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XPrize recently launched its largest competition to date: the $101 million XPrize Healthspan.

I want to take an opportunity to look at how this prize is set up, what success could look like, and how it may shape the future of the longevity industry.

First: What is XPrize?

The XPrize is designed to “inspire and empower humanity to achieve breakthroughs that accelerate an abundant and equitable future for all.”

It’s based on a long history of prizes designed to inspire entrepreneurs to tackle audacious problems, such as the Longitude Prize in the 18th century and the Orteig prize which led to the first transatlantic flight by Charles Lindbergh in 1927.

The foundation was started and is led by Peter Diamandis, a fairly prominent voice in the longevity space.¹

Why Healthspan?

Global life expectancy has more than doubled in the last 100 years, but the quality of our health as we age has not increased at the same rate. In the U.S. there is currently a 12-year gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, or the period of life free of major chronic disease or disability. 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 (1 in 5 people) there is an urgent need to find novel solutions for healthy aging.

What’s the Objective?

Officially:

It’s a fairly succinct, straightforward goal for something so complex but keeps with the spirit of past XPrize objectives. For example, the entirety of the Progressive Automotive XPrize requirements totaled 17 bullets, of which 6 included the most standard of items like seatbelts and rearview mirrors.²

The winning team of the $10M FSHD Bonus Purse must demonstrate that their therapeutic treatment restores muscle function in individuals with stable Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD). The therapeutic treatment also must take 1 year or less.

FSHD is a genetic disorder which primarily affects the muscles in the face, but can also spread to other areas of the body. It does not have a direct impact on lifespan, although lessons learned in the treatment of the genetic disease could be used in longevity treatments.

How is the Reward Structured?

Awarding is indexed to improvements in function relative to age-related declines expected over 10-years ($61M), 15-years ($71M), or 20-years ($81M).

$20M in milestone awards, with $10M allocated to each milestone, are allocated according to the following criteria:

Milestone 1: Qualifying Submission - Research & Development

• Submission deadline is January 31, 2025. Up to 40 teams will split the $10m milestone prize, although all teams are eligible to advance.

• Teams must establish necessary preclinical research and development data guiding the therapeutic treatment.

• The proposal for for therapeutic treatment and participation must include data and evidence of progress to date, regulatory requirements, and pathway to achieving testing in clinical studies necessary for finals judging.

• Up to 8 teams competing for the FSHD Bonus Prize will share a Milestone prize of $2m.

Milestone 2. Semifinals Testing - Proof of Concept Clinical Studies

• Proof of Concept Trials of up to 60 days must show feasibility of approach, safety, and early estimates of effect in two of the primary target areas (muscle, cognitive, immune function) that suggest next stage phase II trials are warranted.

• Teams will be responsible for submitting regulatory and human subjects safety approvals, data and safety monitoring reports, evidence of target engagement or pharmacodynamic/pharmacokinetic³ response (if necessary for novel drugs), or to submit drug labeling for repurposed agents, or comprehensive instructions provided to human subjects for dietary/lifestyle/behavioral interventions.

• Teams must provide evidence that it will be feasible to enroll and retain participants meeting their Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria in proposed trials.

• Up to 10 teams will share the Milestone 2 award of $10m.

How big is the Healthspan prize?

The Healthspan prize is the biggest to date, beating out the Gigaton Scale Carbon Removal prize (sponsored by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation) by the narrow margin of $1m.

Below is a list of all the prize sizes - past and present - which show the sheer scale of these two mega jackpots:

Who is involved so far?

Given the prize has just been launched, no participating teams have been announced yet.

The co-sponsors are Hevolution and Solve FSHD. From the XPrize website, Hevolution is “a global non-profit organization headquartered in Riyadh with a North American hub and an annual budget of up to $1 billion…founded on the belief that every person has the right to live a longer, healthier life, Hevolution Foundation is a global catalyst, partner, and convener on a mission to drive efforts to extend healthy human lifespan and understand the processes of aging.”

Solve FSHD is “a venture philanthropic organization established to catalyze innovation and accelerate key research in finding a cure for FSHD (Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, a type of muscular dystrophy for which there is no cure), established by renowned Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist, Chip Wilson.”

What is XPrize’s track record?

The Ansari XPrize - with a mission to launch a reusable rocket - led to over $100m in spending on a nascent private space industry and led to technology which was licensed to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

The Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize - the organization’s first foray into health - resulted in each team continuing clinical tests in the United States, Canada, India, and China. One participant, Cloud DX, is commercializing a vital sign monitor which was a key part of their competition entry. Since competing, Cloud DX has launched 4 commercial products and is currently partnered with Teladoc.

What to watch out for

The first item of interest is the final guidelines, which should be released around July of this year. By January ‘25, we should get our first glimpse at the list of participants and their preliminary proposals as part of the Milestone 1 submissions.

As can be expected, this is a long-term challenge. We won’t really see results for at least a few more years.

So, what can we expect?

Given the track record of the XPrize in general, Diamandis’ personal interest in longevity, the size of the prize purse, and the current state of biotech, it’s reasonable to expect this XPrize to move the needle on healthspan research.

At the very least, the size of the prize is garnering attention for longevity research and could prove as a marker of legitimacy for those still skeptical the field has true value.

We’ll check back in when the results start rolling in around 2030 😜 

Cheers,

[1] For a good intro to the prominent players in longevity, I recommend the book Immortality, Inc.
[2] From page 7 of Draft Competition Guidelines
[3] The classic breakdown of these two terms is “pharmacokinetics is what the body does to the drug and pharmacodynamics is what the drug does to the body”. The former includes how the drug gets absorbed into the body, how the body processes it (for example, how the liver breaks it down), and how it gets excreted. The latter includes how a drug impacts biological function, for example, through binding to a specific protein.