Drug developed for lung disease may slow biological aging in surprising bonus

A drug being developed to treat a serious may also help to slow the aging process, researchers say.

In a small clinical study, patients who took rentosertib – developed by Insilico Medicine in Massachusetts – showed changes in blood proteins that made them appear biologically younger.

Several tests estimated that after treatment, the patients were biologically about three to four years younger.

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"There is a promising trend in age reversal in addition to treating the disease, and it came as a bonus for disease treatment," first author Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and co-CEO of Insilico Medicine, told Fox News Digital.

"It basically means that you are predicted to be younger using a validated set of aging clocks. We dont know what that means yet."

The results were published in Nature Biotechnology and presented Monday at the Nature conference at Sorbonne University in Paris.

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The researchers caution, however, that this does not yet prove the drug can actually or help people live longer.

"Its early days," Zhavoronkov noted. "The drug is still investigational."

Rentosertib is an experimental drug, discovered with the help of artificial intelligence, that is being developed to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a serious disease that causes scarring in the lungs.

In an unexpected outcome, the drug was found to change patterns of proteins in the blood in ways that made patients appear an average of three to four years younger, in one case up to six years.

Six different aging tests showed the same general pattern, with patients who took rentosertib "scoring" biologically younger than those who received a placebo.

The strongest effect was seen after four weeks in patients taking 30 mg of the drug twice a day.

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When researchers compared the results with data from more than 55,000 people in the UK Biobank, they found that the drug changed several blood proteins in the opposite direction from what is normally seen with aging.

The researchers also found signs that the drug may at the cellular level, as it changed processes involved in how cells function and respond to damage.

Zhavoronkov said the company's approach to search for what he calls "molecular criminals" — biological targets that may contribute to both aging and disease.

The study – which was published in Nature Biotechnology – involved researchers from Insilico Medicine as well as Harvard Medical School, Stanford University, the Broad Institute, RWTH Aachen University, Peking University and Westlake University.

Zhavoronkov stressed that the findings are preliminary. "This is a pilot," he said. "It is early [and] exploratory."

The study had some limitations, including the small sample size – just 42 patients were analyzed over a 12-week period.

The participants all had IPF, which can change many of the same proteins