Published in Nature Biotechnology, the analysis of a phase IIa trial applies several aging clocks in parallel to a drug intervention for the first time.
Rentosertib is a TNIK inhibitor, a target identified by Insilico Medicine's PandaOmics platform as involved in six aging markers, and the molecule itself was produced by the Chemistry 42 generative chemistry platform. He's already gone through Phase III against idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
The study published on September 7, 2026 in Nature Biotechnology looks back on the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase IIa trial conducted in China in 2023 and 2024: 128 patients examined, 71 selected to receive different doses or placebo, and 42 Asian participants of an average age of 67.1 years included in the proteomics analysis. Six independently developed aging clocks were applied to blood samples; All predict a lower biological age in the treated arm. This is the first direct clinical comparison of several proteomics clocks on the same procedure.
Caution is needed on interpretation: what is observed is a coordinated shift of blood proteins associated with a younger predicted age, not the demonstration that the drug would reverse human aging. The methodological interest is elsewhere — to show that ageing criteria can be integrated into the development of a medicine for a whole other disease.
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