Google starts new health company to make us Immortals [PROJECT CALICO]

newarkhiphop

newarkhiphop

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I’m excited to announce Calico, a new company that will focus on health and well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases. Art Levinson, Chairman and former CEO of Genentech and Chairman of Apple, will be Chief Executive Officer.

OK … so you’re probably thinking wow! That’s a lot different from what Google does today. And you’re right. But as we explained in our first letter to shareholders, there’s tremendous potential for technology more generally to improve people’s lives. So don’t be surprised if we invest in projects that seem strange or speculative compared with our existing Internet businesses. And please remember that new investments like this are very small by comparison to our core business.

Art and I are excited about tackling aging and illness. These issues affect us all—from the decreased mobility and mental agility that comes with age, to life-threatening diseases that exact a terrible physical and emotional toll on individuals and families. And 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.

Our press release has a few more details though it’s still very early days so there’s not much more to share yet. Of course when Art has something more substantial to communicate (and that will likely take time), he’ll provide an update. Finally, thanks to Bill Maris for helping bring this idea to life and getting Art involved, and to Sergey Brin for consistently supporting 10X thinking like this. It’s hard for many companies to make long term investments. So I’m tremendously excited about the innovative new way we’re funding this project. Now for the hard work!

http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2013/09/calico-announcement.html
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FORTUNE -- Google (GOOG) last month made waves in the biotech world by announcing the formation of Calico, a "new company that will focus on health and well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases." It would be led by ex-Genentech CEO Art Levinson – a bit of a surprising move given that Levinsohn effectively left the Google board several years ago so that he could remain chairman at rival Apple (where he will continue to serve).

Beyond that, nada. So I did a bit of digging while in Silicon Valley last week, and have learned much more.

Calico is considered the brainchild of Bill Maris, the Google Ventures managing partner who once was a biotech portfolio manager at Investor AB. Sources says that Maris looked at the life sciences landscape, and saw hundreds of companies all focused on curing or minimizing various diseases and conditions. In all cases, the goal was either to prolong life and/or improve the quality of life.

What didn't exist, however, were companies focusing on the root cause of so much of this disease and death. Namely, that we all keep getting older. Or, put another way, that our bodies begin to fail on a cellular level – largely due to degradation of our genetic materials.

Now that the entire genome had been coded, Maris wondered if it was possible to actually study the genetic causes of aging and then create drugs to address them (a question that was heavily influenced by talks with futurist and Googler Ray Kurzweil). For example, what if you examined the genomes of thousands of healthy 90 year-olds from all parts of the world? What genetic similarities do they have? Or, perhaps, what happens to most of us that didn't happen to them. Even if this didn't result in longer life, it perhaps could at least lead to an improved quality of life for folks on the back nine.

So Maris began raising money, largely from wealthy tech executives and venture capitalists. Some of those who got the pitch said that Maris gave a genie analogy (which I'll paraphrase): If a genie gave you three wishes, your first wish would be for a million more wishes. But our lives are like those three wishes. We don't know if it's three days or three thousand, but we know it's finite. If you have to invest in anything, shouldn't it be in trying to get more days (or at least more quality days).

One of those Maris called on was Google co-founder and director of special projects Sergey Brin, who expressed interest in investing. But as conversations progressed between Brin, Maris and Google CEO Larry Page, a consensus began to form that the best course of action would be to fund the entire project off of Google's balance sheet (the board would later agree). I have heard various numbers as to the exact Google commitment, but for now can only really say that we're talking about a minimum of hundreds of millions (tranched out, of course). The company itself still isn't commenting, although it's possible that there will be some specifics in its next quarterly earnings report (due next week).
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http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/09/new-details-google-anti-aging/


http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/09/18/google-calico-health-aging/2833675/

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/03/tech/innovation/google-calico-aging-death/index.html


:blessed:

GOOG SET LIVE FOREVER GANG

Join now or die Off brehs

:pacspit:
 
diggy

diggy

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Puts on google glasses and takes multivitamin

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Ghostface Trillah

Ghostface Trillah

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Google's gonna cure aids, apple's gonna say if you weren't fukking around then you wouldn't need a cure in the first place......then months later create a faster acting aids cure and call it innovation :troll:
 
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