Forever Young

Now on his fifth startup, Ned David has the blueprint for creating a lucrative biotech. His latest project: a company that will take on the ravages of aging.

- Matthew Herper

Nathaniel “Ned” David is sitting at a conference table in South San Francisco in blue jeans, a black T-shirt and Tevas, looking and sounding a lot like Keanu Reeves as he discusses his latest startup, Unity Biotechnology. The idea behind Unity — preventing aging — sounds crazy, but it’s backed by dozens of scientific papers, the key two in Nature. There are aging cells, called senescent cells, that build up throughout the body and contribute to what we think of as old age — things like achy joints, waning vision, even perhaps Alzheimer’s. Kill those senescent cells with drugs, David reasons, and people might be able to grow old without becoming infirm.

“Like, how awesome would it be?” asks David, a preternaturally youthful 50. “The problem is you have to take the first baby step to demonstrate it’s possible. That’s what chapter one is: demonstrate in a human being that the elimination of senescent cells takes a heretofore inescapable aspect of aging and can either halt it or reverse it.”

Unity’s chief executive and chairman, Keith Leonard, 56, interrupts. “Just that,” he says sarcastically, aware that even his partner’s baby step sounds like a giant leap. “It’s easier to talk to the Food & Drug Administration about treatment of a disease once it’s diagnosed than it is to work really early and prevent disease,” Leonard admits. “But [prevention] is what we’d love to get to.”