A new AI-powered drug might reverse signs of ageing in humans, a new study has suggested. A clinical trial, conducted by Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine last year, showed that one of its experimental drugs might help people with a chronic lung disease. The generative AI-driven biotech company now claims that the same trial indicates the drug may also slow the ageing process.
The drug, called rentosertib, was designed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
A new analysis of the trial data, published on 7 September in the journal Nature Biotechnology, found that the drug reduced biological markers of age as measured by six different “ageing clocks.” These are AI systems that estimate how quickly a person’s body is ageing by looking at chemical and protein changes in the blood. They aim to predict the risk of disease and death more accurately than chronological age alone.
In the mid-stage trial, involving patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or IPF, those who took rentosertib appeared biologically younger after treatment. Patients given a placebo showed negligible change.
The strongest signals appeared after about four weeks at higher doses, with some clocks estimating a drop of roughly three to four years and one clock suggesting as much as six years. Researchers analysed blood samples from about 42 patients who agreed to the extra testing.
“This is the first study that shows, very clearly, that predicted biological age can be reduced,” said Vadim Gladyshev, a professor at Harvard Medical School who helped build one of the ageing clocks used in the research.
He noted, however, that the study is far from conclusive. The group of patients was small, ageing clocks are not always reliable, and the drug has not yet been tested in healthy people. The results could be specific to those with this particular lung condition.
What slow ageing could mean
Insilico is a Hong Kong-listed company focused on speeding up drug discovery with AI. It used its systems both to identify the drug’s target, a protein called TNIK, linked to both fibrosis and ageing processes, and to generate the molecule itself.
“It is like scanning a lock and generating a key that fits the lock,” the company’s founder and chief executive, Alex Zhavoronkov said, on the approach to the trial.
Rentosertib is already moving into a larger Phase 3 trial for the lung disease, where earlier results showed improvements in lung function. Zhavoronkov argued that success against ageing could have wide benefits.
“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,” he said.
(Edited by Aakriti Handa)