(Source: Forbes, Matthew Herper) Osman Kibar (45) is an engineering Ph.D. who emigrated from Turkey to the U.S. for college. Samumed, the San Diego firm he has been stealthily building for a decade, is the most valuable biotechnology startup on the planet. Based on investments made by private investors that include IKEA's private venture firm, anonymous high-net-worth individuals and a single venture capital firm, Samumed has raised $220 million, and the most recent round of financing valued it at $6 billion. It is halfway through raising another $100 million at a $12 billion valuation. Kibar owns a third of the company, which would give him a net worth of $4 billion. Did you hear any news about him lately?

Samumed is finding it easy to raise huge amounts of cash because it believes it has invented medicines that can reverse aging. Its first drugs are targeted at specific organ systems. One aims to regrow hair in bald men. The same drug may also turn gray hair back to its original color, and a cosmetic version could erase wrinkles. Do you believe this would be a successful product in the market?

A second drug seeks to regenerate cartilage in arthritic knees. Additional medicines in early human studies aim to repair degenerated discs in the spine, remove scarring in the lungs and treat cancer. After that Samumed will attempt to cure a leading cause of blindness and go after Alzheimer's. Are you or someone else in your family affected by any of these diseases?

The firm's focus, disease by disease, symptom by symptom, is to make the cells of aging people regenerate as powerfully as those of a developing fetus. Most of the solutions Osman Kibar is looking for are based on reversing the aging process. If Osman Kibar succeeds, our lives could be much better, and we could probably live longer. Do you think our social security system is ready to take care of people who could live much longer after they retire? I know this requires a more complex answer than the options given, but we can't get into much detail here. Please, let us know what you think in the comments below. Thanks.