In this episode of the Levity Podcast, Sergey Jakimov, co-founder of LongeVC, shares insights into his journey from biotech entrepreneur to venture capitalist in the longevity space. The discussion covers the challenges of advancing age-related disease therapies, the importance of health span over mere lifespan, and the innovative investments driving the future of longevity science. 

Key Points:

This episode explores the challenges and opportunities in venture capital within the field of longevity science. Sergey Jakimov highlights the importance of improving health spans through targeted investments in innovative biotech and healthcare solutions while fostering collaboration to drive progress.

• Introduction to LongeVC: Sergey Jakimov explains how LongeVC focuses on longevity science and age-related diseases. The fund emphasizes rigorous scientific due diligence and strategic partnerships to support early-stage companies in therapeutics, diagnostics, and longevity infrastructure.
• Biotech and Longevity Vision: Jakimov views longevity not just as extending life spans but as improving health spans by tackling age-related diseases. He advocates a pragmatic, disease-by-disease approach over radical life-extension ideas.
• Personal Connection to Longevity: Sergey shares his journey as a neurodegenerative disease patient. This experience deepened his commitment to innovative solutions and underscored the importance of focusing on diseases that cause premature death.
• Investment Focus: LongeVC prioritizes investments in technologies with clear applications, such as age-related disease treatments, diagnostics like early cancer detection, and tools like AI for drug discovery to accelerate research and development.
• Challenges in Longevity Ventures: Sergey highlights barriers in the field, including limited regulatory pathways, the complexity of translational research, and the need for collaboration across the biotech industry to achieve breakthroughs.
• Future of Longevity Science: He envisions a stepwise progression—improving current healthcare infrastructure and prevention, advancing treatments for age-related diseases, and eventually exploring speculative areas like systemic anti-ageing interventions and radical life extension.