PROSPR (PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience) is a new government-sponsored program that is centered around developing therapies that will help to extend the American healthspan (the amount of time without age-related disease).
This program was initiated when the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) collaborated with the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to launch the new research funding initiative to investigate new ways to detect and treat negative age-related changes such as cognitive decline, hearing loss, and sarcopenia.
PROSPR: hoping to extend the American healthspan
The overarching goal of the initiative is to extend the number of years aging American adults can live independently enjoying their well-being by postponing frailty and disability into a much shorter duration toward the end of life, if not eliminating it entirely wherever possible.
PROSPR will make funding available to researchers hoping to tackle the challenges of extending American life and healthspan, according to a recent press release.
“The ultimate goal is to extend healthspan—meaning the number of years aging adults live healthy lives and enjoy overall well-being by compressing the frailty and disability that comes with aging into a shorter duration of time near the end of life,” says Andrew Brack, PhD, the PROSPR Program Manager.
The new venture will be building on some of the work that the National Institute of Aging (NIH) has been working on and will be working in collaboration with various organizations in the biotechnology industry as well as some unspecified regulators to accelerate the development, testing, and availability of new therapeutic that targets human healthspan.
Extend healthspan and stimulate the economy
It is hoped that the new initiative, along with positively impacting the healthspan of Americans, will also help to enhance the economy across the nation.
Currently, over 18% of the population is comprised of people over the age of 65 years old, however, this number is projected to increase to 23% by 2054. The fact is that elderly adults require more care and the associated costs to healthcare could increase by 75% if the status quo remains the same and nothing is done to combat age-related loss of function such as frailty.
Extending the average American healthspan would lessen the need for extra care for elderly people and reduce healthcare costs as well as reliance on caretakers to allow family caregivers to remain in the workforce.
Estimates are that increasing American healthspan by just one year among only 10% of the rapidly aging population would mitigate the costs of aged entitlement programs by $29 billion annually, as well as boost the national economy value by $80 billion according to health policy research.
Incentivizing scientists to approach aging in new ways
According to the Director of ARPA-H, Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, Ph.D., to address extending human healthspan, scientists and researchers will need to seek new ways to detect and treat a rather lengthy range of age-related decline/dysfunction such as loss of memory, hearing, vision, and strength.
PROSPR represents a significant shift in the way healthy aging is studied, according to Wegryn. Furthermore, scientists and researchers participating in the program will work to pinpoint the early biochemical and physiological markers of age-related changes to develop technologies and therapies to target the underlying and contributing processes with progressive dysfunction during aging. The end goal of all this is to help to prevent or ideally end age-related disease with therapeutics that are designed with the goal of extending healthspan for all Americans.
To achieve this, PROSPR will be seeking proposals from clinical trialists that integrate large datasets, developers of apps and wearable technologies, biomarker researchers, and drug developers, as well as engagement for nonprofits and private sectors.
Winning proposals can expect to receive undisclosed awards and/or sums from PROSPR for the research, development, and availability of their new healthspan-targeting innovation. Any awards will be determined based on the quality of the proposals and funding availability.
Anyone who would like to submit a proposal to PROSPR can send their team profiles to the PROSPR/ARPA-H website for consideration.
On your marks, get set, go!
To reach these transformative solutions we need to think beyond current limitations and challenge ourselves to achieve the solutions. Good luck everyone, be courageous in your ideas, goals, and approaches. However, we also need to be undaunted by the potential for failure in our ideas, collaborations, and approaches because before great success there are always some setbacks to learn from.
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References/Sources/Materials provided by:
https://arpa-h.gov/research-and-funding/programs/prospr
https://arpa-h.gov/news-and-events/arpa-h-launches-new-program-aimed-extending-healthspan-americans
https://arpa-h.gov/about/people/andrew-brack
https://arpa-h.gov/news-and-events/arpa-h-launches-new-program-aimed-extending-healthspan-americans
