The “living forever” idea just attracted some serious family office money

A long-running theme of billionaire investing is the idea of “living forever”, or at least much longer than our current life-span, and the latest biotech group trying to make this happen has received a big investment from a number of family offices.

Swiss-based Rejuveron Life Sciences, which is developing and investing in drugs and technologies that have the potential to significantly prolong human lifespan, has received CHF22.5 million ($24.6 million) in funding from three family offices. 

Set up in 2019 by Matthias Steger, the former head of research and technology partnering at the huge Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche, with backing from Apeiron Investment Group, a Malta-based family office owned by investor Christian Angermayer, Rejuveron has burst onto the prolonged life scene very quickly. 

Also backing the biotech group is Hallmann Holding, a family office/holding group owned by Austrian billionaire Klemens Hallmann, and biotech investment group P53, which is part of TD Veen, a Norwegian family office owned by Tor Dagfinn Veen and his family.  Investor Daniel Gutenberg, a general partner at VI Partners, a Swiss VC fund, also chipped into this latest fundraising.  

Based in Zug, very little is known about Rejuveron, but its backers believe the group is at the forefront of life-extending therapeutics. 

Angermayer likes to invest in cutting edge health and technology groups – and he has a knack of backing winners. He recently hit the news as a big backer of Compass Pathways, which has developed a synthetic version of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, for the treatment of mental illnesses. Compass listed in New York in September, with a valuation of more than $1 billion; Angermayer was the first backer of the London-based biotech group and had a 22% holding when it listed on NASDAQ. 

Backing from billionaires of life extension groups has been popular for some time. Paypal founder and investor Peter Thiel bought into the idea and has backed life-extending groups with serious money.  

Through one of his venture groups Founders Fund, Thiel has been at the forefront of investing in anti-ageing science for more than a decade. Founders is one of the notable investors in Unity Biotechnology, the listed San Francisco group at the forefront of developing life-extending therapeutics. 

Also, Thiel for some time has backed the Methuselah Foundation, which is a non-profit group dedicated to extending life through engineering and regenerative medicine. The foundation was co-founded by Aubrey de Grey, who is perhaps one of the best-known scientists in the world of anti-ageing science. De Grey is also the founder and chief science officer of the SENS Foundation, another group dedicated to the science of anti-ageing.