Can Google, the technology giant best known for search and free email, tackle aging? The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is planning to launch Calico, a new firm that will attempt to solve some of health care‘s most vexing problems. One of the independent venture’s major initiatives will be significantly expanding human lifespan. Arthur Levinson, the former chief of biotech pioneer Genentech, is an investor in Calico and will serve as its CEO. The Sept. 30 issue of TIME profiles Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page as well as his decision to launch Calico. Based in the Bay Area, not far from Google’s headquarters, Calico will be making longer-term bets than most health care firms. “In some industries, it takes ten or 20 years to go from an idea to something being real. Healthcare is certainly one of those ares,” said Page. “Maybe we should shoot for the things that are really, really important so ten or 20 years from now we have those things done.” Google is announcing Calico in a Google+ post Wednesday. Details of the company’s funding and employee head count were not available as of press time. Google is keeping its exact plans close to the vest. But it is likely to use its data-processing might to shed new light on age-related maladies. Sources close to the project suggest Calico will start with a small number of employees and focus initially on researching new technology. That approach may yield unlikely conclusions. “Are people really focused on the right things? One of the things I thought was amazing is that if you solve cancer, you’d add about three years to people’s average life expectancy,” Page said. “We think of solving cancer as this huge thing that’ll totally change the world. But when you really take a step back and look at it, yeah, there are many, many tragic cases of cancer, and it’s very, very sad, but in the aggregate, it’s not as big an advance as you might think.” Levinson, the firm’s leader, has had a storied … Continue reading Exclusive: TIME Talks to Google CEO Larry Page About Its New Venture to Extend Human Life