XPRIZE Health EVP Dr Jamie Justice on tackling ovarian aging through innovation, measurement and a global challenge.
The XPRIZE Healthspan initiative has already reset the conversation – longevity is not simply how long we live, but how well. Now comes a sharper focus with the Ovarian Health XPRIZE, a new drive to target one of the field’s most neglected levers; the aim is unapologetically translational, harnessing competition to accelerate tools, standards and solutions that actually reach women.
Why the ovary, and why now? Because ovarian function is more than fertility; it is a systemic regulator with downstream effects on cardiovascular, neurological and metabolic health – a pace-setter for women’s aging. Yet it remains under-measured and poorly mapped; the prize’s new look and scope seek to change that by incentivizing (and yes, scrutinizing) biomonitoring, biomarkers and applications that can move the dial in clinics and in everyday life.
Longevity.Technology: The ovary is the underestimated conductor of women’s biology – decline here reverberates across brain, bone and immune function. Half the world experiences ovarian aging, yet menopause and its deleterious sequelae have too often been treated as an unavoidable tax on being female; multimorbidity follows, acceptance persists. It’s time to change the script – to measure, to map, to intervene. By putting ovarian health at the centre of a prize model that rewards credible science and real-world application, XPRIZE is forcing a long-overdue reckoning – and opening a practical pathway to healthier, longer lives. To find out more about the design and timeframe of the new prize, we sat down with XPRIZE’s Executive Vice President of Health, Dr Jamie Justice.
Why ovarian health – and why now?
“Ovarian function is one of those areas that has had some of the least attention,” Justice says, noting that for decades the ovary has been viewed almost exclusively through the lens of reproduction. “What we now know is that it is emerging as a central regulator of whole-body function and aging; its impacts reach far beyond fertility – to heart, brain, immune function and metabolism.”
She explains that the science is only just beginning to catch up. Over the last five years, evidence has grown that ovarian decline accelerates health decline during both reproductive and post-menopausal years; however, medicine lacks the tools to measure ovarian function across the life course. “We don’t know what normal variability looks like between individuals, or even how my ovarian function might compare to someone in another part of the world,” she says. “Without those tools, we’ve had a blind spot – and blind spots delay prevention.”
Justice also points out that most preclinical work in longevity has been conducted in male animals, leaving female-specific biology largely ignored. Humans, she observes, are one of very few species that undergo menopause, meaning there are no natural animal models for this transition. “It makes it really challenging to study the natural trajectory of ovarian aging, but it also underscores why we need to make this a focus,” she says.
Eyes on the prize
Considering how Ovarian Health XPRIZE builds on lessons from the earlier Healthspan XPRIZE, Justice is candid. “With Healthspan, there was already a lot of preclinical data, biomarker development and even therapeutic testing in place,” she says. “With ovarian health, there is almost nothing – no frameworks, no market and significant stigma.”
That means the team cannot leap straight into therapeutics. Instead, they are positioning the prize around biomonitoring: acquiring and decoding the ovary’s signals and linking them to whole-body health. “You can think of it like brain–computer interfaces,” Justice explains. “First you have to acquire the signal, then interpret it, and only then can you figure out its importance. We’re doing that now for the ovary.”
The grand prize, she continues, goes further than measurement alone. Teams are asked not only to develop biomonitoring tools and biomarkers but also to apply that knowledge – in health systems, through direct-to-consumer products, or via frontier technologies. “The prize is not just about decoding signals,” she emphasizes, “but about using that information to change health.”
Barriers, and how prizes help
Justice identifies three interlocking sets of barriers: scientific, regulatory and structural. On the scientific side, the absence of validated biomarkers leaves clinicians without meaningful ways to assess ovarian health beyond single time-point hormone levels. “The ovary is a major signalling organ, but we’re not doing the deep systems biology needed to see how its functions affect the whole body,” she says.
Regulation, too, proves obstructive. In the US, she notes, scientific publications and federal grant applications can still be flagged simply for including “women” in the title or abstract – an extraordinary bottleneck for research representing more than half the population. “We even asked ourselves, should we call this a women’s health prize, knowing it might jeopardise funding or collaboration?” Justice reveals. “That tells you how deep the bias runs.”
Structurally, women’s health remains underfunded; less than 2% of venture capital in 2024 goes into the sector, with around 90% of that funnelled into reproduction and fertility. “Somehow women are still treated as walking wombs,” she says frankly.
Prizes, she argues, are designed to break through these obstacles. By de-risking early innovation, attracting unconventional teams and creating clear milestones, XPRIZE can galvanise attention from regulators, investors and health systems. “This isn’t just women developing for women,” Justice says. “We want the community – engineers, technologists, clinicians – to engage, and a prize is one of the best ways to do that.”
Beyond the competition
Justice stresses that the XPRIZE is not an end in itself. “We don’t run prizes to give away money,” she says. “We run them for impact.” In this case, the goal is to create a market where none exists: to establish ovarian function as a measurable category of health, to spur product development and to incentivise adoption by health systems.
She believes that a visible, well-structured competition can act as a “capital magnet”, encouraging venture groups, pharma and health tech players to look beyond token investments in women-led or female-focused biotechs. “This isn’t a niche,” she says. “It’s an enormous market with enormous potential.”
Justice also emphasises the potential for infrastructure change: better data ecosystems, clearer regulatory dialogue and new standards for how ovarian health is measured and applied in clinical practice. Ultimately, she hopes the prize can shift perception. “We need to go beyond fertility and start talking about ovarian function and women’s health across the whole life course,” she says.
Ensuring global impact
Given that 1.9 billion women worldwide are affected, inclusivity and scalability are non-negotiable. Justice acknowledges the risk that solutions could skew toward high-income populations but insists that equity is being built into the design. “We’re looking for accessibility, scalability and cost – not just technical excellence,” she explains. Judging criteria require teams to show that solutions can be delivered at realistic price points, and global engagement strategies aim to include low- and middle-income settings.
Partnerships with public health systems, diverse geographies and underrepresented leadership are also on the agenda. “These are moonshots, yes, but they must also have deployment strategies,” she says. “Breakthroughs are meaningless if they cannot reach the women who need them most.”
Timelines and trajectory
So when will the prize launch? Justice confirms that design begins in 2025 with a series of workshops and that partial funding is already in place. Fundraising is ongoing, with the team actively seeking anchor sponsors and partners. The target launch is early 2026, with the competition expected to run for three to five years, including team registration.
At launch, XPRIZE will announce defined tracks – currently scoped as health systems, direct-to-consumer decision support and frontier technologies – with metrics refined alongside sponsors and stakeholders. “We are still in development,” Justice says, “but the trajectory is clear: to make ovarian health measurable, actionable and transformative for women’s health across the globe.”
