XPRIZE Seminar

Executive Summary: XPRIZE Healthspan is a 7-year, $101 million global competition to catalyse the development of interventions to restore function lost to age-related decline of multiple organ systems in humans. Teams will develop and test therapeutics including drugs, biologics, gene therapies, devices, nutritional, or lifestyle approaches – administered alone or in combination. The winning team will demonstrate that their therapeutic, when administered over the course of 1 year or less, restores function across the muscle, cognitive, and immune systems of older adults. Dr Jamie Justice, the Executive Director of $101M XPRIZE Healthspan competition, introduces the prize and invites the community to help shape the first phase of the competition. Traditional medicine focuses on treating symptoms of injury, illness, or disease once they develop. This reactive system extends life, but doesn’t proactively improve health, leaving millions grappling with poor quality of life and related economic challenges in their later years. Promising therapeutics capable of extending lifespan and healthspan are being developed and tested in the lab, but public perception, poor alignment and testing guidelines, and unclear regulatory pathways are barriers to clinical translation.