The biggest prize ever in the field of longevity — the $101 million XPrize Healthspan Challenge — is set to announce its shortlist of semi-finalist teams this week. With an ambitious seven-year horizon, the goal is to dramatically rejuvenate human muscle, cognitive function, and immune systems by 2030.
A Bold Mission to ‘Shatter Limits’
Launched by the XPrize Foundation and backed by organizations including the Hevolution Foundation, the challenge aims to redefine the future of aging itself. As Jamie Justice, Executive Director of XPrize, put it:
“This competition isn’t just accelerating progress — it’s shattering the limits of what’s possible when it comes to ageing.”
The prize sets a high bar: the winning solution must restore biological function in adults aged 50–80 by at least 10 years, ideally 20, and do so affordably, accessibly, and within 12 months of final approval.
From Lab to Real Life — Fast
A crucial stipulation is scalability: the winning intervention must be ready for wide deployment in under a year following the final clinical trial, scheduled for 2030, with $81 million earmarked for that phase alone.
Justice emphasized that success in the XPrize would not merely extend life but profoundly impact quality of life, public health, and healthcare costs.
Global Effort, Diverse Innovations
More than 1,000 applicants — including scientists, biohackers, startups, pharmaceutical companies, and academic teams — applied. Now, 40 semi-finalists remain, including 14 from the UK. Their proposed solutions span:
- Biologics (stem cell therapies, tissue regeneration)
- Pharmacological approaches (e.g. metformin, rapamycin)
- Lifestyle interventions (diet, exercise, sleep, and cognition)
- Neuromuscular devices (electrical stimulation for regeneration)
- Gene expression modification
- Nutraceuticals (e.g. NMN, seaweed, wheatgrass, protein blends)
Despite the tech focus, Justice noted that diet and exercise — personalized, not generic — are still central:
“We’re not talking about your five-a-day here.”
Solutions combine functional medicine with cutting-edge interventions — from NMN and herbal compounds to prayer, breathwork, and social connection.
Complementary Prizes and Ecosystem Support
The XPrize is part of a growing longevity funding ecosystem:
- Hevolution Foundation has pledged $1 billion toward longevity research over the next decade
- The Methuselah Foundation’s Mprize ($4.5M+) targets mouse lifespan extension
- The Rejuvenation Startup Challenge funds early-stage biotech with $2–3M
- The Palo Alto Longevity Prize offers $1M for mammalian lifespan extension
These prizes reflect the urgency: while global life expectancy has doubled, healthy life expectancy has not kept pace. In the UK alone, women spend up to 22 years and men 17 years of later life in poor health or chronic disease.
A New Paradigm for Aging
The XPrize Healthspan competition doesn’t seek a single breakthrough pill — but a systemic, scalable intervention that targets the core biology of aging. Rather than treating disease reactively, the aim is to reprogram aging itself.
“The winning solution won’t just delay death,” Justice said. “It will delay decline.”
By 2030, if successful, this prize could catalyze a seismic shift: a move away from conventional sick-care toward proactive longevity engineering accessible to the masses.
Follow-up: The final winner will be announced in 2030 after large-scale clinical testing in aging adults. The selected solution must be ready to launch within 12 months of victory.