Interview with Dr Klaus Dugi

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Dysfunctional mitochondria is a very important and well recognized hallmark of aging, researchers are trying to restore it in many different ways such as increasing the mitochondrial recycling process (mitophagy).

I had the honour of speaking to Dr Klaus Dugi during the Global Healthspan Summit in Riyadh.

Dr Dugi is the CEO of the Swiss company Vandria SA that develops mitophagy inducers that in turn can restore mitochondrial function, he also is a Chief Medical Advisor at the VC fund Limani partners.

The process of mitophagy is impaired with aging that in turn causes a large number of cellular processes to function less well with age.

How do you feel about being at the Global Healthspan Summit? Could you tell me a bit about your background in the pharma industry?

I am very excited being here at the GHS Summit! I have worked for 15 years at Boehringer Ingelheim. When doing a disease-map therapeutic area review I decided to focus on age-related disease which is becoming a big area nowadays.

How did you get interested in mitochondria as an important driver of aging and mitophagy as a way of improving it?

Vandria SA is Spinoff from Amazentis, the company that has developed urolithin A for mitochondrial health. It is a perfect substance for drug development, 4 months ago there was a value inflection point for clinical development. We are interested in CNS disorders using old mice and looking at Alzheimer's.

What do you think of feasibility of different approaches for intervening in mitochondrial aging, stimulating mitophagy, the transfusion of labgrown mitochondria in cells etc?

I am excited about different approaches. When it comes to mitochondria and the heart of healthspan research, it is about giving cells energy levels back. There are several companies in the field, like Mission that is clinical and Mitokinin. I think mitochondrial augmentation therapies is a tough way of going about it but it could work. Mitophagy is a good way of restoring function.

What are the specific challenges you think of running a company in the biotech field that focuses on healthspan? What are the best paths to the market VS indications you would think of?

We stay away from longevity and focus on indications with high unmet needs for clinical trials, that is the way to go about agerelated diseases. There are no true challenges specifically for the healthspan field. It is about Fundraising and conveying the importance with good storytelling. It's about primary prevention…

What about the future, when do you see therapies coming out and what do you think of the healthspan longevity broadly?

The end point is the robustness of the data, focusing on agerelated diseases; We need to focus on the holistic approach of aging.