SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 11, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — What if your healthy years could be extended by a decade or more? Today, XPRIZE announced 20 Finalist Teams advancing in the $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan competition — a global effort to turn that question into reality. As the world’s leader in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, XPRIZE is backing the boldest science aimed at helping people live not just longer, but healthier, stronger, and more independent lives.

Launched in November 2023, XPRIZE Healthspan is the first health-focused competition of its kind. Over its seven-year run, it is accelerating the development and clinical testing of proactive, accessible therapeutics that target the biology of aging itself. The goal: restore muscle, cognition, and immune function— in adults aged 50 to 90, by a minimum of 10 years, with an ambitious target of 20 years, within one year or less of treatment. Success would not just extend lives; it would extend independence, giving millions more years of life with improved functional ability, and make healthy aging more accessible to people around the world by reducing costs. An additional $10M FSHD Bonus Prize will be awarded to a team that demonstrates the ability to restore lost muscular function due to Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD) in one year or less.

XPRIZE announced 20 Finalist teams today at an awards ceremony in Salt Lake City. Of the Finalists, 10 teams will be awarded $1 million each as Milestone 2 Awardees. These teams span four countries — the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China — reflecting the global scale of the race to solve aging. In addition to the $1 million milestone award, each Awardee receives access to key clinical testing resources, bringing total milestone funding to $10 million, to accelerate development and clinical testing of its therapeutic approach.

The XPRIZE Healthspan Milestone 2 Awardees are:

• AgelessRx, USA
• Goda Lab (University of Tokyo / Tohoku University / NanoTitan / Tokyo Relife Clinic), Japan
• Johns Hopkins-Suninflam (Suninflam Inc. & Johns Hopkins University), USA
• Longeveron, Inc., USA
• Minicircle Inc., USA
• Mitochondrial All Stars (Mighty Therapeutics Holdings Inc./Univ. Washington), USA
• NYC-Vita Trial (Mount Sinai Health System), USA
• RETRO-EPIGERNA (Macau University of Science and Technology) Macao SAR, China.
• RPRGAON-Progeria (PRG S&Tech), South Korea
• TIME TRAVELER – Plant-EVs, Japan

“Today marks a pivotal milestone for XPRIZE Healthspan and the future of healthy aging,” said Peter H. Diamandis, MD, founder and executive chairman of XPRIZE. “It is inspiring to see the breadth of scientific approaches our finalist teams are advancing to tackle one of humanity’s greatest challenges. Each team is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, bringing us closer to breakthroughs that could transform how we age and help more people live healthier, more active lives.”

Judges selected the Milestone 2 Awardees and cohort of Finalists based on the strength of their scientific rationale, the scalability and accessibility of their therapeutic approaches, and their readiness to advance into the competition’s clinical trial phase. Together, they represent a diverse range of strategies targeting the biology of aging, including:

• New and existing drugs targeting metabolism, inflammation, tissue repair, and neural protection
• First-of-its-kind medication that acts like a “repair patch” for the mitochondria – the body’s cellular batteries
• Biologic treatment that disrupts cell damage, inflammation, and fibrosis in the brain and body
• Specially designed medicine that acts like a targeted “search and destroy” chemical to track down one of the toxic proteins responsible for rapid aging and mark it for immediate destruction
• Stem cell therapies that use a patient’s own cells to deliver treatments that help mitochondria, inflammation, and cell damage
• A medical technique that delivers temporary genetic instructions into the cells to produce therapeutic proteins to support cell growth, energy, and metabolism
• Extracellular vesicles – or microscopic “biological shipping bubbles” naturally released by cells – to carry proteins, lipids, and other cell information as a medicine for rejuvenation
• New combinations of food-derived and plant-based bioactive therapies to support cell health, energy, and metabolism
• Telehealth and major academic clinics that use advanced data and AI systems or scalable provider-driven approaches to personalize existing drugs, nutraceuticals, and exercise for individual patients.

Finalist teams will advance into the next stage of the competition and expand their therapeutic solutions even further – with highly accessible scalable solutions like foods and supplements, existing drug combinations, and even completely new breakthrough approaches that cross categories.

“Over the past several years, we’ve watched these teams transform bold scientific ideas into promising therapeutic approaches that could fundamentally change how we think about aging,” said Jamie Justice, Ph.D., executive director of XPRIZE Healthspan. “As these teams move into coordinated clinical trials, they are generating the evidence needed to redefine what’s possible for healthy aging while helping establish a higher standard for clinical validation. Together, this work is bringing researchers, clinicians, investors, and industry partners closer to scientifically credible healthspan solutions that can improve lives around the world.”

From 2026 to 2029, finalists will conduct rigorous clinical trials — lasting up to one year each — evaluating therapeutics designed to restore muscle, cognition, and immune function in adults aged 50 to 90. The University of Utah’s Data Coordinating Center (Utah DCC) will oversee trial and data management and University of California San Diego Stein Institute for Research on Aging will coordinate the shared laboratories, biomarkers, and storage of blood and cells across the competition.

The competition culminates in 2030, when XPRIZE will award a grand prize of up to $81 million — one of the largest incentive prizes ever offered for a single scientific breakthrough in health.

“Progress in healthspan science depends on more than promising discoveries. It requires strong evidence and meaningful collaboration,” said Dr. Mehmood Khan, CEO of Hevolution Foundation, Co-Title Sponsor of XPRIZE Healthspan. “That’s what makes the XPRIZE Healthspan partnership such an important initiative. As these finalist teams advance into clinical testing, they are helping build the scientific foundation our field needs to accelerate investment, strengthen confidence, and translate scientific discoveries into interventions that improve lives.”

“FSHD has profoundly impacted my ability to have an active normal life and strengthened my belief that we need to move faster toward transformative treatments,” said Chip Wilson, Founder, SOLVE FSHD. “That’s why we’re proud to support XPRIZE Healthspan including the FSHD Bonus Prize — to help accelerate innovation in muscle health while advancing the broader science of healthy aging. This competition is bringing together some of the world’s boldest scientists to pursue ideas with the potential to transform how we age and improve the lives of millions. That’s exactly the kind of ambitious collaboration we need to change the future of medicine.”

“Scientific breakthroughs happen when ambitious ideas are matched with rigorous evidence and strong collaboration,” said Dr. Kaivan Khavandi, SVP, Head of Respiratory & Immunology R&D, GSK. “XPRIZE Healthspan is creating an environment where innovators can test promising approaches against a common scientific standard, accelerating our collective understanding of healthy aging. We’re pleased to be able to support the competition and researchers working to transform discoveries into meaningful health benefits for people around the world.”

XPRIZE is deeply grateful for the generous support of its sponsors, philanthropic partners, benefactors, and scientific advisors, whose shared commitment is helping accelerate breakthroughs in healthy aging.

XPRIZE Healthspan is offered with support from Co-Title Sponsors Hevolution Foundation and Chip Wilson, founder and chairman of SOLVE FSHD. GSK, a global biopharma company, joins XPRIZE Healthspan as the Official Pharmaceutical Industry partner. Additional contributions from individual benefactors include Christian Angermayer, Carl B. Barney, the Blundy Family, Kas Bordier, Peter H. Diamandis, Charlie and Lorie Epstein, the Eleanor and Howard Morgan Family Foundation, Dana and Rob Hamwee, Daniel Krizek, Nancy and Howard Marks, Chris Ouwinga, Christian Peneff, SeneGence, Mark S. Siegel, Todd and Karen Wanek, Sergey Young, and an anonymous donor. Global scientific advisors — including the Scientific Director at the National Institute on Aging, Senior Scientific Director at the American Federation for Aging Research, Director of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center, and Head of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge — have helped inform the prize design and will advise in various capacities throughout the competition.

Learn more and get involved at xprize.org/healthspan.

About XPRIZE

XPRIZE is the recognized global leader in designing and executing large-scale competitions to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. For over 30 years, our unique model has democratized crowd-sourced innovation and scientifically scalable solutions that accelerate a more equitable and abundant future. Donate, learn more, and co-architect a world of abundance with us at xprize.org.

About Hevolution 

Founded on the belief that every person has the right to live a longer, healthier life, Hevolution Foundation is a global catalyst, partner, and convener on a mission to drive efforts to extend healthy human lifespan and understand the processes of aging. With a focus on aging as a treatable process, Hevolution Foundation aims to increase the number of aging-related treatments on the market, compress the timeline of drug development, and increase accessibility to therapeutics that extend healthy lifespan, also known as healthspan. A global non-profit organization headquartered in Riyadh with a North American hub and an annual budget of up to $1 billion, Hevolution Foundation plans to open offices in other global locations to support a cutting-edge, global ecosystem of talent to propel aging and geroscience research forward and achieve medical breakthroughs to help humanity live healthier, longer. Learn more at hevolution.com.

About SOLVE FSHD
SOLVE FSHD is a venture philanthropic organization established to catalyze innovation and accelerate key research in finding a cure for FSHD, established by renowned Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist, Chip Wilson. The Wilson family has committed $100 million to kick-start funding into projects that support the organization’s mission to find a cure for FSHD by 2027. The goal of SOLVE FSHD is to find a solution that can slow down or stop muscle degeneration, increase muscle regeneration and strength, and improve the quality of life for those living with FSHD. If you want to find out more about our efforts at SOLVE FSHD, please see our website – solvefshd.com

About GSK
GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together. Find out more at gsk.com.

PRTeam@xprize.org

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