XPrize Launches Contest to Extend the Health of Humans as We Age

The XPrize has launched its latest challenge focusing on how we approach human ageing. XPrize Healthspan hopes to yield therapies that improve our biology, allowing us to remain healthy longer with greater mobility, mental acuity, and abilities that currently are compromised as we grow older.

The US $101 million raised so far will be awarded to solutions that treat the conditions that limit healthy lifespans. The contest will last for seven years. Novel therapies to stop ageing-related diseases, eliminate muscle and bone mass loss, and address mental acuity issues will share the money.

Peter Diamandis, Founder and Executive Chairman of the XPrize, states, “Adding decades of health is the greatest gift we can offer humanity. I believe that converging exponential technologies will enable us to make 100 years old the new 60.”

Currently, medicine is focused on treating injuries, illnesses and diseases. This is a reactive model to extend life. It is not proactive to improve the quality of life and reduce the risk of chronic age-related diseases. And yet, our current medical model has doubled global life expectancy from where it was at the dawn of the 20th century.

The problem isn’t one that we are living longer, but rather that we are living longer with chronic illnesses in the latter part of our lives that leave us in poorer health. The challenge this represents as the world’s population ages could overwhelm healthcare as practiced today. By 2050, the number of 60-year-olds as a percentage of total world population is expected to grow from 12 to 22%. It is, therefore, urgent to find solutions to extend our healthy lives for more years. This will bring revolutionary change to the ageing experience.

Although Peter Diamandis talks about extending the human lifespan well beyond where we are today, the XPrize Healthspan’s focus is very different. It is less about longevity, and more about quality of life as we age. It is about eliminating the degradation that accompanies us as we grow older. It’s about developing a better understanding of the biomarkers of ageing and developing cost-effective therapies to restore musculoskeletal strength, cognition and immune function for a minimum of 10 years, with an ultimate goal of 20, for those between the ages of 65 and 80. It’s about ensuring that healthcare has the means to support the therapies and services coming out of XPrize Healthspan. What it is not about is extending the human lifespan to 150 or beyond.

All entries competing for the XPrize Helathspan will provide along with their novel therapies, one-year clinical trials involving people between the ages of 65 and 80 who are generally healthy even though they may be experiencing age-related functional declines. Examples of functional declines include slower walking speeds, more difficulty getting up from a sitting position, climbing stairs, and cognitive memory challenges. The obvious challenges in this age group range are issues like mobility-related falls, or the onset of Alzheimer’s and other dementias, as well as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Novel therapies include drugs, biologic, devices, nutritional supplements, and dietary changes either alone or in combination. The drugs could be new or repurposed. The participants in the competition may come from current biotechnology companies, universities and hospitals, or from anyone anywhere. Governments are not allowed to enter the competition.

Peter Diamandis has stated in the past, “The day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.” Was it crazy to think about how semaglutides, developed for treating Type 2 Diabetes, have become a novel therapy for dealing with obesity because physicians noticed dramatic weight loss in patients taking the drug?

When you realize that obesity is one of the leading contributors to cardiovascular disease, cancer and shortened lifespans, you can see how crazy can turn into a breakthrough.

Today, 32% of Americans are overweight. Of those, 40% are obese. A drug developed to treat diabetes may do more to treat obesity than all the diets and exercise programs ever instituted in the past. As a person about to turn 75, I will be very much engaged in watching the progress made as this competition unfolds.