Google reportedly investing hundreds of millions into its new life extension company, Calico

In September of this year, Google announced its newest project, Calico, which promised to take on the illness known as aging which effects us as human beings.

It was one of the company's classic moonshots, but unlike driverless cars or wearable computers, it wasn't going to be incubated out of the company's special projects lab, Google X. In fact, it was unclear exactly how Calico would be funded and to what degree it would be attached to Google's main business.

Taking on the illness known as aging

Fortune's Dan Primack has some new details. The company won't be directly attached to Google's "bottom line," Primack writes, but will receive hundreds of millions in funding from the search giant spread out over the course of a few years. While it initially appeared to be a startup, the company may be more along the lines of a research lab, a sort of Google X with a biotech focus and a mandate to defeat aging.

As The Verge reported earlier, both Google founder Larry Page and Google Ventures' Bill Maris have been driving forces behind this project, and both are personally interested and invested in the idea of radical life extension. Calico will be headed up by life sciences legend Art Levinson, chairman of Apple's board and former CEO of Genentech. According to Primack, Maris pitched investors on the idea with an analogy about asking a genie for infinite wishes: if you could change your life in one way, wouldn't you ask to live forever?

• SourceFortune
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• Related Items google aging larry page google x disease calico life extension bill maris art levinson