Ambrosia (company)

Ambrosia is a biotechnology company offering plasma therapy that is headquartered in Monterey, California and was founded by Jesse Karmazin in 2016. The company has medical blood plasma treatment facilities located in Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, California; San Francisco, California; Tampa, Florida; Omaha, New England; and in Houston, Texas. Ambrosia offers medical intravenous infusions of blood plasma taken from donors between the ages of 16-25 for patients over 30 years old. As of January 2019 Ambrosia is offering its patients 1 litre of plasma for $8,000 and 2 litres of plasma for $12,000.

The suggestion that young blood could be a treatment for aging comes from parabiosis studies, where old and young mice were surgically connected and shared blood. The older mice showed improved tissue regeneration, muscle tone and liver function and the younger mice aged more rapidly. A 2014 study found similar effects by transfusing young mouse plasma into older mice.

Karmarzin previously co-founded the now defunct company xVitality Sciences aimed to offer plasma treatments at overseas clinics. Karmazin started the company with Craig Wright a physician who previously was chief scientific officer at a vaccine company and has a clinic in Monterey.

Ambrosia conducted a clinical trial designed to assess the benefits of the procedure, but the results have not been published. The clinical trial has received some controversy over the charge of $8000 to participate in the clinical trial and over the design of the trial which did not include a placebo arm.