Longevity: Can We Add Another 30 Years? | The Decade Ahead
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Everything you're about to hear is for education and entertainment purposes only. Whilst we are licensed, we're not aware of your personal financial circumstances. Any advice is general advice. Equitymates operates under Australian Financial Services License 540697.
A century ago, Australians were lucky to live past 50. Today, we're living to 84 and the push to go even further is creating one of the biggest investment opportunities of our time. Today, we're breaking down the science, the companies and how to actually invest in it. Welcome to The Decade Ahead, a 10-part series on equity mates unpacking the 10 themes that we think are set up for the next decade. My name's Bryce, and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy, Ren. How are you?
I'm very good, Bryce. Very excited for this episode. Very excited to kick it off with one of the biggest themes in markets today, and it seems poised to only get bigger over the next decade, and that is biotech and pharmaceuticals and some of the incredible drug breakthroughs we've seen that are all adding to this longevity story.
Yeah, I'm really pumped to get into this one.
Well, you were saying off mic that you reckon you're going to live past 100.
Why is longevity becoming a major investment theme?
Yeah, I do.
Okay, so we will get into that. Each episode in this series, we're going to dig into one theme in detail. We're going to talk about who's driving it, who's building it, the case for and the case against investing it. And it's all thanks to our partners, ANZ.
Yes, this episode is brought to you by ANZ Business Start Right. A massive thank you to ANZ for helping us keep all of our content free here at Equity Mates.
All right, Bryce, well, let's get into it. This is all about longevity and the companies and the breakthroughs that are driving it. And your hook started with how much lifespan has improved in the past hundred years. So it's probably worth us dwelling on that for a second. A boy born in 1900 in Australia was expected to live just 51 years. A girl, 55 years. Today, a boy is 81 years and a girl is 85 years.
We've added 30 years.
And what hasn't changed is that boys have that four-year gap between boys and girls.
Yeah, I know. It's crazy, isn't it? It's crazy.
But just a pretty incredible story that's not just confined to Australia.
No, global life expectancy has jumped from an average of 46.5 years in 1950 to 73.3 years in 2024. In 1950, the country with the longest life expectancy on the planet was Norway. Scandinavians. Their life expectancy was 72 years. Now, if we look at the global average, it is above that at 73.3 years. So it's a great story.
Yeah. Fun fact, quiz question. What's the country with the number one lifespan today? Scandinavia.
No, not Scandinavia.
Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Japan.
Japan consistently ranks at the top, but is, according to this website that I've just found, Worldometer.
Fact check, fact check. It's actually number four. Ooh. I don't know. What is it? Monaco. Really?
87 years old. Money buys life, baby.
Money buys life, yeah.
That's what we're talking about today. No, but that will be a theme that repeats and Brian Johnson's name will get brought up in this episode.
Yeah, Brian Johnson being a guy who's massive on YouTube, who's now spending over $2 million a year to try and live as long as possible.
Yes. Brian Johnson aside, these big jumps in life expectancy haven't happened by accident. It's been vaccines, antibiotics, sanitation, modern medicine, all of the precursors to today's modern biotech and pharmaceutical industry. These were the breakthroughs that gave us penicillin and the polio vaccine and that have developed into a $1.6 trillion industry.
Huge.
Massive. But Bryce, here is the wild thing. In the next 10 years, that $1.6 trillion industry is estimated to get to $3.5 trillion.
Yeah, massive opportunity, Ren. But the number that I, you know, here's a big number for you. Are you going to one-up me? I'm going to one-up you. The longevity economy. Now, this is everything that services the over 65 bracket. You've got healthcare, wellness, financial services.
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