Calico Labs, LLC

Calico LLC, often called Google Calico, is a US-based biotech company founded on September 18, 2013 by Bill Maris and backed by Google. According to their 2013 launch press release, the company “will focus on health and well-being, in particular the challenge of aging and associated diseases.” Additionally, in Google’s 2013 Founders Letter, Larry Page described Calico said the company would be focused on “health, well-being, and longevity”. The company’s name is an acronym for “California Life Company”. Calico is a research and development company focused on understanding the biology of aging and age-related diseases. The goal of Calico is to extend the human lifespan by developing new therapies and technologies to combat age-related diseases.

Calico is currently working with academic labs at Harvard and MIT and (until November 2025) the pharmaceutical giant AbbVie to develop drugs that combat neurodegeneration and harness the power of the immune system to fight cancer. These drugs are currently in various stages of clinical trials. In addition, the companies are advancing a strong pipeline of novel targets that includes more than 20 active programs in discovery or preclinical development in age-related diseases. It is led by CEO Arthur D. Levinson, and its founding CSO was David Botstein, both known for their leadership at Genentech. Botstein left the company in 2023, and was replaced in 2024 by Michael Lenardo, M.D.

Philip Kym, Calico’s head of drug discovery as of 2025, said regarding the company’s orientation toward the biology of aging that “we’re interested in finding pathways that are involved in ageing, and we have various ways of doing that. When we find those pathways, then we try to find the therapeutic opportunity that allows us to advance a clinical molecule quickly — while ultimately also keeping an eye towards whether it could improve lifespan in a longer-term play. That’s the general approach. But it’s not the only thing we do. We are open to other things than just pure ageing targets, and you can see that in our portfolio.”

In 2018, Calico published an interesting research paper that announced that the naked mole rat was essentially a “non-aging mammal” and that this animal did not suffer the detrimental effects of aging as we and most other species do. This is known as Negligible senescence, a term first coined by biogerontologist Caleb Finch to indicate organisms that do not exhibit evidence of biological aging.  This includes measurable criteria such as a reduction in reproductive capability, functional decline, or an increasing mortality rate with advancing age.

Calico Labs have published a number of studies in recent years, most of which appear to focus either on AI or on foundational biology of aging but without any clear transnational intent. Some speculate that this is simply laying the groundwork for something grand in the future; we will have to wait and see.

In parallel, they have formed partnerships with several companies to develop therapies that target the diseases of aging, some of which target the biology of aging.

Abbvie Partnership
Also in 2014, Calico announced an R&D partnership with Abbvie focused on aging and diseases of aging, including neurodegenerative aging diseases and cancer. As of 2021, the two companies had committed more than US$1 billion into the collaboration. In November 2025, a widely-cited report from STAT News indicated that internal emails at AbbVie announced that they would end the agreement after 11 years. The email reportedly cited AbbVie’s move away from small molecule drugs in favor of biologics, and came shortly after the failure of its joint candidate fosigotifator in a Phase II-III trial.

P7C3 compounds
In 2014, Calico announced a collaboration with 2M Companies to advance research on P7C3 compounds, a class of drugs that activate NAMPT, the rate-limiting step in NAD salvage. The original proposed indications were in neurodegenerative diseases of aging, and subsequent papers have reported efficacy in animal models of osteoporosis and traumatic brain injury. Many of these studies have not involved Calico, and the C2 Companies’ status is unclear.In 2015, Calico announced additional partnerships with the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard University, the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, and QB3 at UCSF.

ISRIB
In 2015, Calico licensed ISRIB from UCSF, a small molecule Integrated Stress Response Inhibitor” that restores protein translation in aging and injured neurons and has been shown to reverse cognitive deficits in physiologically aging mice as well as mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases.

Fosigotifator (ABBV-CLS-7262)
In 2024, Calico and Abbvie began a clinical trial of a different integrated stress response inhibitor that directly targets eIF2B called fosigotifator (ABBV-CLS-7262) for Vanishing White Matter Disease, which is caused by pathogenic variants of the eiF2B gene (ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT05757141). In June of that year, Calico announced that fosigotifator had been selected for FDA’s Support for clinical Trials Advancing Rare disease Therapeutics (START) Pilot Program, which grants companies frequent guidance and enhanced communication with FDA review staff for candidates for rare diseases.

In March 2023, fosigotifator was selected to be part of the HEALEY ALS Platform Trial, which is designed to evaluate multiple investigational products simultaneously, thus accelerating the development of effective and breakthrough treatments for people living with ALS. Trial enrollment was completed on April 11, 2024; on January 6, 2025, Calico disclosed that fosigotifator did not meet the study’s primary endpoint of disease progression or key secondary endpoints, including health-related quality-of-life. There were hints of “slower deterioration in [muscle strength in] both upper and lower extremities in the exploratory high dose treatment group compared to placebo. In addition, there was a potential signal towards slowing respiratory functional decline as measured by the slow vital capacity (SVC) in the participants taking the exploratory high dose.”
In the same announcement, a Calico official said that they “remain committed to investigating the potential of fosigotifator as a much needed treatment option for people living with ALS and for other disorders, including vanishing white matter disease and major depressive disorder which each test different scientific hypotheses.”

Calico is still advancing fosigotifator for vanishing white matter disease.

ABBV-CLS-628
In June 2025, Calico and Abbvie launched a Phase II clinical trial of  ABBV-CLS-628 against autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) (NCT06902558). ABBV-CLS-628 is a monoclonal antibody against pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A), which cleaves the IGF-1 binding proteins IGFBP-4, thereby increasing IGF-1 bioavailability; thus, inhibiting PAPP-1 lowers IGF-1 signaling. PAPP-A knockout mice may have increased lifespan, on weak evidence. In animal models, this candidate reduced kidney volume and improved kidney function.

In November 2025, Calico announced that FDA had granted Orphan Drug Designation to ABBV-CLS-628 for ADPKD. Not long before, FDA had granted it Fast Track Designation for this indication.

9MW3811
In 2025, Calico secured the rights to 9MW3811 and other interleukin-11 (IL-11)-targeting therapeutics from Mabwell Bioscience. 9MW3811 is an investigational antibody that targets IL-11, a cytokine whose inhibition was reported by others to robustly extend lifespan and improve multiple healthspan metrics in aging mice,

At the time of the agreement, Mabwell had already launched Phase I trials for 9MW3811 against idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and has an active investigational new drug (IND) application for 9MW3811 with FDA. The Phase I trials (NCT05740475) were carried out in healthy subjects in Australia and China, finding that 9MW3811 has a good safety profile and a half-life of more than a month.

In November 2025, Mabwell announced that the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) had authorized a Phase II clinical trial of 9MW3811 for pathological scarring. The following month, Mabwell announced that they had completed dosing of the first patient in the trial (CTR20254857).

In a December 2025 interview, Kym said that Calico has an undisclosed indication against which to bring 9MW3811 into the clinic.

ABBV-CLS-484
ABBV-CLS-484 is an inhibitor of the protein tyrosine phosphatases PTPN2 and PTPN1 (also known as PTP-1B), which act as checkpoints on inflammation by inhibiting cytokine  pathways and T-cell receptor (TCR) signalling. They were long considered ‘undruggable,’ which Abbvie scientists overcame with sophisticated optimization to make a drug that was acidic but able to pass thghrough cell membraes. ABBV-CLS-484 sensitizes tumors to the immune signaling molecule interferon-gamma and enhancing T-cell expansion, leading to potent anti-cancer immunity in animal models.