Clean blood, deep freeze ... how the super rich plan to live forever (with their pets)

In the Swiss resort of Gstaad last week, investors gathered to shop for the newest luxury - longevity

- Patricia Clarke

As Queen's 1986 track Who Wants to Live Forever fades from the speakers at the Longevity Investors Conference (LIC) in Switzerland, the 39-year-old entrepreneur Emil Kendziorra takes to the stage. He is there to pitch investors his business: cryonics.

"I'm not saying cryopreservation is a safe bet," says Kendziorra to the audience at a private members' club in a five-star hotel. "I'm only saying it's a safer bet than cremation."

The crowd of 40 or so high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) are taut-faced, immaculately dressed - and interested. Kendziorra's company, Tomorrow Bio, offers to freeze its clients' bodies after death for £175,000 plus a £44 monthly fee. Or just their brains, for less.

Tomorrow Bio has doctors and nurses on call 24/7. In the event of a customer's death, says Kendziorra, Tomorrow Bio will rush to their home to preserve the body. Speed is of the essence in cryonics, as any delay can cause long-term tissue degeneration.

The hope, of course, is that one day Kendziorra will be able to bring them back to life. He knows it sounds farfetched. The first person to be frozen - James Bedford in 1967 - is still in storage at Alcor cryonics in Scottsdale, Arizona, because scientists do not know how to safely thaw people, let alone give them a comfortable life when they are reanimated.

And yet two well-placed sources say that private bankers are already offering wealth management plans for the undead, in the event that they should ever thaw.

The LIC, which took place last week, is an exclusive gathering hosted in Gstaad, a resort town with a private airport and a reputation as a playground for the wealthy. The annual event is primarily an opportunity for investors to shop for therapies, supplements and technologies that promise everything from delaying ageing to reversing it - or even, in the case of cryonics, raising the dead.