--- title: Why Regen Therapy CEO Sanjiv Lal Believes the Future of Medicine Is in the Signals description: Why Regen Therapy CEO Sanjiv Lal Believes the Future of Medicine Is in the Signals canonical: https://time.com/branded-content/apg/why-regen-therapy-ceo-sanjiv-lal-believes-the-future-of-medicine-is-in-the-signals/ article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-09-24T16:36:13.339Z article:modified_time: 2026-09-23T18:34:27.327Z article:section: Branded Contributor Content og:title: Why Regen Therapy CEO Sanjiv Lal Believes the Future of Medicine Is in the Signals og:description: Why Regen Therapy CEO Sanjiv Lal Believes the Future of Medicine Is in the Signals og:url: https://time.com/branded-content/apg/why-regen-therapy-ceo-sanjiv-lal-believes-the-future-of-medicine-is-in-the-signals/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0fa1c1173aad13c1/6ab417c3bbb02abbd01839c1/ChatGPT_Image_Sep_23_2026_02_17_18_PM_(1).png?branch=production&width=1107&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1107 og:image:height: 623 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Regen Therapy CEO Sanjiv Lal Believes the Future of Medicine Is in the Signals twitter:description: Why Regen Therapy CEO Sanjiv Lal Believes the Future of Medicine Is in the Signals twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0fa1c1173aad13c1/6ab417c3bbb02abbd01839c1/ChatGPT_Image_Sep_23_2026_02_17_18_PM_(1).png?branch=production&width=1107&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # Why Regen Therapy CEO Sanjiv Lal Believes the Future of Medicine Is in the Signals > Sponsored content. 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Its journalism is reported and edited by a professional newsroom led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with named correspondents on politics, climate, health, technology and culture. It reaches 1 million US print subscribers and 1.15 million globally, plus more than 1.1 million newsletter readers. #### How do I subscribe to TIME magazine? Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. Choose digital only at $20 a year, or print and digital from $29 a year or $49 for two years. TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at time.com/newsletters, which do not require a subscription. #### Can I cancel a TIME subscription? Yes. TIME states that subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. #### Does TIME have free newsletters? Yes. TIME publishes seven free email newsletters reaching more than 1.1 million readers, covering daily news, Washington politics, health, AI, climate and energy, culture, and the newsroom itself. They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=209aeef8-78fe-48fa-b32c-79fd159c19b1&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=209aeef8-78fe-48fa-b32c-79fd159c19b1&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1)  Image Credit: Sanjiv Lal Sanjiv Lal’s path through pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and healthcare entrepreneurship eventually led him to a different question about regeneration: What if the next advances in medicine come not from adding more cells, but from understanding the biological signals that tell the cells already there how to communicate? For much of his career, [Sanjiv Lal](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjiv-lal-456985149/) was interested in what medicine could do with science. He worked across biotechnology, diagnostics, and healthcare entrepreneurship. But it was becoming a patient himself that changed the questions he wanted to ask. Conventional approaches had taken him only so far. So Lal began exploring regenerative medicine with the same curiosity and scientific discipline that had shaped his career. What he encountered was a field filled with extraordinary possibilities, and equally significant gaps. The science was moving quickly. Access was fragmented. Manufacturing standards varied. Physician education had not always kept pace. And amid genuine breakthroughs, hype often made it difficult to distinguish what was promising from what was proven. For Lal, who is the founder and CEO of [Regen Therapy](https://regentherapy.com/), those tensions became more than an intellectual problem. They became the foundation of a new direction. His growing interest centered on a deceptively simple question: What if the future of regenerative medicine depends less on adding new cells to the body and more on understanding the signals that cells already use to communicate? “We’ve spent years asking how we can introduce more cells into the body,” Lal says. “I think the more interesting question is: how do we restore the communication between the cells that are already there?” That question sits at the center of Lal’s work today, particularly his interest in secretome science and cellular signaling. #### The Biology of Communication Cells do not operate in isolation. They constantly communicate through complex networks of growth factors, cytokines, extracellular vesicles, and other biological signals. These messages influence how cells respond to their surroundings and how biological processes unfold. For Lal, understanding that communication could open another avenue for regenerative medicine. “Cells are constantly talking to one another,” he says. “The next frontier of regenerative medicine is learning how to listen to that conversation, understand it, and ultimately restore the signals that biology depends on.” The idea represents a shift in emphasis. Instead of thinking about regeneration simply as replacing damaged or missing cells, researchers are increasingly examining the biological environment surrounding those cells, and the molecular messages that can influence their behavior. Lal believes this area could become particularly important as regenerative medicine moves toward greater precision and personalization. But he is careful about what the science can and cannot yet establish. That distinction matters in a field where enthusiasm can sometimes move faster than evidence. Lal does not describe regenerative medicine as a replacement for conventional healthcare, nor does he frame emerging therapies as guaranteed solutions. His focus is on what it will take to move promising science responsibly from laboratories and research environments toward broader clinical use. In his view, the breakthrough itself is only part of the equation. #### Finding the Missing Piece of Medicine Lal's career has given him a perspective that extends beyond the science. He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Pharmaceutical Sciences from The Ohio State University and went on to spend two decades working across various industries in the healthcare space. Those experiences taught him that innovation rarely succeeds on scientific merit alone. “You can have extraordinary science,” Lal says, “but without the right people, infrastructure, education, discipline, and trust around it, it may never reach the people who could benefit from it.” That belief has become central to his vision for Regen Therapy. Lal sees physician education, manufacturing, scientific collaboration, clinical frameworks, and responsible commercialization as essential pieces of regenerative medicine’s future. The field, he argues, does not simply need more discoveries. It needs the systems capable of making those discoveries reproducible, understandable, and responsibly accessible. It is an approach shaped partly by his upbringing. Lal grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, as the son of two highly educated immigrant parents who emphasized education, curiosity, hard work, and personal responsibility. He was drawn not only to academics but also to people and relationships. Growing up between cultures taught him to adapt, connect across differences, and approach problems from multiple perspectives. That ability to move between worlds has followed him throughout his career. Today, he finds himself working at the intersection of science and entrepreneurship, medicine and investing, technology and broader questions about human health and longevity.  Image Credit: Sanjiv Lal #### The Patient Changes the Question Lal's transition toward regenerative medicine was not simply a business decision. Facing his own significant health challenge forced him to experience healthcare from the other side of the equation. Researching regenerative approaches became personal, and the experience exposed him to both the potential of emerging science and the obstacles surrounding it. He saw a field advancing rapidly while access remained uneven. Some promising technologies were difficult for physicians and patients to understand. Manufacturing and quality could vary. Education had not always developed alongside innovation. The experience convinced Lal that the industry needed more than another technology. It needed an ecosystem. That realization helped shape Regen Therapy’s focus on secretome science, cellular signaling, physician education, and collaboration. Lal has also been building relationships across healthcare, biotechnology, professional athletics, and the longevity community, including work involving Hall of Fame Health and participation in the XPRIZE community. He has shared his perspective through conferences, podcasts, physician programs, and educational initiatives, including Healthspan Collective and longevity-focused events such as RAADfest. The goal is not simply to promote what comes next. It is to help people understand it. “There is tremendous excitement in this field,” Lal says, “but also tremendous noise.” His answer to that noise is education. #### A Broader View of Longevity Lal's interest in regenerative medicine also reflects a larger shift in healthcare: from treating disease after it appears toward preserving function and extending healthspan. He believes the next era of medicine could increasingly bring regenerative biology together with precision diagnostics, artificial intelligence, genomics, proteomics, extracellular vesicles, mitochondrial science, and advanced manufacturing. The common thread is measurement and communication. The better scientists can understand what is happening inside biological systems, Lal argues, the more precisely they may eventually be able to influence those systems. Secretome science particularly interests him because it may offer another way to think about regeneration, one that focuses on the signals cells produce and the biological responses those signals can influence. But Lal sees the opportunity as only one part of the story. The harder challenge may be building the infrastructure needed to translate that understanding into responsible healthcare applications. That is where his experience as an entrepreneur becomes important. “I don’t spend much time thinking about staying ahead of competitors,” he says. “I spend more time trying to stay close to the science and the people moving it forward.” For Lal, curiosity is not simply a personality trait. It is a way of working. He continues to read research, speak with scientists and physicians, attend conferences, and look for connections between disciplines that traditionally operate separately. Some of the most important ideas, he believes, emerge when those worlds begin talking to one another. #### The Hard Part Is Still Ahead Lal has spent decades working across healthcare and entrepreneurship, but he views his work in regenerative medicine as a longer-term project. His ambition is to help move regenerative medicine from a promising frontier toward a trusted component of modern healthcare. That will require evidence, education, manufacturing capabilities, clinical frameworks, and collaboration, not just enthusiasm. It will also require patience. “Being early requires patience,” Lal says. “It’s not enough to believe in a technology. You have to earn the trust of physicians, researchers, partners, and patients.” That is an important distinction in a rapidly evolving industry: knowing the difference between what could happen and what is ready to happen. For Lal, the future of medicine may indeed be found in the signals exchanged between cells. But realizing that future will require more than decoding those messages. It will require building the scientific, clinical, and human systems capable of putting that knowledge to responsible use. “Whether I’m speaking at a conference, participating in a podcast, working with physicians, or sharing research,” Lal says, “my goal is to make complex science understandable without oversimplifying it.” For a field accustomed to promises about what medicine might become, that remains an important conversation. _This article is for informational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical advice. 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