Episode 25
From Blockbuster Medicine to Extending Healthspan with Sundeep Dugar PhD
On Beyond Longevity, host Daphna speaks with Dr Sundeep Dugar, PhD, co-founder of BlueOakNx and the scientists behind the blockbuster cholesterol medicines Zetia (ezetimibe) and Vytorin. He explains how Zetia transformed cholesterol treatment by blocking cholesterol absorption in the intestine, and reflects on what it really takes to discover a breakthrough medicine: collaboration, perseverance, intellectual honesty, and the willingness to follow the data despite constant uncertainty.
Dr Sundeep discusses why artificial intelligence is set to transform drug discovery by accelerating analysis and identifying patterns that humans might miss, while arguing that it cannot replace scientific judgment or the need to validate therapies in complex biological systems. He also critiques modern drug development for being overly reductionist, focusing heavily on efficacy while too often overlooking whole-body biology and long-term safety.
The conversation explores his decision to leave traditional pharmaceutical drug development and focus instead on extending healthspan through BlueOakNx. He explains the science behind mitochondrial health and epicatechin, a naturally occurring compound that promotes mitochondrial biogenesis and energy production, while emphasising that it is designed to complement—not replace—the foundations of good health, including exercise, sleep and nutrition.
Dr Sundeep also explains why BlueOakNx chose the nutraceutical route, believing it offered the fastest way to make scientifically grounded interventions more accessible, more affordable and available to more people than the conventional pharmaceutical pathway. He discusses the company’s collaboration with the New York Academy of Sciences on a symposium series focused on energy metabolism, and BlueOakNx’s selection as one of just 40 teams chosen from more than 600 applicants to compete in the $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan competition.
Resources
* New York Academy of Sciences – Energy Symposium Series
00:00 Podcast Intro Guest
02:32 Blockbuster Drugs Legacy
05:37 How Zetia Was Found
07:29 Breakthroughs Doubt Lab
11:46 AI Limits Drug Discovery
17:47 Why Drug Candidates Fail
20:52 From Pharma to Ageing
21:54 Mitochondria Energy Quest
27:23 Blue Oak Mission Epicatechin
31:57 Key Terms Next Steps
32:13 Not a Muscle Pill
32:59 Mitochondria and Real Exercise
34:26 Ageing and Energy Decline
35:26 Supplement Not a Substitute
37:19 Why Go Nutraceutical
41:01 Science and Access Model
43:50 Affordability and Outreach
46:41 XPRIZE Healthspan Entry
49:39 Safety First Philosophy
54:14 Rapid Fire and Wrap Up
58:06 Host Closing Message
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Welcome to Beyond Longevity, the podcast that explores not just how we age, but how we can build a longer, healthier future for ourselves.
Speaker A:Very few scientists ever create a medicine that changes the way millions of people are treated.
Speaker A:Today's guest has done it twice.
Speaker A:Dr. Sandeep Duga was one of the scientists behind Zetia and Vitorin, two medicines that transformed cholesterol management and have been prescribed to millions of patients worldwide.
Speaker A:More than two decades later, Ezetimibe remains the only approved medicine of its kind, lowering cholesterol by blocking its absorption in the intestine.
Speaker A:Within pharmaceutical research, Dr. Duga is widely respected and very well known for those achievements.
Speaker A:Outside those circles, however, his name is far less well known.
Speaker A:Today, Dr. Dugas focus has shifted from treating disease to helping people stay healthier for longer.
Speaker A:He is co founder and chief scientific officer of Blue Oak Nutraceuticals, where he is applying decades of drug discovery experience to mitochondrial science and healthspan.
Speaker A:Rather than spending another decade or more navigating the traditional pharmaceutical pathway, he chose a different route, developing an intervention that could reach millions of people much sooner while remaining scientifically rigorous, affordable and accessible to those who need it most.
Speaker A:His work has also been recognized internationally.
Speaker A:Blue Oak is one of just 40 teams selected from more than 600 applicants in the $101 million XPRIZE HealthSP competition, one of the world's most ambitious efforts to transform the way we think about aging and healthy longevity.
Speaker A:In this conversation, we talk about what it really takes to discover a medicine, why so many promising drug candidates fail, what artificial intelligence can and cannot do for drug discovery, why Dr. Duga believes medicine has become too reductionist, and and why mitochondria may play a far more central role in human health than many people realize.
Speaker A:Hi Dr. Sandy.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for joining me on Beyond Longevity today.
Speaker A:I have to start by saying this because it's quite extraordinary.
Speaker A:Most pharmaceutical scientists spend their entire careers hoping to contribute to one successful medicine you helped invent not one, but two blockbuster medicines, Zetia and Vitorin, that went on to reach millions of patients around the world.
Speaker A:For listeners who may not know these medicines, though, I'm surprised if there are any that don't know them.
Speaker A:Zetia is Ezetimibe, a cholesterol lowering drug that works differently from statins.
Speaker A:Instead of mainly targeting cholesterol production in the liver, it helps reduce cholesterol absorption in the intestine.
Speaker A:Hope I got that right so far.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And Vitorin, then combined Ezetimide with Simvastatin, a statin sort of in one treatment.
Speaker A:Have I gotten that correct?
Speaker A:As a completely non medical person, you.
Speaker B:Have it right on the dot.
Speaker A:Does it ever feel surreal to you that something which once existed only as an idea in a lab and in your head ended up becoming a medicine used by so many people?
Speaker B:Nobody's asked me that question before.
Speaker B:So Daphna, that's me by the way, let me also say this, that I was part of an amazing group of scientists that led to Zs and to Vitorin.
Speaker B:So while I was involved in it from the start, it really takes a team to get the process out there.
Speaker B:So I just want your audience to appreciate that this is was a group of amazing scientists committed who really made this happen.
Speaker B:To your question.
Speaker B:You know, I never thought about it that way because as a scientist you are very much focused to objective data set and surrealism doesn't quite cross our brain.
Speaker B:But yeah, now that you mentioned it was not that at that moment, but I think back about it that and you actually also measured it very well.
Speaker B:That said that it has potentially and hopefully has helped many people out there.
Speaker B:To me that's its blockbuster status to be measured in the many, many people it has helped.
Speaker B:So yeah, it feels good.
Speaker B:I do meet every now and then people who are on Zetia and it still brings me back with humility to the area that you've done something that has helping people.
Speaker A:You're being very humble about it.
Speaker A:Yes, you certainly helped quite a number of people.
Speaker A:But tell me, before Zetia became Zetia, where did the story begin?
Speaker A:What problem were you trying to solve?
Speaker A:Or were you trying to solve a problem?
Speaker A:How did it all come about?
Speaker B:In most of science, it doesn't follow a straight linear path.
Speaker B:One of the best things we can do when we do science is be observant and see where is the data leading us.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Science has a clear, objective honesty streak to it.
Speaker B:You need to follow it.
Speaker B:Zetia came about more through diligent analysis of data combined with serendipity, combined with scientists who were willing to go to a place that nobody's gone before.
Speaker B:These are the days of the statins.
Speaker B:While everybody was trying to stop your body from making cholesterol, people didn't know how your body absorbed cholesterol.
Speaker B:And it was not a question we asked in the beginning.
Speaker B:But given our data, soon we started to ask the question, yes, I can stop your body from making cholesterol.
Speaker B:What about the cholesterol you absorb?
Speaker B:That led to a fundamental question.
Speaker B:How can one ignore that component of cholesterol?
Speaker B:Getting into your body.
Speaker B:And that's what ZETIA is, was the first and is currently the only therapeutic out there that stops your body from absorbing cholesterol.
Speaker B:So the idea was to lower cholesterol.
Speaker B:But as science went on, we got the data, it led to the question of, how do you stop the body from cholesterol?
Speaker B:Then the team together figured out what was the process, and ZETIA stops that process.
Speaker A:I want to talk a little bit more about that process because I just find it so interesting.
Speaker A:What does it feel like when you're in the lab and you're working on something?
Speaker A:You know, at what point point do you think, oh my gosh, this is something really revolutionary and incredible?
Speaker A:Do you start off trying to do something revolutionary and incredible, or does it just happen?
Speaker B:We always try to do something meaningful, that our process and methods is contributing to the all the knowledge about science.
Speaker B:And through that, we are trying to address a problem.
Speaker B:Now, sometimes you find a solution that's revolutionary or you find a problem that has never been thought of.
Speaker B:Hence your solution becomes revolutionary.
Speaker B:We are so close to the process of doing it.
Speaker B:It's often not what we think about that.
Speaker B:Hey, will this be revolutionary?
Speaker B:It almost becomes a quest to answer a question.
Speaker B:And they say, yeah, we gotta figure this out.
Speaker B:This is an important question.
Speaker B:This is relevant and critical, and that's what we do.
Speaker B:And the team moves on from data to data, till one day the picture becomes clear and then you see what you have.
Speaker A:Let me ask you about the other side of the coin, because I think every successful medicine has a moment where maybe you think, oh, this is a waste of time, this isn't going to make it.
Speaker A:What was the biggest hurdle that you had within the process?
Speaker A:Was there ever a moment when you thought, no, it's a lovely idea, but it's not going anywhere.
Speaker B:Oh, doubt is not occasional.
Speaker B:It's often, oh, you come back and you wake up in the morning and say, where am I going?
Speaker B:Where is this leading?
Speaker B:But at those moments, you go back to the idea of, is this question important to be answered?
Speaker B:Not knowing how this will contribute to the whole thing.
Speaker B:And you just answer that question.
Speaker B:That leads to three new ones.
Speaker B:Then you pick the next ones to ask a question.
Speaker B:Oh, so doubt is constantly there where you're saying, am I even asking the right question?
Speaker B:Because you're out in frontier land where nobody's done a lot what you're doing.
Speaker B:And you always say, well, first, if nobody's done it, why haven't they done it?
Speaker B:And if it is to be Done is the process.
Speaker B:I'm following the right way to do it, because there's no instruction sheet that this comes with.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So you are on by the seat of your pants.
Speaker B:But if you have good colleagues, good scientists, and you are working together, that's how you solve the problem, by always realizing that perhaps if this is a bad start, you are comfortable enough to come back and ask the question a different way.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So part of science is a requirement of humility of your own limitations, that you may not have asked the right question and you've got to admit that you have not.
Speaker B:And you come back and say, okay, if that is not what is the right question, or perhaps a better question to answer?
Speaker B:So, yeah, it's.
Speaker B:It's a daily life of scientists.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You're always in frontier land, not knowing where the road is going to lead.
Speaker A:You, which I guess makes it exciting.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:If it would be a simple process, everybody would be doing it.
Speaker B:It would be boring.
Speaker B:You put it very well.
Speaker B:It would be boring.
Speaker B:And we live on the edge of excitement.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So when you ask the question, and you've asked the question, and then one day you get a data set, you are on top of the world for that day, and then the next day you're way back down again.
Speaker A:If you had to discover ZTIA today, with AI and computational biology and these massive data sets and everything we now know, do you think the whole journey would look completely different, or do you think the hardest parts of drug discovery are still the same?
Speaker B:So I think that the hardest part of drug discovery are pretty much the same because the human body has not changed.
Speaker B:We are speaking about if a disease that is resident in a dynamic system, it's not static.
Speaker B:Our bodies are constantly changing, adapting, evolving.
Speaker B:When a disease takes hold, it's adapting.
Speaker B:It's not normal anymore.
Speaker B:Each one of us is a unique individual.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Close to 8 billion of us.
Speaker B:There's not a duplicate Daphna out there.
Speaker A:Thank goodness for that.
Speaker B:Thank goodness for that.
Speaker B:And so in a good way.
Speaker B:But what I'm trying to say is that it's hard for systems to project dynamic changes that are due to a lot of things we do.
Speaker B:When you eat, how you sleep, where you live, your family environment, your friend environment, your professional environment, your genetics, your et cetera, all these combine to make you who you are, give you the health you have, and respond to challenges that your body faces.
Speaker B:That's the issue we're trying to deal with.
Speaker B:It's the dynamic component that I think would be very hard.
Speaker B:So AI Machine learning can take the prior data and tell us how to get to the starting point, perhaps sooner, maybe with better tools, maybe with better questions.
Speaker B:But the experimentation, the assessments, still have to go the way it is.
Speaker B:Now, I may say something that maybe in this day and age is politically incorrect, so you can scrub it off.
Speaker A:No, no, go for it.
Speaker B:Is saying that gestational period of pregnancy is nine months.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I cannot have nine women and combine their resources to have a baby in one month.
Speaker B:It just doesn't work.
Speaker B:The processes of health, our human dynamics, are evolutionarily ingrained in our system.
Speaker B:That is how it is.
Speaker B:If you cut yourself, I cannot stop you from bleeding or feeling pain.
Speaker B:You will do it.
Speaker B:And thank goodness for that.
Speaker B:We still need human brains to really look at data, but at the end, machine learning can help us analyze it from perspectives we have not been able to do before.
Speaker B:So it clearly has a role.
Speaker B:But can it do it where you push a button and alcohols are therapeutic?
Speaker B:I don't think so.
Speaker A:You promised me something really out there.
Speaker A:This was not out there.
Speaker A:Come on.
Speaker A:I really want you to give me something out there.
Speaker A:This was.
Speaker A:The majority of normal thinking people will agree with you.
Speaker A:So you've got to try a bit harder to sort of harder shock me and the listeners.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Well, on this one I can't because unfortunately, good health and our ability to address health will be helped by technology.
Speaker B:It is being helped by technology.
Speaker B:But the human brain and analytics still have a role.
Speaker B:Ephemeral thinking.
Speaker B:I mean, the whole idea is at that point, putting together something and having a brain wave is something humans can do.
Speaker A:I guess AI can support researchers in the administrative work, analytics.
Speaker B:So to me, I call it analytical intelligence, not artificial intelligence.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker B:And it's what it is, is machine learning.
Speaker B:I can look at data sets from different perspectives.
Speaker B:I can look patterns, I can understand patterns better.
Speaker B:I can query and say, what about this?
Speaker B:What about that?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:It has significant power in doing that.
Speaker A:And there's still a big difference with in vitro and in vivo results.
Speaker B:Oh, yes, right, yes.
Speaker A:Because I think even for your drug discovery, I think your in vitro results were very different to your in vivo results, were they not?
Speaker B:They're always.
Speaker B:Because asking a question to a reductionist process, okay, gives you guidance, but does not give you the understanding of a system process.
Speaker B:I can take someone's kidney cells or a kidney cell and study it because it exists by itself.
Speaker B:But in a body, that kidney exists in connection with the heart and the liver and the rest of the body.
Speaker B:Which are constantly communicating.
Speaker B:And so, so correct that the idea that in vitro or ex vivo can analyze things.
Speaker B:No, I mean, they can guide me towards which way to go.
Speaker B:Even today, even drug discovery preclinical studies prove nothing.
Speaker B:It simply tells me, perhaps I have something that I should evaluate.
Speaker B:In humans, Absolutely.
Speaker A:Most promising drug candidates never become medicine for whatever reason.
Speaker A:Is there a common reason that usually kills them?
Speaker B:Yes, it is our obsessiveness to look for efficacy.
Speaker B:When we do our lot of our studies, whether we are researchers or investors, we look at, hey, this particular therapeutic works to do this.
Speaker B:The real challenge of drug discovery and development is the other 90%.
Speaker B:We focus so much on efficacy, we forget that the disease exists in a system.
Speaker B:I cannot fix your kidney and kill your heart.
Speaker B:It does not work.
Speaker B:So to make it simple, the process has become reductionist.
Speaker B:And we're always striving to make it simpler and more reductionist.
Speaker B:It won't work.
Speaker B:If you go back into drug discovery statistics, some of the most prolific period of drug development was back in the 60s and 70s when we studied whole systems.
Speaker B:What we do often now is reduce them down to pathways.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And that's true even in our therapeutics approaches.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If you are not well, you go to your internist, the primary medical care.
Speaker B:But the moment they say, well, your heart needs an attention, they go send you to the cardiologist.
Speaker B:If it's the kidney, you end up with a nephrologist.
Speaker B:So even in our medical practice, we are managing disease, we are not promoting health.
Speaker B:A cardiologist will treat your heart, but does not pay a lot of attention.
Speaker B:What else could be going on?
Speaker B:So you are hopping from practitioners to practitioners, trying to get each part of your body fixed.
Speaker B:So what we have done is approaching drug development the same way.
Speaker B:If I can fix your tumor but destroy the rest of the body, what good does it do?
Speaker B:And we have forgotten that the two essential pillars of health are exercise and nutrition.
Speaker B:And we rarely speak about it.
Speaker B:So my thinking, this is my thought, that for us to get healthy, we have to start going back to areas of understanding system biology, understanding that reducing the human body to its part may help you with that part, but does it help the whole body?
Speaker B:And the evidence is coming around that probably not.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So before we move into what you are doing now to help all that, I just want to just pull out a little bit because you have already achieved what most pharmaceutical scientists can only dream of.
Speaker A:You developed not just one, but two medicines that reached millions of patients.
Speaker A:And many people might have expected you to spend the rest of your career continuing to do so, you know, to stay within the pharma industry.
Speaker A:Instead, you turned your attention to one of the biggest questions in medicine.
Speaker A:What I think is one of the biggest questions in medicine, which is, can we actually target the biology of aging itself?
Speaker A:What made you think this is a problem I want to spend the next chapter of my life solving?
Speaker B:Uh, Dahna, to be honest, that's now how I got into this.
Speaker B:As they say, it's the curiosity that killed the cat.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B: I happened upon some data in: Speaker B: And it shocked me that in: Speaker B:Remember the whole story about Zetia?
Speaker B:Nobody had asked the question, how do you absorb cholesterol?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The basic question becomes, how do you make more energy?
Speaker B:Sure, you eat your food, you do all these things, but what happens?
Speaker B:How do you make that into energy?
Speaker B:And if energy is the existential reason of our survival?
Speaker B:Because without energy, there is no life.
Speaker B:And so as that story started to come in front of me, it became very clear to me that health and energy are linked.
Speaker B:And it's not my determination, it's.
Speaker B:Everybody accepts that, yet nobody's addressing it, right?
Speaker B:And that is a ultimate system approach.
Speaker B:A good colleague and I call him friend Bob Navio.
Speaker B:Others talk about, we have a capacity to heal ourselves.
Speaker B:So if you think about it, aging, health, perhaps, is our ability losing our ability to heal ourselves, right?
Speaker B:If we gave ourselves that ability, would we prevent disease?
Speaker B:And if you look at it, aging is a disease or is a condition that evolves.
Speaker B:So if you come down to the node of it, the question becomes, is this done?
Speaker B:And people have reported it's not.
Speaker B:Others have reported that, yes, exercise improves health, improves aging.
Speaker B:Good nutrition improves health, improves aging.
Speaker B:Tens and hundreds of research supporting it.
Speaker B:How does it happen?
Speaker B:Was the argument.
Speaker B:And that all comes down to your mitochondria and the food.
Speaker B:So to your question, was I going after aging?
Speaker B:Not specifically.
Speaker B:What I was going after is understanding how energy plays the quintessential central role in human health.
Speaker B:And if there's a way for us to promote energy in humans, would we be healthier?
Speaker B:And the answer over 17 years has been absolutely, yes.
Speaker B:Which is not surprising because we are energy beings, right?
Speaker B:The difference, my colleagues at Columbia Martin Picard put it very well, the difference between a dead body and a living body is that the living body has energy the.
Speaker B:The dead body has all the biological structures, but doesn't have energy to do anything with it.
Speaker B:So that's how it got started, and it became an idea, as you said, that led to questions that, okay, if exercise is good for you to make more energy because it makes mitochondria, well, how does this happen?
Speaker B:2010, Nobody could tell me.
Speaker B:And I said, how can we not have an answer to the most fundamental question of how the body makes mitochondria when you exercise?
Speaker B:Because imagine mitochondria is in every cell of your body, okay, except the red blood cell.
Speaker B:But a cell will not die till the mitochondria decides it is the one thing that we share with every species on planet Earth, including plants.
Speaker B:So it has to be important.
Speaker B:And if the one way we generate it is exercise, how could we not know the answer to that question?
Speaker B: that became my Quest, and in: Speaker B:Voltaire said, no problem can withstand the sustained thinking of a human mind.
Speaker B:Now, that's arrogant.
Speaker B:That's hubris.
Speaker B:But given time, we have the capacity to figure out solutions as long as we stay true to the question that we're asking.
Speaker B:So, going back to your question, so aging and health go hand in hand.
Speaker B:I can live hundred years, but if I'm in an icu, that's not life.
Speaker B:So we prefer to say, instead of aging, let's call healthspan fair.
Speaker B:Because now I can measure it.
Speaker B:Measuring healthspan individually, that you're living to be 80 and you can still walk down the stairs, you can go for a hike and et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker A:So let's call a spade a spade.
Speaker A:Here you are now co founder of a blue oak, Nutraceuticals, which, as you said, focuses on mitochondrial science and healthspan.
Speaker A:What is your overall goal that you're trying to achieve with blue oak?
Speaker A:And is there just one goal or do you have various.
Speaker B:We figured out the internal mechanism, how exercise leads to mitochondria.
Speaker B:Now, I said to you earlier, there are two pillars to good health, Energy, exercise, and nutrition.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:So what I will say to you now is mainly focused on the mitochondria side.
Speaker B:And I want all your audiences to always keep in mind that nutrition is still a very relevant, important part of your health, okay?
Speaker B:What we have developed is not a magic pill.
Speaker B:It is something that will help you, but you cannot ignore.
Speaker B:The other part is good nutrition.
Speaker B:So coming back to the idea of the exercise relating to mitochondria, we figured out that there's a specific natural product, epicatechin, that mimics this, and we've been studying it now for 14 years.
Speaker B:A lot of colleagues, again, I speak with you, but there are tens of colleagues of mine who have been part of this journey with me.
Speaker B:So I want to acknowledge their contribution, I want to acknowledge their wisdom and et cetera.
Speaker B:So think of me as a spokesperson for all these people for the last 16, 17 years.
Speaker B:But the goal here really comes to simple, that if I can supplement your mitochondria, am I giving this energy back to your system for your body then to do what it needs and can do best, better than anybody else?
Speaker B:All I'm giving it are the resources.
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker B:So if you were to ask any clinician, hey, if your patient could exercise, would it benefit them?
Speaker B:The universal answer is yes.
Speaker B:So all we are doing in the background is giving the body this without them having to exercise because they can't.
Speaker B:Fair.
Speaker B:So what is my goal or our goal at Blue Oak?
Speaker B:All my team at Blue Oak, I mean, amazing group of people, dedicated people, is to really educate, introduce, and make this a possibility where it is globally available.
Speaker B:So what we did was founded a public benefit corporation with the idea that we need to be a sustainable business, but we also want to be having a product that people have access and they can afford.
Speaker B:If mitochondria is true to health, its application is agnostic to the condition.
Speaker B:And so far, in so many human studies, that's exactly what we are seeing.
Speaker B:So now you have something that is very safe because it's been part of the human diet for 5,000 years and has only one role, to supplement your mitochondrial level and then let the body do the rest.
Speaker B:And in some cases, you'll see an effect in eight weeks.
Speaker B:Sometimes it takes three months.
Speaker B:And that depends on you and your condition and other things that affect your health in your life, which we cannot touch.
Speaker B:So it's a grand idea, a grand goal, and we are approaching three years into it, so we're gonna start a third year this August.
Speaker B:And we're very excited that we are moving forward.
Speaker B:Sometimes a little slow because of I get impatient, but nonetheless moving along methodically and purposefully, but always still validating everything through scientific foundations and credibility to say, how can we do this?
Speaker B:How can we move forward?
Speaker B:So that's our goal, is to see if we can make people healthy.
Speaker A:There are a few things I want to pick up, but I have to do it one by one.
Speaker A:You've mentioned Epicatechin, and there's also mitochondrial biogenesis.
Speaker A:A lot of people listening to us are not scientists.
Speaker A:They are in the longevity field.
Speaker A:They're either interested or investors or whatever.
Speaker A:Just explain to them what exactly that is.
Speaker A:And also you mentioned that it's a mimetic drug or supplement.
Speaker A:Now, you've said it's for people who can't exercise.
Speaker A:Now when people hear that, they think, fantastic, I'm going to sit on my sofa, pop some pills, and I'm going to grow muscles.
Speaker A:That isn't really what it is, is it?
Speaker A:No, just explain so that everybody is on the same page and really understands the incredible effect these nutraceuticals have on the body that you've developed.
Speaker A:It's so much.
Speaker A:Well, it's not about growing muscle.
Speaker B:So fundamentally, you need mitochondria to function.
Speaker B:Okay, I can't lift my hand.
Speaker B:I can't move my hand.
Speaker B:You can't listen to me, et cetera, unless the mitochondria in those specific area or organs or tissue of your body make the energy for you to do it.
Speaker B:So they make energy 247 to keep you alive.
Speaker B:They maintain your body temperature.
Speaker B:They do everything.
Speaker B:Not just build muscle.
Speaker B:Okay, and let me redefine exercise.
Speaker B:Exercise is not just going to the gym.
Speaker B:Exercise is also having a good sleep.
Speaker B:Believe it or not, when you're sleeping in your deep sleep rent sleep cycle, your brain is hyperactive.
Speaker B:It's actually using a lot of energy.
Speaker B:So much so that the rest of your body is in paralysis.
Speaker B:Your physical body's in paralysis.
Speaker B:So good sleep is brain exercise, reading is exercise.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Music makes your brain exercise.
Speaker B:So exercise is not equal to going to the gym?
Speaker B:Yes, that's part of it.
Speaker B:So when you exercise your body systemically, by doing all these things, having a good sleep, physical workout, resting, et cetera, you make yourself healthy.
Speaker B:And each tissue bed, based on its role, will produce the mitochondria it needs.
Speaker B:As we age, after age 21, your inherent ability to make that mitochondria starts to go down.
Speaker B:And the primary reason is your body stops growing.
Speaker B:So in your growth phase.
Speaker B:Consider your growth phase as your internal exercise for which the body needs to make energy.
Speaker B:And so it is geared to making its energy.
Speaker B:As you each age 21, you stop growing.
Speaker B:And from then on, every decade, you lose 10, 15% of your mitochondrial content.
Speaker B:And that's aging.
Speaker B:That's just normal.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:If you eat bad food, you lose more mitochondria.
Speaker B:If you don't exercise regularly, you lose mitochondria.
Speaker B:If you don't sleep well, you lose mitochondria.
Speaker B:So from then on, you go downhill.
Speaker B:And the slope of that downhill is based not just on your time aging, but your lifestyle and everything else.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:So everybody has this quote unquote exercise deficit.
Speaker B:And if you do not supplement that, you will see the downward silo.
Speaker B:What we do is help you get to the place where you can add this as a supplement but cannot replace the other things you do.
Speaker B:It's simply like saying, all I need is protein.
Speaker B:No, you need protein and you need fiber and you need carbs, and you eat the whole diet, a balanced diet, same thing.
Speaker B:If you take the supplement, it'll help you, but doesn't mean you be a couch potato.
Speaker B:But what this can do is give you the energy.
Speaker B:Now, if you're not well, for example, if you're coming out of surgery and you are in bed for six weeks or two weeks and you cannot exercise, then at least to some extent, this will continue to support your system.
Speaker B:Because we also have things like disuse, atrophy and.
Speaker B:Daphne, I can.
Speaker B:I mean, this could be a three hour conversation.
Speaker B:So what I'm trying to say to people and to you is that this is from our studies, our validation is a good way to supplement the mitochondria that you're losing, but in of itself is not sufficient.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:It's not just take this and rest is all hunky dory.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:And when you speak about recreation.
Speaker B:So biogenesis means the number of mitochondria per cell goes down as you age, and when you exercise or take the supplement, it starts to bring it back to where it should be so your cells have the energy to function better.
Speaker A:You are being, as always, very humble about all your work and all your research.
Speaker A:And I really want to shine a light on something that I personally found very, very impressive.
Speaker A:Because you spent much of your career developing prescription medicines through the traditional pharmaceutical pathways.
Speaker A:But with your mitochondrial work with blue oak, you've taken a different route by making it a nutraceutical, which many listeners may not know.
Speaker A:But there is a big difference between the pathways of prescription medicine and nutraceuticals and supplements.
Speaker A:Pharmaceuticals have long regulatory pathways.
Speaker A:Clinical trials are very, very expensive.
Speaker A:A nutraceutical can reach people much faster because it sits outside the drug approval system.
Speaker A:And I believe the reason for you doing that is because you wanted as many people as possible to have access to that.
Speaker A:Was that a scientific decision, a commercial decision, a philosophical decision about, you know, equality of access?
Speaker A:What was your reason for doing it that way.
Speaker B:Great question.
Speaker B:The answer is all of the above and I'll tell you why.
Speaker B:We started this whole process to really get into a therapeutic mode.
Speaker B:So we have done phase one clinical trials.
Speaker B:So we have followed this through the rigor of what would be needed for a regulatory pharmaceutical product.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:What hit me was that this product is applicable not to one disease, but to health itself.
Speaker B:Okay, so how do you define health in a regulatory term?
Speaker B:You cannot.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So patients that have taken this span, everything from diabetics with cardiomyopathy to muscular dystrophy, to ataxia, et cetera, et cetera, each is a defined disease.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So if I were to get approval, I would have to do hundred plus clinical trials in each indication to get it approved.
Speaker B:Now you're talking of hundreds of millions of dollars and then somebody has to pay for it.
Speaker B:And at the end, it's the patient that does pay for it.
Speaker B:Fair.
Speaker B:And it would take me the next 30 years or 50 years to finish all of those studies.
Speaker B:But often those studies, they're not done just for efficacy, but they're also done to define what's the safety profile of the drug.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So when I do a bigger trial, I can understand what are the side effects.
Speaker B:Now, in this situation, I don't have any side effect issues.
Speaker B:So remember I told you a while ago is that 90% that people don't focus on.
Speaker B:Well, I already have that answer.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I'm fortunate that 90% of what we call off target issues, I have an answer.
Speaker B:So I can focus on the 10% of the issue, but then there are multiple 10%.
Speaker B:But if I have safety, I can do a in life evaluation in patients because I know I won't hurt them.
Speaker B:The worst that would happen is it won't work.
Speaker B:So what we decided to do are we called structure function studies, and they are studies we do in clinical settings.
Speaker B:And we try to understand what are the parameters that we should look for in patients in each subgroup to say, hey, they are responding to the drug or to that nutraceutical.
Speaker B:Now I know that safety is not an issue.
Speaker B:I have to demonstrate efficacy and I can go to subpopulations.
Speaker B:And that's what we're doing.
Speaker B:We're continuously doing this drug first.
Speaker B:So our approach is not like spaghetti, throw it on the wall and see what sticks.
Speaker B:Our approach is to still go methodically from patient, but now we have cut the cost down to tens of thousands and our readout down to three to six months.
Speaker B:So if we do that, we can continue to Expand this into patients, faster, cheaper.
Speaker B:And so what we did was we put this whole thing in what in the US call the Public Benefit Corporation.
Speaker B:We are self funded, we are funded by angels to continuously keep this product accessible and affordable.
Speaker B:And so the rigor of science is still there.
Speaker B:Our manufacturing is to the pharmaceutical grade.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:We have done our initial clinical studies to show exposure, et cetera, in normal humans that would be required.
Speaker B:So we've done all of that.
Speaker B:And since we're not looking for an approval by the fda, we can do a structure function study.
Speaker B:And clinicians themselves who are independent of us can make a determination whether this would work or not for their patients.
Speaker B:So it came around to me that coming from a pharmaceutical world, I can do this and I will have significant financial returns or I can do this the other way where I can have both a successful business, but really starting to get to patients.
Speaker B:So we're looking to launch it in Mexico, UK after two years in the us so we also validated this process for two years in the US post launch and now we feel that discovery.
Speaker B:So we just came to UK London at the IPM conference and the idea here is to start to have conversations with foundations, patient groups, clinicians, and say, look, let's together figure out whether it's relevant to you, knowing that safety will not be an issue.
Speaker B:So that's the kind of pathway we're trying to follow.
Speaker A:And I know you're not big on blowing your own trumpets or as they say in the US blowing your own horn, but I do know that you also give the supplement to people at cost for those where the clinician says they can't afford it.
Speaker B:Yes, we do.
Speaker A:Didn't want to be remiss mentioning that because the problem in, I guess, the supplement industry as a whole and the longevity field as a whole is often that it's become very, very commercial.
Speaker A:So wanted to throw that out.
Speaker B:Well, thank you.
Speaker B:And we are very, very much committed to that.
Speaker B:And that's why we are very clear in our mandate to everybody that look, we want to be sustainable business because if we are not, then everybody loses.
Speaker B:So we need to be sustainable business.
Speaker B:We need to still pay our salaries to our employees, which they deserve.
Speaker B:They deserve whatever it is.
Speaker B:But our main goal really, Daphne, is to keep dropping the price as we increase our market.
Speaker B:And that's it.
Speaker B:It's actually decrease the price.
Speaker B:So the more and more people across the globe, I mean, if you think about it, it's not just the western world, South Asia, Africa, Central America, I mean, even in my backyard and even in your backyard there are people who can help and can't afford.
Speaker B:Everybody assumes that if you're in the U.S. you're a millionaire.
Speaker B:No, you're not.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:We have our underserved populations.
Speaker B:So that's the thing.
Speaker B:And that's why just to give it to you audience, I've had some great support and we're focused on energy and we've started an annual series of symposiums.
Speaker B:The first one was at UC San Francisco.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:These are non commercial we funded to really educate people and we have had great support from researchers.
Speaker B:This year we are doing it the New York Academy of sciences, it's on 11th of November.
Speaker B:If your audience is interested, you have some stellar speakers who are gonna be talking about energy.
Speaker B:And one of the areas we are starting to focus on is mental health in modern world is such a scourge that is afflicting everybody.
Speaker B:And guess what?
Speaker B:Your brain is 2% of your body weight and uses 20% of its energy.
Speaker B:In our lifestyle, our systems are really putting a challenge on our brains.
Speaker B:And we're very much focused on really seeing what we can do that is safe, that is helpful to give brain back the energy it needs.
Speaker A:You've mentioned paying salaries.
Speaker A:In the very near future, that might not be a problem at all for you anymore.
Speaker A:Because today one of the projects you're involved in is the $101 million Xpress Healthspan competition.
Speaker A:For listeners who might not have heard of this, it's one of the world's most ambitious scientific competitions in aging.
Speaker A:Teams from around the world are competing to develop interventions that can meaningfully restore muscle cognitive functions and immune function in older adults.
Speaker A:And you've entered a team, I think it's called New Dimension from Blue Oak.
Speaker A:And congratulations, you were selected as the top 40.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Out of 600 already, other than the 101 million, which obviously is a fantastic reason.
Speaker A:Why did you decide to enter this competition?
Speaker B:Yeah, one of my reasons for that was I said, let me say this, that we are ahead of the curve.
Speaker B:That competition is to develop something, okay, we already have it.
Speaker B:But one of the things that we wanted to get in is to really expand the visibility of what we're doing, okay?
Speaker B:For people to know.
Speaker B:So it was more of a way for us to say to people, hey, remember we have external validations.
Speaker B:It's not just us saying what we are doing.
Speaker B:We have independent reviewers telling us, hey, at least you are in the top 40.
Speaker B:But I also have to say not everybody applied for the xprize, right?
Speaker B:So there are still people working on efforts that are also very, very good.
Speaker B:So to us, it was another way of expanding, not just accreditation of what we're doing, but to me, defna, we are ahead of the curve because we are already commercial.
Speaker B:So we're not trying to do this for that reason.
Speaker B:Of course, any money that comes in would help us with what it is, but we are already on our way.
Speaker B:So that was the reason we went in.
Speaker B:But we are way ahead.
Speaker B:And that process will play out for the next two to three years, will be all the way anyhow.
Speaker A:Now, with or without naming names, that's up to you.
Speaker A:Have you seen anyone else in the competition that really made you stop and think, wow, this is incredible.
Speaker B:There's a lot of stuff that is going on that is absolutely mind blowing.
Speaker B:I mean, people are talking about stem cells, people are talking about, you know, other ways to rejuvenate things.
Speaker B:One thing I will tell you unabashedly is that I have not seen someone touching the process the way we are.
Speaker B:And there are two things to it.
Speaker B:Number one, I always say that do not ignore safety and tolerability of a patient.
Speaker B:So let me give you one part of it.
Speaker B:If you look back, Zetia is still the only cholesterol lowering drug out there.
Speaker B:It has no competition.
Speaker B:Okay, there are five statins out there, multiple blood pressure medications.
Speaker B:Why is it that Zetia does not have a competition?
Speaker B:And the primary reason is that no other competitor could match its safety.
Speaker B:Not efficacy, but safety.
Speaker B:Zetia is incredibly safe because we designed it with a mode of action and distribution that is exquisitely hits the cholesterol part of it, not to go into details here.
Speaker B:So what I'm telling you is that safety is a great, great, important play in whatever you do.
Speaker B:Go fast forward in my life.
Speaker B:Here's Epicatechin, again, a unique mechanism that we discovered.
Speaker B:Nobody knew it and it is with using something that is incredibly safe.
Speaker B:So to me, if you combine the two, we as a society and as analytics, we focus so much.
Speaker B:Hey, it builds muscle.
Speaker B:We have to make sure that you don't hurt people.
Speaker B:What I am very comfortable to say that after 16, 17 years of doing both clinical and preclinical research with our product, it's incredibly safe.
Speaker B:So if I go out there and say, how do I define somebody who do all of this?
Speaker B:That's why I say to you, I feel that from the mechanism of action, I have not seen something that taps into the fundamental mechanism, how you make mitochondria.
Speaker B:And on top of that, have Something that is so safe to do it.
Speaker B:And if you take the two together.
Speaker B:I have looked around, Daphne, I would say with my best of humility, I haven't found one.
Speaker B:And I'm looking because you have to have both.
Speaker B:You cannot give it to a two year old child and have their body suffer from the side effects of a therapy.
Speaker B:It's not right.
Speaker B:This is what we do.
Speaker B:This is what we do because fundamentally it simply says if you can simply make your body feel like it's exercising and you get the benefits of it.
Speaker A:I'm telling you what a note to finish on saying that I could have talked to you literally for hours and hours and hours more.
Speaker A:I do hope you come back on Beyond Longevity because I haven't even scratched the surface of what I wanted to ask you.
Speaker B:I'd love to, Daphne.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:I take your word for it.
Speaker A:You've said it now it's, you know, it's on record.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, definitely, because there's so much more, really that, you know, it's just incredible.
Speaker A:What we can talk about and what is really rare about you is that you just have such a profound knowledge, not just of the topic you're been working in for years and years and years, but really you've seen it from all the angles and you've really been there and done it.
Speaker A:You're at the peak of what you're doing and now you're trying to give back to society.
Speaker A:That's the way I see it.
Speaker A:And I think that's how everyone should be once they've achieved it.
Speaker B:Thank you for such kind words.
Speaker B:But as I've said to you, what we are doing is still a part of what will keep you healthy.
Speaker B:So I always want your audience to think that in some ways we're going to help them, but there's still other things they need to do and it's a journey that continues because health.
Speaker B:We have to move away from disease care to healthcare.
Speaker B:We do not have healthcare.
Speaker B:Okay, and to me, we'll discuss that.
Speaker A:Exactly that next time we'll meet.
Speaker A:Now, before I let you go, I have five rapid fire questions that I ask everyone, so we'll do this too.
Speaker A:Now, what's the single best piece of advice you would give your younger self?
Speaker B:Best piece of advice to my younger self with what I know now.
Speaker B:Chase value.
Speaker B:Value is sustainable.
Speaker B:Chase value in everything you do.
Speaker B:Chase value.
Speaker A:Name one habit everyone should adopt for a longer, healthier life.
Speaker B:Sleep.
Speaker B:Sleep well.
Speaker B:It's your brain's ability to recharge itself and it's your most critical system, sleep.
Speaker A:If you weren't in health and longevity science, what career would you have chosen?
Speaker B:And by that I assume you mean healthcare.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Overall.
Speaker B:Overall, that's it.
Speaker A:Would you have become an actor or, you know, I don't know.
Speaker B:No, on that one I'm pretty boring.
Speaker B:I knew from the get go that this is it for me.
Speaker B:It's healthcare or bust.
Speaker A:Lucky for the rest of the world that you knew that's what you wanted to do.
Speaker A:What microdose habit, sort of five minute routine or small daily action yields outsized longevity benefits.
Speaker B:Means time with yourself, your self, internal, introspective, just thinking about whether it be just reflecting us, sitting, meditating, Important, very, very important.
Speaker A:What's the craziest longevity myth you've encountered and is there any truth to it?
Speaker B:I mean, I may get into trouble for saying that, but a lot of supplements put together in a bottle that talk about longevity where they cannot specifically say what each one is contributing or how is it doing.
Speaker B:What is it doing?
Speaker B:I think it's just not just laughable, I think it's just not fair.
Speaker B:I'm not saying science should limit your usage of things, but you need to understand some things about what you're doing.
Speaker B:Right, we do that with food.
Speaker B:Right, we do that with food.
Speaker B:So when we go and just pop supplements willy nilly because we did a Google search and got an answer and people who promote that I think should really go back and rethink about what it is that they're doing.
Speaker A:Very true.
Speaker A:Nothing controversial about that one because there.
Speaker B:Are people at the end.
Speaker B:If you're gonna give people hope, give them the basis for that hope.
Speaker B:Because nothing is worse than giving false hope to people.
Speaker A:And especially when it comes to health, you know, giving somebody false hope, they win the lottery.
Speaker B:Hey ho, exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, those are odds you play.
Speaker B:But you know somebody's coming and relying on you to do something.
Speaker B:You have to be internally honest about what you're saying.
Speaker B:I believe in that a hundred percent.
Speaker A:Me too.
Speaker A:Very true, very true.
Speaker A:Listen, Thani, thank you so much.
Speaker A:This really, as I said, was just amazing.
Speaker A:I had the best time and I'm definitely gonna hold you on your promise to come back.
Speaker B:Absolutely, Daphna.
Speaker B:And thank you for taking the time, even your time.
Speaker B:And so as they say, everybody's time is precious.
Speaker B:And so thank you again.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:A good friend of mine says, to be continued, 100%.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
Speaker A:Thank you for joining me on this episode of beyond longevity.
Speaker A:Dr. Dugas career reminds us that some of the biggest advances in medicine are made by people many of us never hear about.
Speaker A:Millions of people.
Speaker A:Patients have benefited from medicines he developed, and rather than treating that as the pinnacle of his career, Dr. Duga has chosen to take everything he has learned and apply it to one of medicine's greatest remaining challenges helping more people live longer in good health.
Speaker A:Whether his current work ultimately proves to be another major breakthrough remains to be seen, but with his track record and ambition, it is difficult for it not to be.
Speaker A:Dr. Duga is driven not simply by scientific curiosity, but by the belief that if something is genuinely improving health, it should reach as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and at a price people can afford.
Speaker A:If you've enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe and subscribe, Leave a review and share this episode.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
