Last Week in Longevity #19 - $147M raised + EGYM merger
Your weekly business digest of everything that happened in longevity.
👋 Hi, I am Fabian, and welcome to my newsletter Last Week in Longevity. Every week, I track where the money, talent, and ideas are moving in the longevity business.
💸 Closed funding rounds
US$ 147M raised across 2 deals (⬇️ -51% vs. US$ 302M across 4 deals last week)
Direct Longevity Interventions (Category 1)
Gilgamesh Pharma – US$ 60M (Series A) | New York, USA
What they do: Developing novel neuropsychiatric therapeutics including oral NMDA receptor antagonist blixeprodil and AbbVie-partnered neuroplastogens for depression and anxiety. The company was spun off from the original Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals after a licensing deal with AbbVie on psychiatric disorder candidate bretisilocin worth up to $1.2B.
Why it matters: Neuropsychiatric conditions like depression and anxiety are major drivers of reduced emotional and cognitive healthspan. Gilgamesh’s neuroplastogens aim to restore brain plasticity — a fundamental mechanism that declines with age and contributes to cognitive rigidity, treatment-resistant depression, and emotional deterioration in older adults.
Investors: Led by Satori Neuro; participation from Prime Movers Lab and existing institutional investors.
Valuation: unknown
Links: Fierce Biotech
Longevity-Aligned Disease Modification (Category 2)
Immutrin – US$ 87M (£65M) (Series A) | Cambridge, UK
What they do: Developing next-generation antibody therapies designed to deplete systemic amyloid deposits and reverse amyloidosis, with a lead program targeting ATTR (transthyretin) cardiomyopathy — a serious and progressive form of heart disease caused by misfolded protein aggregation.
Why it matters: Protein misfolding and amyloid accumulation are hallmarks of aging. ATTR cardiomyopathy is increasingly recognized as an underdiagnosed cause of heart failure in older adults. Immutrin’s approach to clearing existing amyloid deposits, rather than merely preventing new ones, could represent a breakthrough in reversing age-related organ damage.
Investors: Led by Frazier Life Sciences; joined by F-Prime, Qiming Venture Partners, SR One, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Cambridge Enterprise Ventures.
Valuation: unknown
Links: BioSpace
📰 Top longevity business news
Playlist and EGYM close US$ 7.5B merger — the largest fitness & wellness deal in history
What happened: Playlist (parent company of ClassPass, Mindbody, and Booker) and Munich-based EGYM have officially completed their merger, creating the world’s largest full-stack fitness and wellness operating system. The $7.5B deal, backed by $785M in new equity led by Affinity Partners (with Vista Equity Partners, Temasek, and L Catterton), unites AI-driven software, consumer booking platforms, smart training equipment, and corporate wellness under one roof. The combined company now reaches 40,000+ Mindbody-powered businesses, 88,000+ ClassPass venues, 20,000+ EGYM Wellpass employer partners, and 33,000+ EGYM-powered fitness locations across 30+ countries with over 3,000 employees and $800M+ in combined 2025 net revenue. (PR Newswire) (Athletech News)
Why it matters: EGYM CEO Philipp Roesch-Schlanderer framed the deal as “building a long-awaited bridge between fitness, wellness, and the healthcare market” — with a clear mission to shift from repair to prevention. By integrating smart training hardware, AI-personalized workout plans, and corporate wellness (EGYM Wellpass serves 20,000+ employers) with Playlist’s consumer discovery and booking infrastructure, the merged entity is positioned to make preventive exercise the default healthcare layer for millions. This is the strongest signal yet that preventive health infrastructure is attracting mega-cap capital and that the fitness industry’s future lies in longevity.
VITAL-H: US$ 38M trial to test whether three drugs can slow aging in humans
What happened: UT Health San Antonio is preparing one of the largest human trials aimed at testing whether rapamycin, semaglutide, and dapagliflozin can slow biological aging. The VITAL-H trial, backed by $38M in federal contract support through ARPA-H’s PROSPR program, will enroll 700–1,000 healthy adults aged 60–65 in South Texas. Participants will wear Oura rings and be tracked on intrinsic capacity — a WHO-developed metric measuring physical function, cognition, strength, and independence rather than simply counting years. (Longevity.Technology) (San Antonio Report)
Why it matters: This is the first large-scale, federally backed Phase 3 trial designed specifically to test whether existing, FDA-approved drugs can slow aging in healthy humans — not just treat disease. By using intrinsic capacity instead of lifespan as the primary endpoint, VITAL-H offers a realistic pathway to regulatory approval for anti-aging interventions within years, not decades. If any of the three arms show measurable results, it could fundamentally reshape how aging is classified and treated by the medical establishment.
Atrogi’s “exercise pill” ATR-258 enters human trial
What happened: Stockholm-based Atrogi AB has dosed the first subjects in an 8-week trial of its lead candidate ATR-258, a first-in-class oral therapy designed to mimic the benefits of physical exercise. The drug selectively targets the β2-adrenergic receptor in skeletal muscle to stimulate muscle growth and energy uptake while avoiding cardiac side effects. The study, led by Associate Professor Morten Hostrup at the University of Copenhagen, will evaluate the drug’s muscle physiological effects in overweight male volunteers. (Atrogi) (BriefGlance)
Why it matters: Current GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like semaglutide cause significant muscle loss alongside fat reduction — a critical problem for aging populations where sarcopenia already threatens independence. If ATR-258 can safely build and preserve muscle mass through an oral pill, it would fill the biggest gap in the metabolic health toolkit and become a natural complement to GLP-1 therapies. For the longevity field, an exercise mimetic that works in humans would be transformative.
🗓 Events & meetups (Europe-only)
(DE) Targeting Longevity World Congress — Berlin (Apr 8–9, 2026)
(CZ) Aging and Longevity Conference — Prague (Apr 9–10, 2026)
(UK) Smart Ageing Summit — Oxford (May 9, 2026)
(UK) 5th Longevity Med Summit — London (May 9–10, 2026)
(IT) Milan Longevity Summit — Milan (May 20–23, 2026)
(VA) Vatican Longevity Summit — Vatican City (May 25–26, 2026)
(DE) LIFE Summit Berlin — Berlin (May 29–30, 2026)
(LT) Healthy Ageing & Longevity Assembly — Lithuania (Jun 8–14, 2026)
(NL) HLTH Europe — Amsterdam (Jun 15–18, 2026)
(CZ) 8th World Aging & Rejuvenation Conference — Prague (Jun 18–19, 2026)
(IE) Longevity Summit Dublin — Dublin (Jun 24–26, 2026)
(UK) The Longevity Show — London, Tobacco Dock (Jun 26–27, 2026)
(UK) 6th European Conference on Aging & Gerontology — London, UCL (Jul 9–13, 2026)
(DE) Longevity Goes Business — Frankfurt (Oct 16–17, 2026)
💼 New Longevity jobs (Europe-only)
(Remote/EU) Multiple roles @ Axo Longevity like Head of Growth, Junior Data & BI Analyst, Graphic Designer, Copywriter, Creative Director. Europe’s first high-performance longevity platform (blood panels, AI health copilot).
👉 To see the full list of all Longevity jobs, visit our Job Board.
Keep building the future of longevity - one week at a time.
Fabian
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