Ken Scott and Helga Sands have been features of the longevity industry conference circuit for about as long as there has been a longevity industry; I first met Ken at at the big Undoing Aging conference in Berlin in 2019, just before COVID started up, and he became one of the early investors in Repair Biotechnologies, the company I co-founded with Bill Cherman. Ken is an enthusiastic self-experimenter for personal gain in health and very much an advocate for something better than the present medical regulatory system, particularly when it comes to the long span of years that it takes for therapies to move from laboratory to clinic. Ken is now in his 80s and not one to be patient; there is a powerful argument there for some form of improvement in terms of the right to try and the primacy of patient choice when considering any balance of risk versus reward in access to new medical technologies.
Ken and Helga recently launched the KHL Foundation, a medical tourism concern that seeks to expand the availability of gene therapies that are already deployed or under development. These are relatively safe approaches to gene therapy that have emerged from the efforts of Bioviva and competitors such as Triple Helix, alongside newer developers such as Unlimited Bio and others. These companies are largely focused on the use of local injections of viral vectors, as that minimizes the potential for adverse immune reactions, and on a few genes and proteins known to robustly produce benefits in animal models: klotho, follistatin, telomerase, and so forth. This seems a growing market, and I expect it to continue to expand in much the same way that the stem cell industry expanded, for better or worse. Few companies will publish data, it will be hard to distinguish high quality versus low quality clinics, but over time a few companies will take what has been learned, pay the regulatory costs, and bring the best approaches to clinics in the US and Europe. Meanwhile, for anyone who doesn't want to wait, there is medical tourism.
The KHL Foundation, founded by Kenneth Scott (b. 1942) and Helga Sands (b. 1938), is dedicated to making proven rejuvenation therapies available now for people over 60 who refuse to age on schedule. We founded the KHL Foundation because we believe that people over 60 deserve access to the best scientifically grounded rejuvenation therapies available today, not ten or twenty years from now. We test therapies on ourselves. We partner with trusted clinicians. We share results openly. And we move with the insouciance of youth, because we know how precious time is.
The Rejuvenation Cocktail delivers three carefully selected gene therapies that target the core mechanisms of aging. Each gene enhances one of the pillars of vitality - muscle, mind, and metabolism - to restore youthful performance and resilience. Results are designed to be long lasting, with effects that will persist for 15 to 20 years. Klotho is often called the longevity gene. It supports neuronal health, maintains vascular flexibility, and reduces inflammation. Follistatin suppresses myostatin and activin - both limit muscle growth. Increasing its levels enhances muscle regeneration. Sirtuin 1 is a master regulator of mitochondrial function and cellular energy. The treatment includes same day intramuscular injections of follistatin gene therapy and intranasal application under local anesthetic of klotho and sirtuin 1 gene therapies.
View the full article at FightAging
