individual's biological ageing diverges from their chronological age.

This does not mean we can claim that someone's heart is fifty years old while their brain is seventy. The tools still have important limitations, but they suggest that organs and systems may follow different ageing trajectories. In the study, these clocks were also associated with the risk of developing various diseases and with mortality.[10] They could therefore help us not only describe how much we are ageing, but better understand how—identifying early signs of vulnerability that might, in the future, become targets for intervention.

Another possible application is the assessment of new therapies. Demonstrating that a treatment extends life requires very long observation periods. Reliable markers of ageing might provide intermediate signals, revealing potential biological changes sooner. In 2026, an intriguing early indication emerged. In an analysis of blood samples from 42 participants in a twelve-week clinical trial of rentosertib, an experimental drug for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, researchers used six different proteomic clocks based on the levels of thousands of proteins. All six detected signals consistent with a reduction in estimated biological age among treated patients, while changes in the placebo group were minimal or moved in the opposite direction. Six different clocks whose hands, albeit to varying degrees, moved in the same direction.

It is an intriguing result, but not yet proof that ageing has slowed. The researchers themselves caution that proteomic clocks cannot fully distinguish an effect on ageing processes from one associated with improvement in the underlying lung disease. We may therefore be starting to see the biological portrait change before we fully understand what that change means.[11]

It is precisely to interpret signals like these that data are becoming central to ageing research. DNA, proteins, cells, diagnostic images and clinical records generate enormous quantities of information. Artificial intelligence makes it possible to analyse these data together, identifying patterns that traditional tools struggle to detect. It can thus help us better understand ageing processes, identify new therapeutic targets and design drugs.

An industrial infrastructure is also growing around these technologies, requiring the tools needed to support its development. Thermo Fisher Scientific supplies technologies, reagents and services used in laboratory research and in the development and manufacture of new medicines. Illumina is a global leader in genomics and DNA sequencing. Tempus AI combines clinical and molecular data with AI tools, applying them to drug research and development as well. In a sense, these are the picks-and-shovels suppliers of the new longevity gold rush. They do not need to know who will strike gold to take part: they supply the tools to those searching for it.

Mice, Cells and Humans

Epigenetic reprogramming is only one of the strategies through which researchers are seeking to intervene in the biological mechanisms of ageing. Many other avenues are being explored. Some aim to eliminate senescent cells—cells that have permanently stopped dividing but remain in tissues and can contribute to inflammation. Others target systems that regulate cell growth, metabolism and repair; still others investigate mitochondria and autophagy.

Among them, one of the most surprising stories concerns mTOR, a cellular signalling system involved in regulating growth and metabolism. In animals, drugs that act on this pathway—including rapamycin—have produced some of the most impressive findings in ageing research. In one mouse study, three months of rapamycin treatment begun at an advanced age extended the remaining lifespan of males by approximately 60 per cent. Measured from birth, however, their total lifespan increased by 14 per cent.[12]

Applied to humans, a figure like that sounds almost like science fiction. But this is exactly where we must stop. After years of research, we still have no proof that rapamycin extends human life. There are interesting findings in animals and clinical studies in humans, but the leap between the two remains enormous.[13] More generally, clinical evidence for interventions capable of improving several dimensions of healthspan simultaneously remains limited. A recent systematic review screened 1,960 publications in search of randomised trials assessing multiple dimensions of healthspan at the same time. Only fifteen met the criteria, involving a total of 4,656 participants. From 1,960 to 15.[14]

And it is from these few studies that something far less futuristic than gene therapy emerges: physical exercise. Seven studies evaluated it directly, and physical activity also featured in most multidimensional interventions. The evidence remains limited and heterogeneous, but suggests benefits across several dimensions of healthspan. We cannot yet conclude that exercise slows biological ageing or extends human life. Yet the finding matters: while researchers seek to intervene in the fundamental mechanisms of ageing, one of the most accessible ways to preserve health for longer remains something we have always known—moving our bodies.

As of 2026, no therapy has yet been shown to significantly extend healthy human life by acting directly on the biological processes of ageing. But prevention, early diagnosis and treatment can already achieve a great deal. According to the McKinsey Health Institute, nearly 300 cost-effective interventions could reduce the global burden of disease by 35 per cent by 2050, delivering an estimated average gain of almost ten years of healthy life. Around two-thirds of this benefit would come from prevention.[15]

Two complementary paths are therefore emerging: on one side, geroscience, which studies the biological mechanisms of ageing to identify new therapeutic possibilities; on the other, medicine, which can already prevent, diagnose and treat many age-related diseases. Longevity is taking shape where research and clinical practice meet.

Capital Bets on Time

It is precisely on the first of these paths—the attempt to intervene directly in the biology of ageing—that increasingly substantial resources have converged in recent years. According to McKinsey, between 2013 and 2017 biotech companies active in what the report calls healthspan science raised an average of around $1 billion a year. Between 2018 and 2022, that figure climbed to $3.9 billion annually: almost four times as much. Between those periods, the number of newly initiated clinical trials rose by 27 per cent.[16]

Looking across the entire 2000–2024 period, companies in the field raised approximately $27 billion in total.[17] Large private fortunes also helped fuel this growth: McKinsey names Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner among the investors. This is a considerable sum, but it looks different when compared with resources allocated to other areas of medicine. McKinsey compared investments made between 2018 and 2022 across several medical research fields, relative to DALYs. In healthspan science, approximately $11 was invested per DALY. In neurology, $749. In oncology, $2,181.[18]

The comparison requires caution: oncology, neurology and healthspan science are different fields, with very different histories and levels of maturity. Yet the gap between those figures illustrates how young the effort to intervene directly in ageing still is. For decades, substantial resources have been invested in treating individual diseases that become more common with age—from cancer to neurological disorders. The attempt to act on the biological mechanisms that may contribute to their onset is far more recent.

Some of the companies we have already encountered show how quickly this landscape is changing. Altos Labs, one of the emblematic names in cellular rejuvenation, has secured approximately $3 billion in funding, according to McKinsey.[19] In June 2026, NewLimit announced a new $435 million funding round to accelerate development of its experimental therapies, while Life Biosciences had closed an $80 million round two months before the first human administration of ER-100.

In May 2026, Retro Biosciences announced the first closing of a new funding round at a pre-money valuation of $1.8 billion. In just three years, it had progressed from opening its first laboratory to testing a therapy in humans. According to the company, only fifteen months elapsed between selecting the disease to target and administering the first dose.

These investments demonstrate growing interest in the biology of ageing, but they do not guarantee that scientific discoveries will translate into safe and effective human therapies. The path to clinical application remains long.

Living Longer, Staying Healthier

Obesity, by contrast, offers one of the clearest examples of how treating a disease can also change the way we age. For a long time, it was regarded primarily as a matter of weight. Today we know that it is closely linked to diabetes and cardiovascular and kidney diseases that can take away years of healthy life. A new generation of drugs is changing not only obesity treatment, but also its long-term health consequences.

Novo Nordisk, with semaglutide, and Eli Lilly, with tirzepatide, have become central players in this transformation. In the large SELECT trial, involving more than 17,600 people with overweight or obesity, established cardiovascular disease and no diabetes, semaglutide reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events—cardiovascular death, heart attack or stroke—by 20 per cent compared with placebo. Other studies have also shown benefits in people with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease. In 2026, tirzepatide was also approved in the United States to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events in people with type 2 diabetes at high risk.[20]

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are not trying to reverse ageing. Yet they illustrate why longevity reaches far beyond the promise of anti-ageing. If a therapy can prevent or delay a heart attack, a stroke or the progression of kidney disease, it is not turning back the biological clock. It is, however, changing how we can grow old.

The same principle applies to oncology. Age is one of the main risk factors for cancer and, as lives lengthen, the likelihood of developing a tumour at some point increases. But the way we approach cancer is also changing: diagnosing it earlier, understanding its molecular characteristics and using that information to select increasingly targeted therapies can profoundly alter its course.

Roche exemplifies this evolution because it brings together two increasingly intertwined dimensions of medicine: pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Progress can be very tangible. In an advanced clinical trial involving early-stage hormone-sensitive breast cancer, the experimental drug giredestrant reduced the relative risk of invasive recurrence or death by 30 per cent compared with standard endocrine therapy.[21]

Then there is the brain. Alzheimer's disease and other dementias perhaps illustrate more starkly than any other illness the gap between living longer and living longer in good health. Age is the strongest risk factor for dementia, but dementia is not an inevitable consequence of ageing. According to the latest World Health Organization estimates, around 57 million people worldwide live with some form of dementia, and Alzheimer's disease accounts for 60–70 per cent of cases.

Prevention remains essential. The likelihood of developing dementia also depends on modifiable factors throughout life: blood pressure, diabetes, physical activity, smoking, social isolation and hearing loss. Diet is part of this strategy too: a healthy diet helps reduce the risk not only of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers, but also forms part of efforts to prevent cognitive decline and dementia. On the treatment front, researchers are exploring new possibilities, including non-invasive neuromodulation, which uses magnetic, electrical or ultrasonic stimulation to modulate activity in brain circuits. We do not yet know, however, whether these techniques can slow disease progression.[22]

Obesity, cancer and dementia are very different diseases. Yet in all three cases, medicine is increasingly trying to anticipate illness and, when it occurs, intervene more precisely. This does not mean stopping ageing. It means reducing the years we risk spending with disease and disability.

This is where the health question becomes an economic one as well. According to the McKinsey Health Institute, if health interventions with demonstrated benefits and a favourable balance between costs and outcomes were implemented at scale, they could generate an additional $12.5 trillion in economic value each year by 2050, equivalent to around 7 per cent of baseline economic projections for that year. Healthier people mean fewer premature deaths and disabilities, but also more years of active life and greater labour-force participation. And for every dollar required to achieve these health improvements, the economic benefit generated would be around four dollars.[23]

This is not the size of a new 'longevity market'. It is an estimate of the value that better health could generate for the economy. From this perspective, health is not merely an expense. It becomes a form of economic infrastructure.

Health Before Disease

For most of medical history, we have observed our bodies primarily when something went wrong. A consultation, a blood test, a diagnosis: snapshots taken at particular moments. Today, a different possibility is emerging—turning those snapshots into a film.

Watches and rings track sleep, heart rate, physical activity and other parameters day and night. Sensors can continuously measure glucose. Researchers are developing devices capable of analysing biomarkers in sweat, saliva, tears and interstitial fluid. And artificial intelligence can help identify relationships within the vast quantities of information these systems produce. We are beginning to observe the body not only when something goes wrong, but as it changes over time.[24] In the United States, medical wearables had already been authorised by 2026 to monitor certain health parameters, including in real time, outside hospitals.[25]

At the extreme end of this transformation stands Bryan Johnson. The American entrepreneur has turned his own body into a kind of permanent laboratory: he monitors his diet, exercise and sleep, tracks an extraordinary number of parameters and undergoes tests and interventions ranging from conventional practices to decidedly experimental procedures. His Blueprint project takes a simple idea to its limits: understand ever more precisely what is happening inside our bodies so that we can try to intervene before disease appears.

What takes an extreme form in Johnson's life is nevertheless entering the daily routines of millions of people in a much simpler way. Consider a small ring. Oura collects information on sleep, physical activity and various physiological parameters throughout the day and night, turning them into indicators that allow users to track certain aspects of their bodies over time.

In September 2026, Oura began the process of listing on the US stock market, with a potential valuation of up to $15.6 billion. Behind such a figure was rapid growth: the company had sold 3.6 million rings in the preceding twelve months and generated $1.21 billion in revenue in the first nine months of its financial year, up 74 per cent on the corresponding period a year earlier. Eli Lilly had also expressed interest in buying up to $100 million of shares in the offering. A few days later, however, Oura postponed its listing amid market uncertainty.

Our ability to measure the body, however, is advancing faster than our ability to interpret the data collected. An improving biomarker does not prove that ageing has slowed, nor does continuous monitoring guarantee better prevention. Some of these technologies will enter medical practice; others will remain wellness tools or prove to be little more than marketing. The challenge will be to distinguish genuinely useful information from sheer abundance of data.

An Economy Built Around Longer Lives

Longevity, then, is no longer merely a field of scientific research. It is also becoming an economic phenomenon of considerable scale. According to UBS, annual revenue in the global longevity market could rise from $5.3 trillion in 2023 to around $8 trillion in 2030.[26] Roughly a quarter of the total comes from healthcare—from pharmaceuticals and biotechnology to diagnostics, medical devices and technologies for prevention and health monitoring—but the remaining three-quarters tell a much broader story.

Longevity is not only about how we will receive medical care, but also how we will live longer lives. A longer life means more time to live in a home, work, consume, travel, save and manage wealth. It is therefore unsurprising that UBS sees longevity, alongside artificial intelligence and infrastructure related to energy and resources, as one of the major structural transformations likely to shape markets in the years ahead.[27]

At its heart lies a profound demographic shift: we are living longer, and more people are spending many years in later life. This is already reshaping entire sectors of the economy. One of the clearest examples is housing. Between the family home and the traditional care home, an intermediate space is expanding, encompassing senior housing, serviced apartments and new forms of co-housing. These are different solutions united by the aim of preserving independence and social connection for as long as possible.

This change is affecting real estate too. In the United States, specialist companies have built entire business models around population ageing. Ventas and Welltower, for example, invest in properties and facilities serving older people, representing a sector that views demographic change as a long-term transformation rather than a passing trend.

Then there is finance. Living twenty or thirty years beyond retirement means spreading income and assets over a much longer period. Pensions, insurance and wealth management must therefore contend with an increasingly important challenge: making wealth last as long as life itself.

Consumption is changing too. A population that lives longer is not simply one that needs more medical care. It travels, shops, uses technology, exercises, seeks services and continues to participate in economic life. Reducing the silver economy to elder care alone therefore captures only part of the picture. Perhaps this is the most interesting aspect of the longevity economy: a single new market is not emerging. Longer lives are transforming markets that already existed, from housing and finance to services and consumption.

Longevity on the Stock Market

Longevity is not a single economic sector. It cuts across scientific research, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, diagnostics and medical devices, extending all the way to real estate. On financial markets, too, it is therefore a cross-sector theme.

The companies pursuing the most radical scientific bets—such as Altos Labs, NewLimit, Retro Biosciences and Life Biosciences—remain privately held. Among listed companies, however, it is already possible to identify key players at different stages of this journey.

From Research to New Therapies

Thermo Fisher Scientific represents, first and foremost, the infrastructure of research. Its appeal lies precisely in not depending on the success of any single therapy: its instruments, reagents and services are used by universities, laboratories and pharmaceutical companies throughout much of the journey from research to drug manufacturing. In the second quarter of 2026, revenue approached $12 billion, up 10 per cent year on year.

Danaher is another major player in this segment, with operations in life sciences, diagnostics and bioprocessing—the technologies used to manufacture biological medicines. Its acquisition of Cytiva further strengthened its position. In the second quarter of 2026, group revenue reached $6.3 billion, up 5.5 per cent, while bioprocessing orders grew at a rate of around 15 per cent.

Roche and Novartis represent the transition from research to medicine. Roche combines pharmaceuticals and diagnostics within one group, a particularly interesting feature as medicine becomes increasingly proactive and personalised. In the first half of 2026, the group generated CHF 30.4 billion in sales. Novartis offers a different kind of exposure through innovative therapeutic platforms such as radioligand therapies—which deliver radiation directly to specific tumour targets—as well as gene and cell therapies. Pluvicto, a radioligand treatment used for certain forms of prostate cancer, already illustrates the commercial potential: in the second quarter of 2026, its sales rose 43 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier.

At the more experimental end of the spectrum is BioAge Labs, a company whose future depends largely on clinical research results. BGE-102, currently in phase 2 clinical development, inhibits NLRP3, a protein involved in inflammatory processes. As of June 30, 2026, BioAge held approximately $381 million in cash and marketable securities, enough, according to the company, to fund its operations through 2029.

Living Longer in Better Health

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk represent another major market connected with longevity: metabolic health. In the second quarter of 2026, Lilly's revenue reached $23 billion, 48 per cent higher than in the same period a year earlier.

Novo Nordisk is already looking ahead. In September 2026, it announced a goal of launching more than five potential 'multi-blockbuster' medicines by 2030 and initiating or completing at least five late-stage clinical programmes in obesity and diabetes. These are corporate targets, not achievements already secured, but they clearly indicate the direction of travel: after extraordinary growth in recent years, the next challenge is the ability to broaden and renew the therapeutic portfolio.

Beyond Medicine

Finally, there is real estate linked to demographic change. Ventas, one of the largest US property operators in senior housing and healthcare facilities, offers exposure to the longevity economy that is entirely different from that of the companies discussed so far.

In 2026, it expects to invest around $4.5 billion, primarily in senior housing; by the end of June, it had already invested $3.4 billion. In the second quarter, senior housing properties already in the company's portfolio recorded a 16 per cent increase in operating income compared with the same period a year earlier. Behind this growth is a long-term demographic trend: in 2026, the oldest American baby boomers turn eighty, at a time when construction of new residential and care facilities remains limited.

What If We Really Had More Time?

After laboratories, medicines, billions and markets, one question remains that no balance sheet can answer. Benjamin Button travelled through life in the opposite direction from the rest of us. Science offers us nothing like that. Yet it is showing us that the time recorded on our birth certificates and the time that leaves its traces in our bodies do not always advance at the same pace. Our date of birth does not change. The way we age can change, at least to some extent.

We still do not know how far we can intervene in the biological mechanisms of human ageing. But perhaps this is where the question itself changes: not merely how long we can live, but how we can grow old. And it is then that the four words chosen by the World Health Organization as the theme of World Health Day in 1982 once again take on a strikingly contemporary meaning: Add Life to Years.

Ultimately, that is the deepest meaning of longevity research: not how many years we can add to life, but how much life we can add to those years.

V.C.M.

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