Google Is Trying to Extend the Human Lifespan
Perhaps one day, many years from now, people will have the option of living forever. If they do, they might want to thank Google. Yes, the search engine giant is dabbling in the weird and fascinating world of eternal life. Why stop at Google Wave when you can create tech that will reverse the impact of aging on the human race? Okay, that was a cheap shot at Wave. However, what Google is doing with California Life Company (Calico), a bio-tech company it owns, is impressive and interesting.
Google purchased Calico in 2013. It is run by former Genentech CEO and Apple chairman Arthur Levinson. At the time, Larry Page, Google's CEO told The Los Angeles Times that Calico was going to push the envelope. This was not a surprise. This is how Google approaches any other product it releases or explores. He said the company wants to end cancer, but that's just the starting point.
"Are people really focused on the right things? One of the things I thought was amazing is that if you solve cancer, you'd add about three years to people's average life expectancy. We think of solving cancer as this huge thing that'll totally change the world. But when you really take a step back and look at it, yeah, there are many, many tragic cases of cancer, and it's very, very sad, but in the aggregate, it's not as big an advance as you might think."
Those words rang big, but to some, hollow. One healthcare expert said exploring data as a way to help people "has yet yielded huge payoffs in healthcare." Another called wanting to extend human life "about a high a goal as one can set." Still, if any company can do it, it's Google.
In fact, Calico just announced that it was partnering with the pharmaceutical company AbbVie to create and ultimately sell drugs designed to cure age-related illnesses. Both Calico and AbbVie have signed an agreement to put $250 million toward the new drugs. There's even an option for each company to heap another $500 million on to the project. As you might expect, Levison was quite pleased with the deal.
“Calico will set up a world-class research and development facility in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we will explore the basic biology of aging and develop new medicines for patients with aging-related diseases,” Levinson explained to the New York Times. "AbbVie will use its deep pharmaceutical expertise to provide scientific and clinical development support and its commercial expertise to ensure these therapies are widely available.”
A tech company curing diseases and creating eternal youth seems like something out of a bad 80s movie. But thanks to Google, it could become a reality. Whether you think Calico has any chance of accomplishing this goal isn't important. What's important is that they're trying.
[Image via Flickr - Borya]
