Startups We'd Like To See In Vitalia
Vitalia is building a decentralized city to accelerate the longevity of biotech development (“make death optional”). To succeed at this, Vitalia is harboring the world’s best scientists and entrepreneurs to use the regulatory flexibility in Próspera ZEDE’s jurisdiction.
This regulatory flexibility makes companies possible that otherwise wouldn’t be, or at least it can reduce time-to-market by 10x. Utilizing this advantage requires context and funding.
This is why Vitalia has a Startup Accelerator and Investment Program with 40+ companies that signed up and raised $1.5M in funding in the last two months.
There are possibilities to build startups that Vitalia is uniquely positioned to see.
Below is a list of projects that would powerfully accelerate the development of radical life extension (hint: it’s NOT only biotechnology or healthcare).
If you feel compelled to work on one of these ideas, or if you think what you’re working on is a fit anyway, please apply to the program:
You can also reach out directly to Pedro Azevedo: pedro@vitalia.city
-
The idea comes from the brilliant Robin Hanson: combine healthcare provision and life insurance. Currently, there's a misalignment. Your healthcare provider gains from you being sick longer. Also, at least half of medicine is bad for you - but pharma companies are exempt from liability if their treatments and drugs have FDA approval. They have no incentive to figure out which medicine is good. So what if they lose if you’re sick longer, or you die? Enter life, disability and pain insurance. If you’re suffering or die, then the insurance-healthcare provider loses. This setup ensures that you receive only the treatments that genuinely prolong your life.
-
Cybernetics involves enhancing humans with hardware implanted into the body, akin to cyberpunk technology. Currently, its application is mostly cosmetic or small utility (e.g. key locks, lights)due to regulatory hurdles for medical use cases. This means a community currently in the tinkering stage and passionate hobbyists are held back from developing into a mature industry. However, with Vitalia's regulatory flexibility provided by Prospera ZEDE, we have the potential to advance this industry by reducing regulatory costs and timelines, enabling broader medical applications.
-
Off-label clinical trials involve testing drugs for purposes other than what they were initially approved for. These drugs have been deemed safe but haven't undergone efficacy trials for their off-label uses. Despite lacking formal testing, they're often utilized by doctors for alternative purposes. Conducting efficacy trials for these drugs is typically costly and inefficient worldwide because you can’t get patents that reimburse you for the high regulatory cost. However, with lower regulatory overhead, these trials can be cost-effective.
-
Human challenge trials, such as exposing volunteers to diseases like COVID-19 in controlled conditions, offer a direct way to test vaccine efficacy. While not suitable for all types of research, they are particularly relevant for new infectious diseases. In these trials, healthy volunteers willingly contract the disease and are then monitored to assess the effects. This approach, though initially met with ethical concerns, is actually more ethical than waiting for volunteers to randomly contract the disease in the community (see Jessica Flanigan’s convincing case here). It allows for quicker research with more detailed data, as well as better treatment of side effects - all because you can have a more controlled testing environment.
-
A model in which individuals with expertise in biology and are willing to take risks with medications or substances on themselves - and reduce liability for other providers of clinical research. This model allows these knowledgeable individuals to access drugs more quickly than the traditional route, which often requires extensive training as a medical professional. It would reduce the risk for research providers and clinics to give treatments to people who can give strong “informed” consent.
-
Alternatives for ensuring safe and effective drugs, for example, a certificatory or “consumer reports” approach, as opposed to a “prohibitive' ' approach by centralized institutions. The issue with the current FDA model isn't its intention – ensuring safe and effective drugs – but the outcome: many economists believe the FDA kills more people than it saves due to the “drug lag” (Alex Tabarrok, see here and here). A decentralized approach would be voluntary and focused on certification rather than prohibition. This could involve, for example, aggregating international data on drugs, molecules, and therapies, as current organizations often lack incentives for accurate information and may be influenced by political interests. A decentralized FDA would allow the creation of alternative designs for clinical trials or utilize real-world evidence post-drug administration and reduce the risk of political influence.
-
A fund that finances longevity treatments by leveraging their future benefits. In essence, it involves tokenizing future treatments so individuals can prepay for them now and receive a voucher for accessing these treatments later, with the added benefit of the voucher's value steadily growing over time (e.g. 2x after 2 years, 10x after 10 years). It is a complex financial construct that is currently hampered by regulations around securities and “breakage” business models (e.g. Starbucks gift cards are a breakage business model). It would be quite an elegant model to make investments into longevity a more liquid and accessible asset class.
-
This insurance provides a safety net for individuals in case of political conflict or war. Instead of being trapped in one location during such times, people covered by this insurance can relocate to a partner country or location, ensuring they have a place to go during turbulent periods.
-
What if any business could easily add insurance services? This makes a lot of sense for companies with much data on the risk of bad outcomes. Elon Musk, for example, proposed the idea that Tesla could use its data on the driver’s behavior to calculate insurance premiums. The safer you drive, the less you pay. Or think of the healthcare-life insurance model above - any healthcare provider could easily become an insurance carrier. This is currently cost-prohibitive because of the regulatory complexity involved in obtaining insurance carrier licenses.
-
Cryptocurrency adoption faces challenges due to SEC regulations on tokens considered securities, which require registration and limit financial innovation. A solution to this would be B2B Securities Marketplace: This model aims to overcome challenges associated with selling to Americans by implementing robust KYC and reporting systems or ensuring local execution of security transactions. For example, in Prospera ZEDE, you can develop your own set of regulations for crypto assets while reducing bureaucratic overhead.
*Disclaimer: This is not legal advice; consulting with a lawyer is advised for guidance.
-
Decentralized Vitalia aims to establish Vitalia as a decentralized city with multiple hubs worldwide. The goal is to make longevity treatments accessible globally while maintaining brand integrity and trust. We seek models that balance decentralization with alignment to our mission, ensuring collaboration with trusted partners while allowing autonomy for swift expansion.
-
Globally, many patients lack access to life-saving treatments, including drugs in clinical trials. Thousands of cancer patients, for example, could be saved each year if they had access to these medications. This denial of access can be viewed as a patient rights issue, underscoring the moral imperative to address it (see e.g. the movie “Dallas Buyers Club” with Matthew McConaughey). The initiative seeks to identify and assist such patients, offering them avenues to obtain these treatments worldwide. Scaling this initiative globally presents a significant opportunity to ensure those in need have access to the care they require.
Regulatory innovation has not been possible until Próspera ZEDE came along. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for advancing radical life extension technologies. This is a complex new world, so education and ethics around balancing risk with innovation are paramount.
A good starting point is the Stranded Technologies Podcast.
If you’re a scientist or an entrepreneur looking for their next mission, visit us in Vitalia, apply to the Startups & Investment Program, or find other ways to engage here: