XPrize Healthspan Names 10 Finalists Testing Ways to Extend Healthy Life

The XPrize Healthspan competition, launched in 2023 with a $101 million purse, announced its top 10 finalists on August 11 after reviewing nearly 200 applications from research institutes and biotech startups worldwide. Executive director Jamie Justice said the goal is to impose rigorous, standardized testing on a field crowded with unproven anti-aging claims.

Each team had to show early human data that its approach could improve three domains: muscle function, brain function, and immune function. Judges used common metrics specified by XPrize expert committees to evaluate all proposals on the same scale. The 10 finalists each receive $1 million to conduct larger human trials over the next year.

Two Japanese teams are exploring extracellular vesicles, tiny bubbles that carry proteins, lipids, and genetic material between cells. Time Traveler Corp., a University of Tokyo spinout, screened more than 140 edible plant and algae species and found that parsley-derived exosomes reduced inflammatory markers in mice and in a 40-person pilot study. Participants reported better sleep and energy.

The other Japanese group, led by chemistry professor Keisuke Goda, engineers "super exosomes" from stem cells with surface molecules designed to target aging cells. In mouse studies, treated animals survived longer than untreated controls, and aged human cells in culture showed reduced aging markers after exposure. A trial of more than 100 people is planned.

A South Korean team is testing a novel longevity drug, while two U.S. groups are studying repurposed drugs. Four projects involve supplements and five rely on biologic compounds such as peptides and antibodies. The geographic spread includes six U.S. teams, two from Japan, and one each from South Korea and China.

The Mount Sinai team earned a spot with a three-pronged regimen: exercise, the transplant drug rapamycin, and the polyamine spermidine. Director Miriam Merad said COVID-era observations linked chronic inflammation to age-related disease, and lab work showed spermidine restored youthful immune responses in old mice. Researchers began taking the supplements themselves after seeing the data.

Rapamycin has shown life-extension effects in some animal studies but lacks solid human evidence; the Mount Sinai trial will test it alongside spermidine and exercise to see which components drive benefits. Participants will undergo grip-strength, leg-press, cognitive, respiratory, and MRI body-composition assessments, plus blood inflammatory-marker tracking.

Justice acknowledged that aging varies widely among individuals and a single solution is unlikely. She said the competition's value lies in converting hype into durable evidence, even if many approaches fail. The next phase aims to demonstrate measurable gains in the three targeted functional domains.