Yesterday, Jamie Justice, Executive Director, provided an update on the pre-registrations for the recently announced XPRIZE Healthspan competition. She was speaking at "Exploring the Frontiers of Ageing Research - the XPRIZE Challenge" - an event organised by Ageing Research at King’s (ARK).
To date, over 240 teams from over 40 countries have entered the $101 million competition which will ensure a wide range of approaches tested across diverse cohorts.
Jamie also presented some early analysis of the therapeutic approaches the teams are taking. Most are looking to use a combination of interventions - so although the graph below shows 17% of entrants using lifestyle interventions, this is probably in tandem with a drug or similar therapy. When the registration closes, more details will be released so we'll be able to see how many people are including popular age-slowing drugs such as rapamycin or metformin in their armoury.
There were lots of questions from the audience with honest answers where the subject was complicated, such as which biomarkers to use. The slide below shows the 3 key areas that the winner must address (to make sure the treatment is not targeting just a single age-related disease) along with various ways these could be measured. Final criteria will be confirmed nearer the time.
Because the XPRIZE is not just about funding, it also tries to drive the whole industry forward, so it was great to hear that all of the mandatory clinical trial results will be collated on a single platform and the raw data made available to other researchers (once the entrants have had time to publish related papers).
