Calico (company)

For other uses, see Calico (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Coleco.
Calico Life Sciences LLC
TypeSubsidiary
Industry
FoundedSeptember 18, 2013 (2013-09-18)
FounderBill Maris
Headquarters
South San Francisco, California
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Arthur D. Levinson (CEO)
Number of employees
375 (2025[1])
ParentGoogle (2013–2015)
Alphabet Inc. (2015–present)
Websitecalicolabs.com

Calico Life Sciences LLC is an American biotechnology company with a focus on the biology of aging, attempting to devise interventions that may enable people to lead longer and healthier lives. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc..

History

Calico, short for the California Life Company,[2][3] was announced on September 18, 2013, prior to Google's restructuring and was founded by former GV CEO Bill Maris and former Genentech CEO Arthur D. Levinson, who is the CEO.[2][4][5] In Google's 2013 Founders Letter, Larry Page described Calico as a company focused on "health, well-being, and longevity."[6] It was incorporated into Alphabet with Google's other sister divisions in 2015.[7][8]

The Calico team has included a number of pioneering researchers in the field of aging research, including members of the National Academy of Sciences, Cynthia Kenyon and Daniel E. Gottschling.[9] Some of the company’s earliest employees included the geneticist David Botstein, and cancer drug developer Robert L. Cohen,[10] Eric Verdin, CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, served as a consultant to the Calico team.[11]

At the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, Calico lost two top scientists; in December 2017 Hal Barron, its head of R&D, left for GlaxoSmithKline, and in March 2018 chief computing officer Daphne Koller, who was leading their computational biology efforts, left to pursue a venture in applying machine learning techniques to drug design.[12][13][14]

Partnerships

In September 2014, Calico and AbbVie announced an R&D collaboration focused on aging and age-related diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer.[15] The partnership was extended in 2021.[16]AbbVie terminated the collaboration in November 2025, a few months after the companies announced the failure of fosigotifator in a Phase II/III trial for ALS.[17][18] By that time Abbvie had invested around $1.75 billion dollars, and two compoounds arising from the collaboration were still in development by Calico: ABBV-CLS-484, a PTPN2/N1 phosphatase inhibitor and a potential cancer drug, and ABBV-CLS-628, a monoclonal antibody against pappalysin-1 that was in Phase II testing for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.[19][20]

In 2015, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard announced a partnership with Calico to "advance research on age-related diseases and therapeutics",[21] a further partnership also was announced with the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.[22] Also in 2015, Calico announced a partnership with QB3 based on researching the biology of aging and identifying potential therapeutics for age-related diseases[23] and one with AncestryDNA based on conducting research into the genetics of human lifespan.[24]

Reception

When Calico was formed, Google did not disclose many details, such as whether the company would focus on biology or information technology.[25] The company issued press releases about research partnerships, but not details regarding the results of its research or the specifics of what it was working on.[3][26] This led to frustration by researchers regarding Calico's secrecy[26] and questions as to whether Calico had produced any useful scientific advancements.[27] Calico said the business's purpose was to focus on long-term science not expected to garner results for 10 or more years, leaving nothing to report on in its first five years.[27]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Calico Life Sciences Employee Directory". LeadIQ. 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-21.
  2. ^ a b Pollack, Andrew; Miller, Claire Cain (18 September 2013). "Tech Titans Form Biotechnology Company". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  3. ^ a b Molteni, Megan (November 6, 2018). "The Key to a Long Life Has Little to Do With 'Good Genes'". Wired. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
  4. ^ "The brains behind Calico? Bill Maris of Google Ventures". VentureBeat. 9 October 2013. Retrieved 16 February 2018.
  5. ^ "News announcements: Google announces Calico, a new company focused on health and well-being". News announcements. 2013-09-18. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  6. ^ Page, Larry. "2013 Founders' Letter". Archived from the original on 2014-07-07.
  7. ^ "Google Rises After Creating Holding Company Called Alphabet". Bloomberg.com. 2015-08-10. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  8. ^ Dougherty, Conor (10 August 2015). "Google to Reorganize as Alphabet to Keep Its Lead as an Innovator". The New York Times.
  9. ^ "National Academy of Sciences Member Directory".
  10. ^ Leuty, Ron. "Art Levinson's Calico taps former Genentech execs, other top scientists as first 4 hires". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
  11. ^ "Dr. Eric Verdin—The Effect of Food on Longevity". blog.insidetracker.com. Retrieved 2023-11-21.
  12. ^ Al Idrus, Amirah (March 2, 2018). "Calico loses its second executive in 4 months as Daphne Koller quits". FierceBiotech.
  13. ^ Bergen, Mark (1 March 2018). "Alphabet Loses Top AI Researcher at Anti-Aging Unit Calico". Bloomberg News.
  14. ^ Koller, Daphne (1 May 2018). "insitro: Rethinking drug discovery using machine learning".
  15. ^ Huet, Ellen. "Google's Calico Joins AbbVie In 'Pivotal' Partnership To Develop Anti-Aging Drugs". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-09-10.
  16. ^ "AbbVie and Calico extend partnership on drugs for age-related diseases". Pharmaceutical Technology. 28 July 2021. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
  17. ^ "Fosigotifator". alzforum.org. 21 Nov 2025. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  18. ^ Masson, Gabrielle (13 November 2025). "AbbVie to end Calico collab, lays off researchers: Stat". www.fiercebiotech.com. Retrieved 24 November 2025.
  19. ^ Garde, Damian (12 November 2025). "AbbVie cuts ties with Google-backed longevity company, lays off scientists". STAT. Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  20. ^ "AbbVie Terminates $3.5 Billion Calico Partnership After 11 Years, Cuts 100 Jobs". MedPath. 13 November 2025. Retrieved 22 May 2026.
  21. ^ "Broad Institute and Calico announce an extensive collaboration focused on the biology of aging and therapeutic approaches to diseases of aging". Broad Institute. 2015-03-17. Archived from the original on 2017-08-25.
  22. ^ Carroll, John (2015-04-28). "Google's Calico continues its partnering romp on aging R&D with Buck collaboration". FierceBiotechResearch.com. Archived from the original on 2015-05-01.
  23. ^ "Calico and QB3 announce partnership to conduct research into the biology of aging and to identify potential therapeutics for age-related diseases". 24 March 2015. Archived from the original on 9 May 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
  24. ^ Brodwin, Erin. "A collaboration between Google's secretive life-extension spinoff and popular genetics company Ancestry has quietly ended". Business Insider. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  25. ^ Regalado, Antonio (September 18, 2013). "Google to Try to Solve Death, LOL". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
  26. ^ a b Belluz, Julia (April 27, 2017). "Google is super secretive about its anti-aging research. No one knows why". Vox. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
  27. ^ a b Langley, Hugh; Dodge, Blake (January 22, 2021). "Alphabet's age-fighting bet Calico has been quiet for years, but it's hiring. Here are all the jobs open at the secretive biotech firm". Business Insider. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
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