(21:21) Do you think the patent system and intellectual property regime in the West fosters innovation and helps get SENS closer to its goals, or is it a hindrance?
I think that the for-profit sector and the nonprofit sector both have important roles to play in hastening as much as possible the development of these therapies. I’m absolutely sure that it’s good to attract people of all persuasions into this field to give their effort and their money to make these things happen, and that certainly includes people who prefer to invest money, for profit, for an exit strategy which of course tends to depend on intellectual property and patents, just as much as people who are coming in as philanthropists. So I’m certainly not in favor of any radical overhaul of the IP system or the patent system as a route to making this happen, I think where we are at the moment is pretty much ok.
(22:15) We’ve already started reading about cutting-edge treatments in the laboratory: the deletion of senescent cells that you linked to on your website, DRACO/Panacea at Lincoln Labs at MIT, all manner of stem cell treatments… When do you expect commercial treatments to become available?
It’s important to remember that there is a wide disparity, a wide spectrum of the extent to which the various components of SENS have actually already proceeded. Some of them are at a level where they make sense commercially already. So let’s take an example of the elimination of amyloid from the brain of Alzheimer’s patients. That’s something that I would probably say is the number one simplest and most far advanced component of SENS, and sure enough it’s now in phase 3 clinical trials, those trials are being orchestrated by a company, in south San Francisco at Elan Pharmaceuticals. The stem cell world is another case where this is all happening, where there is a number of companies, a burgeoning number of companies in this space, many of them working in areas of stem cell therapies that are highly relevant to the defeat of aging. There are other areas of course, the areas that SENS Foundation tends to focus most on, which are at an earlier stage of development, and it may be a little while before those things actually get to a point where they can be commercialized realistically. However, one mustn’t be too pessimistic about that. The particular case that was mentioned in the question about the elimination of senescent cells, has actually already led to a very significant, nearly ten million dollars I understand, investment in a startup company being pursued by the researchers who published this paper only 6 months ago. And that’s despite the fact that the paper was just a study in mice, and it was not a study indicating any particular route towards the discovery of a drug that could actually achieve the same medical result. So you know, one has reasons to be very optimistic about the private sector’s involvement in all of this.
(23:59) How would you feel about a /r/SENS subreddit?
I think it would be great to have a greater presence on Reddit. I certainly think that we need in general, to improve our web presence and our social media presence at SENS foundation, and we are in the process of allocating more resources to doing exactly that. I certainly think that Reddit’s a fine example of where we should have a greater presence.
Thank you Reddit! Filmed and Edited by Daniel Finfer for SENS Foundation 2012 Visit www.sens.org for more information. Music by Ancient Lasers www.ancientlasers.com Transcribed by Scott Shambaugh
Part 4
(21:21) Do you think the patent system and intellectual property regime in the West fosters innovation and helps get SENS closer to its goals, or is it a hindrance?
I think that the for-profit sector and the nonprofit sector both have important roles to play in hastening as much as possible the development of these therapies. I’m absolutely sure that it’s good to attract people of all persuasions into this field to give their effort and their money to make these things happen, and that certainly includes people who prefer to invest money, for profit, for an exit strategy which of course tends to depend on intellectual property and patents, just as much as people who are coming in as philanthropists. So I’m certainly not in favor of any radical overhaul of the IP system or the patent system as a route to making this happen, I think where we are at the moment is pretty much ok.
(22:15) We’ve already started reading about cutting-edge treatments in the laboratory: the deletion of senescent cells that you linked to on your website, DRACO/Panacea at Lincoln Labs at MIT, all manner of stem cell treatments… When do you expect commercial treatments to become available?
It’s important to remember that there is a wide disparity, a wide spectrum of the extent to which the various components of SENS have actually already proceeded. Some of them are at a level where they make sense commercially already. So let’s take an example of the elimination of amyloid from the brain of Alzheimer’s patients. That’s something that I would probably say is the number one simplest and most far advanced component of SENS, and sure enough it’s now in phase 3 clinical trials, those trials are being orchestrated by a company, in south San Francisco at Elan Pharmaceuticals. The stem cell world is another case where this is all happening, where there is a number of companies, a burgeoning number of companies in this space, many of them working in areas of stem cell therapies that are highly relevant to the defeat of aging. There are other areas of course, the areas that SENS Foundation tends to focus most on, which are at an earlier stage of development, and it may be a little while before those things actually get to a point where they can be commercialized realistically. However, one mustn’t be too pessimistic about that. The particular case that was mentioned in the question about the elimination of senescent cells, has actually already led to a very significant, nearly ten million dollars I understand, investment in a startup company being pursued by the researchers who published this paper only 6 months ago. And that’s despite the fact that the paper was just a study in mice, and it was not a study indicating any particular route towards the discovery of a drug that could actually achieve the same medical result. So you know, one has reasons to be very optimistic about the private sector’s involvement in all of this.
(23:59) How would you feel about a /r/SENS subreddit?
I think it would be great to have a greater presence on Reddit. I certainly think that we need in general, to improve our web presence and our social media presence at SENS foundation, and we are in the process of allocating more resources to doing exactly that. I certainly think that Reddit’s a fine example of where we should have a greater presence.
Thank you Reddit!
Filmed and Edited by Daniel Finfer for SENS Foundation 2012
Visit www.sens.org for more information.
Music by Ancient Lasers
www.ancientlasers.com
Transcribed by Scott Shambaugh