Age is Just a Number: Longevity and Preventative Medicine
While many topics we’ve covered included bits and pieces of the longevity and preventative medicine conversation, this week we are diving in.
While many topics we’ve covered included bits and pieces of the longevity and preventative medicine conversation, this week we are diving in.
In 2022, prominent VC firm a16z wrote an article hypothesizing that the biggest company in the world will be a consumer health company. Two years later, they invested in Function Health, a longevity-focused consumer health company seemingly primed to become the next unicorn. Function is a preventative medicine platform that offers patients personalized health services based on biomarker testing and actionable insights from experts across various modalities of longevity care. So, what exactly is this new type of thinking about our health?
The definition and scope of longevity or preventative medicine varies depending on who you are talking so for the sake of this piece we are going to use the following from an article from the Lancet as a baseline by which to define the market. “Longevity medicine is advanced personalized preventive medicine powered by deep biomarkers of aging and longevity, and is a fast-emerging field.”
Traditional medicine has long focused on treatment versus prevention and targeted medicine, but in the past few decades more and more doctors are transitioning to functional, holistic medicine where they look at the body as a whole and aim to prevent diseases before they occur versus waiting for symptoms to arise.
Triggered by a massive rise in chronic disease and in part by the health scare brought on by the COVID pandemic, preventative testing and longevity-focused medicine is becoming the latest trend in consumer health. 63% of U.S. adults consider the scariest part of aging to be a potential decline in health triggering a shift away from traditional disease focused way of care to more prevention and root cause medicine. From this dynamic there has emerged a focus on health span versus lifespan. People are not only wanting to live longer, but live healthier lives and it’s now possible with the advancements in technology and holistic health mindset.
Companies like Function Health, Superpower, Lifeforce, even older startups like Parsley Health, for example, have begun to test bio markers across many different aspects of health ranging from blood glucose to hormone levels. Some have begun recommending preventative scans, CGM machines, and DNA tests. We talked about Prenuvo in an earlier newsletter, but they have raised a significant amount of capital from a wide range of investors to perform preventative whole body, MRIs. Function advertises using more than 100 lab tests to “to provide you with the broadest and deepest understanding of your ever-changing health”.
In the past preventative, longevity-focused concierge medicine practice was reserved for the 1%, the individuals who could afford upwards of $100,000 a year membership for these types of services. Doctor like David Sinclair, Mark Hyman, Peter Attia, and Florence Comite have been offering personalized medicine to patients on a primarily cash pay basis. Now what we’ve seen is these high-profile functional doctors partnering with venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to attempt to digitize their practices.
Through offering bundled services, such as diagnostics from blood tests to preventative scans, as well as access to functional doctors, NPs, health coaches, and nutritionists, these companies aim to not only prevent chronic diseases before they occur, but improve the health span of their patients and reverse the symptoms of aging. The goal is to treat the patient as a whole human instead of targeting specific symptoms or specific parts of the body. Tally Health has even implemented a biological age test to show how their protocol and supplements can turn back the clock.
This new wave of companies treating whole body systems and practicing functional medicine has rose to prominence fast and furiously. In the last year, we’ve seen companies raise significant funding rounds and the overall market for preventative care grow across all of healthcare.
Lifeforce raised a $12M Series A last spring led by M-13 and Peterson Ventures.
Function Health raised a $53M Series A last month led by a16z.
Superpower raised a $4M Pre-Seed led by Susa Ventures.
Tally Health raised a $11M Seed Round led by Forerunner.
Given the interest from top-tier investors, this market seems like a promising area of focus for capital providers, researchers, entrepreneurs, physicians, and consumers. The businesses aren’t without flaws though.
The biggest issues with this approach to care is cost. Given the lack of insurance coverage for these services, longevity care becomes exorbitantly costly for the patient. As mentioned earlier, in person concierge longevity medicine through private practice costs upwards of $100K a year and even the digital versions of these platforms costs several hundred dollars out of pocket which still makes it inaccessible for many Americans. Bryan Johnson, a successful entrepreneur and venture capital, has dedicated the last 3 years of his life to optimizing his health and “not dying”. He is rumored to spend over $2M a year on his health to help prove that humans can extend their lives beyond what is commonly thought as possible through strict regimens, diets, testing, and supplementation.
Some of these tests and services can be covered by HSA/FSA accounts and qualified practitioners can even bill insurance directly for primary care type checkups, but overall, full service personalized medicine platforms are extremely expensive and cater to the same group of 1% individuals who are likely working with private practices already. Until the price for these memberships comes down or insurance covers this care, democratization of longevity is not likely.
The second concern I have about the focus on longevity and aging is that often times excessive testing and diagnostics use in preventative capacity leads to over diagnosis or miss diagnosis which cause unnecessary anxiety for patients, while some experts even suggest potentially harmful effects from radiation exposure from preventative scans. The American College of Radiology even put out a statement against total body MRIs, stating that there is not “sufficient evidence to justify recommending total body screening for patients.” It is common with preventative testing that patients find minor concerns in their results which leads to invasive biopsies or surgery where the procedure to remove the concern area is more dangerous than the initial finding leading to more harm long-term.
Although we have been exploring the field of longevity through the lens of tech-enabled care startups, there are many other companies tackling the space from cell and gene therapy pharma companies to AI-based diagnostic software to consumer wearables.
The rise of longevity medicine and a focus on aging reflect a transformative shift in how societies perceive and manage aging and healthcare. From reactive to proactive healthcare, the narrative is changing in both the consumer health industry and within the established healthcare system. While promising, this field faces complex ethical, economic, and social challenges to fulfill its potential. As longevity medicine continues to develop and more platforms emerge, education around the limitations and efficacy of these products and services as well as a focus on the basics. Simple behavioral changes in nutrition, sleep, exercise, and stress are far more important to improving, long-term outcomes and health span versus excessive diagnostics and invasive types of procedures. In order to scale the vision of achieving greater longevity for all, we must start with the low hanging fruit.