Healthspan as a universal right, the need for new regulation, the age of mitochondrial therapies and 7 shifts to accelerate longevity.
As we reflect on some of the interviews we’ve conducted over the past 12 months, it’s apparent that the longevity field is finally starting to get to grips with some of the key issues that have limited its progress. From expanding “right to try” laws and how to pitch healthspan to governments, to the implications FDA’s first approval of a mitochondria-targeted therapy, we’ve spoken to a host of heavy hitters on the big topics. Here is a small selection.
Healthspan: a universal right?
The year kicked off with a bang, thanks in part to Hevolution Foundation’s second Global Healthspan Summit, which brought together thousands of attendees and hundreds of speakers to debate the changes needed to accelerate progress in healthspan.
Our GHS interview with Dr Peter Diamandis, Founder & Executive Chairman of XPRIZE Foundation, sought to explore the renowned entrepreneur’s thoughts on the progress being made in the field. Diamandis told us the most compelling opportunities for investors lie in areas that democratize healthspan science and restore functionality, adding that ensuring equitable access to healthspan technologies is essential to avoid exacerbating global health disparities.
“Healthspan must not remain a privilege of the wealthy; it should become a universal right,” he said.
The economic argument for healthspan
Continuing our GHS coverage, our wide-ranging healthspan-focused interview with National University of Singapore Professor Andrea Maier shone a light into a different aspect of the field. Best known for her work in geroscience research and precision geromedicine, Maier was keen to stress that the importance of healthspan extends far beyond biology – suggesting that governments are now starting to respond to the economic argument for healthspan and, for the first time, acting on it.
“It’s a financial argument, and not just because of health costs – it’s much, much broader than that. It’s about productivity, it’s about keeping people healthy to be able to function meaningfully,” she told us.
Mitochondria’s ‘big moment’
September’s FDA approval of Forzinity was a milestone moment in biotech, with potentially significant implications for longevity, as Stealth BioTherapeutics became the first company to gain FDA approval for a mitochondria-targeted therapy. To get some perspective on the what the news meant for the longevity biotech sector, we spoke to several leading figures in the field, including Stealth CEO Reenie McCarthy.
“We are energized by what this means for families living with Barth syndrome as well as across the wider field of diseases, including diseases of aging, in which impaired mitochondrial bioenergetics drive pathology,” McCarthy told us. “By improving mitochondrial structure and function, we hope to develop therapies that not only slow disease progression but potentially restore function and improve healthspan.”
Shifting gear in longevity
At this year’s Aging Research and Drug Discovery conference (ARDD) in Copenhagen, the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI) published a new report identifying seven key “shifts” that would help create the conditions to allow longevity biotech to flourish. From defining the field and improving our fundamental understanding of aging to achieving consensus on biomarkers and establishing clear regulatory pathways, the report called for greater investment and leadership in longevity to enable the benefits of aging-focused interventions to be realized.
We spoke with MHI director of healthy longevity Lars Hartenstein who told us, “To accelerate progress in longevity, we need coalitions that can drive pivotal trials, foster global data collaboratives, and establish public-health frameworks with authority. That would go a long way toward creating the conditions for everything else to follow.”
Longevity needs new regulations
Finally, in a year where multiple US states passed laws enabling various levels of patient access to therapies yet to be approved by the FDA, we spoke to Bernard Siegel of the Regenerative Medicine Foundation and Healthspan Action Coalition, to find out if we are witnessing a long-awaited catalyst for change at the federal level.
Siegel told us he predicts “an explosion” of laws and changes to existing “right-to-try” laws in the years ahead.
“Perhaps more will even go down the road of the Montana model where you don’t necessarily have to have a life-threatening ailment in order to avail yourself of a therapy,” he said. “We are going to find more and more clinics offering cell therapies and other innovative therapies. I think we’re in the era of Future Shock times 10 – I sometimes feel like I’m living in an Arthur C Clarke novel.”
