Taking management of the environmental aspect of the equation can enhance healthspan, says longevity competitors winner Epix AI.
On the twenty ninth February, Epix AI gained the startup pitch competitors on the Unlock Healthy Longevity: Supplements scientific convention, hosted on the Nationwide College of Singapore Yong Bathroom Lin College of Drugs.
The convention featured a few of the main luminaries of the longevity analysis discipline, together with Brian Kennedy, Andrea Maier, David Sinclair, Laura Niedernhofer, Hans Meij, Nir Barzilai and Alexey Moskalev, amongst others.
Epix AI is a Bulgarian startup combining epigenetics and AI in a platform that measures folks’s organic age and their danger of age-related ailments. Registered in July of 2022, the corporate has since accomplished over a yr of algorithm growth to find the epigenetic biomarkers which might be most predictive for organic growing older and is now leveraging that data in an try to stop age-related ailments. It’s an strategy that has Epix AI win inclusion in Intel‘s start-up program, Intel Liftoff.
Longevity.Know-how: Epix AI’s hybrid algorithms stand on two pillars – a statistical and machine studying strategy on the one hand, and rigorous scientific proof on the opposite; the corporate feels this strategy measures organic growing older in a means that’s extra sturdy and significant than present analysis in epigenetics.
Epix AI’s platform – Dynamic Well being Rating – collects enter from wearable gadgets and geolocation. Primarily based on these, it generates a each day estimate of customers’ charges of organic growing older, permitting them to trace developments and offering personalised life-style suggestions to assist them sluggish growing older and enhance healthspan. Epix AI additionally gives epigenetic assessments based mostly on saliva samples that may permit shoppers to go a step additional and measure the particular interaction between their genetics and their lifestyle.
Nonetheless in pre-seed, Epix AI continues to be within the pre-seed stage and is elevating funds to finish its cellular software and launch on the European market, with world presence following thereafter.
We sat down with Epix AI’s Chief Working Officer, Nikolay Vasev PhD, to seek out out extra in regards to the platform and the subsequent steps for the corporate, particularly given its latest achievement.
Whereas successful the pitch competitors is a serious accomplishment for Epix AI, Vasev explains it goes deeper.
“It was a validation of our concept from the best ranges of scientific analysis within the discipline of longevity,” he explains, including that the convention coincided with the launch of the startup’s on-line kind for measurement of price of organic growing older. “It is a instrument we designed to gauge folks’s curiosity in our platform and to gather traction. The outcomes from it are already proving essential in our talks with buyers, as a result of folks wish to know that our concept is validated by researchers, but in addition by potential shoppers.”
Epix AI’s platform faucets into the rising curiosity in growing older and illness prevention, and the corporate’s scaling plans replicate this. Already in negotiations with a European prevention clinic, Epix can be making ready to launch a long life package deal that features genetic, epigenetic and organic age assessments, in addition to conventional biochemistry assessments.
“We’re transferring in the direction of a B2B2C mannequin, which can catapult us within the European market, and it’ll additionally give us visibility past Europe,” Vasev explains. “Our companies are endlessly scalable, so we shall be in search of different companions with whom to increase our scope, together with pharmaceutical firms, insurance coverage firms, elder care houses, unique tools producers of wearables and others.”
Epix AI’s platform features a Dynamic Well being Rating, and, clearly, making certain information accuracy and reliability is paramount, notably given the complexities of organic growing older and the various existence of its customers. Vasev explains that the workforce makes use of a two-pronged strategy that mixes fashionable statistical strategies with confirmed and well-known scientific discoveries.
“We filter biomarkers for his or her predictive energy and cross-reference with the methylation loci (CpGs) whose relevance is confirmed by present research,” he explains. “We had been excited to seek out that the overlap between the 2 approaches is important (p<0.0001), that means our biomarkers are each extremely predictive and scientifically explainable.”
Numerous longevity platforms use wearable gadget information, however the Epix platform additionally crunches environmental information, including geolocation into its estimates of customers’ charges of organic growing older. Vasev explains that this inclusion was a no brainer.
“An individual’s epigenetic profile is strongly decided by their setting. The air we breathe, how a lot we train and the way nicely we sleep, all go away their each day residual mark on our epigenetics,” he explains, including that Epix’s fashions can use wearable and site information to foretell this impact and provides the consumer an estimate – solely based mostly on their life-style – of their each day bioaging price.
“This displays our aggressive benefit over pure wearables that measure your bodily exercise, however don’t let you know its impact in your well being,” says Vasev. “Naturally, our measurements get stronger the extra information we get, and our epigenetic check continues to be our most correct option to measure your bioage. Our app can then use the identical technique to offer you personalised life-style suggestions to have an effect on your particular epigenetic profile and decelerate the results of growing older.”
The steadiness between innovation and scientific rigor within the growth course of can generally be laborious to seek out, and firms want to make sure the scientific validity of their platforms’ strategy, notably in figuring out epigenetic biomarkers for organic growing older.
This was an vital consideration for Epix AI, and Vasev explains that the corporate’s analysis and growth is strongly filtered earlier than it goes into its merchandise.
“We encourage open experimentation particularly in our information science workforce; then our outcomes are validated rigorously and checked in opposition to identified scientific proof. We err on the aspect of warning relating to customer-facing outcomes and all our suggestions are validated by well being specialists.”
