--- title: "Healthspan" description: "Improvements in public health, sanitation, and medical innovation have led to human life spans more than doubling over the last 120 years, from 32 years in…" url: https://www.independentpress.com/article/healthspan date: 2026-02-16 categories: ["Healthcare","Business"] author: "By Isaac Paul Oommen " --- # Healthspan ![healthspan img](https://images.ctfassets.net/ewtdlsoyixc1/58BRVGYa7icOmPbPrGzMEd/3fe6c2be671bd979236adb1eb2149f5b/image__6_.jpg) Improvements in public health, sanitation, and medical innovation have led to human life spans more than doubling over the last 120 years, from 32 years in 1900 to 71 years in 2021. As human life spans have continued to get longer, investment has poured into the healthspan industry to develop anti-aging technologies that can help people live longer, healthier lives. Historically, the anti-aging market has focused on alleviating age-related issues, such as cancers and cardiovascular diseases. However, in recent years, the field has shifted upstream to target the biological mechanisms that drive aging itself. The goal is to ensure not only that people live longer, but that longer life spans translate into healthier lives. Companies operating in the healthspan industry provide preventative healthcare, seeking to arrest medical issues before they manifest into more severe problems. Services offered under the healthspan rubric include diagnostics & screening, education, longevity & preventative care, regenerative & wellness therapies, and weight loss treatments. **Market Overview** In the past decade, investments in the healthspan sector have nearly quadrupled while clinical trials devoted to studying medical treatments in the healthspan sector have grown 27%. There are currently hundreds of therapeutic candidates under research for targeting aging pathways. Healthspan-focused equity investments reached ~$7.3 billion in 2024; more than double the 2023 level. Average deal sizes have also increased by 77% since 2020 as the industry has matured and companies have sought later-stage financing rounds. The sheer economic cost of age-related disease, which accounts for more than 600 million disability-adjusted life years or roughly one-third of the global disease burden, is one of the primary catalysts driving growth in the healthspan industry. New developments in healthspan have the potential to generate up to 2 trillion dollars in global annual GDP by promoting overall well-being of human populations and prolonging workforce participation. **Mega-Cap Companies** Healthcare systems in most countries are focused on treating disease. As a result, mega-cap companies have traditionally veered away from funding research & studies for preventative care treatments. Most drugs are tested and approved based on their ability to treat diagnosed conditions. Aging is an underlying risk factor that affects many diseases but is not a formal indication of the disease itself. Consequently, aging therapeutics exist in a gray area where many larger companies have not yet ventured. In addition, patients are currently hesitant to pay for potential problems that will only show up in the future, especially when it is unclear whether treatment is working. While most mega-cap companies have not formally pursued therapies to target the pathways of aging, many are developing treatments aligned with the proactive approach in healthspan therapeutics. On the cognitive side, pharmaceutical giant [Eli Lilly](http://www.lilly.com/) is leading the way. In a talk with [Goldman Sachs](http://www.goldmansachs.com/), David Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, discussed treatments for Alzheimer’s stating that, “If this decade is about obesity drugs, I’m hopeful the 2030s are about brain drugs.” Eli Lilly currently manufactures a monoclonal antibody called Donanemab which has been approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disorder (AD). Donanemab focuses on targeting and removing amyloid plaques in the brain; amyloid plaques being an early precursor to AD. By taking otherwise healthy seniors with elevated amyloid plaque levels and lowering those levels before AD symptoms appear, Lilly is taking a preventative approach to AD. One of the leading growth areas in the healthspan industry is the anti-obesity market and the use of glucagon-like peptide-1s (GLP-1s). Originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, studies have shown that GLP-1s are beneficial for treating obesity in higher doses. The journal _Nature_ has tabbed GLP-1s as potential first-in-class longevity drugs based on their ability to improve several comorbidities associated with patients who suffer from type 2 diabetes and obesity, including cardiovascular events, kidney and liver disease, sleep apnea, and osteoarthritis. Clinical data demonstrates that GLP-1s provide cardiovascular benefits to patients with type 2 diabetes and in patients who suffer from obesity but not diabetes. [Novo Nordisk](http://www.novonordisk.com/) (maker of GLP-1s Ozempic, Wegovy, and Saxenda) and Eli Lilly (maker of GLP-1s Mounjaro and Zepbound) are two mega-cap companies leading the way in the development of GLP-1s. **Start-ups** Because mature publicly traded companies are accountable to shareholders who demand consistent quarterly earnings and predictable growth, start-ups may be better poised to take advantage of disruptive innovations in the anti-aging industry. Start-ups can better afford to take high-risk, high-reward bets on technology because they are small and often funded by venture capital with a long-term view on profitability. Start-ups, Retro Biosciences & Altos Labs, are two of the most promising young companies in the healthspan sector. [_Retro Biosciences_](http://www.retro.bio/) – Sam Altman-backed Retro Biosciences has partnered with [OpenAI](https://openai.com/) to reimagine Yamanaka factors, a Nobel prize-winning set of 4 proteins that can reset somatic cells back into embryonic, pluripotent stem cells. Yamanaka factors have been successful used in trails to restore vision in blind mice and make human skin cells 25 – 30 biological years younger after just two weeks of treatment. However, in initial studies, the success rate for using Yamanaka factors to induce pluripotent stem cell generation was reported very low, less than 0.1%. Retro Biosciences and OpenAI created an AI model that was able to reengineer two of the Yamanaka factors to increase stem cell reprogramming efficiency, achieving a 50x improvement compared to the original trials. [_Altos Labs_](http://www.altoslabs.com/) – Backed by Jeff Bezos, Altos Labs is a biotechnology firm that has the ambition to “reverse disease in a disease-agnostic fashion” through cellular reset. The ~500-person company brings the brightest minds from academia into a scalable industry model, backed by a $3 billion initial investment, to reimagine cell health through in-house discovery, computation, and translation. By offering professors salaries 5 – 10x what they normally would make in a university setting, Altos Labs is enabling curiosity-driven research where researchers have permission to be bold and take risks. While any single discovery could be worth billions, the company has no immediate goal of generating revenue; its focus is on better understanding the science behind aging. The company’s structure has already proven successful, with Alto Labs Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, Rick Klausner, disclosing in 2024 to the Aspen Institute that the company has been able to extend the lifespan of mice by 25% by reprogramming Yamanaka factors. **Investor Ecosystem** The biotech and pharmaceutical sectors have always required significant upfront investment and financing due to the capital-intensive nature of designing new therapies. Discovery, preclinical testing, clinical trials, regulatory approvals, and manufacturing take companies an average of 10 – 15 years and billions of dollars before a single drug reaches the market. Anti-aging therapeutics face an additional layer of difficulty due to the long-time horizons needed to demonstrate meaningful effects on human patients. Unlike traditional drugs that target a specific endpoint, interventions in aging must prevent issues before they ever arise, making it difficult to measure whether the therapy is working as intended. The uncertainty surrounding outcomes, along with regulatory ambiguity regarding how to navigate traditional FDA approval for a therapy that targets a pathway rather than a disease, makes investment in the space high-risk, even for well-capitalized companies. However, with recent scientific advancements and the desire to shape the future of medicine, funding has been flowing into healthspan start-ups, with the average deal size rising 77% since 2020.The average investment in the space has quadrupled in the last decade, and 27% more treatments have begun clinical trials in the last 5 years. Eary-stage and venture capital investors as well as philanthropic foundations have formed the bulk of the investment flowing into the healthspan sector. _Early-stage and venture capital_ – With scientific consensus reached on the “hallmarks of aging”, the discovery of clear and targetable pathways for treatment, and proof-of-concept work done in mice, early-stage investors have become much more willing to invest in healthspan companies than they were 10 years ago.Large venture funds like [Draper Associates](http://www.draper.vc/), [a16z Bio + Health](https://a16z.com/), and [Khosla Ventures](http://www.khoslaventures.com/) have made several investments in the healthspan industry in recent years. Being an emerging sector, early bets on healthspan have the potential for massive returns in the future, which could dwarf yields from traditional biotech investments. There are also several smaller, more focused venture funds like [age1](https://age1.com/) and [Healthspan Capital](http://www.healthspancapital.vc/), which are seeking to leverage deep expertise in the biological processes surrounding aging to identify promising start-ups that larger generalist funds might miss.By investing in the industry, early venture capital firms are helping to build the healthspan ecosystem and encourage the formation of new companies and partnerships. _Philanthropic capital _– Though aging is ever-present, effecting every living being, the science of aging remains critically underfunded. Several philanthropic organizations have taken the initiative to support work in the healthspan industry and geroscience research that is considered too early, risky, or misaligned with traditional investment theses. The world’s largest philanthropic investor in the healthspan industry is the [Hevolution Foundation](https://hevolution.com/) which has a stated goal of funding $1 billion a year to promising research initiatives and biotech start-ups. Philanthropic funding enables progress to be made in nascent industries like healthspan without expectations of near-term profit. By taking on the risk of early uncertainty, philanthropy can bridge the funding gap and accelerate the rate at which anti-aging therapies are able to reach the market. **Concluding Thoughts** Growth in the healthspan industry is accelerating, with the longevity market projected to reach $8 trillion in spending by 2030 having surpassed $6.8 trillion in 2025. As anti-aging therapies continue to advance, it is necessary to consider the role that culture and public policy play in adopting innovation. For aging therapies to work, they must be supported by the FDA and other regulatory agencies so that doctors and researchers are empowered to pursue novel therapies that treat diseases years before they manifest. Patients must also play a role in transforming the healthcare system by shifting from a reactive approach of seeing a doctor only when symptoms appear to a proactive approach of regularly monitoring their health even when they feel well to identify issues early and prevent disease. The healthspan industry offers tremendous potential to provide longer and better-quality lives to patients and generate trillions of dollars of value for the healthcare industry and the economy by creating healthier populations and prolonging workforce participation. Healthspan offers a glance at the future of medicine; treating diseases proactively years if not decades before they manifest. ##