B.C. researchers seeking the fountain of youth
Local biotech companies developing anti-aging products to help people look and feel younger
A Vancouver-based anti-aging company is betting that the fountain of youth flows with antifreeze produced by an Antarctic fish.
Sirona Biochem has synthesized compounds from glyco-proteins made by the Nototenioid that enable the homely but hardy fish to survive in sub-zero temperatures.
The company has created an agebusting technology to protect people’s skin and restore its youthfulness, says Attila Hajdu, Sirona’s chief business development officer.
“We’ve developed an anti-aging compound that has been scientifically proven to extend cell life and prevent cell death,” Hajdu says. “It’s remarkably exciting.” Sirona belongs to a group of B.C. age-busters at the cutting edge of the global push to help people live longer.
Many B.C. residents would be “shocked and dumbfounded” to learn that companies in their own backyard are making real progress in extending people’s lives, says Paul Drohan, president-CEO of LifeSciences BC, a Vancouver-based industry association.
Not content to simply give people more years, B.C. biotech companies are responding to boomers’ desire to age gracefully by staying healthy and active, Drohan says. “The idea is to keep people on their bikes and paddle boards longer, to keep them running longer, and looking good while they’re doing it,” Drohan says.
It’s no accident B.C. companies are at the leading edge of anti-aging research.
The province has top-notch biotech talent and a good track record for “translation” — taking lab discoveries and turning them into commercial products, Drohan says.
The province scored an early victory in the anti-aging war in the late 1980s when Vancouver ophthalmologist Jean Carruthers and Alastair Carruthers, her dermatologist husband, discovered the cosmetic powers of a toxin called Botox in easing lines and wrinkles.
B.C. seniors’ appetite for antiaging products or therapies has only grown.
The province already has the longest average life expectancy in Canada — 84 for women, versus the national average of 83; 80 for men, against the national average of 79.
“We probably have one of the most active elderly populations in the country,” Drohan says.
“They’ve made sure they’ve lived a healthy life and they’re interested in advances in anti-aging and regenerative medicine.”
Vancouver is a pinpoint in the global anti-aging market. U.S.-based firm BCC Research estimates that people over 65 will make up 12 per cent of the world’s market by 2030, up from seven per cent in 2010.
As the planet’s population ages, the global market for anti-aging products is soaring.
BCC expects the worldwide market for anti-aging cosmetic and pharmaceutical products to climb to $345.8 billion US in 2018 from $249.3 billion in 2012.
The related market for regenerative medicine, which aims to restore functional ability to tissues and organs, should explode to $67.6 billion US in 2020 from $16.4 billion in 2013, according to a separate report.
B.C.’s anti-aging companies want to grab a piece of this action.
But the field is fraught with risk as companies spend years demonstrating to regulators their products are safe and effective, Drohan says.
“Some discoveries will turn into huge commercial successes and some, unfortunately, will not prove their end points,” he says.
It can take 10 years for a product to pass clinical trials and be approved by regulators as being market-ready.
Following are four B.C. companies that already have anti-aging products or are well along the way to putting them on the market.