Elysium Health

Elysium Health
Private
Industry Dietary supplements
Founded 2014 (2014)
Founder Leonard Guarente, Eric Marcotulli, Dan Alminana
Headquarters New York City, New York, U.S.
Website elysiumhealth.com

Elysium Health is a dietary supplement company founded in 2014 by biologist Leonard Guarente, Dan Alminana, and Eric Marcotulli.[1] The next year, the company started selling a dietary supplement called Basis that packages two supplements marketed by other companies, nicotinamide riboside, a form of B vitamin found in yeast, and pterostilbene, a polyphenol found in blueberries, into one capsule.[2] The company says that these two ingredients help cells make nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and that they stimulate sirtuins, and is pursuing a similar "anti-aging" marketing path as did Sirtris Pharmaceuticals.[2] Elysium has tried to differentiate the product within the dietary supplement industry as being more scientific and exclusive, by means of the product's minimalist packaging, by not selling the product in drug stores but rather only through its website, and by getting six Nobel prize winners to join its scientific advisory board.[3] Like other companies in the supplement industry, Elysium marketed the product heavily on social media.[1]

By selling the product as a dietary supplement the company doesn't have to invest in clinical trials to prove to the FDA that it is safe and effective, but it cannot market the product as treating any disease or condition.[3] It buys the ingredients from a company called ChromaDex, that sells them to other companies as well.[3] Chromadex and Elysium had an agreement under which Elysium didn't have to acknowledge Chromadex as the source of the ingredients, but then after Elysium recruited the head of manufacturing from Chromadex and stopped paying Chromadex, Chromadex sued Elysium and the information became public.[4]

Elysium is one of several companies founded at around the same time by people with backgrounds in the tech industry and Silicon Valley who saw opportunities in the health and biomedical industries, often focused on anti-aging.[1][5]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wallace, Benjamin. "An MIT Scientist Claims That This Pill Is the Fountain of Youth". New York Magazine.
  2. 1 2 Weintraub, Karen (February 3, 2015). "The Anti-Aging Pill". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 Zhang, Sarah (July 6, 2016). "The Weird Business Behind a Trendy "Anti-Aging" Pill". Wired.
  4. ↑ Buhr, Sarah (January 16, 2017). "A new lawsuit alleges anti-aging startup Elysium Health hasn’t paid its sole supplier". TechCrunch.
  5. ↑ Friend, Tad (April 3, 2017). "Silicon Valley’s Quest to Live Forever". The New Yorker.
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