Redefining Longevity Medicine with Circulate Health’s Brad Younggren
Brad Younggren is the CEO and co-founder of Circulate Health, a company pioneering outpatient therapeutic plasma exchange for longevity and chronic disease treatment.
Brad Younggren is the CEO and co-founder of Circulate Health, a company pioneering outpatient therapeutic plasma exchange for longevity and chronic disease treatment.
What does Circulate Health do?
We’re the first company to bring therapeutic plasma exchange — a subset of plasmapheresis — into outpatient settings in the U.S. market. We partner with longevity and chronic disease clinics to provide this highly technical procedure directly to their patients.
The company started as a research venture under Khosla Ventures, which was inspired by heterochronic parabiosis studies in rats. These studies, which connected the circulatory systems of young and old rats, showed that the old rats became younger while the young rats aged. This worksparked an entire industry around understanding what factors in blood could impact aging, inflammation and cellular rejuvenation.
Circulate Health conducted a human clinical trial between 2020 and 2023. The study preprint came out in June 2024, and the peer-reviewed publication appeared in Aging Cell about two months ago. It was a major milestone for us. Based on those results, Circulate Health evolved from a research company into a commercial operation. We don’t build our own clinics. Instead, we bring our nurses, machines, supplies, protocols, and IP to existing practices where physicians can prescribe to their patients.
How did your background lead you to Circulate Health?
I’m an emergency physician by training. When 9/11 happened during my residency, I became one of the early physicians deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. We saw incredible medical innovation during the wars, and I got involved in procuring and deploying battlefield technology. Those experiences changed my career trajectory. I saw firsthand how technology could scale to save lives.
My first company created the first FDA-approved mobile phone medical device in the country around 2009. After that, I worked with a global health company deploying low-cost medical devices in Haiti and other countries. I spent time at Cue Health helping develop their at-home testing platform, which grew rapidly during COVID. Then I moved from hardware to software, spending eight years at 98point6 as chief medical officer and eventually president, working on AI-powered primary care delivery. A couple of years ago, I decided to move into the longevity space. I wanted to see what impact I could make in extending a healthy lifespan. When I saw the results from the CirculateHealth trial, I was all-in.
How does your approach to longevity differ from others?
Based on our trial data, we’ve secured patents around our specific approach to improving healthspan. My goal is for Circulate Health to be a company grounded in science. When we discuss our work, we base it on scientific research, not anecdotal stories.
We maintain a narrow focus. We do one specific thing while these clinics offer many services. Our job is to support them seamlessly. These concierge patients have high expectations, so I hired a friend who was the first vice president of Amazon Prime as our COO. So much of our day-to-day operations revolve around providing high-quality service, from nursing to supply chain management.
We’ve expanded to 22 clinics in 15 months and are just now moving internationally. Because we’re not building our own clinics and competing for patients, we can ally with the best clinics out there. This approach enables better data sharing and research opportunities with what we call our affiliate clinic network.
Who are your ideal collaborators?
My co-founder Eric Verdin is the CEO and President of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, one of the most prominent names in the field. The Buck conducted all our research for the study under the leadership of Eric and another one of our advisors, David Furman Ph.D., and we’re embarking on additional research with them to better understand the impact of our therapy on healthspan and toxin removal.
Our clinic partners aren’t just a commercial relationship. They’re passionate about collecting high-quality data to better serve their patients and contribute to research. The patients in this space are incredibly activated and knowledgeable. They do extensive biomarker testing and are highly engaged, which creates amazing opportunities for meaningful work.
We also have direct relationships with patients through our nurses. The procedure takes two to three hours, creating significant face time and connection. Many patients find us after reading the research or seeing media coverage, looking for referrals and information about the procedure.
How do you view Circulate Health through a deep tech lens?
We are cutting-edge tech. We have the majority of the U.S. market in this space because it’s new and complicated, we did the research, and we developed the IP. The data is relatively fresh. What’s interesting is that while our application is novel, the machines have been used in hospitals for 30 years. That gives us a strong safety profile as a foundation.
The opportunity lies in an industry that cares deeply about data. Traditional medicine hasn’t focused on wellness the same way the Longevity field has. When people ask me about longevity medicine, I point out that most of what we’re doing is high-activation preventive care and wellness. Shouldn’t that just be medicine? Hopefully, the Venn diagram between longevity medicine and traditional healthcare will continue to overlap.
We’re diving deep into specific areas like microplastics and nanoplastics. We likely have the world’s largest dataset on this topic because of our ability to scale through our affiliate clinic network. We’re bringing on specialized advisors and conducting research to answer fundamental questions: Where do these plastics live in the body? Are they free-floating in plasma? What therapies beyond avoidance might reduce plastic levels?
What’s the investment climate like in the longevity sector?
While it’s different from when I was raising hundreds of millions at 98point6, I see growing investment and commitment from venture firms building longevity portfolios. Khosla Ventures, our venture partner, has multiple healthspan and longevity companies.
The market is growing and it’s a great place for innovation. I’m seeing 17- and 18-year-old influencers talking about creating healthy living environments for the next generation. These weren’t conversations happening at that level when I was younger. As public interest shifts toward health and preventive care, we’ll see larger investments in what’s called the longevity space, though I think of it more as the healthy medicine space.
How do you define deep tech?
In healthcare and biotech, there’s fascinating work happening at the basic science level. Look no further than CRISPR gene editing and it is easy to see why this is such an exciting time in medicine. Deep tech in our field is not only about the foundational research, it is also about translational science that ensures this work can impact millions of lives.
That’s the change we’re seeing. Much more innovation moving at a faster pace, especially with AI acceleration at every level that can and should make it into clinical practice as we strive to be healthier humans.
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