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27 posts on Follow the Money, newest first. All posts →

2026

  1. Follow the Money · Clinical

    Nonprofit hospitals are selling longevity packages from $5,500. Here is what in them is free.

    STAT published the first part today of a series on a trend we have watched arrive: cash-pay longevity clinics inside nonprofit academic hospitals, naming Northwestern, Weill Cornell and the Mayo Clinic.

    5 min read
  2. Follow the Money · Industry

    The aging industry's annual self-portrait convenes at Harvard today. Read the sponsor list.

    The Aging Research and Drug Discovery meeting — the largest conference in longevity biotechnology, now in its thirteenth year and in Boston for the first time — opens today at Harvard and runs through Friday.

    4 min read
  3. Follow the Money · Real Food

    91% of the papers criticizing the ultra-processed-food category had an industry-tied author

    On Tuesday we said to watch who makes the argument against the ultra-processed-food evidence, and who paid for the making. A systematic review in the American Journal of Public Health, described this week by the Oregon Research Institute, has done the counting.

    4 min read
  4. Follow the Money

    $450 million to pay for marketing, repaid by members: the blood-panel funnel gets its own fund

    Function Health, the 160-test membership we wrote about in November, announced $450 million today from a General Catalyst vehicle called the Customer Value Fund.

    4 min read
  5. Follow the Money

    The full-body scan comes to Manhattan with $700 million. The business is the second scan.

    Neko Health, the Stockholm company co-founded by Spotify's founder, announced a $700 million Series C today, led by Lightspeed, ahead of a US launch beginning in New York later this year.

    4 min read
  6. Follow the Money · Industry

    The FDA closed the WHOOP blood-pressure letter. The two words that matter are 'as modified.'

    Eleven months after it told WHOOP that an estimated-blood-pressure feature was on the wrong side of the line between wellness and medicine, the FDA has closed the matter.

    4 min read
  7. Real Food · Evidence

    Three scientists say the trials don't prove processing itself is the problem. Here is the argument without the spin — theirs or ours.

    A Perspective in Science today, by nutrition researchers at Copenhagen, Wageningen and Liverpool (DOI 10.1126/science.aef3495), reviews the five controlled feeding trials that compare ultra-processed and minimally processed diets and concludes that they provide weak support for an…

    5 min read
  8. Follow the Money · Industry

    A reprogramming company's valuation tripled in a year. What changed is a date.

    NewLimit, the epigenetic-reprogramming company we wrote about last October, announced a $435 million Series C today, led by Founders Fund, with Eli Lilly's venture arm returning alongside a long list of new and existing investors.

    4 min read
  9. Follow the Money · Industry

    A $1.8 billion valuation and no human efficacy data. Here is how the math works.

    Retro Biosciences, the longevity company founded with roughly $180 million from the chief executive of OpenAI and with the stated goal of adding ten years to healthy human lifespan, announced today an initial close of its next financing at a pre-money valuation of $1.8 billion, led…

    4 min read
  10. Follow the Money

    The ring filed to go public. The prospectus will be the most honest document the wearable industry has produced.

    Oura announced today that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.

    4 min read
  11. One Chart · Follow the Money

    One chart: twelve deals took 59% of the quarter's health money. The band was the biggest.

    Rock Health's first-quarter tally, out today, counts $4.0 billion of venture money into US digital health across 110 deals, up from $3.0 billion across 122 deals a year ago.

    3 min read
  12. Follow the Money

    Investors just paid about $4,000 per wrist for a $199-a-year band. Read the arithmetic.

    WHOOP, the fitness-band company that received an FDA warning letter over a blood-pressure feature last July, has raised $575 million at a valuation of $10.1 billion, led by Collaborative Fund.

    4 min read
  13. Follow the Money · Clinical

    The FDA warned 30 telehealth companies about GLP-1 ads. The word at issue is 'same.'

    The FDA announced today that it has sent warning letters to 30 telehealth companies over the marketing of compounded GLP-1 drugs — versions of semaglutide and tirzepatide made by compounding pharmacies rather than the manufacturers.

    4 min read
  14. Follow the Money · Evidence

    The first longevity drug may be for dogs. That's the honest path, and here's why.

    Loyal, the company developing lifespan-extension drugs for dogs, announced a $100 million Series C today, bringing its total raised past $250 million.

    4 min read
  15. Follow the Money · Real Food

    How a diet becomes a subscription: a sovereign fund buys into the five-day fast

    L-Nutra, the Los Angeles company behind ProLon — a five-day kit of soups, bars and drink mixes designed to mimic a fast — announced today a $36.5 million investment led by Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, bringing its Series D to $83.5 million.

    4 min read
  16. Follow the Money · Clinical

    A prescription drug now costs what a longevity subscription does. Compare what you get.

    The pill version of Wegovy, approved two weeks ago, went on sale today at more than 70,000 US pharmacies, including CVS and Costco, and through telehealth companies.

    4 min read

2025

  1. Follow the Money · Industry

    An AI drug company that promises 'productive longevity' listed today. Its lead drug is for lungs, not aging.

    Insilico Medicine began trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this morning under the code 3696, raising about HK$2.28 billion — roughly US$290 million — in what the company calls the largest Hong Kong biotech IPO of the year.

    4 min read
  2. Follow the Money

    160 biomarkers for $365. The reference range is where the money is.

    Function Health, the direct-to-consumer lab-testing company, announced today a $298 million Series B at a $2.5 billion valuation, bringing its total raised to about $350 million.

    4 min read
  3. Follow the Money · Mouse Dish or Human?

    One of the world's largest drugmakers just bought into cellular reprogramming. Read what 'clinical' means here.

    NewLimit, the San Francisco company working on epigenetic reprogramming — resetting the chemical marks that tell a cell how old to act — announced today an additional $45 million from Eli Lilly, Duke University's endowment, Section 32 and existing investors, at a $1.62 billion…

    4 min read
  4. Follow the Money

    The ring is now worth $11 billion and sells blood tests. We said this would happen.

    Oura, the Finnish smart-ring maker, announced today a $900 million round led by Fidelity at a valuation of about $11 billion — roughly double where it raised ten months ago.

    4 min read
  5. Real Food · Follow the Money

    Everything has protein in it now. The thing being sold is the word.

    Protein ice cream. Protein soda. Protein water. Protein pancakes, chips, popcorn, candy. Semafor reports today that sales of products marketed as protein-rich rose 4.8% year over year through March, and that the food industry is reformulating whole aisles around a single nutrient.

    4 min read
  6. Follow the Money · Industry

    The FDA just told a wearable where wellness ends. Blood pressure is on the other side.

    The FDA has sent WHOOP, the Boston fitness-band company, a warning letter dated July 14 over Blood Pressure Insights, a feature that gives wearers a daily estimated blood-pressure range on a green-yellow-orange gauge.

    4 min read
  7. Follow the Money

    Whole-body MRI raised $120 million. The radiologists' own college says don't.

    Prenuvo, the whole-body MRI company, announced today a $120 million Series B co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Left Lane Capital, with investors including Cindy Crawford, Anne Wojcicki and Eric Schmidt.

    4 min read
  8. Follow the Money

    The biggest checkbook in aging science belongs to a government. That changes the questions.

    The second Global Healthspan Summit wraps up today in Riyadh. Its host, the Hevolution Foundation, was created by Saudi royal decree, describes an annual budget of up to $1 billion, and says it has committed $400 million to aging research over the past three years, which makes it the…

    4 min read
  9. Follow the Money

    A £299 full-body scan just raised $260 million. Here is what a scan can and cannot tell you.

    Neko Health, the Stockholm company co-founded by Spotify's Daniel Ek, announced today a $260 million Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, reportedly valuing it at about $1.8 billion.

    4 min read

2024

  1. Follow the Money

    A ring is worth $5.2 billion. The thing it measures is free.

    Oura, the Finnish company behind the smart ring, announced today that it has closed a $200 million Series D at a $5.2 billion valuation, with Fidelity and the glucose-sensor maker Dexcom participating.

    4 min read
  2. Follow the Money

    Two nonprofits merged today. Here is the part of longevity that does not scale.

    The SENS Research Foundation — a Mountain View nonprofit founded in 2009 around the idea that aging is accumulated damage that can be repaired — and Lifespan.io, a New York advocacy and crowdfunding group founded in 2014, announced today that they have completed a merger into a new…

    4 min read