Consortium reveals plans to build dedicated personalised longevity resort on Maldives island.
No, it’s not a concept for a new TV reality show – a small island in the Maldives could soon become home to an exclusive resort, where well-heeled individuals and their families can access the latest in longevity treatments. A consortium of longevity-focused business people, scientists and clinicians plans to turn the uninhabited island in the Maldives archipelago into the first in a network of “Longevity Scientific Resorts.”
The hope is that the work conducted at the resorts can ultimately benefit everyone else by accelerating longevity research and clinical practice into the mainstream.
Longevity.Technology: The group behind this initiative includes Martin O’Dea, managing director of Longevity Clinic Ireland, evidence-based longevity practitioner Oliver Zolman MD, futurist and author José Cordeiro, and Longevity InTime CEO Oleg Teterin, among others. We caught up with Teterin and Zolman to find out more.
The idea for the resort stems from Teterin’s work at Longevity InTime, an AI platform which ultimately aims to offer individuals the opportunity to track up to 1,000 different biomarkers in order to optimise their healthspan. Ranging from data collected by wearables and medical imaging scans, to data from blood, urine and other biological samples, the cost of tracking such a large number of parameters on a regular basis is significant.
“Tracking of all these parameters over a lifetime could cost as much as $500,000 to $1 million, so we thought it would make sense to offer dedicated clinical locations for these high net worth individuals to come and get their longevity programmes started,” says Teterin. “This gave us the idea for developing a network of mild-climate resorts focused on longevity. These are not wellness resorts, but science- and evidence-based facilities for slowing and potentially reversing aging, with doctors and other specialists in place.”
Personalised longevity programmes
The basic concept is that anyone who chooses to take up the lifetime tracking option with Longevity InTime (and pays in full upfront) will be given the opportunity to spend a month at the resort with their family, inclusive as part of their subscription.
Teterin explains that the programme includes a complete health check one month prior to their visit and lifetime health tracking for a family (two adults and one child) using Longevity InTime’s proprietary AI platform. Once at the island, participants will undergo additional tests and start receiving treatments through the three stage longevity protocol developed by Zolman.
Oliver Zolman MD, founder of 20one Consulting.“There is a big benefit to having a purpose-built facility for this – with a dedicated clinical space you can serve many more people,” says Zolman. “Otherwise you need lots of different clinics to do all the different tests and administer the therapies, because you need a lot of specialist equipment, whether that’s ultrasound devices, other types of imaging, exercise testing, MRI and so on.”
Of course, every person’s experience will be completely personalised to their specific needs.
“Everyone has a different group of organs that are oldest for them,” explains Zolman. “So each highly personalised protocol is targeted to an individual’s oldest organs. Level one is focused on very specific lifestyle choices that will help slow the aging process, while level two focuses on areas such as mental health, sleep, sexual health and environmental exposures. Some of these will not be at all relevant for one person’s longevity, but will be highly relevant for someone else.”
Access to clinical trials
When the programme gets to level three, things start getting really interesting.
“Level three includes organ-specific as well as multi-organ rejuvenation therapies, which stack on top of level 1 and 2, and which may be ethically prescribed as licensed, off-label or unlicensed therapies,” says Zolman. “This could include statins, which have been around for decades, because they reverse atherosclerosis, but also the newest therapies, including senolytics, stem cells, geoprotectors, topicals, devices, injections, different routes of administration and so on. We also hope to offer access to cutting-edge clinical trials and will be looking to partner with companies on this.”
Longevity for the wealthy?
After considering locations in the Bahamas and Fiji, the Maldives emerged as the preferred location, and Teterin indicates the group has submitted a $705,000 bid for a 50-year lease for one of the Maldives’ 1,190 islands. The next step will require raising $15 – $20 million in order to build out the infrastructure – including overwater villas for up to 20 families and state-of-the-art overwater medical facilities.
So how does Teterin respond to the comment that this initiative appears to be delivering longevity for the wealthy only?
“The participants are also taking on an element of risk, in terms of having the therapies done, but they’ll also be generating the scientific data,” he says. “So basically, they’re paying a lot of money to fund the research, which will benefit everyone else, because we’ll be open access on every data point.”
