Page 19 - INC Magazine-November 2018

ing adult mesenchymal stem old. That’s when his father injured his spinal cord in a water-
cells (which are found in skel- p skiing accident in Michigan, where the family lived. He was
etal tissue) since 2001. He’d confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life and, in 2009, he
been on the first team that died at age 63. Had the accident taken place today, stem cell
used MSCs to treat stroke in injection would have helped him, Katakowski believes.
“StoRInG StoRInG
animals. Now, there are hun- “ Their idea got a boost when Clausnitzer and Katakowski
dreds of human trials, many of yoUR were accepted into the 2017 class of Y Combinator, the influen-
them Phase 3 studies, in which BIoloGy IS tial Silicon Valley startup accelerator. Through that program,
a treatment already proved GoInG to Be they connected with Mark Batsiyan of Northwestern Mutual
safe and efficacious is evalu- a coRneR­ Future Ventures, who led a $2 million seed round. “I look at it
ated against existing options. Stone of as a new form of insurance,” says Batsiyan.
“I basically have lived the Good But while youthful MSCs make a nice insurance policy, the
development of mesenchymal bigger market opportunity for the company is in treating those
stem cell therapy,” Katakowski MedIcIne,” who are healthy and seeking to stay that way—people like the
says. (The past decade has SayS founders themselves, who were among the first to make depos-
f
brought rapid advances in the foReveR oReveR its in their own cryobank. “Your young stem cells are an incred-
applications of adult stem laBS’ ibly valuable asset that only get more valuable as you grow
cells, which come without the katakoWSkI. older,” Katakowski says. “For the rest of my life, I’ll be able to
ethical baggage of embryonic draw on my 40-year-old stem cells.” (Because stem cells can be
stem cells, the subject of a cloned indefinitely, there’s no danger of running through your
strict federal funding ban from principal, so to speak.)
2001 through 2009.) Unlike others’ stem cells, which can trigger immune system
One particular property of MSCs intrigued Katakowski: responses or mutate into tumors, autologous MSCs injected
Their regenerative powers degrade over time, in lockstep with heir regenerative powers degrade over time, in lockstep with heir regenerative powers degrade over time, in lockstep with into the bloodstream migrate naturally to the body’s stem cell
T T
the aging process. Human stem cells lose their potency slowly reservoirs, like bone marrow and the pancreas. As those reser-
from about age 20, and then more quickly after age 40. “As your voirs begin to run low with age, a Forever Labs client can top
stem cells go to pot, your risk of age-related disease goes up,” them off every few years. In theory, that is—MSCs have demon-
Katakowski says. strated effectiveness in treating specific conditions, but the idea
The conventional interpretation has been that stem cells, that they represent a fountain of youth has not yet been estab-
l
like tissue, wear out with age. But maybe that was backward, ike tissue, wear out with age. But maybe that was backward, lished. In hopes of winning acceptance of MSCs’ potential as a
Katakowski wondered. What if the symptoms of aging result life-extension therapy, the company contracted Katakowski’s
f f from a decline in the body’s population of healthy stem cells, rom a decline in the body’s population of healthy stem cells, rom a decline in the body’s population of healthy stem cells, former lab to test them on mice. “The results are looking pretty
which, when abundant, keep disease and decay in check? damn good,” he says.
“Think of it this way: If you’ve got a city and you start losing If the same eventually proves true for humans, it won’t
firefighters, there’s going to be a point where it’s hard to keep be without controversy. In an era when basic health care is
up with all the fires in your city,” he says. Hoping to investigate p with all the fires in your city,” he says. Hoping to investigate
u increasingly unaffordable and the employer-based insurance
t this hypothesis, Katakowski wrote a pair of grant proposals in his hypothesis, Katakowski wrote a pair of grant proposals in model is breaking down, an offering like Forever Labs’ $7,000
2015, but he found no takers. lifetime extraction-and-storage package might seem like the
After the rejection, he commiserated with his friend Steve ultimate perk of wealth: extra life for sale.
Clausnitzer. The two had been close since meeting through Katakowski hopes it won’t be that way—and notes that he
their wives a decade earlier and had even teamed up on a busi- and his co-founder both come from middle-class families. “I
ness, launching a Reddit-like website called Hubski. “I told have no interest in building an elite class of people who’ll live
Steve, ‘I’m not mad I didn’t get the grants,’ ” Katakowski recalls, forever.” More likely, he thinks, regenerative stem cell treat-
“ ‘but I’m turning 40 and I want to bank my stem cells, and ments will prove so effective at forestalling the diseases of
there’s no way to do that.’ ” aging—by far the biggest collective financial burden on the
Clausnitzer, a business-development executive and veteran health care system—that, one day, insurers will be happy to
of American Express and Wolters Kluwer, was intrigued. He f American Express and Wolters Kluwer, was intrigued. He
o pay for them. “The economics are going to drive it,” he pre-
mentioned the conversation to a friend of his, an orthopedic dicts. “It’s not cheap, but compared with the costs of age-
surgeon, who told him that autologous stem cell injection related disease, it’s much less. Eventually, storing your biology
(which uses cells harvested from one’s own body rather than is just going to be a cornerstone of good medicine.”
cells taken from a donor) was increasingly a first-line therapy Not far from Forever’s offices in Ann Arbor is the Henry
for sports injuries. There were many services available to new Ford Museum of American Innovation. There, visitors can ride
parents who wanted to bank their newborns’ stem-cell-rich in a car that was built more than a century ago and is main-
umbilical-cord blood, but nothing for adults looking to stash mbilical-cord blood, but nothing for adults looking to stash
u tained by the regular replacement of parts. “We’re getting to a
a away their own young cells. So Clausnitzer and Katakowski way their own young cells. So Clausnitzer and Katakowski point where we can do that” to ourselves, says Clausnitzer.
agreed to start Forever Labs. “I always tell people it was born “We’re at the beginning of something.”
o
out of my midlife crisis,” Clausnitzer says. ut of my midlife crisis,” Clausnitzer says.
For Katakowski, the inspiration came when he was 14 years or Katakowski, the inspiration came when he was 14 years
F JEFF BERCOVICI is Inc.’s San Francisco bureau chief.

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