The world massively underinvests in medical research because it is a public good. The value of doubling human longevity is worth on the order of a quadrillion (not a typo!) present dollars, whereas the US National Institute for Aging (NIA)’s funding is only $3 billion a year. Even with slightly conservative estimates, the underfunding is on the order of 10–100x. Scientific evidence suggests that longevity research is far from today’s technological frontier due to such underinvestment.
