The billionaire meeting against death: How the super-rich in Gstaad are driving the longevity market

120 investors and doctors meet in the Swiss Alps for a longevity conference. The Handelsblatt was there. A site visit to the billionaire meeting against death.

Super-rich, Switzerland and eternal life: Longevity is booming. Photo: Imago, Getty Images, Dpa Picture Alliance, brckmnn [M]

Gstaad. The landing site for private jets is signposted. If you still travel by car to the world's largest conference for longevity investors, park your Lamborghini or Aston Martin in front of the entrance to Le Grand Bellevue, one of the oldest luxury hotels in the Alps.

120 people meet in Gstaad, united in the belief that death is negotiable. What they have in common is that you can make a lot of money with longevity. Conference participants must prove that they have already invested at least 30 million euros.

I'm at the conference to understand what makes the scene tick - and to find out what the best minds in longevity research are discussing behind closed doors with the world's richest donors.

A ticket to the conference, which describes itself as “the world’s most exclusive conference for longevity investors,” costs 5,000 euros. Private individuals like to send a bank statement that proves their assets worth millions or billions, says Tobias Reichmuth. The Swiss is organizing the event together with Marc Bernegger from the longevity investment company Maximon.

The participants include those who are already investing – and those who want to do so soon. Researchers, doctors from the most influential longevity clinics, founders from everywhere: those who smell big business meet in Gstaad. It also took some persuasion from the organizers for me to be allowed to be there as a press representative.

Behind the research

The author Helena Smolak became aware of the conference after she moderated a panel with conference co-founder Marc Bernegger at the Handelsblatt Biocap conference. Her first request to attend the conference was rejected because the event was only open to investors. After a virtual introductory meeting, she was finally allowed to take part in selected sessions by prior arrangement.

The topics discussed range from GLP-1 drugs, i.e. drugs used for weight loss, to health prevention, to start-ups that are researching rejuvenation and even the reversal of diseases.

From the outside, the hotel looks like a sophisticated resort town: quiet before the ski season, full of wooden chalets with pink geraniums in front of a mountain panorama. A world of its own awaits inside.

“What’s the vibe?” a colleague, a biotech investor and a longevity podcast host want to know from me. I answer, almost cliché: “Fancy”, i.e. exclusive. But still more relaxed than I have experienced at many a pharmaceutical conference. This may be due to the breathing and meditation session that was scheduled for all guests in the morning.

Breathwork in the morning: Longevity begins with correct breathing. Photo: Aurelio Schrey

At lunch the waiters try in vain to pour wine. Nobody drinks alcohol here. This has long been frowned upon in Silicon Valley. Next to me is Evelyne Bischof, a doctor who is booked by private individuals and a professor. She teaches at universities in Shanghai and Tel Aviv and puts twelve kiwis on her plate.

She leaves the asparagus and the pasta too. Only fruit, every day. “Believe me, in 20 years you’ll notice the difference,” she tells me. When it comes to dessert, I no longer dare to try the panna cotta. A quick look across the table: As far as I can see, I'm the only one who's even thinking about it.

Deep Read

The weight drops, desires disappear - and life without a weight loss pill becomes unimaginable

Emil Kendziorra, German founder of Tomorrow Bio, is also sitting next to me. His start-up deals with freezing human bodies after death. The controversial procedure is called cryopreservation.

And opposite: a concierge doctor from San Francisco who advises the tech elite, including star investor Peter Thiel. The doctor complains that Peter Attia, himself a longevity doctor and known through podcasts and a high social media presence, has snatched one of his best colleagues away from him.

I ask whether the colleague could be replaced. Apparently not: billionaires and Silicon Valley bigwigs had very “special, close relationships with their doctors,” he tells me, winking. The doctor says: Even Attia's public connections to the convicted criminal and late Jeffrey Epstein would not have harmed his longevity business. “Incredible!” he says.

The doctor introduces me to the most important people in the longevity scene. It's a small world, an exclusive one. The general public simply doesn't yet understand the investment opportunities that Longevity offers, he tells me.

From fantasy to a billion-dollar industry

In fact, the numbers show that longevity is more than a global trend. They also explain why investors, pharmaceutical companies and the entire healthcare sector are paying close attention to the issue of longevity.

Market research firm Emergen Research estimates that the global longevity market will more than double to $62 billion by 2034. The market ranges from biotech, preventive medicine and advanced diagnostics to age-appropriate technologies and specialized financial products to real estate for an active, longer life.

The promise behind it: People should not only live longer, but also live healthier. By 2050, the number of people over 60 worldwide is expected to rise to more than 2.1 billion.

The search for a long life alone attracted $1.2 billion in venture capital globally in 2025, according to an analysis by the analysis house Pitchbook for the Handelsblatt.

Of this, $1.1 billion came from the USA. The most important backers include GV, the venture capital arm of the tech group Alphabet, as well as Arch Venture Partners from Chicago, Casdin Capital from New York and Khosla Ventures from Silicon Valley.

The investment volume is growing rapidly. In the first quarter of this year alone, according to Pitchbook, $3.7 billion flowed into the longevity biotechnology sector, 56 percent more than in the same period last year.

Dinner in the evening: Exclusive access. Photo: Aurelio Schrey

In Gstaad everyone agrees: That’s still not enough. "If you look at what is invested in AI - longevity is nothing compared to that. These are investment opportunities that hardly anyone thinks about yet," says organizer Reichmuth. “The upside potential is 1000 percent.” Especially now that artificial intelligence (AI) is coming under pressure on the stock market, health is becoming the focus.

“AI is down, healthcare is upwards,” everyone shouts – AI is going down, health has potential. The investment hypothesis is: “High risk, high reward,” says co-organizer Bernegger: high risk, high return.

Pharma no longer watches, but buys

The pharmaceutical industry has also recognized the potential. The booming GLP-1 drugs, used by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk in weight loss injections and originally developed to combat diabetes and obesity, are being reevaluated: as active ingredients that intervene deeply in the biology of aging.

The biotech company Insilico Medicine, which is researching an AI-supported longevity drug, closed deals with leading pharmaceutical companies worth a total of $7.5 billion within six months, including Eli Lilly. The logic behind it: Anyone who can provide proof of effectiveness for slowing aging for an already approved drug has the fastest route to the market.

AI

Trillion-dollar market in focus: Why Big Tech could now conquer the pharmaceutical industry

But Gstaad is not just full of people from the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors. Employees of the food giant Nestlé, the luxury brands Chanel and Ferrari spend all day working on their companies' longevity strategy: Nestlé sells nutritional supplements, Chanel transfers the longevity idea to skin care.

Just a few weeks ago, I spoke to Jonathan Anomaly while researching designer babies. He is also at the conference. With his company Herasight, he wants to fulfill parents' dream of having a genetically optimized child. The parents can spend $25,000 on this.

» Read also: “Smart, beautiful and healthy”: up to $ 25,000 for an optimized baby

Sitting on the terrace is Steve Horvath, the German-American aging researcher who invented the biological clock - the epigenetic measurement method that determines the biological age of cells. Horvath is a senior scientist at Altos Labs, the US biotech company that researches methods for cellular rejuvenation and in which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has also invested.

Reality check between courses

An Australian investor who describes himself as a “quiet observer of the longevity scene” asks me what I think of geneticist and Harvard professor David Sinclair. He entered the scene through Sinclair. This year, everything at the conference is much more scientifically based than it was twelve months ago, says the Australian. Last year there were company presentations about organs grown in weightlessness.

We all have two ages. Participants of the conference

The founders also confirm that the content of the conference has changed since it started in 2020. Bryan Johnson, longevity self-optimizer who was connected via video two years ago, is no longer on the program. In the first few years, the organizers first had to clarify what longevity actually was.

All guests seem to know that now. In the hallways, people are mostly whispering about peptides and the return on investment. Oh, and the return on health, of course. “We all have two ages,” says another guest. “The one in the passport – and the one you reveal at dinner.”

But one person with steep theses is still there: Aubrey de Gray, British bioinformatician. According to him, the first person to live to 1000 years old has probably already been born. He conducts studies on animals designed to slow or partially reverse aging.

After lunch, the organizers shout: “Always wear the name tag.” In the past, curious people have repeatedly tried to sneak in unnoticed.

Big visions, sober eyes

On the panel, the American doctor and health tech entrepreneur Jordan Shlain now asks the group: "Who has ever taken GLP-1s? Raise your hand. Don't be shy." A few hands go up. “I took it just to know what it felt like – so I could explain it to my patients,” he says.

The scene is experimenting on itself. But the organizer does not ignore possible risks. “So far we have not seen any proven life extension in humans,” emphasizes Reichmuth. “And there are shady businesses out there,” he says, referring to peptides, longevity clinics that sell scientifically unproven treatments.

Jay Olshansky, professor of public health at the University of Illinois Chicago, also criticizes the scene. He warns of a fundamental conflict of interest: There are financial incentives to promise more than research has so far revealed.

Scientist Björn Schumacher, who studies aging at the University of Cologne, recently referred to the current state of research in an interview with Handelsblatt. A positive thing about the longevity trend is that young people are now increasingly interested in the field. “Aging research used to be a topic for geriatrics – today it’s a hip topic,” he says.

At the same time, the longevity trend is not the solution “to protect us from chronic diseases of old age”. The biggest risk factor for these diseases is not high cholesterol or high blood pressure. "The biggest risk factor for disease is aging itself. So we have to address the causes of aging in order to find solutions."

Related topics

ChanelEli LillyNestléSilicon ValleyLongevityAston Martin

The basic tenor that runs through two days: “Longevity will change our world more than AI.” Anyone who hasn't understood this yet, says the group, should do it slowly.

More: Silicon Valley is betting on the next multi-billion dollar market – scientists are horrified