Google executive says it's possible to live to be 500
"If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is yes," Bill Maris, Google Ventures' managing partner and president, said in a Bloomberg profile.
"Twenty years ago, without genomics, you could only treat cancer with a poison. That's really different from, 'We can cure your cancer by reverse-engineering a stem cell.' You can now legitimately invest in a company that could cure cancer."
Last year, Google Ventures led a $130 million Series B round of funding for New York-based startup Flatiron Health, which has a cloud platform that analyzes cancer data.
Google Ventures has a 4% stake in Foundation Medicine, a company that uses genetic information to help facilitate personalized cancer treatments. Roche, the world's largest biotech company, acquired a majority interest in Foundation Medicine in January.
Google's investment arm has increased its assets invested in life sciences by 30% in two years, Bloomberg reports. The firm has a team of 70 people, with 17 investment partners.
Maris and his team have big plans for the future of science and healthcare. From Bloomberg:
Maris has tapped science's best and brightest to find the next big thing in oncology and life sciences. Investing in science startups is an involved process, so Maris has brought on doctors as partners at Google Ventures who have the training and knowledge to make investment decisions in life science startups. The partner who led Google Ventures' investment in Flatiron Health was Dr. Krishna Yeshwant, a Boston-based doctor.
"In 20 years, chemo will seem so primitive it will be like using a telegraph," Maris told Bloomberg.
You can read Bloomberg's full story here.