ARPA-H launches new program aimed at extending the healthspan of Americans

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new funding opportunity through the launch of the PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience, or PROSPR, program. The big question that drives the program is, “What if we had therapies to extend healthspan and prevent the onset of age-related diseases?”  

ARPA-H PROSPR Program Manager Andrew Brack, Ph.D., says, “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.” The PROSPR program builds on foundational work by the National Institute of Aging and will work with industry and regulators to accelerate the testing and availability of new therapeutics targeted at healthspan.  

This commitment by ARPA-H is not only an investment in national health, but an impactful economic investment. The number of people 65 and older accounts for 18% of the U.S. population and is projected to increase to 23% by 2054. Considering their increased care needs relative to younger ages, health care costs will increase by 75% if nothing is done to prevent the progressive loss of physical functioning during aging, according to a Pew Research Center Study. It is estimated that increasing the average American healthspan would lessen health care costs due to a combination of fewer medical needs, less reliance on assistance by others, and increased potential for individuals and their family caregivers to remain in the workforce. Because of these and other factors, it is estimated that extending healthspan by one year in only 10 percent of the aging population would reduce costs of U.S. entitlement programs by $29 billion per year and increase value to the national economy by $80 billion per year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.  

ARPA-H Director Renee Wegrzyn, Ph.D., says, “researchers and scientists are looking to find new ways to detect, and treat the large number of non-disease negative consequences of aging, like functional declines in memory, hearing, and muscle strength.” The PROSPR   program, she says, represents a tectonic shift in the study of healthy aging. The program’s aim is to “identify physiological and biochemical markers of early health changes during aging, develop assessment technologies that will allow researchers to better understand and target the underlying causes of age-related disease, and to develop therapeutics aimed at prolonging healthspan for all Americans,” adds Wegrzyn.  

PROSPR will be seeking proposals from decentralized clinical trialists, large-data harmonization experts, wearable tech and app developers, physiological and biochemical biomarker researchers, drug developers as well as engagement from the private sector, nonprofits, and other stakeholders to contribute to the work of PROSPR.  

Multiple awards are anticipated under the forthcoming PROSPR solicitation. Awards will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. To learn more about PROSPR, including information about the solicitation, registration for the upcoming Proposers’ Day, and guidance on how to submit a teaming profile, visit the PROSPR program page.  

The ARPA-H PROSPR program is bolstered by the recent funding of a project called Personalized Analytics for Transforming Health Care (PATH). The agency has invested up to $52 million to the Buck Institute for Research on Aging to lead the work to improve the prediction and identification of risk factors for chronic diseases, starting with Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM). In an innovative and bold approach, the project plans to collect data from a recruited cohort of healthy adults aged 50 and older just before major age-induced health declines begin to occur. “The goal of the PATH project is to build the next generation of diagnostics, AI, and infrastructure that will shape the future of health care in the United States,” Brack says. “And, combined with the PROSPR program, ARPA-H is helping lay further groundwork for breakthroughs in the science of aging so that people not only live longer but live healthier for more years.”  Visit the agency awardee page to read more about PATH.