New genes: the millionaire guinea pigs risking death to live for ever

Firms offering untested 'longevity' jabs and therapies were once based in offshore free zones. Now a US state is relaxing the rules, writes Patricia Clarke

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Patrick Friedman is no stranger to medical experimentation. Early last year, the American investor and grandson of the Nobel prizewinning economist Milton Friedman had all of the bacteria in his mouth replaced in an attempt to permanently prevent cavities.

He has a microchip embedded in his hand that operates as both a Tesla key and a business card.

On the Caribbean island of Roatán, Honduras, Friedman has now tested a new medicine, a single injection that promises to “increase lean muscle mass and decrease fat”, pitched as a way to slow ageing and extend a person’s healthy years - what the industry calls “longevity”.

The therapy was designed by a company called Minicircle, a startup based between the US and Honduras, where it operates outside the confines of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Friedman, speaking over Zoom, was clear this was a riskier intervention: “I was like: ‘Wow, I'm going to inject something with new DNA into my body.’ I wouldn't blame anyone else for not being comfortable with it.”

Friedman is in the vanguard of the longevity libertarians, setting up projects offshore in “free zones” in order to escape the regulation that they see not as a means of protecting people, but as a constraint on innovation and the potential of humanity.

Their pursuit of eternal life is reshaping legislation in the US, too. In May, the state of Montana broadened its right-to-try legislation, which since 2014 has allowed terminally ill patients to access treatments that have not yet gained FDA approval. Now, otherwise healthy patients will be able to apply to try unproven longevity medicines.

Proponents say it is an exciting way for private companies to carry out potentially lifesaving research at speed, bypassing an outdated and overly bureaucratic FDA. Critics say that it is only a matter of time “before something really bad happens”.