LIC 2026: What Investors Should Take From Gstaad
Longevity biotech drew $18.4bn in 2025, according to Longevity.Technology. AI startups drew $212bn. That gap is both the opportunity and the risk, and it framed three and a half days of discussion at the seventh Longevity Investors Conference in Gstaad.
The question underneath almost every session was the same: now that longevity science is reaching humans, how do you tell a fundable company from a good story?
1. The field is moving into humans
Tobias Reichmuth's annual review set the frame. The past twelve months marked a shift from animal models to human trials. In June, Life Biosciences dosed the first participant in its Phase 1 trial of ER-100, a partial epigenetic reprogramming therapy for glaucoma and NAION.
The strategy matters as much as the science. Rather than asking regulators to approve "rejuvenation," Life Bio started with a specific eye disease and plans to expand from there. NewLimit, which raised a $435M Series C in June, is following a similar indication-first path, with a first human trial in the liver planned for 2027.
Capital is growing but still thin. In Q1 2026 the median longevity deal was $21.8M, against an average of $91.2M, which shows how much a few large rounds drive the totals.
Investor takeaway: an early market with real upside. Back companies with a clear indication-first route to approval.
2. How to read an aging claim
\Imagine a pitch deck claiming to reverse biological age by five years. Steve Horvath's filter is "three Cs":
Control group: compared to what?
Context: which cells, which model, which population?
Clock: there are now hundreds of aging clocks, so which one, and do several agree?
To be fully convinced, he wants the raw methylation data, not a single headline number.
Collin Ewald of Novartis added three filters of his own:
Replicate: many published results fail when repeated in an industry setting, so run the experiment again if you can.
Read the patent: check whether the chemical matter will hold up.
Check delivery: a molecule that can't reach its target tissue won't work, however good the biology.
Investor takeaway: ask for raw data, independent replication and falsifiable milestones before you value an aging claim.
3. The biomarker bottleneck
Dr. Nir Barzilai argued that some drugs already on the market, including GLP-1s, SGLT2 inhibitors and metformin, act on the biology of aging and are underused. The trial evidence is strongest for SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1s.
The more investable detail was a project he described, funded by ARPA-H and run through Columbia University. It analyses blood samples from completed trials of these drug classes to find biomarkers they change in common. A validated aging biomarker would make it far faster and cheaper to show in a Phase 2 trial that a new drug targets aging.
Dr. Michael Ringel set the bar. A biomarker only counts as validated once several clinical trials show it predicts outcomes. LDL cholesterol cleared that bar. HDL did not: a drug that raised it failed to improve outcomes.
Investor takeaway: accepted aging biomarkers would unlock trial design for the whole field. Watch this closely.
4. Pharma is paying attention, mostly in milestones
Panellists on what makes a longevity company durable.
GLP-1s changed how pharma thinks about prevention. Maksim Kholin of Gero, which has a deal with Chugai (Roche Group) worth up to around $250M in milestones, said its pharma conversations now run on two tracks: specific disease targets, and aging itself. Several large companies have set up dedicated aging teams.
But read the headlines carefully. Most announced deal value is contingent on future milestones, and the upfront cash is a small fraction.
Headline value against upfront payments in three recent AI drug discovery deals. Source: company announcements.
Investors on the sustainability panel added their own tests:
Remove the word "longevity" from the deck. Is it still investable?
Can the asset become a product, attract a partner or be acquired?
Masha Bucher: does the founder live the mission, obsess over customers and recruit world-class talent early?
Investor takeaway: value the upfront terms, not the headline.
5. Why most consumer longevity products don't stick
Philipp Gut of Nestlé Research described a fragmented, trend-driven supplement market with one basic problem. Few people will pay every month for a benefit that may appear in twenty years. If they don't feel something within about two weeks, most stop. The products that last pair a long-term benefit with something people notice soon.
He also flagged geography as a hidden cost: a product that sells in the US may need years of approvals before it can launch in Europe. Rob Fried of Niagen Bioscience added that a patent is a commitment as much as an asset. You have to defend it and fund the research behind it, while competing against brands that ignore both.
Investor takeaway: back consumer brands with a fast, felt benefit and a multi-market regulatory plan.
6. Where value will sit as AI advances
Dr. Adeel Khan argued that experimental longevity medicine lacks registries. Tens of thousands of treatments have been performed worldwide, with almost no pooled outcome data. Dr. Jordan Schlain of Private Medical is turning decades of patient data into AI-driven frameworks that could reach far beyond a concierge practice.
Max Marchione of Superpower named four categories he expects to hold value as AI advances:
Infrastructure: labs, pharmacies and manufacturing
Proprietary data
Brands: people buy identity, not just utility
Diagnostic and therapeutic IP
Others warned that large AI models are quickly erasing the moats of thin software startups.
Investor takeaway: favour companies that own data, infrastructure or protected IP.
7. Longer lives change the portfolio itself
HSBC Private Bank described wealthy families shifting towards endowment-style allocations. That means more private equity, venture and infrastructure, longer horizons and more tolerance for multi-year drawdowns. If you expect to live longer, and want wealth to last generations, you can afford to wait for returns.
The demographics support the thesis: Japan now has 107,677 centenarians, up from 153 in 1963.
The bottom line
The mood in Gstaad was optimistic but disciplined. The science is reaching humans, pharma is paying attention and consumer products are maturing. The returns will go to investors who ask for evidence, understand the regulatory path and back teams built to last.
A couple of the session recordings will be released on our YouTube channel from 5 October.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Chart sources: Longevity.Technology Longevity Biotech Report 2026 (16 September 2026); Crunchbase News; company announcements; Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
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