CEO of Lifeforce on the benefits of providing longevity medicine through telehealth.
Earlier this year, US personalized health and longevity company Lifeforce raised $12 million in Series A funding from investors including M13 and Peterson Ventures. The new funding follows an initial investment from co-founders Tony Robbins and Dr. Peter Diamandis, and tennis legend Serena Williams. The Los Angeles-based telehealth provider is on a mission to increase human longevity with an integrated health optimization platform that combines biomarker data with clinical expertise and validated interventions.
Every three months, Lifeforce members receive a home diagnostic blood test that covers more than 40 biomarkers related to physical, cognitive, sexual, and psychological performance. The results are then interpreted by medical doctors, who create personalized programs, including lifestyle adjustments, supplements, and even hormone and peptide therapies tailored to a person’s specific biology and goals.
Longevity.Technology: While the world waits for the development of longevity drugs that will increase the span of health and longevity, many people are already trying to take more proactive control of their health through lifestyle changes, supplements and so on. The last few years have seen an increase in the emergence of clinical providers seeking to support those seeking to optimize their health as they age. Indeed, Lifeforce’s stated goal is to “redefine how we approach aging and preventative healthcare” so we caught up with co-founder and CEO Dugal Bain-Kim to find out how.
Bain-Kim has worked in digital health for most of her career, but finds that healthcare’s primary focus on “sick care” is often still reflected in digital health approaches.
“Working in digital health is an amazing experience,” he says. “But it is still one step away from my personal passion: proactive optimization of health and longevity.”
‘There are no incentives for longevity in health care
Traditional approaches to health care, says Bain-Kim, are not working for the growing number of people who wish for a more proactive approach to their health.
“If you are a health-motivated person, who wants to stay ahead, make sure you are functioning at your best and keep yourself on track, then primary care just doesn’t cut it for you,” she adds. “The incentives are misaligned – doctors are not paid to practice effective longevity medicine.”
Things came to a head for Bain-Kim when she hit her own health barrier at the age of 38.
“After six or 12 months of poor health habits after the birth of my daughter, I decided it was time to get back on track, and I was quite proud of my ability to do that, having always been a health-motivated person and athlete, he recalls. “But when I tried to do it through the same things I always did before – tightening up my diet, working out a little harder – my body didn’t respond the way it used to. I am 38 years old, not 28, and my physiology has changed.”
Consumers get ‘kicked in the pants’
Not knowing where to go for the right expertise and tools to make the right decision, Bain-Kim set out as a consumer to try and find answers.
“It was a horrible experience — highly fragmented, expensive, ineffective — between finger prick and at-home saliva tests, all from different labs and only showing one piece of the puzzle,” he said. “Or a conversation with my primary care physician – a seven-minute visit with no interest in longevity or proactive health optimization. I even saw this concierge clinic wanting to charge me $50,000 a year to treat me. But I end up back in the same place most people do – with tons of supplements in my cupboard and no idea what works or what I need to take.
While his experience as a consumer was underwhelming, Bain-Kim also said it was the “kick” he needed as an entrepreneur.
“I realized there was a huge opportunity to build a comprehensive platform that makes optimizing health and longevity easy, effective, and convenient through telehealth and at-home models,” he said.
This realization eventually led Bain-Kim to his co-founders – machine learning and AI experts Joel Jackson, Robbins and Diamandis – and Lifeforce was born.
“It was a group of people coming together – different life stages, different personal experiences – but all very passionate about this idea that if you can optimize health and longevity for the mainstream consumer, you can make a huge impact on human potential.” he says.
A holistic approach to longevity
With a scientific advisory board full of well-known health leaders and physicians, including Dr Mark Hyman of the Cleveland Clinic, Lifeforce is built on the belief that longevity should be treated holistically.
“There are three main pillars of our care delivery model,” says Bain-Kim. “The first is maintaining a functional system that will drive quality of life. It’s things like energy, libido, mental clarity, body composition – all of the things that determine the quality of your life.”
The second pillar of the Lifeforce model is reducing your risk of the five diseases most likely to kill you prematurely: heart attack and stroke, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and dementia.
“One of the best ways to live long is not to die early,” says Bain-Kim. “If we can lower the risk of all five diseases then that is a massive service in front of longevity and very practical and applicable.”
The final pillar is helping people manage their rate of cellular aging – an area that Bain-Kim says is interesting, but also has the “thinnest validation” of the three pillars.
“We aim to be a go-between for our members when something is validated and backed up by science so that it is ready for us to bring onto the platform and give people access to it,” he said. “When we do – you will know we have done our due diligence on it.”
The largest longevity platform in the US
After a one-time payment of $349 for an initial consultation and initial measurements, a Lifeforce membership costs $129 per month, which includes telehealth access to doctors, health coaches, and quarterly testing.
“You get unlimited one-on-one health coaching to really help you with the program and stay on track, especially on the lifestyle side,” says Bain-Kim. “Every three months, we send the phlebotomist back to your house, do another blood draw, look at the results, and adjust your program accordingly. At nine or 12 months, we have a good understanding of how your body responds to different things, and people usually enter the ‘green zone’ where they want to be.
Launched only in early 2022, Bain-Kim says Lifeforce now operates “one of the largest, if not the largest longevity platforms” in the United States. And it seems to work – 85% of members report seeing an improved quality of life within the first three months of their plan.
“What is also important for us is the data we have collected so far,” he said. “We do this rhythm every three months, where we have the biomarkers, combined with interventions, and then patients report results that people feel. We have run nearly 20,000 diagnostics so far, and building this longevity database is key to our future strategy and building even better programs.”
Calling all longevity doctors: your voice matters!
Photo: Lifeforce
#Summons #human #longevity
