The economic value of targeting aging

Abstract

Developments in life expectancy and the growing emphasis on biological and 'healthy' aging raise a number of important questions for health scientists and economists alike. Is it preferable to make lives healthier by compressing morbidity, or longer by extending life? What are the gains from targeting aging itself compared to efforts to eradicate specific diseases? Here we analyze existing data to evaluate the economic value of increases in life expectancy, improvements in health and treatments that target aging. We show that a compression of morbidity that improves health is more valuable than further increases in life expectancy, and that targeting aging offers potentially larger economic gains than eradicating individual diseases. We show that a slowdown in aging that increases life expectancy by 1 year is worth US$38 trillion, and by 10 years, US$367 trillion. Ultimately, the more progress that is made in improving how we age, the greater the value of further improvements.

Fig. 1. Survival functions under rectangularization and improvement in lifespan.

Three different survival functions (probability of surviving from birth to different ages). Baseline is a standard Gompertz–Makeham survival function calibrated to 2019 US data. The rectangularization curve shows a survival function in which improvements in LE are achieved through compressing morbidity. The lifespan improvement curve shows a survival function in which improvements arise through elongation of the aging process. Source data

Fig. 2. WTP by year of life for metformin treatment started at age 75.

The value for each year (by age) of improvements in the incidence of various diseases under simulated impact of metformin. Sum of separate effects, the total of each individual effect; Total effect, the overall value for each year of health improvements attributed to metformin. Solid lines represent WTP for each of the five comorbidities separately. Source data