According to demographers' forecasts, by 2050 the share of people over 60 will grow from 10% to 22%. Against this backdrop, as the publication wrote, Russian millionaires have taken up the search for an anti-aging remedy, counting on a multibillion-dollar anti-aging industry.
Timur Artemyev, at the time of publication a co-owner of Yevroset (the deal to sell the company had not yet closed), said he had lost interest in the phone business five years earlier. He intended to invest the $200 million received from the sale of his stake into creating "the most expensive pill in the world" — a cure for old age. According to him, after losing the 2003 State Duma elections, he decided he wanted to see the country of the future, and therefore needed to live at least another 80 years on top of his thirty-four. Artemyev allotted 30 years for the project to synthesize an anti-aging drug.
Institute and Worms
Over the year and a half of his Institute of Aging Biology's existence, Artemyev financed scientific research to the tune of more than $1 million. According to the publication, the institute employed 40 staff and partners who trained on nematode worms, with plans to move on to pigs and mice. Artemyev said they had managed to extend the lifespan of nematodes by 20%. Institute director Alex Peregudov clarified: modifying the nematodes' genome increases their lifespan tenfold, but the animals' quality of life declined, as they were on the verge of entering a dormant stage.
Artemyev stated he would not want to remain the holder of a patent for the invention and that the research results would be free and available to pharmaceutical companies: "To act otherwise would be immoral, in my view." At the same time, he expected to earn from those who would want treatment from the "brand-name manufacturer."
Other Investors
The publication cited other examples as well. Dmitry Zimin, president of the Dynasty foundation, in 2004 allocated $1 million for a four-year term to anti-aging research by New York University professor Yevgeny Nudler and about a dozen other scientists, planning to double the sum for the period from 2009 to 2012. Zimin's adviser Yelena Chernyshkova said that aging issues as such did not interest Zimin, and that the Geronlab project had become a successful example of "brain gain" back to Russia.
Oleg Deripaska, according to the magazine, over five years spent $15 million on academician Vladimir Skulachev's project to find a rejuvenation effect. Speaking of Deripaska, Artemyev remarked: "I will applaud him if something comes of it." The two rival investors communicated several times "on the subject," but it never came to joining forces.
British geneticist Aubrey de Grey, who collaborated with Artemyev's team, believed that research under his SENS program would require $1 billion. By 2100, he promised to achieve an increase in human lifespan to 5,000 years.
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