Pe­ter Dia­man­dis

A start­up in San Fran­cis­co called Ele­vian has round­ed up $5.5 mil­lion in seed cash to pur­sue its work on a re­gen­er­a­tive med­i­cine pro­gram.

The big idea here is that re­search at Stan­ford and Har­vard found that “young blood” has a re­gen­er­a­tive im­pact on or­gans. And they be­lieve as a con­se­quence that boost­ing GDF11 — growth dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion fac­tor 11 — could play an an­ti-ag­ing role in hu­mans.

The founders have li­censed the tech they’re work­ing on from Har­vard.

Bold Cap­i­tal, WTI, Stan­ford StartX fund, Longevi­ty fund, Ki­zoo Ven­tures, Thynk Cap­i­tal, and oth­er in­vestors chipped in.

Cue the big dreams.

“Ele­vian is help­ing to lead a rev­o­lu­tion in longevi­ty. We are proud to sup­port them as in­vest­ment part­ners,” said Pe­ter Dia­man­dis, found­ing in­vestor.

Daniel O’Day is executing his first major development deal since taking over as CEO of Gilead $GILD. And he’s going in deep to ally himself with a longstanding partner.

O’Day announced today that he is spending $5 billion in cash to add new late-stage drugs to Gilead’s pipeline, picking up rights to Galapagos’ $GLPG Phase III IPF drug GLPG1690 alongside adoption of the biotech’s Phase IIb drug GLPG1972 for osteoarthritis. And Gilead is also putting billions more on the table for milestones, gaining options for everything else in Galapagos’ pipeline, with a shot at all rights outside of Europe.

Well, that didn’t take long. 

We found out Thursday evening that Christi Shaw has given up her top post as the head of the Bio-Medicines group at Eli Lilly for the helm at CAR-T pioneer Kite. New Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day, a Roche veteran, had made finding a Kite CEO a top priority on his arrival at Gilead. And he went right for a headliner.

O’Day was clearly excited about the coup.

“We conducted an extensive search for a new leader at Kite and we believe that Christi’s unique set of skills will allow us to continue to build on our leadership position in cell therapy,” he said in a prepared statement. “Christi’s vast experience across complex therapeutic areas, and particularly in oncology, will serve Kite very well. She is clearly a leader who will bring teams and individuals together and I am confident she will build upon the entrepreneurial spirit at Kite as we seek to help more people with cancer around the world.”

Less than 3 years after Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks recruited Novartis vet Christi Shaw to run their big Bio-Medicines business, she’s out.

In a statement put out Thursday morning, Lilly said that Shaw’s last day will come at the end of August. Patrik Jonsson, currently president and general manager of Lilly Japan, will succeed Shaw once he gets the paperwork sorted out.

Lilly’s shares dropped 4% on the news.

“Why not try?”

That’s what Geoffrey Ling told me over the phone when asked about what led him to his journey to the position of CEO at NED Biosciences — a company with a lofty goal of creating an all-in-one oral drug to treat all types of cancer and making this drug available to not only developed nations, but also the developing world. 

Ling comes from an extensive background in medicine and the government. He is the co-leader of The Brain Health Project, a professor of neurology and an attending neurocritical care physician at John Hopkins University and Hospital, as well as the assistant director for Medical Innovation of the Science Division in president Obama’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).