Blood samples from a small lung-disease trial have been run through six independently built ageing clocks, and all six returned the same answer: the patients on the drug looked biologically younger than the patients on placebo.
“More lifetimes than humanity lost in all the wars ever fought. If you manage to add 3 years to everyone’s life, the drug should be able to significantly extend the healthy portion of life as well, translating into trillions of dollars in productivity and savings”, said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and co-CEO of Insilico Medicine.
The analysis, published in Nature Biotechnology by Insilico Medicine, concerns rentosertib, a TNIK inhibitor for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis that the company designed using generative AI.
The work is a secondary analysis rather than a new trial. Of the 71 patients in rentosertib’s phase 2a study, 42 consented to proteomic profiling, giving samples at baseline and at weeks two, four, and twelve.
Some 2,841 proteins were measured on an Olink panel and scored against six clocks built by different groups using different methods, with 55,319 UK Biobank profiles as the reference population.
