think to keep it concise my main worry
TL:DR
Crowd Funded Cures has received $40,000 from VitaDAO under VDP-17 to conduct a feasibility study for a pilot trial using a new method to fund unmonopolizable therapies that improve healthy lifespan. The trial will use an interventional pharmacoeconomic randomized controlled trial (IVPE RCT) and Pay-For-Success (PFS) contract model. Despite spending a year trying to get a large management consulting firm involved, the study will now be conducted by contractors at a lower cost. The study will focus on interventions to improve healthy longevity and aims to prove that the proposed IVPE + PFS model can fund development of unmonopolizable therapies through cost savings.
- that engaging those big state and philanthropic funders wont lead anywhere anytime soon, even with the greatest feasibility study
We are focussing our efforts on specific payers where we have local connections (e.g. in NZ). But engaging with payers will need whitepapers, lobbying efforts and the feasibility study will be an important part of that. As mentioned, we do have contractors lined up to assist who are experts in IVPE RCTs e.g. Dr Daniel Goldstein who has been working with Clalit and is the author of the IVPE article and works at Clalit in Israel, one of the world’s biggest payers. We have also been speaking with his colleague Iris Gisburg who used to manage a $10B healthcare budget at Israeli Ministry of Finance, and has been trying to implement Pay-For-Success contracts there. We ultimately need the feasibility study to help drive a “sales and lobbying” process with payers and get them on board. In my view, the winds are changing with many payers being forced to discover new ways to improve cost-effectiveness and IVPE + PFS model is something they have been more open to. They just need that additional nudge.
- and that we should focus it on something more core to longevity than ketamine, ofc its relevant but not really in our context imo
Mental health and cancer IMO are massive cost-centres and also very much longevity-related. We should start with relatively low-hanging fruit and prove the model, but this could lead to a IVPE + PFS contract looking at an off-patent longevity intervention where we can get better outcomes than current expensive SoC (e.g. zolendronate reducing risk of hospitalisation).
would be more excited if there would be concrete big longevity foundations you are in touch with, that sign something like an LOI that if feasibility study shows x they’d be excited to back a RFS with $y
As mentioned above, we do have the internal greenlight to continue with a Treatment-Resistant-Depression Prize with Challengeworks.org with target of $10-15M. We are also in talks with Partners in Health, who are very influential and interested in cost-savings. This is a bit of a chicken and egg thing - ultimately this would help us move on with our mission. The feasibility study is important because technology is not the main bottleneck to IVPE + PFS but getting payers on board on the basis that we can show guaranteed cost savings and transfer of risk to fund low-cost interventions.