Self-Sovereign Medicine: Biotech, Right to Try, and the Cracks in the FDA's Monopoly

– Niklas Anzinger is a German entrepreneur who has probably done more than any single person to put Próspera on the longevity biotech map. He is the founder and General Partner of Infinita VC, the first VC fund based in Próspera, Honduras, and the founder and CEO of Infinita City, formerly known as Vitalia, a network of hubs for longevity biotech acceleration. He also hosts the Stranded Technologies podcast, which has featured guests including Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan. Niklas is a returning guest to the show.

Timothy Allen sits down with Niklas in Austin, Texas, a few days after spending a month living alongside him in Próspera, for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from aging as a disease and the FDA's 1962 turning point, through China's rise to 30% of global pharma licensing deals in just ten years, Sid Sijbrandij's AI-assisted cancer fight and the Australian who built a personalised cancer vaccine for his dog using AlphaFold for roughly the cost of a genome sequence, to the Right to Try movement taking shape in Montana and New Hampshire and the regulatory model that could replace the FDA monopoly, and finally to what comes next for Próspera, phase one trials as a commercial beachhead, the Massimo Mazzone profit-first model at Ciudad Morazán, and why the ZEDE framework may be the most underappreciated governance innovation of our time.

In this conversation:

• Why Niklas is spending time in Austin: building a supplementary regulatory pathway to the FDA, modelled on what CLEAR does for TSA airport security
• Why aging isn't technically a disease and why that distinction is holding longevity biotech back
• The FDA's 1962 efficacy mandate: when drug costs exploded and pharma lost its independence
• Sid Sijbrandij's "founder mode" approach to his own bone cancer, and the Australian who made a personalised cancer vaccine for his dog for $3,000 using AlphaFold and ChatGPT
• China going from near zero to 30% of global pharma licensing deals in a decade and what that means for the United States
• The three regulatory models: FDA monopoly, the Dubai private-certifier model, and the Próspera insurance-based model based on Robin Hanson's ideas
• Right to Try in Montana and New Hampshire: what's actually changing, how private certifiers work, and the cannabis Cole Memo as the precedent
• Why Próspera should focus on phase one clinical trials and why medical tourism alone isn't enough without first building credibility
• Robin Hanson's idea of fusing your doctor and your life insurance company: aligning incentives to actually keep you alive
• Massimo Mazzone and Ciudad Morazán's profit-first model versus the venture capital model at Próspera: two legitimate approaches to the same problem
• Why the three Honduran ZEDEs Próspera (knowledge work), Ciudad Morazán (manufacturing), and Orquídea (agriculture) map almost exactly onto the three sectors of the economy
• The Free Cities Conference coming to Próspera in September: why it matters and who will be there

Enjoy the conversation.

Timestamps (audio version, includes Timothy's episode introduction):

• 0:30:00 - Introduction to episode
• 0:09:50 - Start of conversation: Austin instead of Próspera
• 0:10:13 - Why Niklas is in the US: an alternative regulatory pathway to the FDA
• 0:12:15 - Does mainstream biotech know about Próspera?
• 0:13:54 - The FDA's 1962 mandate and how drug costs exploded
• 0:19:23 - Aging as a disease: why the framing matters
• 0:20:27 - Unlimited Bio and combination therapies
• 0:21:06 - Sid Sijbrandij, the dog cancer vaccine, and personalised medicine
• 0:26:03 - Will doctors become redundant?
• 0:30:06 - Is aging a disease? The deeper philosophical question
• 0:34:19 - Biological immortality and the libertarian case for choice
• 0:35:44 - Right to Try: the moral argument and the regulatory underbelly
• 0:40:05 - How state sovereignty actually works against the FDA
• 0:44:45 - China's 30% market share in pharma licensing and what the US should do
• 0:57:58 - How Próspera's insurance model works in practice: GARM and Minicircle regulations
• 1:01:03 - Why the insurance model is the real innovation
• 1:03:18 - Right to Try in Montana and New Hampshire: the Cole Memo parallel
• 1:09:22 - Phase one trials as Próspera's commercial beachhead
• 1:15:35 - Robin Hanson's doctor-meets-life-insurer model
• 1:18:17 - Predictions: how fast will Montana and New Hampshire move?
• 1:20:24 - What comes next for Próspera
• 1:23:52 - Massimo Mazzone's profit-first model vs the VC model
• 1:31:27 - Why the three ZEDEs map to the three sectors of the economy
• 1:39:07 - Infinita as an events funnel and what comes next
• 1:41:43 - The Free Cities Conference in September

Guest: Niklas Anzinger - LinkedIn | Infinita VC | Stranded Technologies Podcast

The Free Cities Podcast is the official podcast of the Free Cities Foundation hosted by Timothy Allen. New episodes every Friday. Long-form, in-person conversations with the builders, investors, residents, and thinkers shaping the future of Free Cities, charter cities, special economic zones, network states, private cities, and governance innovation worldwide.

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