Unity Biotechnology is a startup focusing on medicines to help us do that by slowing the effects of age-related diseases. And the company announced it has pulled in a whopping $116 million in Series B financing today, some of which came from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Sometimes your body keeps aging cells around longer. These cells stop dividing after some form of stress,which is an anti-cancer mechanism that keeps damaged cells from dividing and growing out of control. But too much build-up of those types of cells leads to other problems as we age. Unity looks for ways to help your body shed older cells causing inflammation and other diseases linked to aging.
Unity holds a great amount of potential in preventing our bodies from aging as fast and that has perked some of the top investors in science and medicine and is one of the larger private financings in biotech history.
But it’s not the first time Bezos has invested in biotech. The Amazon CEO placed his bets on Juno Therapeutics back in 2014, through his venture capital arm Bezos Expeditions. Juno is one of the IPO success stories in the biotech world for its breakthrough discoveries in cancer medicine.
The Scottish-based mutual fund Baillie Gifford, which has also invested in several biotech companies, also invested in this round, as did Venrock, ARCH Venture Capital, Mayo Clinic and WuXi Pharmaceuticals.
The company also announced it would be placing Keith Leonard,the former CEO of KYTHERA Biopharmaceuticals, in the role of CEO and that previous CEO and co-founder Nathaniel “Ned” David will now be Unity’s president.