How did PRIMA come about?

From Personal Experience to Institutional Responsibility

The founding of PRIMA gGmbH (Prevention & Innovation in Medicine and Aging) in November 2025 was not a spontaneous idea, but the logical consequence of a long inner and professional journey. It marks the moment when a personal conviction became an institution that assumes responsibility and aims to be capable of taking action in the long term.

This development began as early as 2011 with a very fundamental question: In his LL.M. dissertation, "How is the right to health shaped by our concept of normality?", Alexander explored why we accept aging as a seemingly unchangeable normality, while we rarely conceive of health as a permanent, shapeable right. This theoretical exploration was less an abstract academic project than a struggle for a simple but uncomfortable insight: If we file aging away as a given by nature, we deprive ourselves of political and societal agency.

First Steps: European Year for Active Ageing (2012)

Already in 2012 — the European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations — Alexander had the opportunity to translate these convictions into concrete political work. As a parliamentary assistant in the European Parliament and program coordinator at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, he was directly involved in the civil society coordination of the European Year for Active Ageing. This year was an ambitious European project: hundreds of initiatives at all levels were intended to raise awareness of active aging, make the value of older people visible, and strengthen intergenerational solidarity.

During this time, Alexander learned how European politics works and where its limits lie. It became clear that while symbolic years and well-intentioned declarations create attention, without permanent structures, institutional anchoring, and political translation work, they often remain inconsequential. This experience shaped his later understanding of what it takes not just to demand health and prevention, but to actually enforce it.

From Thought to Action: Heales (2014)

From this theoretical exploration and early political experiences, the desire soon grew not to stop at publications and lectures. In 2014, Alexander founded the German branch of HEALES (Healthy Life Extension Society) to bring the idea of a longer, healthy lifespan to the public, find allies, and build international networks. In practical work, however, it quickly became apparent: idealism and civil society engagement reach their limits when there is no stable bridge into politics, administration, and institutions.

Insight into Political Reality: German Bundestag (2021–2025)

The years in the German Bundestag starting in 2021 brought an important shift in perspective. As an office manager and scientific advisor to a Member of Parliament, Alexander gained direct insight into political processes, priorities, and constraints. Behind the scenes, it became clear how much knowledge already exists regarding prevention, healthy aging, and longevity — and how rarely this knowledge is actually used strategically. What was missing was not research, but a structured interface between science, politics, and societal implementation.

Biographical Experience as a Catalyst (2025)

In parallel, there was a very personal experience that condensed all these questions in an almost intimate way: In 2025, Alexander's grandmother celebrated her 105th birthday—mentally clear, amazingly physically fit, and embedded in family and social relationships. This experience made tangible what numbers and studies can only hint at: advanced age and quality of life do not have to be contradictions. They can be the result of long-term prevention, good medical care, social integration, and supportive frameworks.

The Founding of PRIMA (November 2025)

From the combination of these two levels — structural analysis on the one hand and the personally experienced possibility of healthy aging on the other — a clear conclusion emerged: an independent, reliable institution is needed that dedicates itself exactly to this bridge-building work. An organization that bundles scientific evidence, creates political connectivity, and helps shape public debates so that the right to health exists not only in texts, but in concrete decisions and programs.

Against this backdrop, PRIMA — Prevention & Innovation in Medicine and Aging — was founded as a non-profit organization (gGmbH) in November 2025. PRIMA sees itself as a bridge institution between science, politics, and civil society. At its core is the conviction that prevention and healthy aging must not be fringe issues, but guiding principles of modern health policy — and that the right to health is only taken seriously when we concretely fulfill it even in old age.