Extending the human lifespan
In this multipart special report, BioWorld explores the concept of extending lifespan, which is surprisingly well-validated by basic research. The team examined the latest science, the key biological drivers that can be targeted pharmacologically and the companies developing these potential “Fountain of Youth” candidate drugs. For the researchers and companies involved, the emphasis is on living longer in a healthy way. And that’s important since the global population of people 65 and older rose 468% between 1950 and 2020. In what could be a holy grail for humanity, anti-aging drugs would simultaneously reduce the risk of multiple age-related illnesses in one. BioWorld found that investments in life-extending drugs and the number of clinical trials are on the rise. The special report explores why it’s a waste of time to try to first cure Alzheimer’s, cataracts, strokes, and other diseases of aging. Instead, many forward-thinking scientists are focusing on the biology of aging. Can we hopscotch over those diseases? The impact could be staggering. Equitable access to drugs and therapies tackling aging could reduce health care costs in a major way and improve quality of life.
Investments in lifespan-extending drugs, number of clinical trials are growing
There is no drug that will halt the inevitable process of getting older each year. But biopharmaceutical research can have a positive impact on preventing diseases that come with aging, thereby extending life for the masses, and more importantly, extending quality of life. The number of clinical trials of therapeutics designed to interrupt the process that leads to cancer and cardiovascular disease, among other life-threatening conditions, appears to be increasing, as is the amount of money that investors are putting into this space.
Live long and prosper? Science says you can
To most people, trying to prevent aging seems like a dream – maybe a pipe dream, in fact. But a dream for sure. To aging researchers, it seems like common sense. And if animal studies are any indication, maybe not that hard, either. James Peyer, CEO of Cambrian Biopharma Inc., told BioWorld that “the field has been done a disservice by the conflation of two things – what these drugs could actually do for patients…. And the philosophical, sci-fi obsession that mankind has had with slowing aging.”
Altos Labs Inc. reportedly attracted Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as an investor when it launched in early 2022, with an eye-popping $3 billion in funding. That inevitably led to suggestions that biopharmas are looking to make billionaires immortal. According to companies that specialize in funding research into aging, the idea is to encourage health care systems and payers to evolve and focus more on preventing ill health.
For preventing aging, some decades old drugs?
In one sense, aging is indeed inevitable. We are all a day older today than we were yesterday. But the best available data suggest that many of the diseases that come with aging could be avoided – that it is possible, in the words of American Federation for Aging Research scientific director Nir Barzilai, “to die young at a very old age.” The U.S. NIH’s National Institute on Aging’s Intervention Testing Program (ITP) has been searching for ways to extend lifespan for more than two decades by now. And in its animal studies, it has been successful multiple times.
Remarkably, the U.S. NIH’s National Institute on Aging’s Intervention Testing Program (ITP) has achieved its success rate while keeping to the highest standards of scientific rigor. Any researcher can suggest drugs that the ITP might test. The program can only test a fraction of the suggestions in gets, though, so proposals go through a rigorous vetting process.
Beyond rapalogs and metformin, moonshots at the Fountain of Youth
A lot of what goes on during aging remains too poorly understood for straightforward translation. There are hallmarks of aging, and researchers are getting a handle on its biological mechanisms. Nutrient sensing has repeatedly been implicated, as have inflammation and oxidative stress. Senescence is the newest belle of the aging ball. But in a basic sense, “we still don’t have much of an idea what causes aging,” Björn van Eyss told BioWorld. Van Eyss is a cancer researcher whose scientific home is the Leibniz Institute for Aging Research in Jena, Germany.
When big dreams meet big money, can science stay first-rate?
In the biopharma industry, the sirtuins have been a cautionary tale of some of the challenges in translating aging research. Research in the early aughts suggested that activating them could extend lifespan, and the spectacular rise of sirtuin activators crested in 2008, when GSK plc bought preclinical startup Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc. to the tune of $720 million, only to shutter it a few years later. But the hopes attached to sirtuin activators – especially resveratrol, which spurred its own cottage industry of supplements as well as dietary advice to drink red wine and eat dark chocolate – have not panned out.
Aging is not an endpoint: New regulatory, reimbursement approaches needed
If anti-aging drugs are to become widely available and adopted, especially in the U.S., they have some serious hurdles to overcome. And those hurdles aren’t all in the lab or clinic. With classes of anti-aging drugs already in the pipeline, “the biggest hurdle is FDA approval. Then reimbursement,” George Kuchel, a professor and director of the UConn Center on Aging at the University of Connecticut, told BioWorld. To succeed, developers of these drugs will need to find a regulatory sweet spot, he added.
In Extending the human lifespan, a BioWorld special report, the team examined the latest science, the key biological drivers that can be targeted pharmacologically and the companies developing potential “Fountain of Youth” candidate drugs. In this episode of the BioWorld Insider Podcast, the team discussed the report’s highlights and key takeaways. In what could be a holy grail for humanity, anti-aging drugs would simultaneously reduce the risk of multiple age-related illnesses in one. BioWorld found that investments in life-extending drugs and the number of clinical trials are on the rise. Can we hopscotch over the many diseases of aging? The impact could be staggering. Equitable access to drugs and therapies tackling aging could reduce health care costs in a major way and improve quality of life.