Sunday Times 2
Internet giant backs company seeking the fountain of youth
View(s):After conquering search, launching best-selling software, phones and tablets and even financing lab-grown burgers, internet giant Google is now turning its attention towards the quest for eternal life. Founder and Google CEO Larry Page has announced he is teaming up with Apple’s chairman Arthur Levinson for a health and well-being project called Calico.
Google's co-founder Larry Page, pictured, has announced plans to finance a health startup called Calico. The new California-based firm will tackle the 'challenge of ageing and associated diseases' and will be run by Apple chairman Arthur Levinson (AFP)
Calico will focus on tackling the ‘challenge of ageing and associated diseases’ and will use expertise from Levinson’s biotechnology firm Genentech to look for potential cures for age-related illnesses. Announcing the new investment, Page said: ‘Illness and aging affect all our families.With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives.’
Page added it was still too early to share other details about his hopes for Calico. In May, Page announced he had a rare nerve disease that affects his vocal chords as well as a thyroid inflammatory condition called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. ’While this is clearly a longer-term bet, we believe we can make good progress within reasonable timescales with the right goals and the right people,’ Google chief executive Page said in an blog post on Wednesday.
Google isn’t disclosing how much money it will give to Calico, but Page indicated it won’t be a major commitment. The comments are an apparent effort to placate investors who would prefer to see the company boost its profits even higher instead of pursue far-flung ventures that may never pay off.
‘Please remember that new investments like this are very small by comparison to our core business,’ Page wrote in a post on his Google+ profile. Google’s stock gained $17.21 (£10.61), or nearly 2 per cent, to close Wednesday at $903.32 (£560).
Levinson was previously a member of the Google board but the U.S. Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into whether his role on Apple’s board caused conflicts of interest.
Google previously ventured into the healthcare field in 2008 with the launch of its Google Health project designed to store medical records online. However, after a lack of public interest, the firm was closed three years later following Page’s appointment to CEO in April 2011.
Elsewhere, Google and its venture capital arm have invested at least $10 million in 23andme – a genetic testing startup founded by Brin’s wife, Anne Wojcicki.
In an interview with Time magazine Page suggested it could be take 10 to 20 years before Calico’s efforts bear fruit.
But he also said Calico’s mission could prove to be even more important than curing cancer. ’One of the things I thought was amazing is that if you solve cancer, you’d add about three years to people’s average life expectancy,’ Page told Time.
‘We think of solving cancer as this huge thing that’ll totally change the world. But when you really take a step back and look at it, yeah, there are many, many tragic cases of cancer, and it’s very, very sad, but in the aggregate, it’s not as big an advance as you might think.’
© Daily Mail, London
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