Global Healthspan Summit 2025

Written By Rachael Jennings

HRH Princess Dr. Haya Bint Khaled Bin Bandar Al Saud (Chief Scientific Officer Hevolution) interviewing HRH Prince Turku (Chair of King Faisal Foundation on philanthropy and global peace, health and development)

A note from Yeu

We’re always keeping an eye on the latest science around longevity. Last week, one of our amazing advisors Derek Yach MBChB MPH (former Executive Director for NCDs and Mental Health at the WHO and former head of Global Health, Rockefeller Foundation) attended the Global Healthspan Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, hosted by the Hevolution Foundation.

This event brought together top scientists, investors, and policymakers to explore how we can extend healthspan, not just lifespan because living longer only matters if we can stay strong, active, and independent. In this guest post, Derek breaks down the key takeaways from the summit, why Hevolution could be a game-changer for global health, and what it all means for the future of ageing.

Over to Derek.

Will the Hevolution Foundation be the start of the new vision and needed hope for global health?

The recent Global Healthspan Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (February 4/5, 2025) provided a glimpse into the future of global health. Hosted by the Hevolution Foundation (1) it brought together 2500 people active in the evolving field of geroscience world alongside many who have worked on healthy aging, chronic disease prevention and treatment. They included bench and clinical scientists, investors, and some policymakers from across the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

The convenor and head of the Hevolution Foundation, Mehmood Khan, opened the meeting by laying out the purpose of both the Foundation and the Summit: to advance understanding of the science that underpins healthspan and act upon the implications. This represents a fresh perspective on the challenges we face in global health as longevity has increased out of synch without enhanced quality of life. 

Jay Olshansky (left) with Derek (right)

Background

The size of the challenge was outlined by Jay Olshansky, one of the pioneers in advancing the importance of addressing the compression of morbidity as populations age. He summarized his latest paper on this (2). In his view we are unlikely to see the average life expectancy increase beyond eighty-five. 

A recent review of the gap between healthspan and lifespan highlighted the extent and urgency of the need for research that addresses the determinants of ageing independent of specific diseases (3). The focus of research needs to tackle ways to allow populations to maintain optimal health until the end of their lives. Something Jim Fries had first highlighted 45 years ago (4) The human, economic, ethical, and societal implications of this were repeatedly stressed during the conference.

The early research output of the Hevolution Foundation was presented. Presenters addressed the importance of having a rigorous definition of healthspan and of having biomarkers predictive of ageing that would be responsive to interventions. Bruno Vellas in his presentation and recent publications has developed measures of intrinsic capacity (5) that will be valuable in assessing the impact of interventions across several domains of life.

Eric Verdun from the Tusk Institute emphasized progress in defining biomarkers of ageing. In his view there are already hundreds. The use of machine learning will accelerate our ability to determine which matter most and which might become targets for medication development (6)

Several possible “anti-ageing” agents were mentioned. Some, like metformin, GLP-I agonists, and doxycycline, are known medications being repurposed to slow ageing processes at cellular and/or organ levels. Many were being evaluated in animal models and have yet to show benefit in large-scale human studies.

The importance of being ready to evaluate such agents in real-world populations was stressed. Raghav Ali, CEO of Our Future Health (7), the largest cohort study ever established, described the progress in building a cohort of five million people from across the diverse communities of the UK and having their ongoing data linked to NHS healthcare data as well as the Biobank data. Going forward, Hevolution could accelerate understanding of the biology of ageing while building the critical and needed human capacity for biological, epidemiological, and clinical sciences in low and middle-income countries. In time, these cohorts could be the natural vehicle to assess the power of new and established interventions across countries with diverse genetic, behavioral, environmental and health resources realities. 

New medication and innovations need to complement known preventive strategies 

There was a recognition that while Hevolution would focus on the underlying biology of ageing, it would need to interact with those addressing known preventive lifestyle and behavioural factors that affect ageing for two reasons: there was likely to be a high degree of complementarity between these factors and medicated solutions, and full implementation of basic chronic disease prevention remained a priority in most countries. 

There are about a billion people who smoke and who are overweight or obese). Less than 20 percent of adults have recommended levels of physical activity. Hypertension remains poorly detected and managed in most countries. During the recent Executive Committee meeting of the World Health Organization, a review of progress in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to Non-Communicable Diseases showed that most LMICS are far from achieving their targets. 

Phil Newman (left) with Derek right)

How can the work of the Hevolution Foundation help countries achieve their SDG health and NCD goals?

Current public health efforts to address obesity and smoking need to draw upon 21st-century science. This requires integrating advances in medications and treatments into traditional public health programs. For obesity, this means using GLP-1-agonists and related innovations in ways that include better physical activity programs and nutritional initiatives. Ending smoking is possible by embracing tobacco harm reduction and regulating next-generation nicotine products proportionate to the risk they cause. Stepping up secondary prevention for major causes of death and diseases like cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung diseases and mental illness. Hevolution’s role in this work would be secondary to their main mission. Their convening ability and credibility as an emerging major funder in global health gives them the credibility to support a multistakeholder effort to tackle NCDs

Hevolution’s primary focus on healthspan as a critical need challenges the current priorities of global health at a time of real crisis. For the first time WHO’s leadership is being challenged by one of the founding countries-the USA. Increased demand for global health funding is unlikely to be achieved. The implications are likely to lead to a realignment of funding priorities within the organization. My decades in global health leadership positions suggest that this will inevitably lead to reduced support for NCDs, health ageing and their determinants.

Derek with Hevolution CEO, Mehmood Khan (back) and HRH Princess Dr. Haya

Hevolution as the Rockefeller Foundation of this century?

In this new reality, Hevolution could well emerge as the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) of this century. Recall that when the Rockefeller Foundation was established there were no schools of public health, research-based medical education was rudimentary, and global perspectives and investments in research and policy development were paltry. That changed when RF established the first Schools of Public Health across the USA, UK, Brazil, China, and Canada. A field was defined and supported. For almost 40 years RF was the major funder of research policy development in global health, which ended with the establishment of the NIH and WHO in 1948. For the last 30 years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has played a key role in supporting programs related to infectious diseases and childhood nutrition. The combined impact of these Foundation-led efforts linked to WHO, government and a myriad of other related efforts have been a stunning success in dramatically reducing the global burden of infectious diseases, undernutrition, maternal mortality and more.

As Mehmood Khan highlighted in his opening, these past successes have given rise to new challenges. The needs of an older population, of hundreds of millions of people suffering from multiple chronic diseases, the failure of efforts to tackle major risks to health, and weak scientific capacity to address NCDs and health ageing all suggest that we need a new vision for global health. One grounded on moving towards advancing healthspan through science-based policies.

How could Hevolution make a global difference?

At a time of despair across global health, Hevolution Foundation could well signal the hope and opportunity needed to enhance our health as we age and support a new vision of global health and do so in pragmatic ways that would unify stakeholders committed to promoting lifespan in this century as the major goal of health and economic development.

Rewatch the event

If you’re curious to dive deeper, you can rewatch all the sessions on Hevolution’s YouTube channel.

And as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts—whether it’s ideas, questions, or just a good conversation. Drop us a message at yourfriends@helloyeu.com!

Rachael Jennings
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