Juvenescence: Investing in the Age of Longevity

With their previous books published over the past 9 years, Mellon and Chalabi have established an excellent track record of recognising investment opportunities before they become mainstream, starting with forecasting the Great Recession in 2008, and identifying gold as an excellent hedge. More recently, they have written about life sciences, and their recommended stocks in Cracking the Code have outperformed every major market in the world. Equally their main stock picks in Fast Forward have yielded market busting returns.

They believe that to be successful, investors need to be curious, adaptable and apply themselves before they commit capital to an idea. For this new book, Jim and Al have spent a year sifting through the cutting-edge research, visiting laboratories and interviewing key opinion leaders in the field of life extension. They have written this up for the investor, stripping away the technical jargon and demystifying the information to help you to understand the science and clearly identify the key industry participants and investment opportunities.

They also discuss the personal benefits of a healthy life explaining what is good and what is bad for you and how current research indicates that making small changes can reap significant rewards which lead to longer, healthier lives.

By reducing the impact of diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis through medical research and increasing healthy lifestyles, the risk of suffering in old age is significantly reduced.

Millions of people die from medical conditions caused by aging each year. Recent discoveries and anticipated near term developments in the understanding of the ageing process at the cellular and molecular level are going to be some of the most important contributors to repairing damaged cells and slowing or potentially reversing the root causes of ageing. Breakthroughs in gene editing techniques, stem cell therapies, immunotherapies and artificial intelligence all hold great promise.

After studying PPE at Oxford, Jim worked in Asia and in the US for two fund management companies, GT Management and Thornton & Co, before establishing his own business in 1991. This business is now known by two names – Charlemagne Capital, recently acquired, and Regent Pacific Group, listed in Hong Kong.

Jim’s private investment company, The Burnbrae Group, is a substantial landlord in Germany and the Isle of Man, and owns the group Sleepwell Hotels. Jim is chairman and major shareholder of Manx Financial Group, Port Erin Biopharma Investments and SalvaRx Group. He is also a director of Condor Gold, Fast Forward Innovations, Portage Biotech and West African Minerals Corporation, all publicly listed companies. A new venture, Juvenescence that will provide investors with the opportunity to invest alongside Jim and his business partners in longevity, is expected to be launched sometime in 2017.

He spends most of his time investing and working on start-up ideas. Jim lives in the Isle of Man, San Francisco, Berlin, Brussels and Ibiza. Jim is an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford.

He grew up in the UK and studied Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Southampton. Al started his career in Canada, working as an engineer in process automation systems. After his MBA, he worked as a management consultant, specialising in technology, strategy and operations, based out of Hong Kong.

Since 2008, Al has been running CASP-R, a firm he founded to provide independent research and advisory services to investors and corporations, with a focus on real estate and technology. He is active in various Hong Kong-based angel investor groups that provide seed and growth funding to Asian-based tech and healthcare companies.

Al lives in Hong Kong with partner Fiona and their two children.