Billion-dollar Saudi Hevolution Foundation brings world-first Hepatitis B cure to trials

Al Arabiya

09-07-2025

A potential world-first cure for hepatitis B, a breakthrough treatment for a rare, life-threatening childhood disease, and a psoriasis treatment that could reshape healthy lifespan research – these are some of the real-world medical advances being driven by the Saudi Arabia-based and funded Hevolution Foundation, marking unprecedented progress in the fight against age-related diseases.
In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya English, Dr. Mehmood Khan, CEO of the Hevolution Foundation, revealed that all four companies – initially funded by the Kingdom's massive healthspan initiative – have successfully transitioned from pre-clinical animal testing to human trials. Khan describes this achievement as 'unusual' in biotech investment.
'That is unprecedented,' the CEO said, highlighting the foundation's unique approach of screening 500 companies before focusing initially on the four most promising candidates. 'It speaks to great science. It speaks to scientists and the entrepreneurs that had the idea to build a company around the technology. It speaks to our investment team that sourced these deals, and it speaks to my science team that did deep due diligence.'
The breakthrough developments come five years after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman issued a royal decree establishing the Hevolution Foundation. He pledged up to one billion dollars annually for research aimed at extending healthy human lifespan and combating age-related diseases.
Hepatitis B breakthrough could transform Gulf healthcare
Among the most significant developments is a potential cure for hepatitis B, a disease which has emerged as a global epidemic, according to the World Health.
WHO estimates that 254 million people were living with chronic hepatitis B infection in 2022, with 1.2 million new infections each year and no cure.
The disease represents one of the leading causes of liver cancer when left untreated, making the potential breakthrough particularly significant for regional healthcare systems.
Khan highlighted that hepatitis B remains a major health concern in the Gulf, adding that clinical trials are expected to include the region as the technology progresses.
The company is taking an innovative approach by targeting the virus's epigenetic interaction with human cells, marking a fundamental shift in treating viral diseases.
According to Khan, when a person is infected with a virus, it first gets into the cells and they begin to age quickly.
Viruses 'hijack our own machinery and use that machinery to reproduce themselves. The cells they're hijacking get damaged,' Khan explained.
This science transforms how we understand ourselves and the impact the work can have.
'It changes the way we think about these issues, because now you can actually intervene,' Khan added.
Revolutionary psoriasis treatment opens healthy lifespan pathways
Another company – Rubedo – funded by Hevolution has developed a topical treatment for psoriasis that targets the underlying aging processes in skin cells, potentially opening vast new markets for healthy lifespan applications.
Currently, severe psoriasis cases are treated using methods that 'suppress the immune system, which has all sorts of side effects,' Khan explained. The new approach instead addresses the root cause by modifying the aging biological processes in affected cells.
In psoriasis, the skin cells age rapidly and the skin becomes inflamed.
'That inflammatory process causes the symptoms and signs of psoriasis and damage,' Khan explained. 'One of our companies came at this and said, could we change the aging biological process in these cells and actually see if the psoriasis improves? So, you're not treating the consequence of it, but the underlying biological process.'
The implications extend far beyond psoriasis treatment. 'Now imagine the aging process in the skin, and if you could mitigate that using a topical approach, I don't need to tell you what the market might look like,' Khan said, suggesting potential applications in the broader healthy lifespan field.
He pointed out that a potential treatment could have widespread positive impacts similar to Ozempic or other GLP-1 drugs –originally developed for diabetes but now used for multiple medical conditions, including obesity.
The topical treatment is currently being tested in humans to reduce the aging process of skin in patients with psoriasis.
'The first thing to do is test for toxicity in humans. We know it's safe in animals. That's why it moved to humans,' Khan said. 'It's now being tested in what we call phase one.'
The key questions at this stage are whether the treatment remains safe, whether there are any early signs of effectiveness, and how it should be dosed. Phase two will involve testing on patients with the disease at different dosage levels, followed by a large-scale phase three trial.
Life-saving treatment for rare childhood disease
The third breakthrough involves a treatment for tuberous sclerosis, a rare seizure disorder affecting children that currently has no cure. Children with this condition may 'eventually die from kidney diseases or seizure disorders,' Khan said.
The current treatment options force families into an impossible choice.
'Imagine the choice: a child continues to have seizures, or you give them a drug which mitigates the seizures but now has lots of toxicity, and there's no alternative,' Khan said.
Hevolution-funded company Aeovian Pharmaceuticals has developed an alternative approach that could provide the benefits of existing treatments without the severe side effects.
'They're actually now ready to enter human trials,' Khan confirmed, with first human results expected within 12 to 18 months.
The treatment works through the mTOR pathway, building on previous research with rapamycin-like drugs.
'The problem with rapamycin is it's actually an immunosuppressant used in transplant patients to stop you rejecting your organ, which has all sorts of side effects. That's why most people are not wanting to even try rapamycin,' Khan explained.
'If you could take the benefits of rapamycin and eliminate its baggage, then you'd have something transformative.'
Foundation's growing global impact
In recent years, Hevolution launched more than $400 million in research grants, supporting more than 200 global grants and more than 250 scientists worldwide, including scientists in Saudi Arabia. As the single-largest lead funder in the field, the foundation was also instrumental in the creation of the $101mn XPRIZE Healthspan competition, launched at the Global Healthspan Summit in 2023.
Khan outlined the foundation's comprehensive approach: 'We're funding about 250 scientists around the world. We have long-term research partnerships. We have short term research projects as short as a year, as much as up to five years.'
The foundation's Global Healthspan Summit has become 'by far the largest gathering of aging biology scientists, investors, leaders, etc., in the world for an organization that didn't exist five years ago,' Khan said. The summit attracted over 3,500 participants from 80 countries, representing what Khan called 'unprecedented' growth in the field.
'By any international criteria, it's a huge success,' Khan said. 'We saw unprecedented growth in registrations, attendees, and global representations – up big on all measures from our first summit.'
The foundation operates on three core principles that Khan believes are essential for transforming the healthy lifespan research landscape.
'One is we want to convene the field. The second is we want to catalyze the progress of the science, so create the pipeline for science to move eventually to the marketplace, in the hands of clinicians. The third is to make this field attractive for investors, so that the private sector accelerates its move into the market. You need all three,' Khan explained.
This strategy has already begun attracting additional investors to the companies Hevolution initially funded.
'What we did by design was to invest in companies that were in pre-clinical stage,' Khan explained. 'What that means is that we're testing their theories, their ideas, their science, their interventions or treatments in animals.'
One of the significant challenges the foundation addresses is the lack of regulatory pathways for aging-related treatments.
'There's no regulatory path today that allows a drug to be developed for aging. No regulatory agency has yet created that path,' Khan said.
However, he drew parallels to historical precedents where science advanced ahead of regulatory frameworks. Using statins as an example, he noted that these cholesterol-lowering drugs were initially only approved for patients who had already suffered heart attacks, before eventually becoming standard preventive treatments.
'When statins came to the market back in the 1980s…they were only approved to lower your cholesterol if you'd had a heart attack, so you'd actually have to have a heart attack first, and then you get treated with statins,' Khan said.
Today, if someone has high cholesterol and is considered high-risk, doctors prescribe statins to prevent the first heart attack. Khan credits this shift to widespread usage and proven benefits after initial market approval.
'We started to see the benefit,' he said.
Khan indicated that within 36 to 60 months, the hepatitis B treatment, currently – in phase one – could enter phase three trials, representing the final stage before potential market approval.
For the psoriasis treatment, the company 'should start three different clinical programs in different conditions' next year, with the skin treatment serving as the initial proof of concept before expansion into other applications.
Central to Hevolution's mission is ensuring that breakthrough treatments benefit all of humanity, not just wealthy individuals seeking life extension.
The foundation's approach differs from typical celebrity-driven longevity trends.
'We haven't come at this to create a lot of sensationalism. That's not what Hevolution is about,' Khan stated.
'This is not about a lot of celebrities getting on social media telling you what they do for themselves to have impact. We're here to democratize the science and impact humanity. And in our mind, the best way to do that is not only fund the science, but identify the best startup technologies that are ready to now be invested in.'
Global investment in healthspan science needed
Rather than seeking to monopolize the healthy lifespan research space, Hevolution actively encourages other investors and organizations to enter the field. 'We don't compete with any fund in the world. We want the more the merrier,' Khan said.
'If five years from now, we're the smallest player in the space, we'll have been successful. The idea is not to keep the pie the same size and have Hevolution have a significant large voice. No, the idea is that we become like the 10th player in a much larger field.'
This collaborative approach reflects the foundation's ultimate goal of creating a sustainable ecosystem for aging research that extends far beyond any single organization's capabilities.
As the global population ages – with more than one billion people over age 60 today expected to double to two billion by 2050 – the importance of Hevolution's work continues to grow.
The breakthrough treatments now entering human trials represent more than just medical advances; they demonstrate proof of concept for entirely new approaches to age-related diseases.