Regenerative innovator’s cash boost, are biological clocks out of time?, Y chromosome concerns, £60bn of graft by UK pensioners

Indian regenerative medicine company Pandorum Technologies, has raised US$18m in a Series B funding round to support its clinical developments and global expansion.

The company, which operates the United States as well as its domestic market, was founded by Tuhin Bhowmick and Arun Chandru and focuses on corneal dystrophies, lung-related disorders, and liver diseases.

Bhowmick, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pandorum, said: “Just like the Ship of Theseus, the human body is constantly being rebuilt. Pandorum focuses on restoring biological memory, redefining regenerative medicine at its core.

“Our approach treats tissue health, disease, and degeneration as a navigational challenge within an information-constrained biological landscape,” he added.

“This funding would enable us to translate breakthrough science into programmable, disease-modifying therapies, beginning with single-tissue applications and scaling to multi-tissue repair, aligned with Pandorum’s vision – to heal fast and age slow.”

The funding round was led by Protons Corporate, with participation from Galentic Pharma, investor Ashish Kacholia, Noblevast Advisory and Avinya Fund, the Burman Family, and others.

Immortal Dragons, a Singapore-based longevity fund launched late last year, has mapped-out its plans to help tackle age-related organ failure.

Company founder Boyang Wang says it is focused on 3D biofabrication; a technology which utilizes ‘bio-inks’ – living cells integrated with biocompatible materials – to create functional tissue.

Immortal Dragons’ launched its US$40m longevity fund last Autumn and it currently supports over 15 portfolio companies.

Y worry

Whilst the loss of the Y chromosome in men had been thought to have no lasting impact, recent research is painting a different picture.

The Y chromosome bears few genes, other than for male determination, and consequently it was reasoned that its loss would not affect health.

However, new evidence contends that when people with Y chromosomes lose it (mLOY), it can lead to serious diseases – including cardiovascular,  neurodegenerative and cancer – contributing to a shorter lifespan.

New techniques to detect Y chromosomes show frequent loss of it in tissues of older men; with 40% of 60-year-old men showing mLOY, and 57% of 90-year-olds.

New research, entitled the ‘Mosaic loss of the Y chromosome and men’s health’ concludes that ‘mLOY leads to short life expectancy, cancers, and several other disorders in elderly men, infertility in reproductive-aged men, and developmental defects in children’.

This reflects evidence from previous studies, including a large-scale German one, which found men over 60 with high frequencies of mLOY had an increased risk of heart attacks.

Clocking-off

A commentary in the Lancet has questioned the over-reliance on the use of biological clocks, as determinants of longevity.

Whilst acknowledging the progress that has been made with epigenetic testing, in particular, it cautions that ‘key mechanistic and methodological gaps must be addressed to ensure these biomarkers mature into clinically meaningful instruments’.

Released earlier this month the paper entitled ‘Epigenetic clocks: advancing biological age measures towards meaningful clinical use’ reports on their increasing prevalence.

The paper highlights a recent npj Aging commentary, entitled “Do We Actually Need Aging Clocks?”, which argued that the defining principles of biological age remain conceptually unresolved.

It said: “Current clocks capture broad trends but often diverge in their estimates, reflecting differences in population demographics, environmental exposures, lifestyles, disease stages, and tissue-specific methylation patterns.

“Sex is another important source of biological variation, with several studies showing that male and female individuals exhibit distinct epigenetic ageing trajectories, yet these differences are not consistently reported or modelled.”

The Lancet concluded: “ Several ongoing clinical trials…have already begun incorporating ageing clocks as primary or secondary endpoints, reflecting their rapid uptake even without clear evidence that they can reliably track intervention driven biological change.

“Key mechanistic and methodological gaps must be addressed to ensure these biomarkers mature into clinically meaningful instruments.”

Europe ages by 2.1 years

Pension-aged workers in the UK contribute more than £60bn to the UK economy each year, new analysis from the Centre for Ageing Better reveals.

The findings reflect the growing number of people in the 65-plus age group working past state pension age.  The employment rate for this group has more than doubled since 2000 and currently sits at 13.2% – a record 1.7m people.

The median age of the EU’s population reached 44.9 years at the start of 2025 -an increase of 2.1 years in the last decade.

All EU countries recorded increases over the decade except Germany and Malta, where the median age fell by 0.4 years in each case.

Slovakia and Cyprus saw the largest rise, with median age up by 4.0 years since 2015.

Italy followed with an increase of 3.9 years, while Greece and Poland each rose by 3.8 years and Portugal by 3.7 years.