VDP-142 Healthspan XPRIZE Plan

Proposals
1

Summary

The XPRIZE Healthspan Competition announced an inspiring and bold challenge to make significant progress on longevity by 2030 with a $101 million prize, aiming to rejuvenate immune, cognitive and muscle function in a cohort of 60-85 year olds. The scope of the competition aligns with VitaDAO’s vision and community-centric approach.

This proposal comes as a result of a collective decision made by the Dealflow Working Group. It will outline VitaDAO’s approach to winning the XPRIZE funding by 2030. This will involve an in-house XPRIZE squad, adjunct to the Builder Squad that will build a cohort of 5-6 academic and spinout projects towards the longevity combination therapeutic. To do this, VitaDAO will allocate a combination of non-dilutive launchpad funding from its treasury and Intellectual Property Tokens (IPTs) via the Molecule platform.

VitaDAO’s Approach

In line with the 2024-2025 Mandate proposal, the VitaDAO Dealflow Working Group aims to build 5-6 teams to develop a combination of interventions targeting biological aging to improve muscle, cognitive, and immune function in individuals aged 65-80 years.

Budget & Support

VitaDAO proposes to finance successful project proposals with total funding of up to $2M equivalent in a combination of fiat and IPTs to support the costs of their participation in the competition, including R&D, general operations and application fees among other costs. This will enable the community to directly contribute funding via the IPT framework to enable direct governance over and support for specific research projects. This compliments the proposed budget in the 2024-2025 Mandate proposal.

By participating in the XPRIZE through VitaDAO, teams will gain entry into an extensive network, have opportunities for collaboration with other initiatives, and have the possibility to join forces with other teams. They will also receive ongoing support from the Dealflow Working Group and the Builder Squad.

This runs in line with the Dealflow Working Group and Builder Squad workflow and will not require an extra call for resources beyond what is already available in the community. Project proposals that are put forward for the XPRIZE submission will be highlighted in its Discourse VDP and must already comply with VDP-106.

Specification

  • Project Leads: Eleanor Davies, Anthony Schwartz

  • XPRIZE Squad: Maria Corliano, Michele Gallia, Maria Marinova, Keith Comito, Vincent Weisser
    Nb: The team may grow or change once this VDP proposal has been implemented

  • Description: Development and testing of a combination therapeutic treatment to reverse age-related decline in muscle, cognitive, and immune function.

  • Eligibility Criteria: VitaDAO will conduct an assessment of its existing projects for XPRIZE admission eligibility. New projects will follow VitaDAO’s existing Proposal Eligibility Criteria in VDP-106, and the admission criteria for the XPRIZE. VitaDAO will enter as a longevity biotech hub-and-spoke model.

  • Team and idea formation will start immediately. The team will comprise multidisciplinary skills including subject matter experts, biotechnologists, clinicians, and researchers​​.

  • XPRIZE Registration Deadline - November 29, 2023 - June 30, 2024

    • Registration requirements:
      • Team composition (e.g., number of expected team members)
      • Proposed solution focus areas (e.g., device, biologic, etc.)
      • In what areas of technical or subject matter expertise is your team seeking support?
      • Is your team open to collaboration opportunities?

  • Applicants can share the draft of their research proposals already here in the VitaDAO governance forum, and start forming dedicated scientific teams outlining their plan. The plan should be shaped to the following:

    • Milestone 1 - Qualifying Submission: teams must establish necessary preclinical and research and development data guiding the therapeutic treatment. (Includes data and evidence of progress to date, regulatory requirements, and pathway to achieving testing in clinical studies.)
      • XPRIZE timeline: July 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024
    • Milestone 2 - Proof of Concept Clinical Studies: teams must provide clinical trials of up to 60 days data to show the feasibility of the approach, safety and early estimates of effect in two of the primary target areas that suggest the next stage phase II trials are warranted.
      • XPRIZE timeline: March, 2025 - Feb, 2026
    • Milestone 3 - Finals Testing: 1 Year Clinical Studies: teams must demonstrate their therapeutic solution can restore all three factions (muscle, cognitive and immune function) using clinical protocols with detailed information.
      • XPRIZE timeline: 2026 - 2029

  • Community Voting:

    • Existing projects: Projects will be chosen case-by-case by the XPRIZE squad with input from the senior review panel including senior scientists, geriatricians and preventive medicine clinicians, regulatory affairs specialists, and clinical trials specialists.
    • New funding proposals: will follow the standard Longevity Dealflow governance process. Proposals will contain information on XPRIZE submission eligibility to be governed by the community.

  • Qualifying projects: will be managed by the XPRIZE Squad in collaboration with the Builder Squad.

Timeline and Implementation

  • Internal deadline one month before XPRIZE milestone 1 deadline
  • December deadline relates to pre-clinical concept validation. Outline for prospective teams to have these criteria fulfilled in order to keep to timeline
  • Delegation of prize money to be decided further down the line
  • VitaDAO will operate as a longevity biotech hub-and-spoke model and will enter the XPRIZE as such.

Call for ideas

Together with the Longevity Prize, an incentivized challenge “Healthspan Hypothesis Prize” will be created to put forward concrete proposals for research and study designs, that propose clear steps on how to maximise the likelihood of rejuvenating immune, cognitive and muscle function. This will be a $15K USD prize.

Bibliography and Resources

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0 voters
1 Like
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It will be hilarious if gym bros win this with a combination of a lifting regimen, BPC157, creatine and some other random supplement.

This prize seems optimized for the neuro and stem cell teams most of all. But bioelectric feedback is neat, so best of luck to the teams.

Too bad most HDAC inhibitors are so toxic that demethylating the cells used to measure aging is not practical.

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  1. can we clarify:" This runs in line with the Dealflow Working Group and Builder Squad workflow and will not require an extra call for resources beyond what is already available in the community." ?

  2. How will this initiative impact the funding overhead?

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Thank you, both, for your comments. @alexdobrin I will answer your questions one-by-one:

  1. The intention is that the XPRIZE proposal will act as a catalyst to source, incubate and fund high calibre deals that fulfil VitaDAO’s funding eligibility criteria. The proposal is to put the resources already available in the DF WG to even better use.

  2. This initiative will not impact the funding overhead, it will still be a part of the standard dealflow budget.

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Thanks for the clarification

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Thank you for this proposal @gweisha . Excited to be part of team!

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Very excited for this initiative - we need more bold longevity research moonshot incubations!! :slight_smile:

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Love lofty goals like these!

Moonshots are always exciting and worth putting efforts into. Excited to see the first teams being facilitated as part of this!

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Curious for folks who voted against, what they’d like to see changed for another try at getting it passed? Reducing budget to $1m and focusing it on IPT vs non-dilutive donations/grants would make sense imo cc @PaulHaas @alexdobrin and others

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