Longevity in Asia 2020: Industry Ecosystem IT-Platform

AI LONGEVITY CENTER

 

One specific development that Deep Knowledge Ventures is currently working on is the establishment of two AI Centers for Longevity in Europe and Asia. The first center will focus on the application of AI for Longevity R&D and the creation and optimization of Precision Health technologies, techniques and protocols. The second centre, will focus on Lifetime

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Wellness non-medical factors (including financial, psychological and social wellness) that impact quality of life and functionality for seniors, ranging from financial wellness, continuing education, happiness, psychological wellbeing, neuroplasticity and active social involvement.

Considering the vast amount of life data and information about citizens being collected in most developed nations by financial institutions, telecom companies, etc., there are a large number of options and avenues for how AI, big data analysis and predictive analytical techniques could utilize that data to create personalized recommendations for how citizens 60 years and older can optimize their lifestyles and behaviors to achieve a high degree of wellness, stability, happiness, social involvement and life activity.

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The number of companies, researchers, projects and technologies active in this space (AgeTech, FinTech for the Elderly, Continuing Education, Brain Training, etc.) is significant, and rapidly growing. Therefore, the demand for practical and sophisticated AI-driven approaches for improving and optimizing the products and services in this space is also very high. Therefore dedicated centers focusing on providing companies active in this space with advanced AI-driven support and solutions would generate sizeable revenues by selling and licensing technologies to these companies, and also help to optimize products and services aiming to improve the overall, lifetime wellness of elderly individuals.

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Taking the UK as an example, there are currently four major AI Centers for Healthcare, in various major hubs in the UK, such as the new AI Center for Value Based Healthcare at King’s College. However, none of them have yet a specific focus on Longevity and preventive medicine. While these centers do serve as a proof-of-concept for the viability of an AI Centre for Longevity, they do not adequately address the need for a complete AI for Longevity R&D hub capable of developing leading solutions, products and services that apply AI to the specific purpose of extending Healthy Longevity.

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There are only three centers in the world actively trying to establish an AI Center for Longevity. These include the US based Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Y Combinator, and the US based AI Precision Health Institute (AI-PHI) at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center. Only the AI-PHI has actually succeeded in establishing such a center in practice.

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The intensive application of AI to all stages of Longevity and Preventive Medicine R&D has the potential to rapidly accelerate the clinical translation of both validated and experimental diagnostics, prognostics and therapeutics, to empower patients to become the CEOs of their own health through continuous AI-driven monitoring of minor fluctuations in biomarkers, and the rapid development of the global Longevity Industry to scale.

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BIOMARKERS OF AGING

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One special focus for this new AI Longevity Center will be the use of AI for the development of an optimal panel of biomarkers of aging - a specific niche where the implementation is lagging behind the science. This is one of the most important diagnostic services that could be offered, and yet it does not receive the attention it deserves compared to the amount of tangible benefits it can deliver.

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How do we know when a biomarker is a biomarker of aging? It depends on how it is sourced. The current approach to biomarkers is to take them from people at various stages of a disease’s known progress, which in practice means sourcing them from hospital patients. Isolating biomarkers of aging, however, means collecting data which marks the difference between healthy people only, e.g. between the young and even younger, with no traces of any officially recognised diseases. This presents a challenge because whereas hospital patients remain in dedicated areas, and are available for analysis at the doctor's convenience, collecting biomarkers of aging means collecting vast amounts of data from the daily lives of people who have no reason to be in hospital. There are however options available for aggregating such data.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The ongoing shift toward diverse and actionable biomarkers of aging is described very well in a recent scientific article by Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO of Insilico Medicine. Insilico Medicine is the leading company working on this specific topic, and Deep Knowledge Ventures provided Insilico Medicine with its seed funding in 2014.

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Also important is the degree of emphasis on achieving a panel of biomarkers which are not only comprehensive but also actionable. A panel of less precise but easily implementable biomarkers of aging would be much better than an extremely precise and comprehensive panel of biomarkers of aging that is too hard or expensive to translate easily into widespread practical use across nations.

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For example, a panel of aging biomarkers was developed recently which is based on Deep Learning analysis of standard blood biomarkers, which is less precise than the most precise available biomarkers of aging (DNA Methylation clocks), but which is nonetheless precise enough, and can be implemented by any researcher, doctor and clinician that has access to routine blood tests.

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As a further example of actionability, consider that biomarkers of aging have been constructed using Deep Learning-based analysis of photographs of mice, which could quite easily be extended to humans. Their accuracy alone is not enough to make them a research priority, but the increasing video capabilities of smart-phones means that these rapid development of photographic biomarkers of aging (e.g. of the face or the eye) could now be a very actionable area of research whose practical level of precision and accuracy will develop quite rapidly in coming years.

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However, the use of AI in R&D is lagging behind in its application to geroscience. While there is a small handful of companies that are working at this frontier, the overall proportion in comparison to the total size of the Longevity industry is still quite small. Deep Knowledge Ventures has been identifying and supporting companies working on the frontlines of AI for Longevity since 2014, when it provided the seed funding for Insilico Medicine, now a leader in the application of AI for Longevity research, drug discovery and biomarker development.

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LONGEVITY AND THE AGETECH MARKET

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The third segment of the Longevity industry is AgeTech, which broadly refers to all IT and digital technologies that help to maintain greater functionality into older age, and that improve quality of life using non-medical means. This segment of the market is rapidly growing, with the number of people in retirement globally growing past 1 billion. This segment also includes such things as advanced and progressive forms of social care, as well as products and services that help to preserve neuroplasticity into older ages.

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AgeTech can not slow down biological aging, but it can provide innumerable benefits to retaining functionality and improving the quality of life into older ages, enhancing psychological well being, mental functioning and neuroplasticity, and increasing levels of independence and social activity. As such, it is one of the sectors of the Longevity industry poised to grow the most in the shorter-term horizon.

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LONGEVITY ADVANCING FINANCIAL INDUSTRY

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The final and most recent segment of the Longevity industry is the Longevity Financial sector, which has emerged naturally out of the clear economic and socioeconomic consequences of an aging population and Healthy Longevity for national economies, pension funds, insurance companies and other financial institutions. 

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The above factors have combined to produce an inevitable coming paradigm shift in the standard operating procedures, products, services and core business models of global finance within the next 2-5 years.

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The present moment in history is characterized by the convergence and oncoming collision of two Opposed Longevity Megatrends: advanced biomedicine, which can increase Healthy Longevity and reduce the burden of aging populations, and the silver tsunami, which threatens to shrink the size of working populations, strain existing age-dependency ratios, and potentially break national healthcare systems if not addressed proactively.

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The global finance industry is currently worth several tens of trillions of dollars, and for the last 50 years it has been marked by a distinct lack of innovation, a resistance to embracing technological change, and to re-tuning business models in a manner that is relevant for the dynamic of scientific and technological progress. But we can already see fundamental changes taking place specifically due to innovations in Longevity. 

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Aging Analytics Agency’s MindMap of the top 150 financial institutions with relevant activities in the Longevity sphere, classified into several subcategories including Banks, Asset Management Firms, Pension Funds, Insurance Companies and Reinsurance Companies.

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As the industry grows, certain parts of it will naturally become commoditized. In the coming years we will see the formation of specialized stock exchanges for Longevity companies, and the creation of marketplaces for tradable financial instruments and derivatives based on the Longevity companies, technologies, products and services.

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Deep Knowledge Ventures and Aging Analytics Agency consider this topic particularly important, and are working on it in various ways. We are for example launching a Longevity-focused hybrid hedge fund Longevity.Capital, which will utilize data-driven analytical assessment and forecasting frameworks combined with novel innovations in InvestTech adapted specifically for Longevity, as well as the concept of a specialized Longevity Stock Exchange, Index and marketplace for tradable financial instruments and derivatives tied to the Longevity sector.

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SUPER COMPLEXITY - CHALLENGES AND ISSUES

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As all these changes progress, the number of points at which these sectors intersect increases. This progress obviously will not be driven by advances in a single technological domain or sector. Each of the necessary breakthroughs will occur at an intersection of two, three or more technologies.

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The overall size, complexity and market capitalization of Longevity, is set to dwarf all other industries, from real-estate to energy and many, many others. As a consequence, the challenges and opportunities that is poses to its participants and stakeholders with also grow. Its ongoing growth will eventually reach an inflection point where many of the holder’s of the world’s wealth recognize the opportunity in front of them, and understand that they have the chance to participate in something uniquely profitable that can deliver greater benefit to humanity than any other in history. Momentum will multiply and the industry will experience self-perpetuating growth.

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This will attract manpower at an exponential rate. For various types of professional, a working life outside the expansive industry will be inconceivable. Longevity already attracts the best and brightest scientists and medical professionals working today, as it is already the forefront of biotechnology and biomedicine. As the borders of Longevity expand to incorporate more of the above-mentioned sectors and related sectors, we will see the most skilled entrepreneurs migrate to the Longevity sector. 

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In order to be productive, entrepreneurs entering Longevity will need to be highly skilled, intelligent, and adhere to a rigorous ethical code, as the repercussions of both fraud and honest mistakes in this industry are greater than in others. There will come a day when it will be almost unthinkable for any business professional or investor to not be actively involved in Longevity, considering its scope and benefits.

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Due to its complexity, the Longevity Industry requires extremely sophisticated analytical frameworks for assessment and forecasting. This becomes increasingly important as it progresses and grows, because the scope for costly mistakes increases proportionately. Many such mistakes will be made with good intentions as a simple result of the sheer complexity of the Longevity landscape and the difficulties of forecasting, but there will also be room for actual cases of fraud, as exemplified by the Theranos scandal. 

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And due to the fact that it will be an industry dwarfing all others in the history of mankind in its size, the cost and overall repercussions of such mistakes will also be of an unprecedented size and scale. In order to prevent such outcomes, and neutralize the likelihood of a Longevity boom and bust, participants in Longevity need to utilize approaches to assessment, forecasting and strategic decision making precise enough to match its level of complexity. 

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CHALLENGES FOR GOVERNMENTS AND NATIONS

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In addition to the risk of costly mistakes, this level of complexity also creates challenges and opportunities for developed nations and their governments, which are currently facing extreme economic pressures on their healthcare systems, social security systems, pension funds, and national economies due to the rapid acceleration of aging populations.

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Developed nations are set to either sink or swim in the face of the oncoming Silver Tsunami, and their success depends on how proactively they deploy broad, well-funded national plans to extend Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy and financial reform to neutralize the economic pressures of their aging populations. They have the opportunity to transform the deficit-model of aging into the opportunity and asset-model of Healthy Longevity.

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Most developed nations already have the technological means to increase HALE through preventive medicine, advanced biomedicine, socioeconomic policy and lifestyle changes. There is no great need for the further development of many experimental new technologies or therapies any time soon. What governments really need to do at this stage is simply perform the necessary initial diagnostic analysis via the use of panels of biomarkers of aging, executed on a scale at least in the millions. The missing element is not biomedicine or biotechnology, but the aggregation and analysis of huge amounts of health data. It is not a medical or biotech problem, but a big data analytics problem.

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Such government-led projects, if properly implemented, would be the greatest source of developed nation's health and wealth, and should be considered as a matter of the highest national importance, implemented with the urgency and rigour of the Manhattan Project (the 1939 American nuclear weapons program completed in 6 years) or Apollo Program (program for the world’s first lunar landing completed in 8 years). With the current pace of development of science and technology, these projects could be developed in 5-7 years. 

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90% of digitized data globally was collected during just the last 2 years, and this rate is only going to increase, and increasing HALE can be largely considered as a data collection.

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In most instances the technologies pushing forward the Longevity frontier have reached roadblocks which can only be cleared by government coordination. So realistically, the roadblocks to progress are not scientific or technological, but political.

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In Switzerland for example, the state of research into precision medicine procedures is very advanced and yet the fragmented healthcare system makes nationwide coordination and harmonisation of biobanks, electronic clinical information systems and clinical data management infrastructures difficult. 
 

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Aging Analytics Agency's "National Longevity Development Plans Global Overview (First Edition) report contains a comprehensive analysis of the strength, relevance and proactivity of various countries' government-led efforts at projects and initiatives to reduce the economic burden of an aging population and manifest the opportunities of Healthy Longevity.

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Yet government initiatives are appearing up all over the globe that will not only better coordinate technological progress and overcome such barriers to progress, but also directly influence Healthy Longevity, and the probability of living long enough to benefit from advances P3 and regenerative medicine. These range from the industrial strategies of Britain and Japan, to the elderly care banks of Switzerland, to the places of continued learning for the elderly in China, to the WHO-certified ‘Age-Friendly Cities’ cropping up on every continent.

 

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As can be seen from the findings of Aging Analytics Agency's "National Longevity Development Plans" report, the gap between life expectancy and Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE) varies widely among developed countries, and can be seen as a direct result of the relevance and proactivity of their efforts to embrace the paradigm shift from treatment to prevention and from Preventine Medicine to Precision Health.

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THE NECESSITY FOR NOVEL METHODS OF ANALYTICS

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Thus, we can see quite clearly that Longevity’s scope both for growth and profitability, as well as the various complexities that make assessment and forecasting difficult, are truly unprecedented.

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Analyzing it means not only analyzing the intersections between geroscience research and development, regenerative medicine, P4 medicine, AgeTech, and finance, and also parameters as diverse as the national development plans and financial systems of countries, in relation to the nationwide Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE) of those countries, an analysis encompassing hundreds and even thousands of parameters of this vast and sprawling emerging global industry.

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TIMELINE AND FORECASTING

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It would be a mistake to assume that these changes belong to the remote future. Our current methods of predictive analysis inform us that it is quite reasonable, for example, to expect the approaches and business models underlying precision health to become the norm in developed countries by the year 2027-2030, and that in some countries and regions, significant elements behind this approach may be in place as early as 2024-2025.

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And while the industry does indeed require new forms of analysis and forecasting to match its runaway complexity, this does not mean that such solutions cannot be created over the next several years, or that they are not already being created today. This is made easier by the fact that there are already existing methods of technological and scientific assessment practiced in other high-tech industries, such as the use of Technology Readiness Levels in aerospace for assessing how close to market-readiness certain technologies are, or scenario analysis in politics and warfare.

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There are also similar assessment practices in the fields of AI, machine learning, deep learning and big data analysis, such as the use of synthetic data and metadata (i.e. “synthetic” data extrapolated from existing data when such data cannot be directly measured) to benchmark, assess and extrapolate existing trends into the future.

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The quantitative and tangible assessment of technologies, methods, therapies and companies within the Longevity space necessitates the use of novel approaches to technological, scientific and industry benchmarking, utilizing methodologies like Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), which use the expertise of science and technology professionals to assess the market-readiness of products and services, and forecast when their clinical translation will become a reality.

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So, while the level of complexity is increasing, the pace of progress in technologies, tools and techniques for assessing and forecasting is also increasing. If proactive measures are applied, the levels of precision and efficiency of such methods can be made to keep pace with the increasing complexity. 

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In order to neutralize these challenges and unleash the industry’s potential, Aging Analytics Agency and Deep Knowledge Analytics have been working over the course of the past five years on designing and validating increasingly sophisticated and multidimensional approaches to industry analytics, to serve as the leading tools and solutions for strategic decision making, with the aim of developing such frameworks to the levels necessitated by the increasingly complex nature of the global healthcare system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Aging Analytics Agency's 3-D Longevity Industry Analytical Framework, whose production was necessitated by the complexities of the sector, and required in order to obtain a tangible and pragmatic understanding of the industry in order to structure investment strategy in a relevant way.

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They have been applying systematic methodologies to create different types of analytical frameworks that define and classify distinct scientific domains, technologies and applications very clearly, in a way that allows them to be quantitatively compared, continually refining them to maintain their relevance against the changing dynamics of the industry sectors.

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The metrics developed for and used in Aging Analytics Agency’s National Longevity Development Plans: Global Overview 2019 report are broken down into 6 distinct layers, with specific ratios being derived from 1st layer metrics, specific metric ratios and growth rates of ratios being derived from 3rdth-layer metrics, effectiveness measures being derived from 4th layer metrics, and effectiveness measure growth rates being derived from 5th layer metrics.

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And to address the political dimension, Aging Analytics Agency has begun to direct significant resources to the production of sophisticated open-access and proprietary analytics on the topics of Longevity governance and governmental development plans, and to the intersection of Longevity and the advancing financial industry of pension funds and insurance companies, and the global market of financial instruments and derivatives related to so-called “Longevity Risk”.