A startup claims it’s found a drug to make your blood young

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Antonio Regalado writes, A startup claims it's found a drug to make your blood young.

I knew I'd officially become a longevity influencer in August 2026, when a company called Generation Lab reached out to offer me the chance to write about and even receive their new rejuvenation treatment, an injectable combination of two existing drugs, which they call One Generation. This wasn't just any anti-aging treatment either. A company fact sheet says that it blocks the systemic spread of aging in the bloodstream, reawakens the body's own repair mechanism, and restores health and youth to multiple tissues. The exclusive offer to join a private cohort receiving access to the treatment was being extended to a limited number of people whose judgment on the science we trust, under close physician supervision. There's a long wait list including a lot of celebrities, well-known people, people who you have heard of. Generation Labs CEO Alina Su told me in a conference call. So we're super excited to like create this drug and are letting you know that this first longevity therapeutic in the human body is here and it's actually working.

This was all clearly a marketing campaign and like most other claims in the world of longevity medicine, probably too good to be true. What's more, Generation Lab wouldn't tell me what the two drugs are, making the proposition hard to take seriously. Yet this pitch got my interest. The reason, I'm a long time follower of Generation Labs erasable scientific founder, Irina Conboy, a take-no-guff specialist in the bizarre but scientifically fruitful practice of joining together the circulatory systems of old and young lab animals.

The procedure called parabiosis, or hetero-chronic blood exchange, is one of the few things actually proven to make an old animal act younger. But you can't go through life attached by the veins to a younger person. So, the quest has been to find practical ways to mimic those benefits. And that is something Convoy says she's now achieved by hitting on a combination of two existing drugs that produce youthful effects, but without the need for any bodily fluid exchange. Over the last two months, Convoy has been taking the drug combination and feeling quite a bit better and more energetic, she says. So have a handful of other insiders including Sue, the company's 26-year-old CEO, as well as Convoy's husband and scientific collaborator Michael Convoy. The company's public relations staffer sent me a spreadsheet of the supposed benefits experienced by the participants, including improved vision in a 64-year-old female, longer landscaping sessions for a 59-year-old man, longer badminton games, improved hand grip, better erections than with Viagra, as well as increased bowel movements.

Obviously, any age-reversal drug that works would be the best-selling product of all time. The problem is that none have ever been shown to do that. And Generation's approach to evidence raises several red flags. For instance, Sue says the company now plans to launch a larger study, involving a hundred or more people. However, others are being offered the drug before firm evidence of a benefit is in.

In addition, the trial will be led by longevity doctors who practice alternative medicine. These include Matt Cook, founder of a network of clinics called BioReset Medical. Cook's clinics offer what I would characterize as unproven treatments, such as stem cell injections. A 2021 article reported he'd recommended COVID-19 treatments designated as fraudulent by the FDA.

Those included inhaling amniotic fluid from a nebulizer.

In a phone call, Cook says he initially agreed to prescribe the combination to convoy and a few other insiders. Everyone involved, he says, is a member of the same happening Silicon Valley scene around life extension. My confidence this was going to work was a zero. Like, I did not believe it was actually going to work, says Cook. That is because it's two safe generic drugs that are not even longevity drugs. But Cook, who also took the combination, says there was an effect. And I have to tell you, it was the most surprising thing that ever happened to me, he says. After taking the weekly injections, he experienced a sense of mental clarity that lasted for a day and then several days. The other subjects, he says, reported a sense of well-being, as well as old aches and pains that evaporated. There was a fairly significant broad set of symptoms that doesn't really match what either of the drugs do, he says. So it's interesting, but I have many more questions than I have answers. I still feel like I don't understand exactly what the mechanism is.