Oh, thank you so much. And Stephen, that's a great intro and it's sort of interesting, right? You mentioned why I got into this whole area of nutrition. Frankly, it's really more than that. It's about prevention, preventative measures if you will, to help somebody to stay healthy. And let me share some slides with you. Maybe that's the best way to go about it.
All right. So, I won't go through some of the bio details regarding me and so on. You've done that very well and more than I deserve really. But nonetheless, as you mentioned, I started my career in terms of discovering and developing products to maintain health or to improve health and so on in the drug industry. And over the years what I've learned is that that approach in the drug industry is very focused, it's very reductionist if you will, and that is that they focus on a particular molecular target and that's what you go after, either you try to block it or you try to improve it and so on and so forth, right? So often times it's about making sure that your drug hits a specific molecular target and assume that target is fundamentally linked to a particular disease. So it works, it's great. And Stephen has mentioned sort of the three drugs in a way that our team developed which is now part of Pfizer. First one was rapamycin, and there's another one we discovered that has a pretty effective treatment for arthritis, and the third one was very much related to anti-asthmatic therapy.
But the common thread over the years, and I spent quite a few number of years in that company, in that industry, and what I find is that typically you've got to start from somewhere. When you have identified a particular molecular target you wish to intervene, you've got to start somewhere, right? What are the stuff that you can use to sort of find a hit we call it, and typically we start with our natural product library and that's where we get our first hit. And from then on, frankly most drug industry, most drug companies will not be interested in developing their natural product for intents and purposes. The main reason being that it's not patentable. So why should we invest so much money to develop as a drug and at the end of the day it cannot be protected. All sorts of competitors would just come on and piggyback on what we find and tell the same story.
But nonetheless, I'm beginning to find also in spite of that unpatentability as they call it in the drug industry, that invariably the natural product, the original hit remains the most effective and the safest candidate to treat a particular molecular target. All right. From then on typically what happens is our chemical colleagues will take that molecule, identify it, find out its chemical structure and start modifying it to eventually come out with a synthetic version of the original natural product. That's for intents and purposes, that's how most drug discovery programs start, and then you take that synthetic chemical and take it through drug approval process and ultimately because they can get a strong patent related to that particular molecule and they can protect it and you take it from there.
So one thing led to another and eventually another colleague of mine from Merck and I coming from Pfizer, we decided perhaps we can start a little company focused on these natural products. If they're not interested, perhaps we're not too greedy, we just want to extract the maximum value from these natural products and we just wanted to, instead of making drugs, we'll transform them into supplements. So fundamentally that's how we grew Pharmanex if you will. And on the business side after three years Nu Skin got interested in terms of what we're doing and one thing led to another. The initial interest was focused on a particular natural product we produce which we call cholestin, and that's what they wanted to license. But as we describe the science that we're doing, the approach that we're doing, they sort of have decided maybe it's much more effective if we acquire the whole R&D engine if you will and bring it into the world of Nu Skin and be able to use that engine to drive both the skin category products and together with nutrition supplements.
That's briefly, in a couple of sentences, that's how I got into the world of Nu Skin. So that's briefly what we did. As Steve, Stephen left you a hint, the acquisition was about $138 million in 1998 and that's where we came into the world of Nu Skin. And Pharmanex represents now the trade name for all the nutritional supplements that are available in Nu Skin. The Nu Skin was retained for the skincare products.
But what is our science all about at the end of the day? I'm going to assume, by the way, for this particular group, it's a highly sophisticated group knowing Stephen and so on, and you are knowledgeable, you already know what antioxidants are, the meaning of that, the benefit one can get from that and so on and so forth. Because I'm going to take you on a journey that is going to be even a higher level of profound discovery compared to what we talk about in terms of antioxidant, right? But fundamentally, none of that would be possible if we had not focused on making a science-based approach as one of the cornerstones in Nu Skin, right? And what does it really do? I mean at the most fundamental level our science really consists of these steps that we take in terms of developing our products and it's really to ensure that we have the data. It's really all about getting data, scientific evidence to prove that our products are safe and effective. That's really what our science is supposed to do.
And really at the end of the day we want to make sure that our products will never ever embarrass you. If anything else, when you recommend a product, most of this particular industry if you will, the products are based on hope. We like to think that our products are more than that. It's really about getting the evidence to prove that, like I say, it's safe and effective. So it's a fundamental cornerstone that we have here. I'm going to set the stage for what I'm going to say next, okay? And this is sort of a trajectory. If I look at Nu Skin over the last forty years or whatever it is that it has been in existence, it has always been an anti-aging company. All right? You can almost say anti-aging or youth preservation company, right? Nonetheless, it's about aging. It's not about looking at the body at a particular location or a particular area of the body. It's always about looking at the body in a holistic manner. That word has been used a lot, you know, to describe what we do in a sense. But what does it really mean? In other words, it's really we're considering the body to be a very sophisticated systemic organism. You know, it's an orchestra for intents and purposes. You cannot play the Beethoven 9th Symphony with the best virtuoso violinist in the world like Yo-Yo Ma. It's impossible. It requires an orchestra.
So when you look at the products that we have, they tend to be not just a single ingredient. It's a blend. It's an optimal blend of several ingredients together because we recognize the body cannot just be somewhat influenced by just a single ingredient. It's an orchestra and you need several instruments to play that particular symphony. It's always been that. But what is it that I call it an anti-aging company? In Nu Skin you go way back to the foundation, to the founding of the company back in 1984. What is the logo? When you look at the logo, what does it tell you immediately? It's the fountain of youth, right? When you look at it, it's a stylized symbol of the fountain of youth. And that is why I strongly believe that Nu Skin has always been an anti-aging company.
And then what happens? They acquired Pharmanex back in 1998. And that is to make that fountain of youth, the search for it if you will, even more profound and more sort of directed, and we became a science-based company. All our products are now science-based, based on evidence, based on what we know or not on what we hope to know. That's the next sort of elevation in our trajectory.
And then the scanner came really, you know, after all the things that we talked about, right? Antioxidants, free radicals, all these technical things that we talked about, what do we really want to answer with that original scanner? It was to answer a very simple question, and I think Steven has mentioned it: How do you know your supplements work? This is the first time, and this is an important thing to remember as I go forward with all of you right on this journey, and that is you're making the unseen seen, the invisible becomes visible. That's what the scanner did. That's the power of it, right? Because we are beginning to feel, and all these things, all these Oura rings, all the other things, Whoop and so on, what are they trying to do? They were trying to help you see, see what? See certain functional or meaningful metrics which previously could only be achieved or accomplished in a sophisticated lab or in an invasive way and so on.
And then we came up with ageLOC and this is really, I mean once again it's built upon the previous technology or the previous knowledge base. We would not have been able to develop ageLOC based on looking for sources of aging if we didn't have the scanner. All right. So we developed this approach. Fundamentally the ageLOC is all about trying to identify and sort out the sources of aging. And at that point in time it came out to be that it's going to exist most likely at the genetic level. If you look at the chronological development of the understanding of genetics, it was exactly at 2003 when the human genome map was created.
Cost the whole world more than $6 billion to create that map. Once that became available, we were then able to collaborate with some of the scientists focusing on aging research to be able to find out and discover and identify these so-called what we call the youth gene clusters. But nonetheless, it's a genetic approach to anti-aging, right? And all our products became those ageLOC products. A very good, in fact, they work well. It must be working well enough because after fifteen years of that ageLOC launch, I think cumulatively those ageLOC products produced revenue close to about $20 billion.
Okay, so now we are at a point of inflection again, and it is about the BioAge. The BioAge, I'm hoping when you come on this journey with me, that we have broken out. We have opened an incredible view, a very clear view into the world of biological aging. There are many, many words that would describe what biological aging is, right? Quality of life for intents and purposes is about biological aging. Right? This is between lifespan versus healthspan. That separation, the wider they are, the faster that biological aging is accelerating in your body. All right.
There's nothing I can do about the chronological aging because if twelve months from now, all of us are going to be a year older. Nothing you can do about that except to get into a Doctor Who time machine. But on the biological aging, it's become very, very clear that that is something that you can influence because the biological aging is totally related to external factors. That's a thought you should keep in mind, right? And because I'm taking you into a world where the BioAge is no more tethered to just measuring antioxidant and that's the end game. It has now become a means to the end point. And the end point now is about looking at biological aging in 15 seconds.
All of you, not just a doctor in a clinic, not a researcher in a lab, but the ability to make that invisibility visible in 15 seconds through the measurement of this antioxidant, and Stephen has given you a wonderful description of what the antioxidant carotenoid and so on. You can see now once again the question is no more how do you know your supplements work? We've already answered that. All right. Been there, done that. Now you're asking the question, how do you know or how can you see whether you're accelerating your biological aging or slowing it down? Because we now know the science is very clear. All right. The biological aging is 100% related to certain things that are changed, and I'll use a technical term now, is to changes in epigenetic switches that sit on top of all those aging genes.
It's like a light switch if you will, or light switches, right? You turn on the light by manipulating the switches and so on. Same thing. But they are chemical and technical, their chemical epigenetic switches. So now that we know that we can influence it, this is where it gets really personally I'm pretty excited because it's giving us an opportunity to entirely create a entirely new class of sort of anti-aging products. And that's what I'm referring to here as ARMS. ARMS is actually an acronym relating to what you would be asking: aging response modulators.
We are the first to be able to break through and be able to see. And because of this rapid, quick ability to see the biological aging, it gives us a huge start in developing this new class. So fundamentally, what is the narrative? These are, for me, this would be the six principles or the six beacons we have in this ARMS opportunity. It's not just about a single product. It's about a profound understanding of aging, specifically biological aging. That's going to make it very, very unique to what you have as an opportunity.
The first one is obviously we all age, there's no doubt, right? But you have never been able to see it. We now can in 15 seconds. And how are you seeing it? You're seeing it through BioAge. It's almost, for intents and purposes, that the BioAge is now non-invasive. You've got all those advantages and so on. But it comes down to the fact the BioAge has now become a sort of a compass that directs you to look at biological aging. It's your surrogate compass. If you have been a scout, right? What was the first thing that all of us were taught when you become a scout? Go get a compass because we're going tracking, we're going on a field trip and so on, and we're going to go in some area that we don't know but we know we have to go north. How do you do that? The first thing you do, you learn how to use the compass. This is our longevity aging compass. The BioAge, that's what it is.
All right. And what are we looking at? What is it pointing at? And here's another new thought. In a way, it's a new thought, but I'm hoping you would sort of bear with me. These are the epigenetic aging clocks. Not something we made up. This is an incredibly fast-growing field. It has been very well validated in a sense, right? And the most recent is almost like, I would imagine this aging clock, another term for it would be: this is your biological aging chatbot. This is the first launch or the first understanding at the biological level using ChatGPT, and this will require another hour but just take my word for it right now. These aging clocks, very well validated, and is going to increasingly become more and more common as you talk about aging. All right. And they are very much related, 100%, with epigenetic. So I've already mentioned what are we doing, all these things at the highest level we distill it down is that you're making the invisible become visible, and you have the BioAge as part of your business and so on.
Especially for this particular audience, you are flying the plane with all the navigational tools that are required. Everybody else is flying blind. All right. Because when you see these clocks, these clocks have been proven time and time again to be the most predictive indicator of how fast you age or how slow you age. Then I already mentioned because of this ability we are identifying a new class of products which we're calling the ARMS. They live younger longer. So the ARMS race is on. If I come down to three words, you can see, you can modify, you can live. That's what the ARMS opportunity is all about.
And you are in a way probably the first few people. I've been trying to articulate this concept and approach. So ageLOC as you know, we are looking at gene expression profiles. Now we know in fact this is very much related to ageLOC if you will. At that point in time when we look at this we say oh the gene expression is happening. Oh yeah, you can get a young profile by blending several ingredients together, but we never knew why this is happening. Now we know this is happening because of our understanding of epigenetics that are really due to this modulation, not just one direction but a modulation of several or several thousands of like switches.
So Stephen has mentioned this to you. We have in fact, even when we launched BioAge, I've always maintained that it's really about nutritional health. It's more meaningful right in that sense. I mean frankly, this particular group understands antioxidant well, but 90% of the folks out there for intents and purposes on the business side of things, it still requires a bit of explanation and description and so on. Finally, in a way, still arcane. But when you talk about nutritional health, it's actually okay. But now we are no more talking just that. We are really meaning we are progressing to the fact that the BioAge is an indicator of biological aging that you can see. 15 million scans, 26 million scans, and these are important data. And it is part and parcel of how we drove towards this biological aging if you will, because this helps us to transition right through artificial intelligence. Because artificial intelligence doesn't work if you don't have data, guys, remember that.
If you talk artificial intelligence and you don't have the data, you're just using it as a buzz word frankly. But we have that 20 years. When Stephen came in, he was a high school person when he first looked at a scanner. All right. But we got over 26 million scans. So we have a huge database, and not just database on the score. Some people misunderstood what I'm saying. It's actually not just that. It's a score plus data on lifestyle changes or factors among those folks that we measure.
So when I show this or when Stephen shows you this, it's not an incremental progression of getting it smaller, getting it faster, getting all that. Those are all great compliance, user-friendly, consumer-friendly kind of progress. It has actually been untethered if you will, or disconnected from the previous scanner. Well, don't just think antioxidant. I think we have data now to suggest it's no more just that.
So this is what we had with BioAge. We never had a direct visual link to the sources of aging which we knew existed at the genetic level. Now, we have it. Right. So we measure this antioxidant, we measure this carotenoid, we built as I mentioned the largest database if you will and so on. Those things are all indispensable in our journey to look at aging and we needed that. So as I mentioned it's about this aging compass. BioAge is an aging compass. Now it's not an antioxidant indicator. It can be that. It is that. But it's more than that though. It's a compass.
We know how critical it is, right? If we know where we are going, isn't it much easier nowadays to go somewhere when you have Google Maps or the Apple Maps and so on? Aren't those things really in a way driven by a compass? And what do we see in this particular case with BioAge? In 15 seconds, we are able to see the rate of your biological aging or the pace, how fast the clock is ticking or how slow.
And our evidence suggests that when you have a low BioAge score at this point in time, your clock actually accelerates. When you have a high BioAge score, the clock slows down dramatically. In fact, we know in terms of number of years, the tissue is about four years younger on the average. And the average was obtained from eleven different biological systems. Remember I was talking about the holistic approach. We're getting that. We got eleven systems measured and they all show on the average we can get four years younger biologically.
And it's based on the Stanford study in a way, that's where we conducted the study. We actually, frankly, I must admit when we went into that study we didn't really expect much. We just wanted to see low score, how does skin look, because we have some data that says when you have a high score, the skin or the person's facial features, they look much younger. So we said why don't we go do some epigenetic measurements from taking some of the blood as well. And this came out. Low score, clock moves faster. High score, clock slows down.
So here's the progression I've been talking about, right? Over the last twenty years. They're all connected. You can still talk about it. But why, when there are way more meaningful to talk about biological aging as an endpoint? Everybody understands that. Put yourself in an elevator away from this particular sophisticated audience, and just go to a stranger, say to that person, here's a device that measures antioxidants, and then change your question to: here's a device that can measure biological aging. What do you think the response would be? I think you would get a maybe more positive one. I would wager when you say the endpoint is biological aging.
So briefly, this ARMS or aging response modulators, we are really talking about, we can act on it. Not much point telling somebody you have this issue like DNA analysis, those 23andMe and AncestryDNA and so on. When they look at what they call technically SNPs or genetic changes, those things you can't change. Those are immutable, you're born with it. It's a genetic defect. Either you have it or you don't. There's nothing you can do about it. All they're telling you from that kind of analysis is the fact that you're predisposed to something else. Not much you can do.
By contrast, here when you measure these epigenetic changes, they're very malleable. You sincerely can influence it. We already have some evidence that is happening right with these aging response modulators. And what do you have? An entirely category creator. Right? I would sort of make a little bit more, sort of extrapolate a little bit. Everybody is interested in GLP agonist for weight loss. It destroyed the field. It totally took over the field. In fact, it transformed the field. And I think equivalently on the aging perspective or from the aging perspective, I would imagine these modulators would transform the field as well. The way how we identify them and how we blend them together.
So briefly, that's what it is. And if you want to use the word fountain of youth, the logo that we have, we can see it now. We don't have to go into the swamps of Florida like Ponce de Leon and get malaria and still can't find it. We now know without any shadow of a doubt every tissue has an aging clock governed by epigenetics. And we can influence these clocks with these ARMS and the race is on. Join now or it's going to be difficult to catch up.
So really I think that's about it. We can track, I've talked about it, measure, modify, track, right? And like I said, the products under study, I mean some of the ones are pre-existing. The ones we obviously want to know, because all these products I briefly show here, they're ageLOC products and I already mentioned they affect gene expression and so on. And they are also connected to the BioAge, so we're going to study them and see what happened at the aging clock level.
And going forward, that's our trajectory or our journey going forward. I would say roughly about five years from now, and I'm just putting in the category or the benefit that we're trying to achieve with these products. And when you look at all these different categories, they're really the cardinal signs of aging as you go forward, right? Your skin is going to wrinkle. Your muscle, you're going to get weaker. Your brain, you're starting to forget things and so on and so forth. And your nutrition, you're not eating so well and putting on weight.
The interesting one is actually menopause. But that's another one for another day because I believe that menopause is one of the most devastating and really the most profound impact on biological aging in women in that sense. So that's something that I think we can get, we have always been wanting to go into that field and we're going to do it fairly soon by the end of this year. So ultimately, hopefully by 2030, we're going to get this MoA, I call it the mother of all anti-aging supplements.
So I think I better leave it at that and hopefully you have a chance to sort of think about this. It's a profound change. It's an inflection point. You know, this is like it was a book right, Waiting for Godot, and he was at a crossroad and he doesn't know whether he should take the left or take the right and so on and so forth. Interesting novel, but nonetheless here we are also at a crossroads but we know which direction we need to take. All of you know there is an opportunity here. Okay. And we know because we have this BioAge which is what? The aging compass. Thanks so much and I'll stop sharing for now and maybe we have some time Stephen.
