Unique conference aims at preventing major diseases and extending healthy lifespan

The program for the first assembly of the World Congress on Targeting Metabesity is now available at www.metabesity2017.com. Metabesity refers to the major public health challenges—cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia, diabetes and the aging process itself—all of which share metabolic roots. These root metabolic disorders can be targeted to prevent—not just treat—these major diseases. This unique conference, featuring internationally-acclaimed experts and commentators, will be held 30-31 October 2017 in London.

The Congress, co-chaired by endocrinologist and therapeutic development expert G. Alexander Fleming, M.D., Stanford University professor and therapeutic discoverer Lawrence Steinman, M.D. and UK healthcare think tank 2020health CEO Julia Manning, serves as a call to practical action for scientists, entrepreneurs, industry, healthcare providers and payers and governments across the globe. The Congress will generate road maps for "moon shot" programs aimed at preventing major diseases and extending healthy lifespan.

"Scientific evidence has been accumulating over recent decades that major non-communicable diseases of aging, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative disease and cancer, have common metabolic roots, and thus may be susceptible to common solutions," said Dr. Fleming.

The Congress will assemble world-renown scientists with their peers in policy, industry, government and other disciplines to map a way forward that will involve innovative, large-scale coordination between the public and private sectors, and will have other major medical, policy and ethical ramifications.

Examples of the diversity of distinguished speakers include:

Dr. Steinman previewed the meeting: "Day 1 will focus on the emerging science that interconnects the major chronic diseases and the aging process. Day 2 will focus on clinical trials in the Metabesity space, and the challenges and opportunities for our current regulatory, clinical, financing, reimbursement and other paradigms." Ms. Manning added: "While the emerging science is exciting and promising, translating it into material gains in public health is as much a matter of design and will in policy and how we organize our societal efforts. The regulatory agencies currently have no framework for evaluating a compound that slows the aging process; industry and the capital markets will not easily self-organize to fund clinical trials that may require hundreds of thousands of subjects over decades to demonstrate prevention; how payers will look at prevention products is a new frontier. No one has better articulated this ecology than our keynote speaker, Professor Richard Barker OBE."

"Our hope is that the Metabesity Congress will become a 'Davos-like' annual gathering that will build upon the initial call to action and road maps to actual translation of emerging scientific knowledge to help people live longer, healthier lives," said Thomas Seoh, CEO of Kinexum, a major sponsor of the event. Shlomo Bueno, CEO of Bioevents, the organizer of the Congress, added: "We are honored to be involved in this pioneering effort. Surprisingly for an inaugural congress, the Metabesity website has had tens of thousands of visitors, indicating great interest in the subject."​