An experimental drug designed by artificial intelligence to treat a fatal lung disease has shown an unexpected side effect: it appears to reverse biological aging. Insilico Medicine's rentosertib, originally developed to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, was analyzed using six independent proteomic "aging clocks" in a study published in Nature Biotechnology on September 7, 2026.
Across 42 patients in a Phase IIa trial, the strongest signal showed roughly 3 to 4 years of biological-age reversal, with one clock recording up to six years, while placebo patients saw little change. Patients on the drug also showed real lung-function gains, with forced vital capacity improving by 98.4 mL in the 60 mg group versus a 20.3 mL decline on placebo. Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, who reviewed the data, said what convinced him wasn't the size of the effect but the agreement across six independently built aging models.
Insilico CEO Alex Zhavoronkov called the implications enormous, noting that even a few added years of healthy life across a population would translate into hundreds of millions of extra human lifespans. Researchers caution the results are still early: with only 42 patients, it remains unclear whether the drug truly slows aging body-wide or whether the proteomic clocks are simply picking up the effects of healthier, less-scarred lungs. Larger trials, including in healthy volunteers, are needed to separate the two.