For consumers, the idea behind Insilico's latest drug research is enticing enough − take a new drug and reverse your biological clock a few years.
The artificial intelligence biotech company and academic researchers published a small study that suggests an experimental drug developed for a type of serious lung illness appeared to reverse aging in a small group of patients.
In a Sept. 7 study published in Nature Biotechnology, Insilico and academic researchers reported a drug, rentosertib, developed as a treatment for pulmonary fibrosis, shows anti-aging qualities.
Yet even the company's founder acknowledges there's a lot of study needed before an anti-aging pill is ready for prime time.
"There's no drug that we know of − that I know of − that can
extend life of already optimized individuals," said Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and CEO of Insilico.
Why rentosertib was studied in people with life-threatening lung disease
Insilico, which uses AI to develop potential new drugs, previously tested rentosertib in an early-stage trial on patients in China who had pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease in which tissue is damaged and scarred. The new study analyzed blood samples from the same group of patients to test longevity.
Specifically, researchers used six "aging clocks" to measure molecular proteins in the blood samples to gauge patients biological age and mortality risk. The clocks measured expected biological age based on the health of the person's cells and organs such as stomach, brain and pancreas. The six clocks "consistently predicted lower biological age" among 42 people who received the drug, the study said.
"If you were to explain it simply, it reduces biological age from three to four years," Zhavoronkov said. "The maximum was six years."
Zhavoronkov said the company is studying the drug in a larger, later-stage clinical trial of pulmonary fibrosis patients in China. He did not provide a timeline for when that study might be completed.
A big unknown: Would the pill work in healthy people?
Because the drug has only been tested in people with pulmonary fibrosis, it's unknown how or whether it would apply to healthy people, experts said.
Evelyne Bischof, a Tel Aviv University School of Medicine professor who was not involved in the study, said the research is important because it suggests AI can be used to develop drugs from scratch. The study also introduced the idea that a drug can help people live longer, healthier lives, said Bischof, who studies longevity as the medical director of the Sheba longevity department in Israel.
News of the study is important "not because we have found a magic pill," Bischof said. "But we have established a way of looking and finding new ways to extend healthspan that go beyond lifestyle or supplements and repurposed drugs."
To evaluate the drug in healthy patients, researchers would need to recruit people of diverse ages and assess their expected biological age, cognition and how well they'd function on the experimental drug.
Researchers face a Catch-22 because committees overseeing clinical trials likely wouldn't allow testing an experimental drug on healthy patients, Bischof said.
"A board has to say it's safe to give this drug to healthy individuals," Bischof said. "That usually can only happen when the drug has been approved already for some indication, like fibrosis, and then repurposed for aging."
Zhavoronkov, a mathemetician and physicist, said his company is studying more than 40 investigational drugs alone or with research partners.
He said the company will continue researching investigational drugs for chronic diseases such as Parkinson's, cardiovascular and cancer, while also studying potential anti-aging properties of those drugs.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A lung disease drug also might slow aging. What researchers found
