Longevity has emerged as a major focus across health and wellness conversations in recent years. Around the world, people are searching for ways to extend both lifespan and healthspan – through new technologies, diets, and lifestyles. Thousands of people flock to longevity summits, and social feeds are filled with advice on cold plunges, peptides, and cellular reprogramming.
But amid the excitement, Novartis US President Victor Bultó offered a different perspective. One of the most powerful secrets for living longer, better lives is not futuristic — it’s something we already have.
“The biggest lever to longevity beats in our chest,” Bultó said. “[And] technology that can add, on average, 10 years of good life to about half the people sitting in this room already exists. It's broadly available and it's broadly affordable. So why aren’t we using it at scale?,” he asked the health leaders gathered at the TIME100 Health Impact Dinner in New York City on February 19, 2026.
The biggest lever to longevity beats in our chest. And technology that can add, on average, 10 years of good life to about half the people sitting in this room already exists.
- Novartis US President Victor Bultó
It was a challenge that reframed the conversation around longevity.
Bultó’s message was clear: Preventing cardiovascular disease using the tools we have is the key to helping people live longer, healthier lives. But individual efforts alone won’t end preventable heart disease. Instead, we need to complement medical science with social science to make prevention compelling, accessible, and easy for everyone. And we need to rewire economic incentives to make prevention the default rather than the exception in healthcare. Novartis is committed to helping convene stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem to help drive this movement.
Heart Health Is Central to Longevity and Healthy Aging
Heart health plays a central role in how long and how fully we live. A healthy heart supports the brain, slows cellular aging, and helps preserve energy and independence, which can make longer lives more meaningful. If your heart is healthy, you can gain more years doing the things that matter most — time with family, shared experiences, and everyday moments that define a life well lived.
And yet, despite decades of scientific and medical progress, cardiovascular disease remains the number one killer worldwide. Even though 80% of cardiovascular disease could be prevented with available medicines and lifestyle changes, one person in the US dies from cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds1,2.
So, the issue isn’t a lack of tools. What’s missing is collective action.
The High Price of Focusing on Sickness Rather than Prevention
Advances in medicine, data, genetics, and artificial intelligence now allow us to predict risk, personalize interventions, and act long before most people experience a cardiovascular crisis.
At Novartis, we have helped to advance the scientific understanding of cardiovascular disease and deliver breakthrough innovations for the past four decades, always guided by the needs of the patients we serve. By building on leading science and technology and going further to push what’s possible so more people benefit, we’re using the latest innovations, such as xRNA therapies, to tackle real-world problems where significant unmet needs exist.
Between proven treatments, new technologies, and emerging medical and behavioral science, society has an unprecedented ability to predict and prevent cardiovascular disease and death.
But Bultó reminded us that breakthroughs only matter if we have systems that are built to use them.
‘’Now, if we think about the healthcare system today, in most developed countries today, we are reimbursed for treating an event,” he said. “And that creates an environmental nudge to treat events. Why is the avoidance of an event not reimbursed?’’
Fragmented care and misaligned economic incentives concentrate resources on treating people experiencing a health crisis rather than keeping them healthy. In the US, for example, less than 3% of health spending goes toward preventive care, even as the cost of cardiovascular disease is projected to exceed $1 trillion annually by 20353,4.
Building a Movement for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention through Collaboration
Bultó reminded us that no single organization or partnership can reinvent how we address preventable heart disease. Effective action means aligning clinicians, health systems, payers, policymakers, employers, and communities around prevention and meeting people where they live and work.
“When you speak with behavioral scientists and behavioral economists, they all tell you there are two ways in which you can change behavior at scale in a sustainable way,” he said. “The first factor is creating the right default. If you make doing the right thing easier, more people will do it.”
Advice has to come from someone you trust. That’s how we change behavior.
- Novartis US President Victor Bultó
“And the second one is trust. Advice has to come from someone you trust. That's how we change behavior. Through pharmacies, through employers, through physicians, through family, through those who are trusted to help set up the right defaults in cardiovascular care.”
Given that trust is a necessity for this work, Novartis has long prioritized collaboration to make prevention part of everyday life and close persistent gaps in access. Together with the Global Coalition on Aging, we launched engAGE with Heart in 2023 to deliver community-based health education and preventive cardiovascular screenings in Baltimore, MD. Through partnerships with churches and senior centers, the program has catalyzed lasting health improvements, including achieving 96% self-reported lifestyle changes and 79% increased trust in healthcare access—while securing government recognition and funding through the Maryland state legislature to sustain the model. Novartis has also partnered with Meharry Medical College in Nashville, TN, to advance community-based cardiovascular screening and address disparities in heart health outcomes.
Making Prevention Personal
We all know someone affected by cardiovascular disease. They are our parents, friends, partners, coworkers, and neighbors. Many of us are patients, too. Too often, it takes away time and quality of life when people should be able to enjoy their most meaningful years. The question is no longer whether we can help more people live longer and fuller lives, but whether we’re willing to act earlier together—and Novartis is working to do just that by investigating partnerships with employers and community pharmacies to bring heart-health screening, education, and support closer to where people live and work. Learn more about our ongoing work in cardiovascular disease here.
