Longevity startup EPITERNA raises €10m

Science has demonstrated the possibility of slowing the ageing process and extending animals’ lives in the laboratory. Founded in 2022 by founded in 2022 as a spin-off from Alejandro Ocampo’s laboratory at the University of Lausanne, EPITERNA aims to translate these discoveries into longer, healthier and happier lives – for companion dogs and cats, and people. The startup is developing affordable products that can safely slow the ageing process to prevent age-related disease, delay functional decline, and extend life.

It currently develops products that evaluate the impact of medicines on ageing using drugs and compounds that have already been approved to treat specific diseases in humans, dogs, and cats. EPITERNA’s innovative platform evaluates medicines that act at the molecular and cellular level in gold-standard animal models of ageing research. The use of small-molecule drugs makes these products more affordable and accessible to a broader audience. The startup has assessed hundreds of medicines in smaller animals and more than a dozen in larger ones, validating promising candidates from the literature and identifying previously unknown leads. Epiterna is currently testing its therapies on organisms from yeast to mice and plans to move onto clinical trials with larger animals, such as dogs, in 2024 in Europe.

Alejandro Ocampo, co-founder and CEO of  EPITERNA spent 15 years studying ageing in yeast, and later at the Salk Institute in California where he was one of the first to demonstrate how new therapeutic approaches like epigenetic reprogramming could extend the lifespan of mice. From then, he started his own laboratory at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland to continue studying how to slow down or reverse ageing at the cellular and molecular level.

Stepping out of stealth mode, EPITERNA also counts on Kevin Perez as co-founder and its 15 employees, including scientists, engineers, veterinarians and doctors and is hiring for several positions. Prima Materia, the investment firm founded by Spotify founder Daniel Ek and early Spotify backer Shakil Khan, has invested €10m into Epiterna. The funds will allow the startup to fund its growth and accelerate its development.

(Press release)