Q. What got you interested in longevity?
I’ve always felt longevity is about healthy living. Simply adding years to your life isn’t enough, correct? Adding healthy years to your life has always been my concern. I’ve seen many people live to a very old age, but in a debilitated state. Take my own mother, for instance. She lived to the age of 91, perfectly coherent and capable. But she suffered a lot—she had rheumatoid arthritis and couldn’t walk very well. Other than that, she was fantastic. She lived every moment of her life very well. And I used to think to myself: If only she had health on her side, her life would have been so much more enjoyable—without having to rely on a wheelchair and a nurse in her later years. Having the nurse allowed her to live independently, but I felt she could have done so many things she enjoyed—driving, travelling.
Longevity, where you act early and ensure a long and healthy life, intrigued me. What was even more fascinating was the work Dr Saini is doing at the Indian Institute of Science—he’s tracking the age of every organ and tissue in the body, which I found interesting and logical. Today, most people are reactive rather than proactive, and that’s a big problem. I think the concept of understanding the ageing process and acting early to slow down—or even, in some cases, reverse—ageing is appealing.
Ageing is a holistic process. If you understand science, it’s all interconnected. Some people say it’s your brain that determines how healthy you are—and it’s true. The signals your brain sends to every part of your body through neural networks and signalling are so important.
Your body is a complex quantum computer. You’re multiplexing various data signals—whether it’s chemical signalling, protein signalling through DNA or RNA, or neural signalling through electrical impulses—it’s amazing what your body is doing every millisecond. And that’s what determines your state of health.
Understanding life at a molecular and cellular level has always intrigued me. This whole concept of regenerative medicine, and how you tackle disease—studying ageing actually allows you to study every aspect of life.
For example, why is nutrition so important? Because we know that certain kinds of processes are not good for you. How do you ensure you have a healthy cardiac life? How do you ensure you have a healthy set of lungs? How do you ensure you have a healthy liver? All of that is connected to multiple factors—genetics, lifestyle and how you manage it. To me, that’s an interesting way of looking at life and ageing.
Q. How can we make longevity much more accessible to the masses given that there are very few clinics?
It’s all about scale. If you have scale, it becomes affordable. Not everyone is going to buy into this initially. But the moment more people buy into it, and the more we understand about longevity, and the more players enter the sector—then it becomes cheaper, through competitiveness. But we want to drive the science. It’s not just about the number of clinics. I think once you own something around the science, that becomes an interesting business opportunity as well.
Q. What kind of future do you see in terms of research or R&D in this space? Could we eventually come up with a pill or something?
Anti-ageing is a huge area. Everyone is jumping into it. Not just from a cosmetic point of view, but also from a scientific and medical perspective. You can develop new drugs, new diagnostics—there’s so much you can do. There are even new therapies you can develop. It’s an exciting field that’s going to take off. Until now, nobody really bothered. But today, with all these GLP-1s, you can see that lifestyle has once again become the centre of everyone’s attention. Everyone wants to look youthful, slim and fit. I think the time has come for the world to seriously focus on living not just a long life but a healthy life.
Q. We’re hearing about immunosuppressants like Rapamycin that are increasingly becoming popular in the West…
Rapamycin, mTOR inhibitors, they’re all supposed to help with longevity. But for every one of these scientific rationales, you need long-term studies. Very scientifically backed studies—not just hypothetical or anecdotal ones. That’s what’s lacking in our country. And there’s also a lot of ethnicity involved.
Q. Which is where the Bharat Study comes in...
Exactly—that’s why I’m very interested in it. Because of this, I’m keen to understand the importance of ethnicity and the scientific aspects of the study they’re doing—because it will generate a lot of valuable insights. That’s what got me interested.
Q. Do you think there’s a need for a national mission or a policy framework around ageing and longevity?
Until we have more data and a scientific basis for what we’re doing, we shouldn’t have a policy. Once we have compelling scientific data, you turn that into policy—then it makes sense. But we should definitely invest in research. If we can lead the way in longevity research, it will be great. It is an area with great potential, so it’s worth pursuing. It’s still early-stage—everywhere in the world. It’s interesting that some spotlight has come onto this new area. Otherwise, it would have remained underserved and under-invested. Yes, private capital is also coming into this space. BioPeak is doing a lot to support its model through research. Also, I believe the government must allocate some budget for research in longevity and ageing for India to take the lead.
First Published: Nov 21, 2025, 12:51
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