Whole-body MRI ‘longevity’ firm hits 10,000 users, charging up to $19,000 for annual membership
A whole body-MRI company based in the Bay Area has hit 10,000 users, charging up to $19,000 annually for its service focused on extending one’s life.
Founded in 2013, Human Longevity is a luxury clinic serving south San Francisco’s biotech corridor. Its space is about 8,000 square feet, offering hotel-like amenities for executives who fly in for imaging and other exams, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.
Human Longevity is part of a “lucrative and growing industry” focused on living longer, anti-aging, concierge medicine or some combination of those terms. An increasingly large number of companies are providing these preventive MR imaging scans to help root out healthcare concerns before they become symptomatic.
Others in the space include celebrity-backed startups Prenuvo and Function Health, along with radiology practices SimonMed Imaging and Rayus. Radiologists recently launched a new company in the Bay Area called CoreViva, which charges $2,699 for a whole body MRI that lasts 30 minutes.
“We’ve seen strong local demand, particularly among executives, technologists and investors who value proactive, data-driven approaches to longevity,” Human Longevity Chief Technology Officer Wei Zhou, PhD, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The company was co-founded by scientist and entrepreneur Craig Venter, PhD, who was an early pioneer in human genome sequencing, according to the newspaper. Human Longevity has pledged $10 million to any client who develops late-stage prostate cancer, as a sign of confidence in its care model. Among 5,000 male clients who have undergone the program in the last 10 years, over 60 discovered they had prostate cancer, and none died, the report noted.
The average age of a Human Longevity client is 53 and the most popular membership tier costs $12,000. Under this plan, members receive two assessments a year, with fees often paid by clients’ employers. Human Longevity’s highest membership level costs $19,000 and adds additional tests, according to the Chronicle.
Read much more about the company and its program here:
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.