Saudi Arabia's HUGE Move to Overcome Aging - What It Means For You
Channel: Lifespan News
Date: 2022-06-14

The Hevolution Foundation, a non-profit organization established by a Saudi Royal Decree and receiving funding from the Saudi government, has publicly emerged and announced up to $1 billion a year to fund the science of increasing healthy human lifespan.

Rumors have been trickling out about the Hevolution Foundation for a few years now. The organization has been operating in a bit of secrecy, but there is now much more clarity as the Hevolution Foundation has come forth and publicly introduced themselves in an article posted by Dr. Mehmood Khan, who serves as the organization’s Chief Executive Officer.

The article states that Hevolution Foundation is “a pioneering new organization with a laser-like focus on dramatically improving a condition that affects every human on the planet: aging. Our mission is to drive efforts to extend healthy human lifespan, or healthspan, and to better understand the processes of aging…” To this end, they have an annual budget of up to 1 billion US dollars to accelerate science and bring therapies to the market.

What exactly this money will be spent on is still unclear, but near the top of the list appears to be helping to fund the long-anticipated Targeting Aging with Metformin Trial, or TAME Trial. Led by Dr. Nir Barzilai, TAME would test whether those taking the popular diabetes drug metformin experience delayed development or progression of age-related chronic diseases—such as heart disease, cancer, and dementia. This study has been in the works for years with funding as the major remaining obstacle.

Another possible destination for some of this money, which was mentioned in a recent MIT Technology Review article from Antonio Regalado, would be funding a possible $100 million XPRIZE for age reversal technology. Longevity is something that XPRIZE has been eyeing for a while, and I expect some serious action, including the potential launch of this prize, in the near future.

Hevolution Foundation CEO Dr. Mehmood Khan is a well-known leader in the longevity community. He’s a founding member of the Longevity Biotechnology Association and serves as Executive Chairman of Life Biosciences, a company co-founded by Harvard’s Dr. David Sinclair. Previously Dr. Khan served as Global Vice Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of PepsiCo.

The rest of the Board of Trustees and Management Team is composed largely of members of the Saudi royal family and Saudi officials, and the Chairman of the Hevolution Foundation Chairman is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son of the Saudi king and widely regarded as the de facto government leader.

Other noteworthy members of leadership include Russian billionaire and British peer Evgeny Lebedev, who controls media outlets including the Evening Standard and The Independent, American billionaire businessman and part-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins Ron Burkle, and former CEO & Chairman of Dow Chemical Andrew Liveris.

I want to see that Saudi Arabia is seeking to forward science to help everyone - not just their leadership, and not just their country. Thankfully, that appears to be the case. Under the headline “A Transparent Global Organization,” the Hevolution Foundation website states that “we seek to democratize science and knowledge”. They go on to say that  “We aim to work closely with global entities and research centres that share the same mission and objectives. Global success depends upon global collaboration, which lies at the heart of our mandate.”

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
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MIT Technology Review, Saudi Arabia plans to spend $1 billion a year discovering treatments to slow aging - https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/07/1053132/saudi-arabia-slow-aging-metformin/

https://hevolutionfoundation.com/
https://www.afar.org/tame-trial
https://impactmaps.xprize.org/longevity
https://www.lifebiosciences.com/
https://science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Dr.%20Khan%20Bio_CV_Testimony.pdf
https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/

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The opinions of the hosts and subjects of this video do not necessarily reflect the view of lifespan.io.