"Funding geriatric medicine is just one area where philanthropy can make a big difference. To achieve wider impact, however, ageing needs to move from an orphan to a mainstream issue. More big funders also need to emerge as Atlantic and Reynolds are limited-life foundations, spending themselves out of business."

“The population numbers clearly point to older patients dominating the healthcare delivery in the US and most of the developed world but we have been rather phobic about geriatrics, geriatric medicine and ageing,” says Daniel Perry, executive director of the Alliance for Aging Research.