In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Mehmood Khan, former Mayo Clinic endocrinologist and PepsiCo executive, discusses how science, AI, and global collaboration can extend healthy human lifespan—not just longevity. As the head of the Hevolution Foundation, he shares insights into investing $1 billion annually in healthspan research and why the focus should be on staying healthy longer, not simply living longer.

Key Points:

Dr. Mehmood Khan argues that the real frontier in longevity is not living forever but ensuring people stay healthy, active, and independent into old age. Through Hevolution’s billion-dollar annual investment, he aims to make healthspan research accessible and equitable worldwide. He highlights AI’s transformative potential in accelerating discovery while cautioning against hype and unethical shortcuts. Ultimately, his message is one of pragmatic optimism: humanity can’t stop aging, but it can redefine how well we live through it.

• Redefining the Goal- Healthspan Over Lifespan: Dr. Khan emphasizes that the aim isn’t to live forever but to remain healthy and independent for as long as possible—framing “healthspan” as the true measure of progress in aging science.
• Hevolution’s Billion-Dollar Vision: The Hevolution Foundation, backed by Saudi Arabia, plans to invest up to $1 billion annually to expand global healthspan research. Its focus is on democratizing longevity breakthroughs for everyone, not just the wealthy few.
• The Economics of an Aging World: Khan warns of the coming crisis as the global elderly population doubles by 2050, creating massive economic and social pressures. Extending healthy working years, he argues, is essential to sustaining societies and economies.
• Science, Big Pharma, and Startups - A Shared Ecosystem: He views pharmaceutical giants, startups, and venture capital not as rivals but as complementary parts of a value chain that share risk and accelerate innovation in longevity medicine.
• Promising Therapeutic Frontiers: Key areas showing rapid progress include senolytics (targeting harmful “zombie” cells), epigenetic reprogramming, mTOR modulation, and gene therapy. These could soon lead to real-world treatments for age-related conditions like psoriasis or dementia.
• AI’s Role in Accelerating Discovery: AI won’t “cure aging,” Khan says, but it will radically speed up research by uncovering biological patterns and relationships too complex for humans to detect—making it an indispensable tool for future breakthroughs.
• Hope, Ethics, and Global Collaboration: Khan envisions a future where advanced therapies are affordable and ethically deployed worldwide. He remains optimistic that, through collective effort and patient science, humanity can compress illness into the final years of life while keeping people healthier longer.