From private space flight to innovative ways to clean up the environment, the XPRIZE Foundation has distributed some $150 million in prizes through “incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges. Now they’re turning their attention to longevity.
As reported here, they’ve just announced XPRIZE Healthspan, their largest competition ever, with $111 million in prize funding. It’s a 7-year global competition with two prizes:
— The main prize will be $101 million, “to the team who successfully develops a proactive, accessible therapeutic that restores muscle, cognition and immune function by a minimum of 10 years, with a goal of 20 years, in persons 65-80 years, in one year or less
— An addition bonus prize of $10 million “to a team that demonstrates the ability to restore lost muscular function due to Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD) in one year or less
The importance of the topic is staggering, as the press release clearly states: “Experts at London Business School, Oxford and Harvard suggest that extending just one healthy year of life is worth $38 trillion to the global economy and extending healthy life by 10-years could net greater than $300 trillion. With the world’s population of people over 60 years of age expected to almost double from 12% to 22% between 2015 and 2050 – or 1 in 5 people – there is an urgent need to find novel solutions for healthy aging.”
Adds XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis, “Converging exponential technologies such as AI, epigenetics, gene therapy, cellular medicine, and sensors are allowing us to understand why we age – it’s time to revolutionize the way we age. Working across all sectors, we can democratize health and create a future where healthy aging is accessible for everyone and full of potential.”
If any further proof were needed that longevity is the red-hot topic of the moment — and that SuperAgers are sitting on the threshold of even more explosive opportunity — this new prize is it. We’ll be keeping a close watch on how the competition is unfolding!