ARPA-H Awards $144M to Seven Teams Racing to Crack the Code on Aging

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health has placed a $144 million bet that aging itself — not just the diseases it causes — can be slowed, measured, and ultimately treated.

ARPA-H announced seven research teams selected for its PROactive Solutions for Prolonging Resilience (PROSPR) program, a five-year initiative designed to compress what would normally be decades-long clinical trials into one-to-three-year studies by identifying early biomarkers of aging.

What Makes PROSPR Different

Traditional geroscience research hits a wall: aging is slow, and the diseases it triggers can take decades to appear. PROSPR's answer is to find intervention-responsive biomarkers — measurable signals that change quickly enough to make clinical trials feasible.

The seven funded teams span academic institutions, biotechs, and startups:

• University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is running a Phase 3 hybrid trial repurposing three FDA-approved drugs — an SGLT2 inhibitor, rapamycin, and semaglutide — as anti-aging agents
• Cambrian BioPharma received up to $30.8 million to advance a next-generation rapamycin analog into human trials
• Brown University / Linnaeus Therapeutics secured up to $22 million for a compound targeting the GPER receptor with cardiometabolic benefits
• Stanford University is developing a "healthspan score" using digital health technology in a one-year lifestyle intervention
• Columbia University will analyze data across multiple clinical trials to identify biomarkers that respond to interventions

Who Should Pay Attention

Aging researchers, biotech startups, and academic institutions with geroscience programs should study the PROSPR model closely. The program's milestone-based funding structure means contracts vary by awardee and depend on hitting aggressive research targets — a departure from traditional NIH grant mechanisms.

For organizations working on aging biomarkers, longevity therapeutics, or digital health monitoring, this signals a federal commitment to treating aging as a tractable clinical target. Grant seekers in adjacent fields — chronic disease prevention, metabolic health, precision medicine — should watch for follow-on funding opportunities as PROSPR generates data.

A deeper breakdown of what PROSPR means for your research pipeline is available on the Granted blog.