In this interview, Boyang Wang of Immortal Dragons discusses the kinds of projects he wants to fund, ways in which the industry can be encouraged to develop, relationships between the East and West in longevity research and development, and what got him involved in longevity.
Hello, and welcome to this Lifespan interview, where today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Boyang Wang, who is the founder of Immortal Dragons, a fund operating the longevity research space headquartered in Singapore. Can you start, Boyang, by describing yourself a bit? How did you get into this field, and what led you into founding Immortal Dragons?
Thanks for having me, Keith. This is Boyang, I’m the founder of Immortal Dragons. Immortal Dragons is a purpose-driven longevity fund. We invest in longevity, biotech, life extension projects beyond conventional capital investments, we also do advocacy work like translating and publishing books. We do podcasts in Chinese for the Chinese longevity community. We do sponsorship and grants for organizations and events, all to further the research and advancement of the sector.
What got me into longevity? To me, this is actually a recurring theme; it’s not only that I’ve been thinking about why we must age and die, I never figured out the puzzle of existence or consciousness, so I feel like we need more time to think this through. What’s more fundamental than extending lifespan and healthspan so that we have more time to figure out the meaning of life, to do whatever you want, to achieve our goals, is a recurring theme for me, but also there is a theme of survival. I’ve had interesting encounters with the healthcare system. I’ve had interesting medical conditions since I was young, so I’ve always witnessed firsthand the limitations and, of course, the marvels of our modern healthcare system, so it’s my calling; it’s very natural for me to work on longevity.
It definitely sounds like you have a lot of reasons for entering this field and a lot of passion. Picking up on that point, Immortal Dragons is described as a purpose-driven fund focused on life extension, prioritizing impact over economic returns. What does this mean exactly in terms of the fund; how is this different from other funds?
We say we are a purpose-driven fund, and the key implication here is that Immortal Dragons would value impact over economic returns. This is a more rational, more concrete concept than it sounds; when we say we do not prioritize economic returns, it is pretty practical in a sense. This has a bit to do with my background. I’m coming from a tech entrepreneur background, so I’m not from a biomedical background. If I want to maximize economic return, I should have been investing in technology or things that I’m more familiar with, the computer science-related tech sector.
I’m investing in the field of longevity because I want to see things happening. I want to see progress and breakthroughs in the sector. When we make investments, we consider less about the potential economic returns, and indeed, if we were to maximize economic returns, let’s say we want to invest in a pharma company that can make the most money for us, we might not be able to do so. We might not do a good job, because this is the game that big pharma companies are playing, and they know their games. Rather, we invest in companies that might be working on cutting-edge technologies, that might be working on moonshot attempts that are pretty high risk, that are probably very meaningful for the sector but might not bring the most economic returns. This is what we do; we’re open to found and support those companies.
What does that look like; how do you measure it, or is there a formal, codified investment thesis, where you quantify impact versus economic returns and weigh those things when you’re looking at an investment? Is it more of a feeling based on your due diligence, or are there specific impact metrics that you look at to quantify that impact?
Quantifying impact is not easy, but we do have some working themes that we are focused on. One of it being the direction of replacement. We feel like replacement, not repair, is an interesting direction as an anti-aging strategy. There are recent papers on this as well that we draw this analogy from. A comparison is electrical engineering, where it’s hard to fix a smartphone; if you smash it, even the best engineers might have a hard time fixing the chips and the screen LED, but what the engineers would do is actually to replace the screen, replace the motherboard, and so on.
In terms of biology, we see replacement as a very promising direction for intervention, so we look at xenotransplant companies. We look at companies that work on cryopreservation, which is related to transplantation. We look at companies that work on 3D bioprinting for tissues and human organs ex vivo, and we even look at companies that work on the sector of whole-body replacement. This is one of the working themes, and we will then measure the rarity, the importance of the work, to hopefully partially quantify the impact of the investment.
On that subject of replacement versus repair and cryonics, are there other factors that determine what you might fund? For example, if there was a therapy that was more in the repair modality versus the replacement modality, are there some other elements of a potential project that would bring it into the sphere of things that you might fund? One of the things is rarity; is anybody else doing this or not? That sounds like another metric. Are there other things? For example, you mentioned evangelism in the past; is the ability for a project to inspire the public something that you might factor into potential impact?
Talking about rarity, indeed, if there’s a deal that is highly sought after, then probably we will not be so keen to make an investment, because there will be plenty of capital and resources flowing into the project. Rather, if we see a project that’s important, that’s unique, that will become a piece in the puzzle but is not getting the required funding, we’ll be more interested in it, and indeed, if there’s a project that can hopefully inspire the public or at least inspire a few mission-aligned groups of people, that will be an interesting project for us to invest into.
On the subject of replacement, once again, is this affected by the different kinds of systems in the body? For example, replacement might be a more challenging strategy to pursue in terms of neuroscience. Do you have neuroscience projects that you’re looking to fund as well, or is that something that’s deprioritized, or you’re looking at other modalities involved in the neuroscience side of things? Because I imagine it’s a little bit more difficult to replace your brain, right?
Yes, absolutely. The brain is tied to the very existence of our being, so it’s more tricky. When it comes to the brain and neuroscience, we look at other modalities. We look at companies that are working on nurturing brain tissue and then transplanting that created tissue into your brain and integrate it into your existing systems. Hopefully, that will enhance and rejuvenate your brain tissue and your nervous system rather than replacing it. When it comes to neuroscience and the brain, we look at other modalities more of a gradual enhancement, but when it comes to organs, other body parts, solely organ or not, we are more interested in the replacement strategy.
That makes sense. On that subject, that intersects with some work that the ARPA-H is doing with Jean Hébert’s project. Do you look at any other programs like ARPA-H for inspiration or guidance, or anything like that, to see what other funds or other governmental agencies are looking to fund, and is that something that gives you an indication of what you would like to explore or, in relation to what you said earlier, of something that you would rather deprioritize, because you feel like they are taking care of that side of things?
We are certainly interested in what public sector or other organizations might be sponsoring, ARPA-H being one, there’s of course XPRIZE. There are the Middle East, MENA countries, where sovereign funds are looking to fund such efforts as well. We are based in Singapore, so we also see that there have been some initiatives from the Singaporean government and universities. We have the first longevity research center set up in Singapore by the National University of Singapore headed by Professor Brian Kennedy. It’s been around for a few years by now. These are great initiatives.
We will reference them and have communications, but we also see that for government agencies, they oftentimes have the mission of advancing public health, so they really look at things that probably improve lifespan on average as a whole; they really look at things that impact a large proportion of the population, such as diabetes, metabolic diseases, and neurodegenerative cardiovascular diseases, so they are improving the average and the mean.
I feel like nimble and independent organizations like ours have the responsibility to work on the cutting edge. Instead of improving the average life expectancy, we want to set an example and inspire the sector by maybe making a few people live to 120s, 150s. One example would be Larry Ellison. He’s apparently pretty successful, at least seemingly in his anti-aging and longevity effort; that’s inspiration for many high-net-worth individuals, to see the example, see that someone achieved it, and work on putting resources to work on this sector. That’s the different focuses.
Interesting. If I’m understanding that properly, you’re saying that if you could help succeed in having a few outliers that are really significant, that will serve as a powerful signal to the world to say “Hey, we can actually get gains here” and that would catalyze more funding. It’s part of it, the ability to inspire more funding and more support by having a few outlier examples like that. Is that fair to say?
Yes, absolutely. We believe in the power of role models. After Wright Brothers, there are so many who succeeded in creating powered aircraft; after Tesla, there are so many companies who successfully built very good electric vehicles, right? The power of role models is invaluable.
Have you received any kind of challenges on that sort of thesis, by people saying “Hey, you should really be working on doing that sort of blanket minimum median raising as opposed to this”? Or, does everyone that you’ve interacted with understand the points that you’ve just made and how one can serve the other?
The field, the direction of longevity, can be controversial at times. There are actually criticisms coming from different perspectives, one being that all this that we’re talking about is pretty far-fetched if not pseudoscience. When you talk about creating organs or organoids, at least that will be usable for humans, when you talk about how we replace solid organs, like therapeutic plasma exchange, which is also not solely organ but a replacement strategy, many coming from a more traditional background would totally oppose, and there are other times when it’s criticized for being unrealistic, for being not helpful for the general public who might benefit more from, say, statin dosage for their cardiovascular health or less sugar intake. There’s criticism from all different perspectives, but to work on something that’s controversial will be meaningful. That’s what we believe. If there’s an aligned interest, if there’s already consensus, then maybe it’s the game played by bigger organizations, not a small fund like us.
Given that you’re approaching this from the perspective of moonshots like this, can you speak more about the thesis of being focused on impact more than economic returns, and how does that inform your team? Does everybody feel the same? What is the structure of the fund. What’s your team size, and how many investments have you made?
We are a 40 million AUM fund. Our structure is a bit special in that we are more of a CVC, a corporate VC structure. We only have one external LP, and the majority of our fund is coming from our previous businesses, so we have total flexibility in terms of writing checks, making investments. We don’t have a stringent LP mandate; we don’t need to call capital, we have our capital ready. In terms of team size, we have five or six teammates who are working full time on our fund. There’s also shared function departments like finance, legal, human resources, and so on that’s shared with our larger group of companies. In terms of number of investments, we’ve been investing as a fund, an organization for almost two years by now. We have funded more than 10 investment projects so far, and we deployed a few million US dollars. We plan to continue at this pace or probably accelerate as we see more breakthroughs and progress in the sector.
What are your thoughts on the current funding landscape in general, instead of simply being an LP for other funds, why did you choose to do this yourself? What are the biggest gaps or unmet needs in the field that you hope Immortal Dragons will address?
We do also invest in other funds as an LP, but the reason why I have to work on it myself is, because, of course, this is very important to me, it’s my mission, and I have to work on it full time rather than just sit on the sideline and watch others work on this mission.
We feel like there’s definitely not enough attention, resources, or talent. Everything in this direction is so fundamental, so important, and yet it’s not getting the kind of attention that it deserves. Partially, we feel that he reason is complicated. There’s a mentality shift required, where people have internalized, naturalized the idea of aging and death, there is an economic flywheel that’s not there yet.
For the past many decades, investing in anti-aging has been a not-so-fruitful endeavor, but we believe it’s now at an inflection point. There is also a moral implication whereby the argument for longevity and anti-aging is not established, especially not established in the general public, and philosophers, thought leaders, have been working on this as well. Notably, Nick Bostrom is a philosopher influential in this direction, and he has famously written The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant to address many of the moral arguments around anti-aging, longevity, and longer lifespans. We also translated the book The Case Against Death by Patrick Linden into Chinese and published it in the Chinese market. It’s also a pretty compelling and comprehensive discussion on the morality of longevity. So many of these need to be addressed, and investors need to see returns, and we need to make our voice heard to move the needle, to turn the tide.
On that subject, there’s obviously a lot of different steps in the pipeline of realizing healthspan-extending technologies. There’s the research itself, there’s government issues and funding, there’s the ecosystem of investment, there’s public sentiment, there’s a variety of different things based on what you were just saying. Do you have any sense that any one more than the other is a critical bottleneck that needs addressing, or do you think it’s an all-of-the-above strategy?
It’s not easy to find the one key factor that’s the most important, and that’s why, from Immortal Dragons’ perspective, we try to work on a few of these factors, hoping to contribute. One of the things that we look at is the economic flywheel. Currently, it’s not very fruitful. It’s not very attractive to fund longevity projects or work on them because there’s less success stories, both for founders and for investors, and also when it comes to the public market, for the general public to invest in. We are looking to help; we’re really looking forward for a wave of longevity and anti-aging companies to reach a turning point where they get publicly listed, they will generate returns for retail investors in the public market, and that will be a powerful motivational incentive for more people to invest in and to turn the tide.
We don’t emphasize economic return as a fund, but as a mechanism, it’s really one of the most powerful: capitalist, free market return on investment is the most important motivational tool or incentive structure that we have discovered to push the sector further. We have seen this kind of hyper growth in the tech sector in the last few decades. If this can happen in longevity, in anti-aging, that will really accelerate its development.
Building off of that, is there any room in the fund to support or invest in projects that aren’t strictly biotechnology? As an example, you mentioned The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant by Nick Bostrom. There’s a movie project to make Fable of the Dragon Tyrant; that went through our Longevity Investor Network by Protostellar Media, for example. There’s also a Dragon Tyrant blockchain game that’s being built by SkillCap that is working with the Lifespan Research Institute. Would you ever consider funding projects like this that are not biotechnology but related to the overall goal of potential economic return and inspiring the public on this subject?
These are very interesting projects, and this kind of effort will be a perfect candidate for sponsorship or grants by Immortal Dragons. We are one of the early major sponsors of Vitalist Bay, and we’re super happy to see the team pulled off a great event, a pop-up city/conference that attracted the best minds in the sector and also attracted individuals from all over the world, and some of them might be new to longevity that were introduced. That will be a better candidate for sponsorship or grants instead of equity investment.
Can you explain a little bit more about what that looks like operationally? Is there like a separate tranche of funding within the fund that’s allocated for grants, or is it like a separate granting mechanism that functions somehow alongside the primary fund?
Again, we are pretty flexible, so we make decisions as they come. There’s no strict division of the fund into a sponsorship tranche and an equity investment tranche. In general, the ticket size for sponsorship, of course, will be less than then an investment check, typically in the range of 50,000-ish, that’s the maximum we go to for sponsorship grants so far, but we are flexible, and we will evaluate projects as they come. Interested parties can approach us on our contact on the official website. The website is ID.life, and contact@ID.life will be the email address where proposals can be sent.
Got it, and speaking of your website, I noticed that there’s you have a project focused on visualizing digital twins on the website. Is the aim of this type of work evangelism-related as well or purely scientific in nature?
Yes, glad you found it. This is again a demonstration of how our fund is slightly different. We do such a collaborative project with researchers and other companies when we feel that there’s a value proposition and when we feel that there’s an area where we can contribute. Our team is pretty strong in computer graphics, in 3D modeling, so we created this digital twin project where the functionality is to visualize organs, different systems that vessels, neurons, muscle, skeletal structures, especially it will highlight any issue that there might be in the body.
The purpose of this system is multifold; for many who are not coming from biomedical backgrounds, they probably have not seen such a model of themselves, and this will be already interesting for them to explore and enhance their understanding of our biological body. Also, this is pretty valuable, according to some clinics that we talk to, as a tool for their clients to stay compliant to doctors’ prescriptions, because the moment they step out from the clinic, the touch point for the patients with the doctors will be pretty weak, and there’s no guarantee for compliance, so it can help on that front. We are still exploring the possible collaborations or use cases for this system. Meanwhile, we are building it as an open project. We probably will open source this soon, when it reaches a certain maturity level. It’s just a research project that our team built.
On the compliance aspect of that, is the intention that if patients can see what a healthier version of themselves will look like if they comply with the specific therapy, that will induce them to be more compliant, is that the idea there?
That’s a motivational piece, where we want these to serve as a motivational tool for clients, they can see a healthier version of themselves already in the system, and that drives the patients to work towards that goal.
Interesting. That kind of technology can intersect with the notion of digital biomarkers, technologies that might be able to non-invasively, scan your face, your walking gait, your voice. Are you invested or interested in any such projects or in any way interacted with such projects? You mentioned the NUS earlier, and I believe some of these technologies and approaches might be of interest to the groups working there, for example.
Yes, that’s a pretty interesting direction. We have seen a few products that are already out in the market that non-invasively detect biomarkers with pretty high precision and accuracy. So far, we have not made investment in this direction. We feel like this is probably more of a improvement over the technology we already have. It’s good to have, but it’s not screaming for investment, and it’s less of a moonshot, but we find it to be super meaningful. There are, of course, funds out there interested in such projects.
Just an observation, we are also seeing the traditional blood drawing process to be improved a lot. There are currently gadgets that can draw your blood pretty painlessly. There is, of course, continuous glucose monitoring that is pretty much painless, and can put a pad on your arms and so forth. The progress in this direction seems to be pretty good.
Switching gears a little bit. In the past, you’ve spoken about connecting Eastern and Western longevity communities. What do you see as the most significant benefits of East-West collaboration, and what practical steps is Immortal Dragons taking to bridge these ecosystems?
There are many areas where collaborations can happen between the East and the West. I can at least think of four possible directions, one being capital. There’s, of course, an enormous amount of wealth generated in the East with economic development and progress in the past few decades, so there’s the capital aspect.
There is the research aspect. In the sector of bioscience, we’ve already seen plenty of progress made by Eastern researchers and scientists. Without naming a comprehensive list, there’s Professor Yamanaka, who received a Nobel Prize for his iPSC research. There is one Chinese-American scientist, Zhang Feng, who is a pioneer in CRISPR and gene editing. In terms of cloning for mammals and primates, Eastern researchers and scientists are also pretty advanced and have been doing interesting work in the past years. In xenotransplants, both China and the US are leaders in this area. Of course, all scientists, researchers, are writing in English, they publish the same papers in, Cell, Nature, but there’s still gaps at times.
Moving on to the third, clinical trials and research efforts are pretty expensive and sometimes are hard to organize In some developed countries due to strict regulations and probably bureaucracy and red tape, and that is one area where some Asian countries are more flexible.
Lastly, market: of course, with a huge population in the East, there comes market size and market potential, these are all areas that the East and West can collaborate. We feel like such collaboration is not as much as we want it to be, especially in the current geopolitical climate. More bridges are getting burnt down, and in such conditions for some organizations, for some individuals, to make that connection is even more important than before.
Building on that, you’ve also noted in the past that Eastern cultures may be more open to life extension conceptually. How do you see such potential differences in cultural attitudes influencing things like regulatory environments, patient adoption, or investment trends in Asia versus the West?
That’s an interesting topic. Of course, there is criticism, there are people arguing against the idea of longevity, both in the West and the East. These criticisms or concerns are coming from different angles. In the West, there is a strong religious influence such that there’s worry about “Are you playing God?” “We probably shouldn’t linger too much on this life but rather make the best life we can live and then go to heaven.” I’m not an expert on theology or these theories, but that’s the cultural connotation that I felt.
Whereas in the East, there’s less of a religious concern but more from a more practical direction, where they worry if it’s only for the rich people, how about the problems that can come from longer lifespan, like limited resources. Societal class can be more frozen once you give longer lifespans and healthspans to those who already have resources. There are different issues to be addressed, but I feel like Eastern cultures are more receptive to the idea of longevity. There is a tradition from Taoism, from emperors in history where they been pursuing longer lives, of course failed attempts in pursuing longer lives, but such an idea has been there all the time. I would say that they’re at least more open to the idea that it’s not unfathomable to think of a future of our civilization where people can live up to a few hundred years, they can work up to a few hundred years, we’ll be able to achieve great things with our longer lifespans like traveling to other planets.
I’m assuming that you haven’t imbibed mercury like certain Chinese emperors of legend, but you have personally undergone procedures such as follistatin gene therapy and tissue banking. Would you say that these experiences relate in any way to your investment thesis in terms of risk tolerance, for example?
That’s an interesting one. Of course, these are personal attempts, not exactly tied to the fund, but this does reflect on some ideas we have in terms of risk profile, in terms of things that we feel are promising and the kind of actions we think need to be taken. Prototype gene therapy, for example, is, of course, experimental. We understand that for traditional gene therapy, to say traditional is a bit weird, because this is a new field, but gene therapies are generally used for very serious medical conditions and are carried by a virus factor, a lentivirus or AAV, and this is many times irreversible. The kind of gene therapy that I received is, of course, more for general health or longevity, anti-aging purposes, rather than treating an immediate condition. It is carried by a nanolipid, or for my case, a PEI polymer, which is not as transmittable: it will not go to all the cells of my body, it will not be inherited. Rather, it’s more of a one-off shot that will gradually die out.
Many experts in the field are pretty against such a gene therapy, criticizing its efficacy, but they also agree that the risk, the possibility for an adverse event is also low because of its low dosage and low efficacy. From my perspective, I feel like this is definitely an early mover in this direction, in creating gene therapy that’s more transient and that’s more for a larger audience. I want to support the cause. I want to make the pioneers of longevity biotech make money, so that with their role model, there will be more companies that work on this. If you feel like this gene therapy is not efficacious. If you feel like this technology isn’t good enough, why don’t you build a company and develop a better therapy, because, after all, they’re charging a high price, but they also already see some traction.
There are people such as Brian Johnson, who publicly stated that he received a gene therapy, so there’s definitely a market for it. Why not iterate and produce a better product? This is the economic flywheel that we talked about. We want to see such an economic flywheel to attract more resources, more talent, to work on these so it’s also a gesture, a signal, that I received a follistatin gene therapy. I don’t believe it had much of a noticeable effect on me, but fortunately, there’s also no side effect or adverse event, so I’m happy with that.
Yeah, sticking on the subject of risk and technologies, you’ve expressed both enthusiasm and caution about AI’s role in longevity. What specific intersections between those two areas, are you most excited about, and what do you think are the greatest risks?
AI is a big trend and is influencing everything that we do; there are a few interesting directions, and there are companies already exploring those. To name a few, there’s AI drug discovery for smaller molecules as well as biologics. There’s a idea of an AI doctor that can really commoditize diagnosis and medical advice to a level that we have not seen. Of course, there are worries about hallucination, about accountability, that an AI doctor really cannot provide at the moment. There are ideas about a clinical intelligence system where AI could really assist a doctor to make a diagnosis and medical decisions, and we can imagine how AI might be more comprehensive, might be more knowledgeable than our imperfect but marvelous biological brain, so they can really work hand in hand.
These are all very interesting directions, and we feel like funds both from the tech sector and from the pharma or biotech sector are interested in such projects. I would say there’s no better time to start a company, to work on longevity. You have AI at your disposal, you have biotech, longevity research at an inflection point, and more and more capital, talents, attention, and resources will be drawn into the field.
On that subject, your LinkedIn, I noticed that you are a gamer and a dev, and your background is in computer science and being a tech entrepreneur. How do you think that background in other fields has shaped your approach to investing in longevity? Would you say this is a challenge, an advantage, or both?
That’s an interesting one. I’ve been a hardcore gamer growing up, interestingly, I do feel that such experiences shaped my work a bit, shaped my perspective in many things. When I was very young, I got my first Game Boy handheld device, and then I started to play games like Pokemon. In the first few generations of Pokemon, there are glitches, there are hacks that you can make to catch a very rare Pokemon and so on. At first, I didn’t believe in such rumors. Of course, the rumors will go wild, like you first need to smash your game cassette a few times and blow it and then do this and do that, then you can catch Mew or Mewtwo, right?
But then it actually happens. These glitches are real, because at that time, developers have limited RAM space, they have to cram in the data. There are operations you can do to make the game behave unexpectedly such that you can catch the Pokemon you want or you can duplicate important items in game, and that was a big shock to the young version of myself. I didn’t believe it could be real, but now that it’s actually real, it gave me a sense of believing that we can achieve things.
The world that we live in, a simulation or not, is just another very realistic, very complicated game. It is not without glitches; it all works by code or by some law that we shall discover and we will conquer: we can make great things happen. We can make advanced science happen that is indistinguishable to magic. That probably gave me the idea that both the game world and the real world are malleable places.
That’s fascinating, and that leads me to my final question here, which is, what drives you personally for this mission? You mentioned earlier the various ways in which you’re passionate for this, but is there anything specific that you attribute this passion to? What’s your ‘why’?
At the end of the day, this is a infinite game. When it come to other things, there is a limit to it, and you can see it pretty quickly: if you have a goal in life, you achieve the goal, and then the prince and the princess live happily ever after. When it comes to life extension, it’s an infinite game. Of course, we might not win immediately. There’s a possibility that we do not win the game in this generation, but we will pass on this torch, and you either win the game and stay in the game or die trying. This fascinating to me as well, and that gives me motivation to work on this every day. I just want to see how much we can push the boundary. Where’s the limit? In this sense, the exact work that we are working on is pretty unique.
Great. Thank you for sharing, Boyang, and thanks for joining us on this Lifespan interview.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
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