This is the second in our new year series looking back at 2025 in longevity. The first installment covered last year’s longevity science—now we turn our attention to the commercial side of the field.

Epigenetic reprogramming, a technology that reverses age-related changes to DNA, has continued to be the hottest thing in longevity investment. The big players in reprogramming all made news in 2025:

• NewLimit, co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, raised a substantial $130 million in series B.
• Retro Biosciences, backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is hoping to raise $1 billion on a $5 billion valuation. In August 2025, in partnership with OpenAI, the company announced that their AI models had made reprogramming 50 times more efficient. And Retro isn’t just working on reprogramming: they have started their first human trials with a pill called RTR242 which boosts a cellular recycling process called autophagy to target Alzheimer’s disease.
• Shift Biosciences, based in Cambridge, UK, also used machine learning to find a safer and more efficient gene for reprogramming. Between these results and Retro’s, it seems like there may be a good chance of creating more effective genes for reprogramming than nature alone has managed.
• Life Biosciences unveiled data claiming that its partial reprogramming tech may work in both the liver and the eye.
• Altos Labs, the mammoth $5 billion reprogramming ‘startup’ funded by, amongst others, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is rumoured to be gearing up for clinical trials.

The rest of longevity biotech had an uneven 2025. Longevity fundraising has fared similarly to the rest of biotech overall, which hit both its lowest levels of investment since 2019 in absolute terms, and its lowest levels as a fraction of overall startup investment in a decade.

2025 also saw two significant exits from the field:

• Unity Biotechnology was one of the most prominent companies founded to commercialise senolytics but, after a rough few years, it shuttered in September.
• Pharma company Abbvie is not extending its long-term collaboration with Calico Life Sciences, a stealthy ageing research business spun out of Google in 2013. This reflects Abbvie’s shift away from traditional ‘small-molecule’ drugs to focus on more innovative medicines like gene therapies, and by the lack of commercial success after five clinical trials together with Calico.

As for the successes, early results from Verve Therapeutics’ PCSK9 gene editor led to a $1 billion buyout by pharma company Eli Lilly. Editing this gene dramatically reduces cholesterol but, unlike existing medications, the therapy only needs to be done once—it doesn’t need to be taken regularly as a daily tablet or periodic injection. This development is not directly targeting ageing—cholesterol reduction targets heart disease specifically—but it could set a precedent for mass-market preventative gene therapy, which could help to smooth the path to longevity gene therapies in future years.

And healthy longevity shouldn’t just be for humans—another success was that dog longevity company Loyal’s drug LOY-002 received an FDA ‘Reasonable Expectation of Effectiveness’ (RXE) designation in 2025 for healthy lifespan extension in dogs—the second such approval for the company. Not only would it be great news for dog owners if their pets could live longer, healthier lives, but it may help to establish a regulatory pathway for human therapeutics targeting ageing too.

There were also a couple of big stories in AI-based drug discovery. Mid-year, Gero struck a deal with Chugai (part of Roche) to discover new drug targets for age-related diseases. The partnership could be worth over $1 bn if drugs make it to market. Then, on December 30th, Insilico Medicine completed Hong Kong’s largest biotech IPO of the year, raising approximately $293 million and becoming the first AI-driven drug discovery company to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Insilico’s impact stretches beyond pharma, with its founder Alex Zhavoronkov co-founded the ARDD (Aging Research and Drug Discovery) conference, which has become a popular annual gathering for longevity science.

There are also tens of ongoing Phase 3 trials for medicines hitting the hallmarks of ageing—meaning that there are still things to be excited about in the coming years as highlighted by longevity investor Karl Pfleger in his talk at Vitalist Bay.

More investment, better biomarkers and streamlined regulation could mean a wider pipeline for longevity treatments—and those are things we at The Longevity Initiative hope to play a part in enabling in 2026.

This is part of our New Year 2026 series on 2025 in longevity. Check out the next piece: it’s on the tumultuous 2025 for public and philanthropic funding of longevity science.