Would you pay £170k? Europe’s first cryopreservation lab opens

Our own impending demise might be a chilling prospect, but for one German start-up, the cold embrace of death is nothing to be feared.

Tomorrow Bio promises its customers the opportunity to be frozen upon death so that they can be revived in the future when technology is sufficiently advanced.

Despite costing a staggering £170,000, (or £63,000 if you just want to save your brain), Europe’s first cryopreservation lab is already proving popular. 

The company, which was founded in 2020, claims to have already frozen six people and five pets, with 650 more paying members waiting for their chance to join them.

Fernando Azevedo Pinheiro, the company’s co-founder, told MailOnline: ‘Personally, I believe that within my lifetime—I’m currently 40 years old—we may witness the safe cryopreservation and reanimation of complex organisms.’

Cryogenic preservation involves freezing someone who has recently died in a way that preserves them into the future. 

By cooling the body down to -198°C, advocates of cryogenic preservation aim to lock the body in stasis just as it was at the moment of death.

Then, in the future, the deceased patient can be safely revived and treated for whatever ailment led to their death. 

Future Bio’s main selling point for prospective customers is how quick they can be preserved after death.  

Mr Pinheiro explained: ‘We are the first, and currently the only, cryonics company to offer field cryoprotection. 

‘This means that we begin the cryopreservation process immediately after a patient is declared legally dead, using our retrofitted ambulances, which function as mobile surgery rooms.’

Since speed is of the essence, Future Bio employs a series of ‘standby, stabilization, and transport (SST) teams’ located in Berlin, Amsterdam, and Zurich.

Upon death, these teams will swoop in to pick up the patient the moment the doctors are legally allowed to release the corpse.

The ambulance crew place the body in an ice bath while providing heart massages and oxygen to slow the effects of decomposition.

Even before reaching the long-term storage facility, the Tomorrow Bio crews are trying to bring the body’s temperature down to -80°C (-112°F).

Normally, if your body was suddenly dropped to this temperature, the water in cells would freeze and expand into ice crystals, damaging the surrounding tissue.

To avoid this, cryogenics companies like Tomorrow Bio, use a process called cryoprotection.

Mr Pinheiro explains: ‘This involves a surgical procedure where we replace the body’s fluids with cryoprotectant agents—essentially medical-grade antifreeze—while simultaneously reducing the body’s temperature.’

Having been safely preserved en route, the customer is then brought to a long-term storage facility in Switzerland owned by the company’s sister organisation, the European Biostasis Foundation.

Here the customer is gradually cooled to -196°C (-320°F) over a period of 10 days before being lowered into their new home – a vacuum-insulated, 3.20m tall steel container filled with liquid nitrogen.

Since these containers don’t need electricity to stay cold, the company says that they can be preserved indefinitely into the future – so long as the liquid nitrogen is occasionally topped up.

In theory, patients will then be able to wait safely for hundreds of years in the care of the company until the technology is ready for them.

Should Tomorrow Bio go bankrupt or disappear, the remains are handed over to the care of another sister organisation called Tomorrow Patient Care Foundation.

Tomorrow Bio even says that if there is any of the £100,000 (€120,000) set aside for storage and treatment leftover, you can have it back once you have been revived.

So far, around 650 people have already signed up for the €50 per month membership to have an SSD team on call.

According to data published by the company in 2023, 149 of those members were living in Germany, 30 in France, and 30 in the UK.

The company now has plans to expand further, bringing coverage to the continental United States by 2025.   

Interestingly, Mr Pinheiro also told MailOnline that the average member is only 36 years old so ‘none of them are expecting to die anytime soon’.

The people who do sign up for preservation are drawn to his company’s services for a number of different reasons.

Mr Pinheiro says: ‘Many customers are fascinated by the possibilities of future technologies and experiences, such as space travel.

‘For some, the primary motivation is the fear of dying. Cryopreservation offers them hope and a sense of security, providing a potential path to extend their lives.’

For his own part, Mr Pinheiro, who has made plans for his own body to be cryogenically preserved, says he is motivated by a love of life rather than a fear of death. 

He says: ‘Others, like myself, simply love living and feel that 80 years is not enough time to explore all that life has to offer. 

‘The idea of extending life and having more time to achieve personal goals and dreams is incredibly appealing.’

Perhaps one of Tomorrow Bio’s most unusual services is the additional option to bring a pet with you into the future.

Mr Pinheiro says: ‘Many people love their pets like family members. Just as they would consider cryopreserving a relative, they choose to do the same for their pets due to the deep emotional connection.’

Although Tomorrow Bio is the first company of its kind in the EU, cryogenic preservation is by no means a new technology.

A number of famous celebs have reportedly made arrangements to be frozen after their death including DJ Steve Aoki and Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane.

Most famously, Disney founder Walt Disney is apocryphally believed to have been frozen after his death but this rumour has proven to be untrue.

Cryogenics has also entered popular culture through films like Demolition Man and TV shows such as Futurama.