Healthy aging made possible

XPRIZE Healthspan is made possible thanks to the generosity of Co-Title Sponsors Hevolution and SOLVE FSHD, and other individual sponsors. Learn more about our sponsors and partners.

About Hevolution | About Solve FSHD | Meet the Benefactors

Traditional medicine focuses on treating symptoms of injury, illness, or disease once they develop. This reactive system extends life, but doesn’t proactively improve health, leaving millions grappling with poor quality of life and related economic challenges in their later years.

A proactive, accessible therapeutic that reduces the risk of chronic age-related diseases, increases human healthspan, and extends quality of life well into our later years.

If these trials are successful, we will prove that it is possible to improve health as we age. This prize will help us begin to create guidelines and new solutions for healthy aging.

Success would profoundly change our approach to aging and positively affect quality-of-life and healthcare costs. Working across all sectors, we can democratize health and create a future where aging is full of potential.

The winning team of the $101M XPRIZE Healthspan must demonstrate that their therapeutic treatment restores muscle, cognitive, and immune function by a minimum of 10 years, with a goal of 20 years, in persons aged 50-80 years. The therapeutic treatment must take 1 year or less.

The winning team of the $10M FSHD Bonus Purse must demonstrate that their therapeutic solution substantially improves FSHD-relevant muscle outcomes based on: 1) fat infiltration in muscle via any imaging modality or change in a relevant FSHD biomarker, and 2) corresponding improvement of muscle function, compared with controls. The therapeutic treatment must take less than 1 year.

The competition is operated across two tracks:

XPRIZE Healthspan is a 7-year, $101 million global competition to revolutionize the way we approach human aging. To tackle this problem, competing teams will develop and test therapeutics that restore muscle, cognitive, and immune function by a minimum of 10 years with a goal of 20 years, and extend healthy life.

Awarding of the Grand Prize is indexed to improvements in function relative to age-related declines expected over 10-years ($61M), 15-years ($71M), or 20-years ($81M). Two $10M Milestone Awards will be divided amongst advancing teams, totaling $20M in Milestone Awards.

Launched alongside the 7-year, $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan global competition, the $10M FSHD Bonus Prize challenges innovators across the globe to find novel solutions for FSHD. Competing teams in the FSHD Bonus Prize will develop and test therapeutics that demonstrate substantial improvement in muscle function through a therapeutic treatment lasting 1 year or less in persons with genetically confirmed FSHD.

An additional $10M is reserved for the FSHD Bonus Prize, which includes a $2M Milestone Award, and $8M awarded to the First Place team.

For more information, please refer to the Competition Guidelines.

Public announcement of the competition was launched on November 29, 2023.  Interested teams were invited to pre-register by submitting an Intent to Compete form on the XPRIZE Prize Operations Platform (“POP”) competition portal.

On July 31, 2024, Primary Registration and Qualifying Submissions for the competition began. Teams must submit Qualifying Submissions for XPRIZE Healthspan and the FSHD Bonus Prize by December 20, 2024, for the Judges to review their eligibility for a Milestone 1 Award. For more information on Qualifying Submissions, please refer to the Resources section.

Stay up to date with the competition and join our mission to extend healthy life by subscribing to our newsletter, becoming a supporter, or competing on a team.